Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1900-01-18

controlling works at Lockport by
which the trustees can control the flow
of water out of the canal and reduce
it TO a pint if necessary, are ready TO
do their part in the great scheme for
purifying the water supply of Chicago.
The dams and retaining walls in the
Desplaines river approaching and in
Joliet are prepared to sustain the in
creased pressure. All is ready for the
official act which shall unite the waters
of Lake Michigan with those of the
Gulf of Mexico
For thirty years before the sanitary
district was created engineers advanced
various plans for solving the sewage
problem of Chicago. AS the city grew
rapidly it became evident that the po-
luton of the water supply by the sew
age from the river was constant
menace to the health of the city. The
Illinois and Michigan canal had proved
inadequate to carry off che polluted
water of the river, as every heavy rain
flushing the sewers, resulted in
change of course in the river, causing
it to set toward the lake At about
the town of Summit it was known the
watershed between the st. Lawrence
and Mississippi valleys existed and it
was evident that canal of sufficient
size and carrying capacity to convey
the waters of the Chicago river over
that watershed would solve the prob
lem. A navigable canal was not
thought of at that time because the
Desplaines and Illinois rivers, into
which such channel must empty it's
waters, were not navigable for deep
draft ships. But as the idea grew in
the public mind it was pointed out
that the equipping such broad deep
channel as was contemplated with
swing bridges would be the first step
toward great waterway connecting
Chicago with the Mississippi, to be
completed at such time as the general
government should carry out the
dredging and deepening of the Illinois.
The canal has already cost twice as
much as the original estimates con-
low cost per cubic yard of the excava-
ton resulting from the employment
of machinery especially invented for
the work. The increased cost is large
" accounted for by the much greater
amount of rock excavation than was
originally contemplated and the cost
of diverting the Desplaines river and
making a new channel for it for thir-
teen miles, SO as to keep its floods out
OF the canal The Desplaines is
prairie stream, draining a wide ex-
panse of nearly fiat country. 1t has
great fluctuations, so that at some sea-
sons its whole discharge would pass
through a six-inch pipe. while at
others it reaches S000 900 cubic feet per
minute. This river heads in Chicago
only a few miles from the lake and
flows into the Illinois. Not only was it
necessary to cut for it new channel
parallel to the canal, but huge dixie
had TO be built to confine it to this new
channel. and also back channel pro-
vided TO conduct portion of its flood
waters north into Lake Michigan, for
the reason that they could not safely
be carried through the city of Joliet.
which lies at the lower end of the
caral.
Few people realize what this diver
sion of the Desplaines channel means.
The trustees really had to lift up the
river and move il to one side that its
bed might be used for part of the
drainage channel. For thirteen miles
a solid wall had to be built to separate
the waters of the Desplaines and the
drainage canal. marking new course
for that river. Just below the city of
Joliet the Illinois river is formed by the
confluence of the Desplaines and Kan
kakee rivers. Its surface is forty feet
below that of the drainage channel,
whose waters it will receive, and one of
the engineering problems was to lower
the waters of tie channel to this sur
face. To accomplish this certain dams
in Joliet had to be removed, others
changed; retaining walls had to be
built and legal obstacles manifold
overcome. bridges built and other work
undertaken, whilo the main force of
laborers were at work on the "cut.
In fact, the digging of the channel
proper was the simplest part of the
work 1t amounted to an expenditure