Illinois Upheld

Under a permit dated March 3, 1925, Illinois and its Chicago sanitary district have been drawing some 8,500 cubic feet of water per second from Lake Michigan, to flush away Chicago's sewage through a drainage canal emptying into the Des Plaines River which enters the Illinois River, which enters the Mississippi. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, complaining that Great Lakes levels were injuriously lowered by this leak at Chicago, sued to restrain Illinois in the U. S. Supreme Court. To Illinois' aid came Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. These co-defendants maintained that Mississippi Valley navigation had been benefited by the extra flow from Lake Michigan more than Great Lakes navigation had been hurt by it.

The U. S. Supreme Court appointed its onetime member, Lawyer Charles Evans Hughes, to be Special Master in this suit, of which the ramifications affect Canada and U. S. foreign relations. Last week Special Master Hughes reported.

Let the suit be dismissed, he said, for Illinois had done nothing illegal. The water diversion permit, which expires at the end of 1929, was properly issued by the Secretary of War who had been properly empowered by Congress, with which lies ultimate authority over national domain and waterways. Should Illinois overstep her legal permit, let the Great Lakes States then sue again. Before the permit expires and necessitates a fight in Congress, let Chicago perfect its water-purification so that diversion can be dispensed with; or let weirs be built in the Niagara and St. Glair Rivers to compensate the lake levels for such diversion as is continued.