THE SEWAGE PROBLEM OF CHICAGO AND VICINITY

Throughout the country attention has been directed in the past in a noticeable degree to the Chicago problem of sewage disposal. During the period when a large part of the city sewage was poured directly into Lake Michigan not far from the drinking-water intakes the excessive prevalence of typhoid fever in Chicago was frequently noted and widely deplored. Later the undertaking of a huge drainage canal to divert the sewage away from the lakes and into the Mississippi valley, and its construction on a scale of almost unprecedented magnitude and at enormous expense aroused much interest both among engineers and the general public. The famous suit between the City of St. Louis and the Sanitary District of Chicago relative to the possible pollution of the St. Louis water supply was another factor that attracted general notice to the local situation.

From recent developments it is apparent that some difficult questions