Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-25
Northwest Awaits
New River Routes

From the st. Paul Pioneer Press.
For several years the Great Lakes
States, including Minnesota, have been
associated in litigation against Chicago
for the protection of lake levels against
undue diversion of water down the Chi
cago sanitary canal for sewage disposal
The case has been carried to the United
States Supreme Court and won. Chicago
is spending $500, 900 900 for sewage re-
ductton pants, and, under War De-
partment regulation, is gradually to
abandon this drainage Of the Great
Lakes system.
President Hoover's comprehensive
program for inland waterways, with the
Illinois River and the sanitary canal
to Chicago as an obviously necessary
and valuable tributary to the MiSsiS
sippi trunk system, has created a new
situation which received attention at
the meeting of the Mississippi Valley
Association at st. Louis recently.
The Illinois River, plus the Sanitary
canal, when properly developed, not
only would provide a standard barge
route from Mississippi points to Chi
cago, but would link the two greatest
American waterway systems, the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi. The valley
association in its resolutions makes the
canal and the Illinois River integral
parts of its program. 1t follows that
the association approves whatever d.
version of water may be necessary to
make channels useful once they are
completed.
Chicago doubtless has a double mo-
tive of water transportation and use of
the waterway as an auxiliary means of
sewage disposal along with the reduc-
ton plants now being built. The Mis-
sissippi Valley, however, Is interested
only in the transportation feature. Tied
UP with this purpose and an essential
part with it, is the requirement that
such compensating dams be built In the
connecting lake channels as will make
up for the diversion and maintain water
levels for shipping.
There seems to be little doubt among
engineers that stabilizing dams at the
outlets of Lakes Huron and Erie can
easily compensate the levels for what
ever diversion may be necessary for
transportation purposes at Chicago. In
that case the only set of interests that
can be adversely affected in the slight
est would be the power companies at
Niagara, which at present are them
selves diverting enormous quantities of
water through their generating plants
Stabilizing dams may protect lake levels,
but they cannot put back water that
has been taken away and volume of
power is affected by volume of water.
The force of objections from power
companies Is not great. The first use
of waterways is for transportation. 1t
is from this aspect that the Federal
Government derives its authority over
them. Power development is only sec
ondary and incidental When power
can be produced as a sort of by-product
to transportation it has q legitimate
place, but it hes no claim for priority
and may not be permitted to over
shadow the use of the waterways for
navigation.
The volume Of water being taken for
power at Niagara is many times over
what would probably be needed for
transportation uses at Chicago. The
reduction in volume would be of no
consequence for the power companies
In times of high water such aS at pres
ent, and the effect at any time is highly
speculative and certainly not serious.
But the power companies, however that
may be, have no vested rights in the d.
version of water for their purpose that
can run against the legitimate trans
portation use of the water at Chicago.
The Northwest looks forward to the
day when 1t will be connected by stand
ard river channels with Chicago. AS
President Hoover said in his recent
Louisville speech, the tributaries of the
Mississippi and the Great Lakes COM
prise "a single great transportation sys-
tenn"