Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/storyofmetropoliOOwalk 
 
iiUNOiS HISTORICAL SURTCT 
 
 THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 1956 
 
 John A. Cullerton 
 
 Frank W. Chesrow 
 
 Francis T. Delaney 
 
 Williiam F. Patterson 
 Vice President 
 
 Casimir Griglik 
 
 Anthony A. Olis 
 President 
 
 John G. Henneberger 
 
 J. B. Martin 
 
 William S. Nordburg 
 
The Story of 
 THE METROPOLITAN 
 
 SANITARY 
 
 DISTRICT 
 
 OF GREATER CHICAGO 
 
 of America 
 
 by Ward Walker 
 
 *So named in 1955 by the American Society of Civil Engineers 
 
piGiSk: .uaffll 
 
 foreword 
 
 There is, I suppose, no governmental agency that does its work less obtrusively than 
 The Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago. The most law-abiding citizen is 
 constantly aware of the police department, even if it presents itself in no more ominous guise 
 than a traffic officer. The householder fortunate enough to escape fire cannot close his 
 ears to sirens. Parents live in constant contact with schools. Every motorist comes face 
 to face with the department of streets whenever a barricade blocks his favorite route to 
 work. Let garbage accumulate for more than a week, and a family suddenly becomes con- 
 scious of the fact that a municipal agency isn't functioning on its customary schedule. 
 
 But in the course of ordinary living, nothing calls attention to the work performed by 
 the Sanitary District. Yet one could argue that a prolonged failure on its part would 
 bring about a greater disaster than a failure on the part of any other governmental de- 
 partment. Without fire protection for thirty days, the metropolitan area of Chicago might 
 conceivably escape a devastating conflagration; the lack of a police force for that period 
 would probably not bring on anarchy; the lives of children, deprived of school for an 
 extra month, would be stunted to no discernable degree. But close down the Sanitary 
 District for one month, and five million people would face stark, certain, and irrevocable 
 disaster. 
 
 For human waste, uncared for, will breed disease as certainly as rabies follows the 
 bite of a mad dog. The mortality figures which Mr. Walker cites, comparing Chicago's 
 death rate before and after the creation of the Sanitary District, prove that point con- 
 clusively. And how much more dangerous, potentially, now than then! Consider the 
 concentration of population, the multiplication of disposable material, both human and 
 industrial, and imagine, if you can, the epidemics of typhoid fever and amoebic dysen- 
 tery, to mention no other killers, that the untrammeled course of nature would lead to in 
 thirty days! The frightful threat of germ warfare holds no more terrifying prospect. 
 
 All this goes to show that the Sanitary District, in causing its own history to be 
 recorded, deals with no small subject. Unorthodox perhaps, without glamour certainly, 
 and concerned with facts of life that many people prefer to ignore — but not small. If 
 importance, measured by that most fundamental of all standards, life or death, be a 
 justification for history, then this study needed to be written. 
 
 In telling the story, Mr. Walker had a variety of choices. He could have omitted the 
 historical background and jumped into his narrative in the year 1889, when the Sanitary 
 District was established. (I am glad that he didn't.) He could have burdened his account 
 with technical details beyond the comprehension of the layman. (Again, I am glad that 
 he didn't. ) He could have raked scandals out of the past and by implication, if not by 
 direct statement, drawn comparisons not unfavorable to the regimes of recent years. Or 
 he could, had he chosen, have produced a cleverly veiled eulogy of the present trustees. 
 
 Instead of following any of these courses, Mr. Walker has written the story straight, 
 sketching the essential historical background of the Sanitary District, outlining its 
 organizational history, describing its technical processes and achievements in terms that 
 a citizen unversed in history can understand, and explaining the importance of its services 
 by facts more convincing than inflated claims. The historical literature of the Chicago 
 region would be the richer for more publications of this kind. 
 
 Paul M. Angle, Director, 
 Chicago Historical Society 
 

 /^ £>evesim 6t/k/uwi 
 
 president's message 
 
 This brief panorama of the water, sanitation and navigation problems of the Chicago 
 metropolitan area is presented on the occasion of the dedication of the new administra- 
 tion building of The Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago. 
 
 The administration building was financed in a unique manner and without any addi- 
 tional tax levies, through a bond issue of $1,350,000 to be paid within fifteen years with 
 monies heretofore applied to rents. It was a sound business step. The new building con- 
 tains about 55,000 square feet. Comparable space would cost at least $5.00 per square 
 foot or $275,000 per year. The operation and maintenance of this building has been 
 estimated at about $80,000 per year. The retirement of the indebtedness during the next 
 fifteen years will amount to about $110,000 per year. And so, as compared with the 
 rental of $275,000 per year, the new administration building will afford a savings in cost 
 to the District of $85,000 per year during the first fifteen years and thereafter a savings 
 of $195,000 per year. 
 
 This is in keeping with the economy program of the District. It has held its budgets 
 down, it has adopted a "pay-as-you-go" program for new construction, it has substan- 
 tially increased its revenue from sources other than taxes (fertilizer income, rents, and 
 interest on idle funds) — it has streamlined its purchasing procedures and it has adopted 
 a model civil service system. 
 
 But more important was the encouragement of an expert engineering staff which had 
 the talent and ability to make the District's sewage treatment works one of the seven 
 engineering wonders of America; and did this although nowhere in the World is there a 
 city whose sanitation problems are equal to ours. 
 
 Although we have the world's largest sewage treatment system today, we must realize 
 that we are only on the threshold of a huge population increase in the near future. With 
 the probability of a population increase to fifteen or twenty million in this metropolitan 
 area within our time, it is readily apparent why there is so much concern about our 
 common governmental services. Commissions and committees have explored this prob- 
 lem for many years and are still studying it, seeking the metropolitan answer. 
 
 In the meantime, it is fortunate for Chicagoland that at least in the field of sanitation 
 the District has been able to become and actually to function as The Metropolitan Sani- 
 tary District of Greater Chicago, serving not only Chicago but 85 adjoining suburbs. 
 
 And so as we move our technical staff of design, operations and maintenance into our 
 new administration building, we will be better prepared to plan for the solution of the 
 tremendous drainage and sanitation problems which will confront us in the near tomorrow 
 in the world's largest and greatest metropolitan area. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 foreword by Paul M. Angle 
 president's message by Anthony Olis 
 
 |. THE PROBLEM 
 
 1. Greater Chicago Today 1 
 
 2. The Background 2 
 
 3. Water and Sanitation 5 
 
 4. The Crisis 6 
 
 II. THE ANSWER 
 
 7. A Metropolitan Government 9 
 
 2. Moving Earth . 9 
 
 3. Lake Diversion 20 
 
 III. WORLD'S FINEST TREATMENT SYSTEM 
 
 1. Pioneering 22 
 
 2. Plants and Methods 23 
 
 3. Seven Modern Wonders Named . 26 
 
 IV. ADMINISTRATION 
 
 1 . Board of Trustees 28 
 
 2. Finance 30 
 
 3. Department Heads 31 
 
 4. Civil Service Board 33 
 
 5. New Administration Building 33 
 
 V. THE FUTURE 
 
 1 . Governor Strattons Committee 35 
 
 2. Recent Legislation 37 
 
 3. Threshold of Tomorrow 37 
 
'ne 
 
 <L2evesitf4 Ot/vsidei 
 
 1. the problem 
 
 I. GREATER CHICAGO TODAY 
 
 One of earth's great cities, Chicago today sits at 
 the world's hub. 
 
 Raw materials from the far corners of the world 
 How in an ever-swelling tide into her factories and 
 plants. Planes, ships, trucks and railroads shuttle in 
 and out at the rate of a dozen per second, night and 
 day, seven days a week. 
 
 Her harbor and canals handle more ship cargo than 
 the Panama canal. She is one of the greatest slaughter- 
 ing and meat-packing centers in the world. Her factories 
 and plants daily turn out a fabulous wealth of finished 
 goods. 
 
 Chicago's State street is one of the world's fashion 
 and market centers; her Michigan boulevard one of 
 the most beautiful avenues ever built by man. The 
 Merchandise Mart is the world's largest civilian build- 
 ing, topped only by the Pentagon in Washington, D. C. 
 
 Most of the grain raised in the mid-west, the world's 
 bread-basket, is bought and sold on Chicago's Board 
 of Trade. She is America's convention center, the site 
 of the world's greatest printing plant, the greatest rail- 
 way center, the steel metropolis. 
 
 The atom was first tapped for its unlimited power 
 in a makeshift laboratory under the stadium at Chi- 
 cago's Stagg field. Her universities and trade schools 
 rank among the world's finest. Her hospitals and medi- 
 cal research facilities are known the world over. 
 
 Her quiet thriving suburbs surround her on the 
 north, west and south. At her eastern edge lies Lake 
 Michigan, a boundless source of fresh water . . . 
 
 — W-a-t-e-r . . . 
 
 The word is laced through Chicago's history from 
 its start to the present day. Without its limitless supply 
 Chicagoland could not have flourished. Because of it 
 the area's long range future is bright. 
 
 The water and the land were here. Men of vision dis- 
 covered and developed the site. Men of muscle and 
 brains joined them and hammered these natural assets 
 into the foundation of a great city. 
 
 One of their best weapons has been The Metro- 
 politan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago,* created 
 to protect the water supply — to keep the industrial and 
 domestic wastes of America's second largest city from 
 polluting Lake Michigan, the water source. 
 
 This was the weapon those Titans of early Chicago 
 days used to reverse the flow of the Chicago river. And 
 today that weapon — The Metropolitan Sanitary Dist- 
 rict of Greater Chicago — is the world's largest and fi- 
 nest sewage disposal system, one of the seven greatest 
 engineering achievements in the history of man. ** 
 '■'Called "The Sanitary District of Chicago" until 1955. 
 '■'■''Named in 1955 as one of the "Seven Wonders of 
 
 American Engineering" by the American Society of 
 
 Civil Engineers. 
 
//ve Revert/// vCvns/et 
 
 l.the problem — cont'd 
 
 THE BACKGROUND 
 
 In the dim reaches of time, according to geologists, 
 what we call the Chicago River was a stream flowing 
 out of Lake Michigan and into the Desplaines and Illi- 
 nois valleys to find its way to the Gulf of Mexico even 
 as now. 
 
 Then one prehistoric day the earth's cooling crust 
 buckled slightly, an infinitesimal shift compared to the 
 furious upheavals which spawned our mountain chains. 
 But it was enough to raise a barrier of stone and send 
 the waters of the river flowing into Lake Michigan as 
 they were when the Indians came upon the scene and 
 as they did until Chicaeoans changed them. 
 
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 For the most part the land at the mouth of the 
 river near what is now Madison street was low and 
 marshy. There was a small rise, an exaggerated hum- 
 mock, at Wacker drive and North Michigan avenue, 
 later to be the site of Fort Dearborn. Still another 
 dry spot, a camping ground of Indian hunting parties, 
 was at Randolph and Clark streets, now site of a new 
 bus terminal. 
 
 So it was when the first white men to see it, Louis 
 Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette, seeking a short- 
 cut from the Mississippi into the Great Lakes, came 
 upon it: a land of marsh and forest, a hunting ground 
 for Indians, and a water gateway to the interior of the 
 New World. 
 
 Their voyage was made in 1673. Joliet and Father 
 Marquette learned from the Indians of the shortcut 
 
 by portage which led to Lake Michigan. They pad- 
 dled up the Illinois River, which Joliet named the "Di- 
 vine", ascended the Des Plaines River to a point near 
 Riverside, and dragged their canoes across the Indian 
 portage to the Chicago River which he named the 
 "Portage". 
 
 Their find weighed heavily in the chronicles of their 
 trip for they told of the great empire lying west of the 
 Great Lakes, an empire whose key was a small river 
 emptying into Lake Michigan at its southwestern tip. 
 
 To them, as to the rest of the world, water was the 
 only practical method of travel and transportation over 
 long distances. The seas and lakes and streams were 
 the highways of the day. For that reason, if for no 
 other, the marshy land at the mouth of the Portage 
 (or Chicago) River was destined to play an important 
 role in the history of the New World. 
 
 Meanwhile the American colonists were consolidat- 
 ing their beachheads on the Atlantic coast, founding 
 cities, planting the seeds of freedom, and pushing ever 
 westward. 
 
 Joliet 
 
 La Salle 
 
 Marquette 
 
 The findings of Father Marquette and Joliet were 
 substantiated by Fathers Allouez and Gravier, who 
 founded a mission at Kaskaskia on the Illinois River, 
 and Robert Rene Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who used 
 the Chicago River on his travels. 
 
 But for the most part it was only nameless hunters 
 and trappers who visited the site until some years after 
 the Revolutionary War. There was proof, however, 
 that Chicago's importance was not forgotten: on Au- 
 gust 20, 1794, General Anthony Wayne defeated the 
 
Indians in the battle of Fallen Timbers, Ohio. In the 
 subsequent treaty the Indians yielded their claim to 
 large areas northwest of the Ohio River, including a 
 tract six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago 
 River. 
 
 At that time the only permanent resident of the tract 
 was a Negro, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who as- 
 pired to become chief of the Pottawatomis. He built 
 his home on the north bank of the river at the lake in 
 1784. 
 
 In 1796, du Sable sold his property to a French- 
 man, LeMai, who in turn sold out to John Kinzie in 
 1804. Kinzie, known as the Father of Chicago, estab- 
 lished a trading post within sight of Old Fort Dear- 
 born, built in 1803. 
 
 Some few pioneers entered the area and established 
 homesites and the old fort with its garrison of 69 offi- 
 cers and men maintained peace with the Indians until 
 
 the war of 1812 when the natives sided with the 
 English. 
 
 Fort Dearborn was in jeopardy and on the morning 
 of August 15, 1812, the garrison was ordered to fight 
 its way through the surrounding Indians, a desperate 
 measure forced by lack of food and supplies. With the 
 women and children in the center of the square they 
 marched to what is now Roosevelt Road before they 
 were ambushed. They fought their way south along 
 the lake shore to what is now 18th street before they 
 were overwhelmed. All except 25 men and 1 1 women 
 and children were massacred. 
 
 Fort Dearborn was rebuilt after the war in 1816 
 and once again settlers moved into the area, trade 
 flourished, and the work of building an empire went on. 
 
 In the same year a far sighted governor of the Illinois 
 Territory, Ninian Edwards, took the first practical step 
 toward the construction of a canal between Lake Mich- 
 
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 l.the problem —cont'd. 
 
 igan and the Illinois River. He negotiated a treaty with 
 the Indians giving the pioneers a strip of land about 
 20 miles wide from the mouth of the Chicago River 
 to the junction of the Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers, 
 and 10 miles wide from there to the Fox River. 
 
 Two years later, in 1818, Illinois became a state. 
 
 Steadily the flood of Americans pushed west, a tide 
 which is still running today and which has moved the 
 United States' center of population into the middle 
 west. 
 
 By 1822 the stage was set for the official act which 
 was to make Chicago one of the world's great cities. 
 On March 30th of that year, the United States Con- 
 gress authorized Illinois to build the Illinois and Mich- 
 igan canal, eliminating the portage between the Chicago 
 and the Des Plaines Rivers. 
 
 Since Illinois with a total population of 60,000 per- 
 sons was unable to pay even for the surveying of the 
 route. Congress in 1827 granted the state 285,699.11 
 acres along the route of the canal. This land was to 
 be sold and the proceeds used for construction of the 
 I & M canal. 
 
 By 1829 the state legislature had set up land com- 
 missioners to establish towns, sell lots, and raise the 
 construction funds. The first Chicago lots were sold 
 September 4, 1830, in accordance with a plat dated 
 August 4 of that year, the geographical beginning of 
 the city. 
 
 The platted area was %ths of a square mile, running 
 from Kinzie street on the north to Madison street on 
 the south; from Des Plaines street on the west to State 
 street on the east. 
 
 The highest price paid in that first sale was $100 
 for an 80 by 180 foot lot on the river. The land on 
 which the Wrigley Building stands could have been 
 bought for $1.25 per acre. The corner of Lake and 
 Dearborn streets sold for 50c per front foot. 
 
 During the next two years little interest was apparent 
 in the purchase of Chicago real estate; as late as 1832 
 a corner of Randolph and Dearborn streets sold for 
 $60 and a corner at Lake and Wells streets for $39. 
 
 There were 12 houses in the town and Mark Beau- 
 bien's tavern, but as steps went forward to build the 
 canal, the land boom began. 
 
 The canal wasn't scheduled to start until July 4, 
 
 1836, and it wouldn't be completed until 1848, but 
 already its possibilities were beginning to intrigue men. 
 Charles Fenno Hoffman, author of A Winter in the 
 Far West, wrote in 1834: 
 
 "There is one improvement to be made, how- 
 ever, in this section of the country which will 
 greatly influence the permanent value of real 
 estate in Chicago. I allude to a canal from the 
 head of Lake Michigan to the head of stream navi- 
 gation on the Illinois River, the route of which has 
 long since been surveyed. The distance to be over- 
 come is something like ninety miles ... St. Louis 
 would then be brought comparatively near to New 
 York, while two-thirds of the Mississippi Valley 
 would be supplied by this route immediately from 
 the markets of the latter. The canal is the only 
 remaining fink wanting to complete the most stu- 
 pendous chain of inland communications in the 
 world." 
 
 Early in 1833 the prices of land commenced to rise, 
 reflecting the arrival of more and more settlers; nearly 
 200 new buildings were erected during the year and 
 the first newspaper, the Chicago American, made its 
 appearance. 
 
 By the end of 1833 the population was 350. Within 
 a year the city numbered 2,000 inhabitants. By the 
 close of 1836 the city boasted the four story Lake 
 House, built at a cost of $100,000 on the block bet- 
 ween Rush street and Michigan avenue at the river. 
 
 
 * i 1 5 I I I I * 
 1 SI'S "'"'S'., 
 
 IIIII! HH" 
 
 ■BLrr- 
 
 The historic Lake House on the north bank of the 
 Chicago River at Rush St. 
 
A newspaper correspondent from the East revisited 
 Chicago in January, 1837, after an absence of two 
 years and reported his astonishment: 
 
 "I can scarcely recognize it as the same spot. 
 Where then I walked over the unbroken prairie, 
 the spacious avenue is now opened, crowded with 
 carts and wagons, and occasionally a showy fami- 
 ly rolling and dashing in the hurry of trade, or 
 the pomp of the native "sucker" stumbling as I 
 do, over bales and boxes on the sidewalks, or gap- 
 ing at the big signs and four-story brick houses." 
 Meanwhile, Cook county was created on January 15, 
 1831, by action of the state legislature and the town 
 of Chicago was incorporated August 12, 1833. Later, 
 in 1837, the town was organized into a city. 
 
 By 1840 the population had grown to 4,470 persons; 
 in 1848, the year the canal was opened, the city num- 
 bered 28,000. Within 12 years, by 1860, the popula- 
 tion was 109,260, an increase of nearly 4009^ in little 
 more than a decade. 
 
 Before the I & M canal, St. Louis was the metropolis 
 of the midwest, the trading point where goods from 
 the east were exchanged for the furs, grain and raw 
 materials gathered from the farmers and trappers. 
 These goods had to be shipped via New Orleans by 
 river packet. 
 
 With the canal, Chicago became the trading center, 
 the transfer point. The wealth gathered in the canal 
 days was later to bolster Chicago's position when the 
 railroads sought capital. As the web of steel rails spread 
 out from Chicago the city settled more firmly into the 
 throne of the Queen of the Prairie. 
 
 WATER AND SANITATION 
 
 In common with the rest of the world of that time, 
 the early residents of Chicago had little knowledge of 
 sanitary engineering and the disease-breeding potential 
 of filth and waste. 
 
 The early settlers dug shallow wells for their water 
 supply and depended on outdoor privies for sewage 
 disposal. By 1836 these vaults had contaminated many 
 of the wells and the diseases carried by polluted water — 
 typhoid fever and amoebic dysentery — were raging. 
 
 With every ship bringing new settlers and with the 
 > overland trails crowded with wagons heading for Chi- 
 cago and the west, the problem of uncontaminated 
 water was soon pressing for attention. 
 
 Some enterprising gentlemen formed a water com- 
 pany which for a time peddled lake water by cart, 
 ; much as milk is distributed today. The demand for 
 
 the clear and wholesome product was so great that 
 another company was formed, this one piping water 
 from the lake. 
 
 The newly formed city government took over this 
 pipe company and immediately ran head on into a 
 problem which was to plague — figuratively and liter- 
 ally — Chicago until 1900: the waters of the Chicago 
 River were polluted and they ran into the lake, the 
 source of the drinking water, as did the street sewers 
 along the lakefront. 
 
 In those early days, with an empire a-building, with 
 land values skyrocketing and fortune waiting for the 
 man bold enough to take it, the problem of contamin- 
 ated water must have been a nuisance, a pesky problem 
 to be solved as quickly and as easily as possible. 
 
 The city's answer was to tunnel out into the lake 
 beyond the limits of polluted water. The city grew 
 and the city fathers found the contamination pushing 
 ever farther into the lake. They drilled a new tunnel 
 still farther out. 
 
 Even at best this was a makeshift safeguard, sub- 
 ject to the whim of the wind. Throughout these years 
 the death rate from water borne diseases ran about 50 
 per 1,000 persons per year. 
 
 TYPHOID FEVER MORTALITY RATES 
 1917 
 
 DEATHS PER 100,000 POPULATION 
 
 2- OAKLAND 
 
 3liT^P*UU 
 
 4 | BOSTON (K1AS5 
 
 iiROCHlSTER |N Y 
 
 c, CAmnf n 
 tInewaok 
 
•//?e c2eoe/t//Y 60v/i/wi 
 
 l.the problem —cont'd 
 
 In 1854 a cholera epidemic attacked the city and 
 destroyed 5 W < of the population. This plague aroused 
 the citizens to the urgency of their problem and raised 
 demands for a sewerage system. 
 
 Work on this project was started in 1856. Those 
 early Chicagoans were far-sighted and full of pride in 
 their new city for this integrated sewerage system was 
 the first in the United States and only the second in the 
 modern world — Hamburg, Germany, having built one 
 twelve years before. 
 
 As previously noted, most of what is now Chicago's 
 loop was low and marshy. This problem was whipped 
 and the sewerage system project simplified by building 
 the sewers at ground level and filling in over them. In 
 effect, this raised the level of the loop about ten feet, 
 insuring drainage. 
 
 The sewers ranged from three to six feet in diameter 
 and were built of brick. Many of them are still in 
 operation today, mute evidence of the engineering skill 
 of the men who planned them. 
 
 However, most of these sewers drained into the river, 
 further complicating the water supply problem. Again 
 and again the water tunnels were drilled farther out; 
 estimates of the number of these old tunnels still in 
 existence although not in use run as high as sixty-four. 
 
 The city continued to grow, the volume of the sew- 
 age became greater, the Chicago River became a fouler 
 stream, and by 1862 Chief Engineer Chesbrough of 
 Chicago reported the city's water supply was seriously 
 menaced by the growing pollution of the river. He add- 
 ed the taste of wastes could be detected in the water, 
 particularly the trade wastes of the packing houses and 
 rendering works. 
 
 Engineers decided that if the I & M canal were 
 deepened it would reverse the flow of the Chicago 
 river with its pollution-load and carry it away from 
 instead of toward the lake. 
 
 The theory was sound but nature was to prove too 
 stubborn to be whipped so easily. The $3,000,000 pro- 
 ject — half the cost of the original canal — was started in 
 1865 and finished in 1871, the year of the great Chi- 
 cago fire. 
 
 For nearly a year the system worked and Chica- 
 goans believed the problem was solved. However, land 
 promoters had cut through the Ogden-Wentworth ditch 
 from the Des Plaines River to the west fork of the south 
 
 branch of the Chicago River. This was done to drain 
 the Mud Lake area and make it habitable. 
 
 A heavy flood late in 1872 enlarged this ditch. This 
 let the waters of the Des Plaines enter the Chicago 
 River during freshets, a flow of water sufficient to off- 
 set the maximum flow of the I & M canal. The effect 
 was to short-circuit the entire system, back up the sew- 
 age in the Chicago River, and continue the pollution of 
 the lake. 
 
 Chicagoans, however, had a city to rebuild, a city 
 which had been gutted by fire with 13,500 buildings 
 destroyed and property lost to the amount of 192 mil- 
 lion dollars. It wasn't until 1881 that the citizens could 
 again turn their attention to the problem of sanitation. 
 
 In that year it was decided to ride the same horse a 
 little farther. Giant pumps with a capacity of 60,000 
 cubic feet per minute costing $251,177 were installed 
 at the junction of the I & M canal and the south branch 
 of the Chicago River. 
 
 The theory was these pumps could pull enough 
 water from the river into the canal to offset the flowage 
 from the Des Plaines which was short-circuiting the 
 drainage system. The pumps were put into operation 
 in 1884 and proved unsatisfactory. 
 
 Experiments were still going forward a year later 
 when nature pulled the trigger on the entire mess, forc- 
 ing Chicagoans to roll up their sleeves and face the 
 problem squarely. 
 
 THE CRISIS 
 
 The heavy black clouds hanging over Chicago on 
 August 2, 1885, opened shortly before dawn. The 
 rain came in solid sheets — "A cloud buster," the citi- 
 zens called it. 
 
 All through the day the rain continued, pouring 
 steadily until the morning of August 3. A total of 6.19 
 inches fell, one of the greatest rains in Chicago history 
 — a rain which challenged in grim terms the future of 
 the growing city. 
 
 Chicago had reached a population of 750,000 per- 
 sons. It was a dynamic city, still in its teens but already 
 showing the sinews and muscles of commerce and in- 
 dustry which could make it top city of the world. 
 
 One complex and terrible problem — a problem 
 brought to a head by the downpour of August 2-3, 1885 
 — was pollution. Was a city which had survived Indian 
 
massacre and the great fire to choke on its own wastes? 
 For a time after the record rain it seemed the answer 
 was "Yes". 
 
 The rain scoured clean the city's streets, sewers, 
 catch basins, and the Chicago River into which most 
 of the sewers emptied. The flood waters short-circuited 
 the makeshift pumping system designed to pull the 
 river flow into the I & M canal. 
 
 The scourings, a foul black mass, poured into Lake 
 Michigan and pushed out beyond the water intake sta- 
 tions. Death from the terrible diseases of polluted 
 water was one byproduct of the storm. But the Metro- 
 politan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago, destined 
 to make the city the healthiest metropolis in the world, 
 was another. 
 
 The flood's challenge came to a city with freshly 
 healed scars from the great fire, a city struggling to 
 build its roads and other public utilities as it scrambled 
 for a place in the sun. And once again the challenge 
 struck a spark. 
 
 Within days after the flood, a commission was ap- 
 pointed and a study was started to work out a plan 
 which would protect the water supply — Chicago's most 
 precious asset — forever. 
 
 In essence, the plan developed was simple: 
 
 Push the Des Plaines River to the west side of its 
 
 valley. Dig a new drainage canal from the Chicago 
 River at Robey Street to the Des Plaines River at Lock- 
 port, 28 miles of new canal, much of it through solid 
 rock. 
 
 Make the Chicago River and the new canal flow 
 away from the lake. Build intercepting sewers along 
 the lakefront designed to carry their load into the drain- 
 age canal. 
 
 It was a task for giants. 
 
 By July 1, 1889, the plans had been completed and 
 an act had been passed by the state legislature author- 
 izing the creation of Sanitary Districts. These new 
 governmental bodies were charged with protecting water 
 supplies and were given the powers of taxing, policing, 
 and eminent domain (i.e., the right to condemn proper- 
 ty needed to fulfill governmental responsibilities). 
 
 By August 15, 1889, a petition to organize The Met- 
 ropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago (then 
 "The Sanitary District of Chicago" ) had been sub- 
 mitted to the legislature, the outlines were fixed, and 
 on November 5, 1889, the voters approved the project 
 by a vote of 70,958 to 242. 
 
 The organization of The Metropolitan Sanitary Dist- 
 rict of Greater Chicago was completed on January 18, 
 1890. At that time the population within the bound- 
 aries was approximately one million and growing 
 rapidly. 
 
Growth of The Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago. 
 
/ve £>evasi//t &C4>n*u'i 
 
 2. the answer 
 
 1. A METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT 
 
 From its beginning, The Metropolitan Sanitary Dis- 
 trict of Greater Chicago was an experiment in govern- 
 ment and represented one of the first attempts in this 
 country to form a functional service government to 
 cope with the common and specific problems of a met- 
 ropolitan area. 
 
 In this case the specific problem was the protection 
 of the common water supply — Lake Michigan. The 
 size of the task and the widespread benefits to be 
 reaped called for a wide base cutting across the lines of 
 many political subdivisions. 
 
 Within the boundaries of the District in 1889 were 
 185 square miles, including the City of Chicago, Oak 
 Park, Cicero, Berwyn, Stickney, and part of Lyons 
 Township. 
 
 In 1903 the territory within the District boundary 
 totalled 358.1 square miles including the North Shore 
 suburbs and the Lake Calumet region; and by 1913 
 the area served was 386.2 square miles, including sub- 
 urbs in Leyden and Proviso townships. 
 
 In 1955, the territory served by the Sanitary District 
 totalled more than 500 square miles, including the City 
 of Chicago and 85 suburbs — approximately 50 per 
 cent of the area of Cook County and about 95 per cent 
 of the county's population. 
 
 The act provided the District would be governed by 
 nine Trustees, three to be elected at large every two 
 years for six year terms; a board of nine, the proponents 
 of "the legislation argued, would be large enough to 
 insure representation throughout the District and yet 
 not so large as to be unwieldy. 
 
 And from its start, irrespective of the political party 
 in control, the makeup of the Board of Trustees has 
 reflected faithfully the relative populations of the City 
 of Chicago and the suburbs. 
 
 The Act further provided that the City of Chicago 
 must provide water at its limits and at a cost not ex- 
 ceeding that charged comparable users in Chicago to 
 any suburb within the boundaries of the Sanitary 
 District. 
 
 Thus the groundwork was laid in 1889 for the Dist- 
 rict's direct interest in four major problems of the 
 Greater Chicago metropolitan area: 
 
 1. SANITATION — the collection and disposal 
 
 of all domestic and industrial wastes. 
 
 2. STORM FLOW — its waterways would carry 
 the runoff from storms. 
 
 3. NAVIGATION — its canals would become 
 the primary link in the inland waterway serving 
 mid-America. 
 
 4. WATER — its first responsibility was to pro- 
 tect the water supply from pollution; and its mem- 
 ber suburbs were entitled to water from the City 
 of Chicago. 
 
 While most of these problems, in certain measure 
 at least, would not demand solution on a metropolitan 
 basis for another sixty years, the problem of sanitation 
 would not wait. 
 
 The time had come to start moving earth. 
 
 2 MOVING EARTH 
 
 A. Sanitary and Ship Canal 
 
 The engineers who had conceived, studied and rec- 
 ommended the huge task included a committee which 
 issued a report in 1885 and counted among its mem- 
 bers Lyman E. Cooley, an eminent hydraulic engineer, 
 and the Drainage and Water Supply Commission, ap- 
 pointed in 1886, and composed of Rudolf Hering, 
 Chief Engineer, and Benezette Williams and Samuel 
 Artingstall, Consulting Engineers. 
 
 The first Board of Trustees hustled through the 
 planning stages. They were quite literally racing with 
 death. 
 
 During the decade of 1881-1890, the community 
 had a typhoid death rate of 67.5 per 100,000 popula- 
 tion — a markedly high toll when compared with other 
 cities having a relatively pure water supply. 
 
 In 1891, even as the Board of Trustees was prepar- 
 ing the specifications for the canal, the typhoid death 
 curve soared to 174 deaths per 100,000 population 
 and the epidemic extended into 1892. 
 
 On September 3, 1892, the first shovel of dirt was 
 dug. A working force of 8,500 men swung into action. 
 Eight years were to pass before the job was done — 
 eight years in which they would dig out 29,558,000 
 cubic yards of earth, and cut and blast 12,261,000 
 cubic yards of rock. 
 
 There were those who said it couldn't be done. 
 
 But the engineers, the contractors, and the swarms 
 of workers — most of them newly arrived immigrants — 
 went ahead with the job, undaunted. 
 
"moving earth 
 
 » » 
 
 I 
 
 Cantilever conveyors — Main Channel. 
 
 New road grader — about 12 horsepower — Main Channel. 
 
 10 
 
i I 
 
 moving earth". . 
 
 Blasting out Main Channel. 
 
 * ^jb* ^^ -mm 
 
 Earth slide, Sept. 24, 1896 — Main Channel. 
 
"moving earth". . . 
 
 Junction of earth and rock sections at Willow Springs— Main Channel. 
 
 Excavating rock — Main Channel. 
 
 12 
 
t i 
 
 moving earth". . . 
 
 Foundations of railroad bridge over Main Channel near Western Av., Jan. 5, 1900. 
 
 
 Widening South Branch of Chicago River at Jackson St. 
 
 13 
 
"moving earth". . . 
 
 
 
 <>-•< 
 
 
 &£: \ v "' ' '^* 
 
 Tipple incline machine— Main Channel. 
 
 
 
 1...A 
 
 _ - _■' ■•' ,ts *- z. 
 
 Two car incline — Main Channel. 
 
 14 
 
t i 
 
 moving earth". . . 
 
 Belt conveyor — Main Channel. 
 
 
 Excavating for power house at end of Main Channel — Lockport. 
 
 15 
 
i i 
 
 moving earth". . . 
 
 Building controlling works — Lockport 
 
 Famous Bear Trap Dam — Lockport. 
 
Sne ^ew/tm Otw/zsu' 
 
 2. the answer — cont'd 
 
 They used every known type of earth and rock mov- 
 ing machinery then known — wheelbarrows, mule drawn 
 plows and scrapers, steam shovels, steam dredges, drag 
 scrapers and cableways, rock drills and channelling 
 machines, liberal shots of dynamite, and their hands. 
 
 The men worked a 10 hour day. The laborers and 
 teamsters were paid from 15 to 17.5 cents per hour. 
 Drillers and trainmen were paid 17.5 to 20 cents per 
 hour, carpenters 20 to 22.5 cents, machinists 20 to 25 
 cents, and boilermakers and stonemasons, 35 to 40 
 cents per hour. And overtime was paid on the straight 
 hourly basis. 
 
 When every known method of moving earth failed 
 or was too slow, the engineers and the men evolved 
 new machines, new methods. 
 
 The canal became known throughout the engineer- 
 ing world as the "Chicago school of earth moving", 
 and the machines and techniques developed on the job 
 made feasible the digging of the Panama Canal. 
 
 The 28 mile Sanitary and Ship Canal was dug to 
 
 provide a minimum depth of 24 feet, compared with 
 
 the average depth of the old I & M canal (long aban- 
 
 i doned now and soon to become a superhighway) of 
 
 about six feet. 
 
 The excavation problem was divided roughly into 
 three parts: a stretch of 7.8 miles from Robey street to 
 Summit in solid earth; from Summit to Willow Springs 
 through earth over a rock base; and from Willow 
 
 Springs to Lockport through solid rock. 
 
 On the bottom the canal was cut a minimum of 1 60 
 feet wide with sloping sides through the earth sections. 
 The downgrade from Chicago to Lockport varied from 
 one foot in 40,000 in the earth sections to one foot 
 in 20,000 through the rock 
 
 It was designed to carry a normal flow of up to 
 10,000 cubic feet per second without setting up a 
 current of more than one and one-half miles per hour 
 which would hamper navigation. 
 
 Despite cave-ins, earth slides, muck bubbles, and 
 vast layers of a clay which combined the hardness of 
 rock and the adhesive qualities of glue, the work forged 
 ahead. 
 
 Late in December, 1899, with the end of the mam- 
 moth task in sight, the Board of Trustees learned that 
 the State of Missouri had decided to seek an injunction 
 in Federal Court to prevent the opening of the Canal. 
 
 The Missouri objection centered chiefly around the 
 contention of St. Louis that the proposed dilution sys- 
 tem of sewage treatment at Chicago would flush the 
 wastes into the Mississippi River and imperil the St. 
 Louis water supply. 
 
 The Board of Trustees regarded such an argument 
 as academic. Reasoning that once started the flow 
 would be hard to stop, the Board quietly ordered a 
 needle dam knocked out on January 2, 1900, which 
 turned the waters of the Chicago River into the channel. 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 I 
 
 Jan. 2, 1900: Needle dam between Chicago River and 
 Main Channel is opened; water of Lake Michigan flows 
 into Channel. 
 
 I. 
 
 17 
 
~Me Se^e/i//i frOkuwl 
 
 2. the answer — cont'd. 
 
 On the night of January 16, 1900, the Board went 
 to Lockport and early the next morning— minutes 
 before the suit for injunction was filed in the United 
 States Supreme Court — the controlling gates were low- 
 ered and the water from Lake Michigan flowed toward 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 B. The Interceptors 
 
 The second step in the program to seal off all wastes 
 from Lake Michigan was to dig huge underground in- 
 tercepting sewers along the lake front. 
 
 View of an interceptor serving the Chicago metropolitan 
 area. 
 
 These were completed in 1907. 
 
 Those on the North Side converge at the Lawrence 
 Avenue pumping station. Those on the South Side 
 converge at the Racine Avenue pumping station. 
 
 The giant tubes, ranging from six feet to 27 feet in 
 diameter, connect to the street and feeder lines which 
 in turn connect with the individual house and factory 
 lines. 
 
 C. The North Shore Channel 
 
 Simultaneously with the work on the interceptors, 
 the Sanitary District went ahead with the planning and 
 digging of the eight mile long North Shore Channel, 
 extending from Lake Michigan at Wilmette to the North 
 Branch of the Chicago River at Lawrence Avenue. 
 
 Work was started in 1908 and completed in 1910. 
 
 
 North branch of Chicago River at Wilson Av. at turn 
 of the century. 
 
 The Channel was wide enough and deep enough to 
 accommodate barge traffic. However, in recent years it 
 has been seldom used for such purposes. It still serves 
 as an outlet for flood water, and for the effluent from 
 the North Side Treatment Works. 
 
 
 
 
 % .i .». i*** 
 
 .i.lW 
 
 - 
 
 
 ' - --- ■- -$vg> 
 
 Nov. 29, 1910: Letting lake water into North Shore 
 Channel. 
 
MAP OF 
 
 THE METROPOLITAN 
 SANITARY DISTRICT 
 OF GREATER CHICAGO 
 
 SHOWING 
 
 SEWAGE TREATMENT WORKS 
 
 PIMPING STATIONS 
 
 CHANNELS AND SEWERS 
 
 TREATMENT WORKS 
 
 PUMPING STATIONS COMPLETED Q 
 
 PUMPING STATIONS PROPOSED 
 
 SEWERS COMPLETED 
 
 SEWERS UNDER CONTRACT im/liuilim 
 
 SEWERS PROPOSED I 1 
 
 19 
 
///e c^evesi/A 60&sidei 
 
 2. the answer — cont'd. 
 
 D. The Cal-Sag 
 
 Without a pause, the Sanitary District moved ahead 
 on the last of its three great channels — the Calumet-Sag 
 Canal, draining the South Side and extending 16.2 
 miles westward from the Little Calumet River, near 
 Blue Island, to the Sanitary and Ship Canal at Sag. 
 
 Work was started in 1911 and completed in 1922. 
 The cost was $14,291,500, including $11,945,600 for 
 channel work; $565,800 for controlling works; $1,- 
 126,200 for bridges, and $653,900 for right-of-way. 
 
 Completion of the Cal-Sag brought the Sanitary 
 District's total of navigable canals to 71 miles; and the 
 total investment in the channels reached $100,000,000. 
 
 Just as the Main Channel was designed to reverse 
 the flow of the Chicago River, so on a smaller scale 
 was the Cal-Sag to reverse the flow of the Calumet 
 River and prevent the pollution of Lake Michigan. 
 
 A* 
 
 i ■-ttmf'i.w.mm 
 
 ■^ 
 
 If 
 
 West gates of lock at Cal-Sag controlling station. 
 
 The Cal-Sag Channel is 20 feet deep and 60 feet 
 wide in the rock sections at either end and with a bot- 
 tom width of 36 feet in the center section cut through 
 earth. A total of 13,800,000 cubic yards of spoil 
 was moved to build it, including 10,300,000 cubic 
 yards of earth, and 3,500,000 cubic yards of rock. 
 
 The Cal-Sag immediately became a strategic link 
 in the inland waterway system. Despite its narrowness, 
 in recent years it has carried upwards of 4,000,000 
 tons of freight per year. 
 
 The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway project, 
 scheduled for 1959, and the construction of a barge 
 terminal in Lake Calumet, now under way by the Chi- 
 cago Port Authority, have heightened interest in widen- 
 ing the Cal-Sag. 
 
 20 
 
 This widening would serve two purposes: it would 
 increase the flow capacity of the channel and relieve 
 flood pressures on much of the South Side, and it would 
 greatly increase the navigation capacity. 
 
 Sector gates on Cal-Sag Channel. 
 
 An initial appropriation by Congress of $4,000,000 
 permitted work to start on the widening in 1955. The 
 canal will be widened to 225 feet throughout its length, 
 a federal project with an estimated cost of 
 $188,200,000. 
 
 To cooperate with this project which will widen the 
 industrial horizons of the metropolitan area, the Sani- 
 tary District — in addition to providing the original 
 canal — has agreed to purchase additional land along 
 the channel for use as a spoil bank at a cost of 
 $600,000. 
 
 3. LAKE DIVERSION 
 
 The diversion of water from Lake Michigan into 
 and through the Main Channel at Lockport has been 
 an almost constant bone of contention between Illinois 
 and the other Great Lake states. 
 
 Historically, the Sanitary District based its right to 
 divert water from the lake on a permit from the Secre- 
 tary of War, issued on May 8, 1899. 
 
 The entire collection and disposal system was based 
 on the dilution of all wastes by the diversion of three 
 and one-third cubic second feet of fresh water for each 
 1,000 of population. 
 
 The field of Sanitary Engineering at the turn of the 
 century was still in knee pants throughout the world 
 and the dilution method of disposal was an accepted 
 practice. 
 
/see <L?6venM 60&fi/<fel 
 
 2. the answer — cont'd 
 
 Since the Main Channel had been designed with a 
 normal flow capacity of 10,000 cubic second feet, it 
 was believed in those early days that the method would 
 work successfully until the Chicago area population 
 reached 3,000,000. 
 
 The first attack came on January 17, 1900 — the day 
 the gates were opened at Lockport — when the State of 
 Missouri petitioned the United States Supreme Court 
 to enjoin the discharge of sewage into the drainage 
 canal. 
 
 Missouri charged that typhoid germs introduced into 
 the channel at Chicago were carried 387 miles down 
 the waterway system to pollute the water supply of 
 St. Louis. 
 
 The Court dismissed the suit without prejudice on 
 February 19, 1906, and it was never reopened. 
 
 Requests by the Sanitary District to increase the di- 
 version rate beyond the 4,167 cubic feet per second 
 authorized by the Secretary of War were denied and the 
 Secretary subsequently filed suit to restrain the District 
 from taking more water. 
 
 These suits were filed in 1908 and 1912, were con- 
 solidated for trial, and on June 18, 1923, the federal 
 court sustained the Secretary. This decision was con- 
 firmed by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1925. 
 
 Meanwhile, it was apparent to certain far-sighted 
 men — notably the late Col. Robert R. McCormick, who 
 served as president of the Board from 1905-1910, and 
 the late George M. Wisner, chief engineer — that altern- 
 ative methods of supplementary artificial waste disposal 
 must be found. 
 
 As early as 1909, testing stations were built and 
 research was started on a practical and sanitary method 
 of disposing of the area's wastes. 
 
 While this pioneering and research was going on, 
 the other states on the Great Lakes banded together 
 and brought suit in the U. S. Supreme Court to stop 
 diversion. The suit was filed in 1922, amended in 1925 
 and again in 1926. 
 
 The Court handed down a decree on April 19, 1930, 
 ordering the Sanitary District to reduce its diversion 
 from the lake to 1,500 cubic feet per second, plus 
 domestic pumpage, by December 31, 1938. 
 
 While the decree accelerated the research work, a 
 depression and a war intervened to retard the building 
 program. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Sanitary District had no choice but 
 to comply with the diversion rate set in the Supreme 
 Court decree. The canals and the waterway became 
 increasingly foul and the ill effects spread downstream 
 to the distress of communities further south. 
 
 By December, 1949, all of the wastes were being 
 given complete treatment (see following chapter) and 
 the Sanitary District renewed its efforts to secure an 
 increase in the diversion rate in order to improve the 
 condition of the waterway. 
 
 Since the Supreme Court had arbitrarily set the di- 
 version rate at 1,500 cubic second feet, and so stated, 
 and since the decree indicated any future relief should 
 be obtained from Congress, legislation to that effect 
 has been introduced at several sessions. 
 
 In 1954, Congress passed a bill permitting an in- 
 crease of 1,000 cubic second feet. The measure was 
 vetoed by the President. 
 
 The legislation was modified to answer the principal 
 objections of its opponents and reintroduced in 1955 
 where it passed the House of Representatives. As cur- 
 rently (1956) pending before the Senate, the measure 
 provides for an experimental increase of 1,000 cubic 
 second feet for a period of three years under the super- 
 vision of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. The 
 Corps is to make a study of the effect of the increased 
 diversion on lake levels, navigation, and the condition 
 of the waterways. 
 
 The Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Sani- 
 tary District of Greater Chicago has gone on record 
 as being willing to abide by whatever recommendation 
 the Corps of Engineers may return. 
 
 21 
 
//?e <3e#e/if/t ot/wu't 
 
 3. world's finest 
 treatment system 
 
 1. PIONEERING 
 
 Two factors loom large in the building of the world's 
 finest treatment system: (1) the size of the task; and 
 (2) the pioneering work which was needed at every 
 step of the way, for this was a new and unique ap- 
 proach to the treatment and disposal of waste. 
 
 In regard to the first point, the following census 
 figures show the population growth within the Sanitary 
 District: 
 
 1890 1,114,000 
 
 1900 1,638,655 
 
 1910 2,308,276 
 
 1920 2,986,000 
 
 1930 3,901,569 
 
 1940 3,962,514 
 
 1950 4,338,958 
 
 1955 (est.) 4,600,000 
 
 Coupled with this growth in population was the 
 rapid expansion of industry in the Chicago area and 
 in 1955 these trade wastes — all of which were given 
 complete treatment — added the equivalent of another 
 3,500,000 people. 
 
 Some idea of the magnitude of the operation may 
 be gained from the engineering estimate that these 
 domestic and industrial wastes, if allowed to accumu- 
 late, in one year would bury the entire City of Chicago 
 nine feet deep! 
 
 The pioneering was carried out by one of the most 
 renowned staffs of engineers ever assembled — men 
 who came in answer to a challenge, dedicated their 
 lives to the fight, and helped build one of the seven 
 wonders of modern engineering. 
 
 They were such men as the 
 ^k late George M. Wisner and the 
 
 late Philip Harrington, who 
 served as chief engineers; and 
 _~Z- V four men who are still with the 
 
 ^^^ B| Sanitary District, who have earn- 
 / A ed world-wide reputations with 
 
 m '^M service records which total more 
 
 Dr. Mohiman than 175 years: General Super- 
 
 intendent William A. Dundas, 
 Chief Engineer Horace P. Ramey, Sanitary Engineer 
 Langdon Pearse, and Dr. F. W. Mohiman, Chemist. 
 Others who played important roles are retired Chief 
 
 Engineer William H. Trinkaus; the late Hydraulic En- 
 gineer Louis W. Hall; and Norval E. Anderson, engi- 
 neer of treatment plant design; Peter F. Girard, engineer 
 of sewer design; John T. Hawley, electrical engineer; 
 Principal Assistant Attorney Lawrence J. Fenlon; Sen- 
 ior Assistant Engineer Joseph Richmond; 
 
 Anderson 
 
 Girard 
 
 Arnold H. Goodman, engineer of plant operation; 
 Richard F. Kelly, assistant chief engineer; Lawrence 
 B. Barker, engineer of construction; Frank L. Finlay- 
 son, architect; Ralph R. Leffler, engineer of structural 
 design; Carl P. McLaughlin, engineer of mechanical 
 design; Edward J. Calta, departmental engineer; and 
 Philip Furlong and Joseph Wade, of the general super- 
 intendent's staff. 
 
 Goodman 
 
 Kelly 
 
 The assignment handed these men and their co- 
 workers was simple and clear: 
 
 1. Collect every bit of domestic and industrial 
 waste originating within the boundaries of the 
 Sanitary District 
 
 2. Develop a method of treating and disposing 
 of these wastes. 
 
 3. Keep the costs within practical limits. 
 
 4. Do it all quickly. 
 
 There was only one catch: It had never been done 
 on such large scale . . . but, then, the flow of the 
 Chicago River hadn't been reversed by man either! 
 
 22 
 
SVie <£?e0e*tf5i 6Cv>/idet 
 
 3. world's finest treatment 
 system — cont'd. 
 
 2. PLANTS AND METHODS 
 
 Today the Sanitary District has in operation three 
 major treatment plants with a combined capacity of 
 one billion three hundred million gallons per day. These 
 plants, representing an investment of nearly $150,000,- 
 000 are: 
 
 North Side Works completed in 1928 and expanded 
 in 1937. 
 
 Calumet Treatment Plant, completed in 1922 and 
 expanded in 1935. 
 
 *West Side Works, completed in 1931. 
 
 ^Southwest Treatment Plant, put into operation in 
 1939 and still in the process of expansion. 
 
 (*Note: In 1949 the West and Southwest plants were 
 
 combined into the Stickney Treatment Works, the 
 
 largest in the world.) 
 
 Primary settling tanks — North Side Treatment Plant. 
 
 Aerial view — Stickney Treatment 
 
 The Calumet Treatment Plant 
 
 Aeration tanks, Calumet Treatment Plant. 
 
 23 
 
'ae 
 
 <3evesiM vCvsidet 
 
 3. world's finest treatment 
 system — cont'd. 
 
 Almost 250 miles of giant intercepting sewers, cost- 
 ing about $170,000,000, feed the wastes of the area 
 into these plants — wastes which average more than 
 1,100,000,000 gallons per day. Seventeen pumping 
 stations, each with multiple pumps which dwarf the 
 men who work on them, boost the flow at strategic 
 points. 
 
 Simply put, the problem of sewage disposal is to 
 separate the wastes from the water vehicle (called the 
 effluent) and then dispose of these wastes in some 
 unobjectionable manner. 
 
 The first major experimental plant — a laboratory, 
 so as to speak, for the testing of theory and design — 
 
 was built in May wood in 1921. 
 
 The lessons learned in that first small plant provided 
 the basic pattern for the three existing plants; and in- 
 deed, a pattern for modern sewage disposal plants 
 throughout the world. 
 
 It was Chemist John R. Palmer, working with Dr. 
 Mohlman, who in 1925 discovered the value of ferric 
 chloride as a practical coagulant in the treatment pro- 
 cess. It was Chief Engineer Harrington and the then 
 Chief Mechanical Engineer Dundas who developed the 
 "flash-drying" process of sludge disposal in a five year 
 study from 1931-1936. 
 
 Main floor pump and blower house — Stickney Treat- 
 ment Works. 
 
 Aeration tanks — Stickney Treatment Works. 
 
 i g *j»w * e"! i-*»m f a gBi 
 
 ■""*•' 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 Final settling tanks — Stickney Treatment Works. 
 
 Effluent weirs, aeration tanks, Stickney Treatment Works. 
 
 24 
 
s/ze £?e#esirf6 Otw/idet 
 
 world's finest treatment 
 system — cont'd. 
 
 It was the entire team, working night and day, which 
 adapted the activated sludge process to meet the titanic 
 and varying requirements of the area. 
 
 Such problems had to be solved as: What size ah 
 bubbles should be pumped into the aeration tanks? 
 How clean must the pumped air be and what filters 
 could best produce it? What quantity of ferric chloride 
 would best do the job? What type of fabric blankets 
 would produce the best results on the giant drum 
 filters? 
 
 Those and a thousand other questions were an- 
 swered and the results may be seen in the Stickney 
 Treatment Works (guided tours may be arranged by 
 appointment) — a tremendous plant, kept spotlessly 
 clean and free of offensive odor. 
 
 The step-by-step process follows: 
 
 Incoming wastes enter the plant through 2-inch bar 
 screens with automatic cleaners which remove the 
 large debris. The screenings are ground in hammer 
 mills and pumped back into the sewage lines. 
 
 The wastes then enter the preliminary settling tanks. 
 Each of these is 101 feet by 103 feet and 1 1 feet deep. 
 Each is equipped with six horizontal flight sludge con- 
 veyors and two cross conveyors to the sludge hopper. 
 Any given gallon of waste is detained in the preliminary 
 tank for about 30 minutes. The settled sludge is drawn 
 off the bottom. 
 
 The sewage-laden water then flows into the aeration 
 tanks, each tank consisting of four channels 434 feet 
 long, 34 feet wide, and \5Vi feet deep. Filtered air 
 under a pressure of 8V2 pounds per square inch is 
 pumped through the liquid by steam turbine-driven 
 blowers developing a total of 27,000 horsepower. 
 
 At this point, bacteria-laden sludge from previous 
 batches is "seeded" into the fresh wastes — the activated 
 sludge process. Given the right temperatures and the 
 correct supply of air, these bacteria multiply thousands 
 ' of times and aid materially in the digestion process dur- 
 ing the three to four hours the wastes are held in 
 these tanks. 
 
 From the aeration tanks, the wastes flow into the 
 
 ; final settling tanks, each 126 feet in diameter with a 
 
 bottom slope to a sludge draw-off pipe in the center. 
 
 1 The sludge is drawn off and moves to the sludge con- 
 
 ' trol building. 
 
 The effluent — a clear, odorless liquid, from which 
 
 more than 90 per cent of the solids have been removed 
 — is pumped into the Sanitary and Ship Canal. (Those 
 impurities still in the effluent are microscopic particles 
 in suspension. ) 
 
 The sludge, meanwhile, has flowed into a concen- 
 tration tank. These tanks are 70 feet long, 46 feet 
 9 inches wide, and 14 feet deep. The sludge remains 
 in them for AV2 hours, the excess liquid being returned 
 to the incoming sewage. 
 
 After the concentration tanks, the sludge is dosed 
 with Fe Cl 3 (ferric chloride) and then flows to the 
 vacuum filters. Each filter is 11 feet 6 inches in diam- 
 eter, 16 feet long, and has a net filtering area of 570 
 square feet. 
 
 Huge sludge filter drums — Stickney Treatment Works. 
 
 These giant drums are covered with dacron blankets. 
 The moisture is drawn through the blanket and a fixed 
 blade strips the sludge-cake from the blanket and 
 drops it into a conveyor belt. 
 
 The conveyor carries the filtered sludge-cake into 
 one of the flash-drying units, each having the capacity 
 to evaporate 25,000 pounds of water per hour by using 
 a blend of combustion gases and sludge vapor at 1,300 
 degrees F. 
 
 25 
 
//ie £?eve/i/n Ovv/i/dei- 
 
 3. world's finest treatment 
 system — cont'd. 
 
 Since activated sludge is about 98 per cent water 
 and an acceptable commercial fertilizer should not con- 
 tain more than 5 per cent moisture, it is necessary to 
 remove 98,000 pounds of water to manufacture one 
 ton of fertilizer. 
 
 This one plant of the Sanitary District produces 
 more than 600 tons of high grade fertilizer per day — 
 an organic product, free of harmful bacteria, which 
 returns more than $2,000,000 per year in revenue for 
 the District. 
 
 With the development of this process, mankind had 
 mastered a method to complete nature's cycle and re- 
 turn the growth factors to the soil without fear of 
 contamination or disease . . . and to do it on a scale 
 that roused the wonder and admiration of the scientific 
 
 world. 
 
 * * * 
 
 3. SEVEN MODERN WONDERS NAMED 
 
 Generally and naturally, the people served by the 
 Sanitary District took its accomplishments in stride. 
 The system worked . . . true, the reversal of the Chicago 
 River was dramatic, but it was done so long ago . . . 
 and hasn't every city a sanitary system? 
 
 Late in 1955, the American Society of Civil En- 
 gineers pleasantly startled the residents of the Chicago 
 Metropolitan area: The Metropolitan Sanitary District 
 of Greater Chicago had been selected — on two counts 
 — as one of the seven engineering wonders of the 
 United States! 
 
 The wonders as listed by the Society after several 
 years of consideration by its membership were: 
 
 1. Chicago's Sewage Disposal System, a Herculean 
 Task in Sanitation. 
 
 
 2. Colorado River Aqueduct, Longest Man-Made 
 Conduit. 
 
 3. Empire State Building, Queen of Skyscrapers. 
 
 4. Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin 
 Project, Irrigation Marvel. 
 
 5. Hoover Dam, World's Highest Dam. 
 
 6. Panama Canal, a Cut Linking Two Oceans. 
 
 7. San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, 'Unique 
 Over-Water Steel Structure. 
 
 An ancient historian, one Antipater of Sidon, named 
 the seven wonders of the ancient world: the pyramids 
 of Egypt; the Gardens of Semiramis at Babylon; the 
 statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Temple of Artemis at 
 Ephesus; The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Colos- 
 sus of Rhodes; and the Pharos of Alexandria. 
 
 In an article in the November, 1955, issue of Civil 
 Engineering, the organ of the American Society of 
 Civil Engineers, Chairman J. Kip Finch of the commit- 
 tee which made the selections cited the reversal of the 
 Chicago River and the Southwest Treatment Works as 
 outstanding accomplishments. 
 
 His article said in respect to the sanitation require- , 
 ments of modern urban centers that the Chicago area 
 "is outstanding in meeting the challenge successfully." 
 
 Speaking of the U. S. Supreme Court directive to 
 build treatment plants and reduce lake diversion, Dean 
 Finch said: "It is doubtful whether any city in 
 the world has ever faced a more herculean task, yet 
 the necessary plants were built . . ." 
 
 The selections drew national attention, including 
 articles in Reader's Digest and Time Magazine, and 
 local television and radio stations, and newspapers 
 gave the honor full play. 
 
 26 
 
 i 
 
Empire State Building 
 
 Hoover Oam 
 
 San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge 
 
 Main plant — Stickney Treatment Works 
 
 Grand Coulee Dam 
 
 • - .'!!."-'."y3''^n 
 
 Mis 
 
 IS 
 
 4* 
 
 fH 
 
 ».V. t 
 
 Panama Canal 
 
 Colorado River Aqueduct 
 
 27 
 
y/e 
 
 <3e<f€/itf4 Ot/ty/tdei 
 
 4. administration 
 
 1. BOARD OF TRUSTEES 
 
 A. Powers 
 
 The affairs of The Metropolitan 
 Sanitary District of Greater Chicago 
 are administered by a board of nine 
 Trustees elected at-large from the 
 area served. 
 
 As previously noted, three Trustees are elected at 
 every general election (every two years) for six year 
 terms. This serves to maintain a continuity of experi- 
 ence upon the board which is called on to make many 
 decisions of a complicated and technical nature — deci- 
 sions which may have a far-reaching effect upon the 
 health and welfare of the metropolitan area. 
 
 The Board of Trustees elects from its membership 
 a President and a Vice President. The President has 
 the power of veto over the ordinances passed by the 
 board. 
 
 The Board has the statutory power to appoint, 
 supervise and remove the General Superintendent, the 
 Chief Attorney, the Chief Engineer, the Clerk, and 
 the Treasurer. In addition, the Board of Trustees ap- 
 points the members of the three-man Civil Service 
 Board. 
 
 All of the affairs of the District move to the Board 
 of Trustees for decision through the committee sys- 
 tem such as that in use in the state legislature and in 
 congress, except that in this instance, each Trustee 
 is chairman of at least one committee and all of the 
 Trustees are members of every committee. 
 B. Personalities 
 The men who presently (Spring, 1956) comprise 
 the Board of Trustees are: 
 
 President Anthony Olis; born in 
 \ Chicago in 1898, he received his 
 
 Ph. B. degree from the University 
 of Chicago in 1919 and his J . D. de- 
 gree from the University of Chicago 
 Law School in 1921. He served in 
 The United States Navy in World 
 War 1. He has practiced law in Chicago since 1921; 
 and was elected Trustee of the District in 1 946, be- 
 coming president in 1950. He was re-elected in 
 1952. He is a member of the American and 
 Chicago Bar Association, the American Legion, 
 the South Shore Country Club and the Union 
 League Club. 
 
 tn. -V 
 
 Vice Pres. William F. Patterson; 
 
 born in Ohio in 1909, he has 
 lived in Chicago since he was six. 
 He attended Northwestern Univer- 
 sity, and De Paul and Loyola Law 
 Schools, receiving his L.B. degree 
 in 1934. With the exception of 
 service with the U. S. Marine Corps in World War 
 II, he since has practiced law in Chicago. He is 
 vice president of the National Association of 
 Claimants and Compensation Attorneys; a mem- 
 ber of the Chicago, Illinois and American Bar 
 Associations; the Shrine; Loyal Order of Moose; 
 the American Legion; and the Executives Club 
 of Chicago. He was elected Trustee in 1950 and 
 was elected Vice President in 1954 following the 
 death of Vice President Michael J. Rudnik. 
 
 Trustee Frank W. Chesrow; born 
 
 Oin Chicago in 1903, Col. Chesrow 
 has a degree in pharmacy from Val- 
 paraiso University, Indiana, and is 
 the owner of a drug store chain. He 
 is a world traveler and explorer; 
 as a member of the General 
 Staff, Allied Forces, served as liaison officer be- 
 tween the U.S. Military Mission in Italy and the 
 Italian government in World War II; was deco- 
 rated by the American, French and Italian govern- 
 ments; and currently as a colonel in the army 
 reserve is assigned as chief of civil affairs and mili- 
 tary government, 322nd logistic command, Chica- 
 go. He has been active in civic affairs and veterans' 
 groups, and is a member of the following social 
 clubs: Chicago Athletic Club, Adventurers' Club, 
 South Shore Country Club, Chicago Drug Club, 
 the Army and Navy Club, Reserve Officers Asso- 
 ciation, American Chemical Society, Military Engi- 
 neers Association and many other groups. He was 
 elected Trustee in 1948 and reelected in 1954. 
 
 Trustee John A. Cullerton; born 
 in Chicago in 1895, he attended 
 Lewis Institute and De Paul Uni- 
 versity. In World War I he served 
 with the Illinois 33rd Divison. He 
 is secretary-treasurer of an engineer- 
 ing and construction firm and is 
 
 
 * 
 
 *M 
 
 28 
 
•^£? <L?eoesirfv 6Cwid!el 
 
 4. administration — cont'd. 
 
 active in the Suburban Sanitary Improvement 
 Association, the Metropolitan Administrative 
 Study Committee, and the Chicago Metropolitan 
 Home Builders Association. He served as trustee 
 and president of the Village of Elmwood Park 
 from 1932 until his election as Trustee of the 
 Sanitary District in 1948. He was reelected in 
 1954. He is a member of the American Legion, 
 Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American 
 Veterans, Knights of Columbus, Moose, Kiwanis, 
 and Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 Trustee Francis T. Delaney; son 
 of a Chicago policeman, he is a 
 graduate of Loyola University 
 schools of commerce and law. He is 
 45 years old and has been practic- 
 ing law since 1937. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Chicago, Illinois and 
 American Bar Associations, the Catholic Lawyers 
 Guild, and the Holy Name Society. He was ap- 
 pointed Trustee in September 1955 by the Gover- 
 nor to fill the vacancy left by the death of the late 
 Vice President Michael J. Rudnik until the next 
 general election. 
 
 Trustee Casimir Griglik; born in 
 Poland in 1898, he came to the 
 United States when he was seven. 
 He served in the United States Army 
 during World War I, graduated from 
 Officers Training School, and be- 
 came a citizen. A graduate of 
 New York University, he was admitted to the 
 Illinois bar in 1937 and since has practised law 
 in Chicago. He is a master-in-chancery of the 
 Superior court of Cook County and a member of 
 the Governor's Committee on Metropolitan Water 
 and Sanitation. He served as a government ap- 
 peals agent, selective service, for eight years 
 during and after World War II, and was awarded 
 a citation and medal by Congress for his volun- 
 teer work. He is a member of the Chicago, Illinois 
 and American Bar Associations, Advocates So- 
 ciety, American Judicature Society, the American 
 Legion, the Polish National Alliance, the Polish 
 Roman Catholic Union, Knights of Columbus, 
 and numerous other social and fraternal groups. 
 
 He is a member of the City Club of Chicago and 
 the Elmhurst County Club, and a vice president 
 and director of the Park National Bank of Chi- 
 cago. He was elected Trustee in 1948 and re- 
 elected in 1954. 
 
 Trustee John G. Henneberger; 
 
 born and educated in Chicago, he 
 is 56 years old. He began working 
 as clerk and joined the Boilermakers 
 ^#^^ Union in 1918. He later was elected 
 president of a United Steel Workers 
 C.I.O. union. He is president of 
 John G. Henneberger & Associates, industrial 
 relations consultants. During World War II he was 
 a member of the War Labor Standards Advisory 
 Board. In 1945 he was appointed assistant state 
 director of labor. He has taken an active interest 
 in the civic and political affairs of the Southeast 
 Side of Chicago. He is a member of South Chicago 
 and East Side Chambers of Commerce, City Club 
 of Chicago, Kiwanis, Lions, Loyal Order of 
 Moose, Eagles, Dr. Abe Hyman Foundation, Ger- 
 mania Club, Steuben Society, Illinois Athletic 
 Club, Royal Order of Boers, and Local 903, 
 American Federation of State, County and Mu- 
 nicipal Employees. He was elected Trustee in 
 1950. 
 
 Trustee J. B. Martin; born in 
 
 Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1888, 
 he attended LeMoyne Institute in 
 Memphis, Tennessee and Walton 
 Unversity at Nashville. He received 
 a degree in pharmacy at Meharry 
 El ^KLrs. Pharmaceutical School and in 1910 
 opened the first of what became a chain of drug 
 stores in Memphis. He and his family moved to 
 Chicago in 1932 and he became president of the 
 Negro American Baseball League. He is treasur- 
 er of the Victory Mutual Life Insurance Company, 
 and a member of the Boys Club, the Elks, the 
 YMCA, the Chicago Urban League, and Omega 
 Psi Phi fraternity. He was elected Trustee in 
 1946 and reelected in 1952. 
 
 29 
 
•/tie ^eves^ 6t/cwdel 
 
 4. administration — cont'd. 
 
 Trustee William S. Nordburg; 
 
 born in Chicago in 1887. He at- 
 tended Evanston High School and 
 Armour Institute of Technology, 
 majoring in engineering and busi- 
 ness administration. His early career 
 was in banking and advertising. He 
 was vice-president of William H. Rankin Com- 
 pany, advertising agency. He founded the Chicago 
 Suburban Quality Group of weekly newspapers. 
 He is co-founder, vice-president and director of 
 the Evanston Federal Savings and Loan Associ- 
 ation. He is president of the North Shore Sunday 
 Evening Club, past-master and now treasurer of 
 Winnetka Lodge No. 1078 A.F.&A.M.; member 
 of Oriental Consistory (32nd degree Mason) and 
 Medina Temple (Shrine). He is a Trustee and 
 secretary of the Pension Board of the Metro- 
 politan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago; co- 
 chairman for Red Cross and Community Chest 
 drives in the Sanitary District for the last eight 
 years; a member of the Governor's Committee on 
 Metropolitan Water and Sanitation, and the Illi- 
 nois Athletic Club. He was a Lieutenant in the 
 American Protective League under The Depart- 
 ment of Justice, World War I. He was elected 
 in 1946 to an unexpired term of four years and 
 re-elected for a full term in 1950. 
 
 2. FINANCE 
 
 The Metropolitan Sanitary District as it stands today 
 — canals, interceptors, plants and pumping stations — 
 represents a total investment of approximately $420,- 
 000,000 or about $50 per capita on the basis of the 
 sewage load it collects. 
 
 MILLION 
 DOLLARS 
 
 Almost three-fourths of this investment has already 
 been paid by the taxpayers; the balance — the bonded 
 debt of $110,000,000 — is being reduced at the rate 
 of about ten million dollars per year, since the District 
 adopted a pay-as-you-go construction program in 
 1953. 
 
 Most of the bonded debt was incurred through the 
 issuance of non-referendum bonds under authority 
 given by the state legislature in order for the District 
 to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court mandate in 
 the lake diversion case. The decree directed the District 
 to construct adequate treatment plants. 
 
 The pay-as-you-go construction program — widely 
 supported by civic groups and tax watchdog agencies 
 — has the objective of making the District debt free 
 by 1970. New construction is budgeted and paid for 
 out of each year's tax levy. 
 
 It has been during the present administration (i.e., 
 since 1950) that the second great construction phase 
 of the District was completed: all of the plants were 
 in full operation and providing full treatment of all 
 domestic sewage and industrial wastes originating 
 within its boundaries. 
 
 Operating economies were put into effect, ranging 
 from the purchase of coal-by-barge to the use of dacron 
 blankets on the filter drums; despite the rising costs 
 of labor and materials, a total of nearly six million 
 dollars ($5,877,000) was saved the taxpayers by re- 
 duced corporate expenditures from 1951 through 1954. 
 (Subsequent budgets reflect the pay-as-you-go con- 
 struction program.) 
 
 The operating costs of the 
 District account for about 
 four per cent of the aggre- 
 gate tax bill paid by the 
 taxpayer who is served by all 
 six of the major taxing bodies 
 of Cook County— the District, 
 the County, Forest Preserve, 
 City of Chicago, Board of Ed- 
 ucation, and Park District. 
 
 30 
 
//te (^eve/ttt oCwumH 
 
 4. administration — cont'd. 
 
 Since 1950 the district has increased substantially 
 its revenues from the sale of commercial fertilizer. The 
 following table shows the tonnage produced and the 
 income derived: 
 
 TONS RECEIPTS 
 
 1950 D 57,045 ® 789,612 
 
 1951 DL 75,666® 1,227,407 
 
 1952 QC 82 < 191 ($) ^465,210 
 
 1953 LfC 86 ' 141 (D 1,419,308 
 
 1954 CI [U H4,536(D 1,781,501 
 
 1955 Q □ [J31,035(^)2,137,298 
 
 A research program at the University of Illinois, 
 under the District's sponsorship, is under way to deter- 
 min the nature of the growth factors found in this or- 
 ganic product and to find, if possible, a feasible method 
 of extracting them, in order to provide additional 
 revenue. The research also is to determine the relative 
 values of organic fertilizer as opposed to the inorganics. 
 What does the service performed by the District — 
 the protection of Lake Michigan from pollution, the 
 collection and treatment and disposal of all wastes — 
 cost the individual taxpayer? 
 
 The District budget for 1956 was: 
 
 Bond and Interest $ 14,021,230.95 
 
 Annuity and Benefit 970,000.00 
 
 Corporate 19,500,000.00 
 
 New Construction (pay-as-you-go) 9,200,000.00 
 Because the District is on a pay-as-you-go basis for 
 new construction, the bond and interest levy will fully 
 pay the District's bonded indebtedness by 1970 and 
 this levy should not be a recurring item. And so, for 
 operation and maintenance (corporate budget), for new 
 construction (pay-as-you-go), and for pension pur- 
 
 poses (annuity and benefit), the total District levy for 
 1956 was $29,600,000. 
 
 At present the District is handling the wastes of a 
 population equivalent of 8,000,000 people. On a per 
 capita basis — valid since industry pays its full share of 
 the bill — the cost is about $3.70 per person per year, 
 for this service, including the cost of new construction. 
 
 3. DEPARTMENT HEADS 
 
 The department heads of The Metropolitan Sanitary 
 District, who translate the policies and legislation of 
 the Board of Trustees into the day-by-day operations 
 of the 1,900 employees, are: 
 
 General Superintendent Oundas 
 
 General Superintendent William Alfred Dundas; 
 
 born in Ashland, Wisconsin, in 1893, he attended 
 Northern State Normal College and the Carnegie 
 Institute of Technology. He served in the chemical 
 warfare division of the United States Army in 
 World War I and was employed by the District in 
 1919 as an assistant mechanical engineer. He 
 became Chief Mechanical Engineer and Engineer 
 of Mechanical Design in 1930 — the start of the 
 period during which he helped invent the flash- 
 drying process. He became head of maintenance 
 and operations in 1 94 1 and was appointed General 
 Superintendent in 1947. He is a member of the 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, The 
 Governor's Committee on Metropolitan Water 
 and Sanitation, the Adventurers Club, the Union 
 League Club, and the American Legion. 
 
 31 
 
dve £>eve*iM vOefedet 
 
 4. administration — cont'd 
 
 Chief Engineer Ramey 
 
 Chief Engineer Horace P. Ramey; born in Wise, 
 Virginia, he graduated from the University of 
 Michigan in 1907 with a B.S. degree in Civil Engi- 
 neering; and received the degree of Civil Engineer- 
 ing in 1917. He was employed by the District in 
 1907 and has served as rodman, computer, junior 
 engineer, resident engineer, assistant engineer, 
 senior assistant engineer, assistant chief engineer 
 and acting chief engineer. He was named Chief 
 Engineer in 1954 following the retirement of Chief 
 Engineer William H. Trinkaus. He is a world wide 
 authority on sanitary plant and sewer construction; 
 as well as hydraulics and the physical nature of the 
 Great Lakes. He is a life member of the American 
 Society of Civil Engineers and the Western Society 
 of Engineers, a life member of the Shrine, and a 
 member of the Chicago Athletic Club, the Chicago 
 Engineers Club, and Olympia Fields Country Club. 
 He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi. 
 
 Clerk Harry Edward Eaton; born 
 in Manila, Philippine Islands, in 
 1904, he attended the University of 
 I Nebraska and Georgia School of 
 Technology, receiving a B.S. degree 
 in electrical engineering. After a 
 wide experience, including di- 
 rector of purchases for Whiting Corporation, 
 Harvey, 111., he was appointed Clerk of the Board 
 
 and director of purchases for the District in 1951. 
 He is a member of the National Association of 
 Purchasing Agents, National Institute of Govern- 
 mental Purchasing, Beta Theta Pi, Pi Delta 
 Epsilon, Kappa Eta Kappa. He is a member of 
 the Lake Shore and Union League Clubs of Chi- 
 cago and the Calumet Country Club. 
 
 Chief Attorney Russell W. Root; 
 
 born in Diamond, 111., in 1898, he 
 graduated from the University of 
 Illinois Law School in 1922 and 
 was admitted to the Illinois bar. He 
 served as a second lieutenant, in- 
 fantry, in World War I. He has 
 served as an assistant state's attorney of Cook i 
 County, assistant attorney with the State 
 Auditor, chief hearing officer of the state depart- 
 ment of revenue, assistant state treasurer, and chief 
 attorney for the Forest Preserve District. He was 
 appointed chief attorney of The Metropolitan 
 Sanitary District in 1950. He is a member of the 
 American and Chicago Bar Associations, the 
 South Shore Chamber of Commerce, Medinah 
 Temple, and the South Side Swedish Club. He has 
 been prominent in American Legion activities. 
 
 Treasurer Weymouth S. Kirkland; 
 
 born in Chicago in 1919, he at- 
 tended Hodgekiss School, Lakeville, 
 Conn., graduated from Princeton 
 University in 1940, and attended 
 Harvard Law School until he en- 
 tered the United States Navy in 
 1941. He served throughout World War II. He 
 is Assistant Vice President of the American Na- 
 tional Bank and Trust Company of Chicago and 
 was appointed treasurer of the District in 1950. 
 
 Real Estate Manager Earl Derx; 
 
 born in Chicago in 1897 he was 
 educated in Chicago public schools 
 and entered the field of business up- 
 on his graduation from High School. 
 k ' j^^^_ His wide experience included home 
 '^ *» ■ construction and real estate. He 
 
 was appointed assistant real estate manager in 
 1950 and became manager in 1954. 
 
 32 
 
/ne <Setwitf4 ot/efidet 
 
 4. administration — cont'd 
 
 4. CIVIL SERVICE BOARD 
 
 In 1951, the Trustees of the District backed legisla- 
 tion to set up a model civil service act designed to re- 
 move as far as possible the political patronage aspect of 
 employment in the District. The measure was supported 
 by civic agencies and became law, replacing the original 
 civil service act of 1935. 
 
 Under the new act the Board of Trustees appointed 
 a three man civil service board serving overlapping 
 terms. None of the three were to have participated 
 actively in politics for a period of two years prior to 
 appointment, according to the act. They are removable 
 only for cause and they cannot represent only one party. 
 
 The administrative officer of the civil service board, 
 the Supervisor of Employment, was appointed by the 
 civil service board for a term of four years "without 
 regard to his political affiliations and solely with re- 
 spect to his qualifications to perform the duties of his 
 office," according to the law. 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 IP V , 
 
 Sutherland 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hyneman 
 
 Chairman Hunter 
 
 The Civil Service Commissioners appointed were 
 Chairman Robert L. Hunter, Chicago attorney and 
 formerly head of the state civil service commision; 
 Douglas Sutherland, retired executive director of the 
 Civic Federation; and Charles S. Hyneman, chairman 
 of the department of political science at Northwestern 
 University. 
 
 The Commissioners named John 
 J. Hogan, Chicago attorney and 
 World War II veteran, supervisor of 
 employment. The board instituted a 
 reclassification program and intensi- 
 fied the scheduling of examinations 
 to recruit qualified personnel. 
 
 At present more than 90 per cent of the District's 
 employees are classified in civil service; the balance 
 are seasonal and temporary workers. 
 
 5. NEW ADMINISTRATION BUILDING 
 
 In April, 1956, the District dedicated its new 
 $2,000,000 administration building at the corner of 
 Rush and Erie streets on the Near North Side. 
 
 The air conditioned, four and one-half story build- 
 ing scored "Firsts" in several categories: 
 
 1. The first administration building in the District's 
 history. 
 
 2. The first governmental unit built within the 
 sphere of the proposed Fort Dearborn project. 
 
 3. And, so far as is known, the first major govern- 
 mental building constructed in this area without 
 increasing the tax levy. 
 
 Under an unique financing arrangement, the building 
 will be paid for out of the corporate fund with money 
 which in the past has gone for rented quarters in the 
 Standard Oil Building, 910 South Michigan av. 
 
 These payments, spread over 15 years, will retire 
 the special building bonds authorized by the legisla- 
 ture. 
 
 The new building was constructed with an eye 
 toward resale value, since presumably the District 
 would participate in the governmental center of the 
 Fort Dearborn project if and when it is completed. 
 
 Foundations and the plumbing, heating, and wiring 
 were planned to permit the addition of at least four 
 more stories; and the girder and uni-cellular floor 
 construction will permit the rearrangement of parti- 
 tions and wiring. 
 
 The new building provides approximately 55,000 
 square feet of floor space. The architects were Philip 
 B. Maher and Frank L. Finlayson. The general con- 
 tractor was Paschen Brothers Contractors, Inc. 
 
 33 
 
TBUSTEC' 1 - IBEflSUB' T 
 
 i 
 
 o 
 
 T^n 
 
 L J. . i-*->-4ll C^U 
 
 E ERIE ST 
 
 PLAN OF FIRST FLOOR 
 
 E ERIE ST 
 PLAN OF SECOND FLOOR 
 
 n 1 : 
 
 ^Tlj 
 
 b — I SEWAGE TREAT MECHANICAL 1 
 
 P 1 ■ SECTION SECT.ON T 
 
 irJr J=] 
 
 E ERIE ST 
 
 PLAN OF THIRD FLOOR 
 
 E. ERIE ST 
 
 PLAN OF FOURTH FLOOR 
 
 E ERIE ST 
 
 PLAN OF Fl FTH FLOOR 
 
 *0^ 
 
 «! 
 
 f If B 
 
 ill 
 
 I |H 1H HI ™ -"" 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 » » * 1 1 i ! ' 
 
 nil i 
 
 i 
 
 arch 15, 1956: New administration building, Rush and Erie Sts. 
 
 34 
 
Sae ^eve/tfa otwsidet 
 
 5. the future 
 
 1. GOVERNOR STRATTON'S COMMITTEE 
 
 The growth problems of the Chicago metropolitan 
 area have become an increasingly vital concern to tax- 
 payers and governmental officials alike — particularly 
 those problems dealing with the essential services: 
 water, sanitation and storm drainage. 
 
 Early in 1954, Governor Stratton appointed a 
 committee — named The Governor's Committee on 
 Metropolitan Water and Sanitation — to study these 
 problems and make a recommendation. 
 
 President Anthony Olis of the Metropolitan Sanitary 
 District was named chairman. The other members were 
 Dr. John T. Rettaliata, president, Illinois Institute of 
 Technology; Dr. Ovid W. Eshbach, professor, engi- 
 neering sciences, Northwestern Technological Institute; 
 James D. Cunningham, president, Republic Flow 
 Meters Co.; General Superintendent William A. Dun- 
 das of the District; Howard R. Olson, general mana- 
 ger, Chicago Regional Planning Association; Clarence 
 W. Klassen, chief sanitary engineer, State of Illinois; 
 Raymond E. Anderson, chemist-engineer, North Shore 
 Sanitary District; 
 
 Attorney Robert S. Cushman, past president, Civic 
 Federation of Chicago; Louis Ancel, corporation coun- 
 sel, Maywood; Trustee Casimir Griglik of the District; 
 Alderman Herbert F. Geisler of Chicago; 
 
 William N. Erickson, member of the Cook County 
 Board of Commissioners; Alderman P. J. Cullerton of 
 Chicago; J. Russell Christianson, then president of the 
 village of Oak Park; 
 
 Arthur T. Leonard, president, City National Bank 
 and Trust Company; Randall H. Cooper, president, 
 State Street Council; Trustee William S. Nordburg of 
 the District; and Oscar C. Gettinger, of the Wheaton 
 Sanitary District. 
 
 The Committee made the following recommenda- 
 tion to the Governor: 
 
 "Whereas, the problems of water supply, drain- 
 age, sanitation, and the rapid development of an 
 adequate port facility including the widening of 
 the Cal-Sag Channel are common and interlocking 
 needs in a natural water-basin comprising: 
 
 "All of Cook and DuPage Counties, the easterly 
 townships of Kane County, and the nine townships 
 in Will County lying north of the line between 
 Cook and Will Counties projected westward; and 
 "Whereas, commercial, industrial and residen- 
 tial development in the above metropolitan area 
 
 could be encouraged and expanded by proper 
 solution of these problems; and 
 
 "Whereas, at present no single governmental 
 service agency exists which is equipped and em- 
 powered to approach these problems on a coordi- 
 nated basis and solve them to the benefit of the 
 entire area; 
 
 "Therefore, be it resolved that this Committee 
 recommends to the Honorable William G. Strat- 
 ton, Governor of the State of Illinois: 
 
 "1. The establishment of such a single govern- 
 mental service authority, to coordinate and direct 
 an united approach to these problems in the above 
 metropolitan area. 
 
 "2. The acquisition of existing municipal 
 utilities by said service authority be accomplished 
 on a voluntary basis through negotiation between 
 the service authority and the various communities; 
 "3. The Metropolitan Sanitary District of 
 Greater Chicago is a governmental agency which 
 presently serves an area including 85 municipali- 
 ties and renders services in the fields of drainage, 
 sanitation and navigation and it could well be used 
 as a base for the establishment of the governmental 
 service authority herein above referred to." 
 The report was presented to the Governor at a 
 luncheon in the Union League Club on December 14, 
 1954, before an audience of more than 400 civic 
 leaders. 
 
 In his closing remarks, Chairman Olis said: 
 "The people of Chicagoland, in the proposed metro- 
 politan area, are in the mood for progress — for big 
 and bold plans. Yes, Chicagoland is on the move — if 
 we will only give it a chance — if we will unshackle 
 the chains of inertia and petty prejudices and permit 
 it to rise up in a new burst of the 'I Will' spirit — if 
 we will permit the removal of the bottlenecks that are 
 impeding navigation, and causing storm floods and 
 millions of dollars of damages in their wake — if we will 
 permit a supply of water which is now lacking to the 
 vast areas of Chicagoland that are ripe for industrial 
 development — 
 
 "Then, in that event, you and I, in our lifetime will 
 see this metropolitan area grow to a population of 15 
 to 20 million people and become the largest, the great- 
 est, and the finest community in the entire world!" 
 
 35 
 
Proposed Area Boundary 
 
 Present Sanitary District Boundary 
 
 County of Cook Boundary 
 
 Calumet Sag Channel 
 
 The natural watershed of Northeastern Illinois — 
 showing Townships and Communities in Cook, Du Page 
 and parts of Kane and Will Counties 
 
 36 
 
Me cSevesifd 6vmzwi 
 
 5. the future — cont'd 
 
 2. RECENT LEGISLATION 
 
 During the 1955 session of the state legislature, a 
 series of bills based largely upon the recommendations 
 of the Governor's Committee were introduced in the 
 House and Senate. 
 
 Significant advances were made on three fronts: 
 
 1. The boundaries of The Metropolitan Sani- 
 tary District were expanded to include the rest of 
 Cook County with the exception of five townships 
 in the southeast end of the county, and subject 
 to a referendum in the affected area in the general 
 election of 1956. The expansion would mean an 
 increase of about 90 per cent in the area served 
 by the District. 
 
 2. The District was given the specific authority 
 to cope with storm waters and to build facilities 
 to handle flood flows such as the storm in Octo- 
 ber, 1954, which caused an estimated $25,000,000 
 damage. 
 
 3. The District was given the authority to 
 build and maintain drainage and sanitation fa- 
 cilities, including treatment works, on a revenue 
 bond basis. 
 
 3 THRESHOLD OF TOMORROW 
 
 As this is written, The Metropolitan Sanitary Dis- 
 trict of Greater Chicago is ending the second great 
 phase of its history and, in common with the metro- 
 politan area of which it is a part, stands on the 
 threshold of tomorrow. 
 
 The first phase was the vital task of sealing off all 
 pollution from Lake Michigan — accomplished by build- 
 ing the interceptors, and by reversing the Chicago and 
 Little Calumet Rivers. 
 
 The second phase was the construction of the huge 
 plants to treat and dispose of all the sewage originating 
 in the area. 
 
 In the doing, the Sanitary District pioneered a 
 little-known field and its labor and accomplishments 
 have benefitted all mankind; each year hundreds ot 
 engineers from the four corners of the earth visit the 
 plants and seek advice on how the system may be 
 adapted for use in their homelands. 
 
 The pressures of increased health standards and of 
 steadily mounting populations have thrown new em- 
 phasis on the methods and processes which permit man 
 to live in close proximity to his neighbors — in South 
 Africa and in the Malay Archipelago, as well as the 
 Chicago metropolitan area. 
 
 And tomorrow? 
 
 It is apparent to even the casual observer that the 
 problems of water distribution, waste treatment and 
 disposal, and storm drainage — all linked by their nature 
 and by their effect, one upon the other — will not long 
 be allowed to hold back the growth and development 
 of the metropolitan region: — Cook and Du Page Coun- 
 ties, and parts of Will and Kane Counties, a natural 
 watershed with common advantages and common 
 problems. 
 
 The most remote village — with its undeveloped home 
 and industrial potential — in this region is less than 
 40 miles from an inexhaustible supply of fresh water, 
 Lake Michigan. And Los Angeles is forced to transport 
 its water 250 miles through the Colorado River 
 Aqueduct! 
 
 The metropolitan problem of water is essentially one 
 of distribution. 
 
 The metropolitan problem of sanitation is primarily 
 the extension of existing facilities or the building of new 
 units on the same pattern; the feasibility of area-wide 
 collection, treatment and disposal of sewage has been 
 proved emphatically by the record of the Sanitary 
 District. 
 
 The metropolitan problem of flood control is basic- 
 ally the extension and improvement of the present 
 drainage system. 
 
 These vital problems, then, are engineering in nature 
 and comparatively simple in solution, now that the re- 
 search and pioneering have been done. The chief 
 stumbling blocks are financial and political. 
 
 The financial problem is simply Need vs. Cost; the 
 industrial growth and population increases of the 
 metropolitan area are setting up irresistible pressures 
 on behalf of Need. Each day passing shrinks the factor 
 of Cost — whether figured on a basis of per capita in- 
 vestment or in relation to economic return. 
 
 One day soon — perhaps a few months hence, at most 
 a few years — the Need will overwhelm the Cost and 
 public opinion will force the expansion of these services 
 throughout the metropolitan area. 
 
 One stumbling block will remain: the political. 
 
 Here again The Metropolitan Sanitary District of 
 Greater Chicago may have blazed a trail. 
 
 This stumbling block stems from the understandable 
 and very human wish of every city, town and village to 
 maintain its own flavor and character. 
 
 37 
 
•w ^evesif/i 6Cvrtdel 
 
 5. the future — cont'd. 
 
 Nearly every one of these communities has gone on 
 record — volubly and violently — as opposing any sug- 
 gestion of becoming a part of any municipal authority 
 which would administer its local affairs. 
 
 Police? Schools? Town or village affairs? The present 
 system may not be the most efficient, but these are 
 local matters administered at grass roots level where 
 the elected officials are close to the voters and well 
 within reach of a cast ballot. 
 
 Even as the hue and cry has lifted against the "metro- 
 politan authority" concept, more than a score of com- 
 munities in the last three sessions of the legislature have 
 applied for admittance to The Metropolitan Sanitary 
 District. 
 
 This apparent paradox can be explained by three 
 major factors, which in themselves could well set a 
 pattern palatable to the communities of the metropoli- 
 tan area and yet permit the full development of 
 the area's potential: 
 
 1. The District renders vital service of a silent, 
 non-political nature; it exercises no control over 
 local sewerage systems, serving merely as the col- 
 lection and disposal agent — a wholesale distributor 
 in reverse. 
 
 2. The District is administered by a repre- 
 sentative board elected by the people it serves. 
 
 3. The cost of this service, spread over its 
 millions of customers, is nominal. 
 
 Translated into terms of water distribution, this 
 would mean the District would maintain the major 
 water mains, reservoirs, and pumping stations through- 
 out the metropolitan region; the water would be drawn 
 from the City of Chicago system as long as feasible, 
 and eventually from supplemental intakes in the lake. 
 It would be delivered at cost to each city, town and 
 village, there to be locally distributed and locally ad- 
 ministered. 
 
 Whatever plan is finally adopted by the Illinois Legis- 
 lature to permit the metropolitan area to solve its 
 growing problems, The Metropolitan Sanitary District 
 stands ready to perform its task. 
 
 One of its greatest assets is the trained cadre of 
 engineers which is its backbone, engineers with a proud 
 record of achievement and an international reputation. 
 
 Their work in the past has helped make this one of 
 the healthiest major population centers in the world; 
 their work in the future could help make this the largest, 
 wealthiest and most productive community on earth. 
 
 38 
 
NOTE 
 
 This booklet was prepared with the patient help of 
 
 General Superintendent William A. Dundas, Chief Engineer Horace P. Ramey, 
 
 and Sanitary Engineer Langdon Pearse. Their own writings and memories 
 
 were freely tapped. Among the documents available for study to those 
 
 who may wish to explore more deeply are the following: 
 
 THE CHICAGO QUEST FOR POTABLE WATER 
 
 by Langdon Pearse, an article prepared for the 
 World Health Organization. 
 
 WEST-SOUTHWEST SEWAGE TREATMENT WORKS (1950) 
 
 a technical pamphlet prepared by the engineering staff of The 
 Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago. 
 
 EXPERIENCE OF CHICAGO IN THE PREPARATION 
 OF FERTILIZER, (1945) 
 
 by William A. Dundas and C. P. McLaughlin, Paper No. 2237, 
 American Society of Civil Engineers. 
 
 INITIAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE 
 
 GOVERNOR'S COMMITTEE ON METROPOLITAN 
 WATER AND SANITATION (1954) 
 
 DRAINAGE CHANNEL AND WATERWAY, (1894) 
 by G. P. Brown. 
 
 SEWAGE DISPOSAL IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 by G. W. Rafter and M. N. Baker (1894). 
 
 (Additional copies of this booklet are available upon request to 
 President of the Board of Trustees, The Metropolitan Sanitary Dis- 
 trict of Greater Chicago, 100 East Erie Street, Chicago 11, Illinois.) 
 
 39 
 
The New Administration Building 
 
 The Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago 
 
 100 EAST ERIE STREET 
 
 CHICAGO 11, ILLINOIS 
 
 SUPERIOR 7-8900 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 628.09773W15S C001 
 
 THE STORY OF THE METROPOLITAN SANITARY D