Mr. Tawney. Have you read the report of the engineers as to how much was necessary to be expended for such treatment?
Mr. Perkins. No; I have not.
Mr. Tawney. You are out ninety-seven millions.
Mr. Perkins. The expenditure of between $3,000,000 and $3,500,000 means a vast amount to the taxpayers of this city and all those along the frontier. Will your commission recommend, after such a plant has been built, that water from Niagara, containing this large amount of bacteria, regardless of the chemical treatment, should be suitable or desirable to be taken for drinking purposes when pure water can be delivered from Lake Erie by pumping stations on both sides at a far cheaper rate than they can build a plant to take care of the sewage? The small cities can not do it with the tremendous overhead charges and the inefficiency of small pumping stations, while we have two large pumping stations that cost, with intake tunnel, $10,000,000, and we can supply drinking water to all the frontier, if we only obtain the legal right to do it, cheaper than they can pump Niagara River water even after treatment.
Mr. Powell. That is an alternative scheme you suggest. I think we are drifting away from the subject matter. There is no question the commission has come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that a condition of affairs exists on the Niagara frontier that must be remedied; that the evil results of depositing sewage on one bank of the stream is felt on the other side of the boundary line, more particularly that which comes from the United States than the Canadian. We are here having gone to great expense in the formulation by our experts of schemes for the solution of this difficulty. We have not absolutely adopted any scheme as yet, but we have laid this scheme before the people on this frontier and up the Detroit River for their consideration. A couple of months’ time has been at their disposal to take it up and consider it. We are here to see whether you accept it, or whether, instead of accepting it, you have any scheme to offer in place of this; and what you have to suggest, taking what you say at its face, is entitled to a great deal of consideration, but we can not take your ipse dixit for these matters as against scientific men. Is the city, and are the others who are interested, prepared to lay schemes before us, with any data that will reasonably back them up, for our consideration? That is the question.
Mr. Perkins. But you are considering the drainage power canal from Buffalo to Lake Ontario, which means an open sewer which you are condemning as existing in Niagara River.
Mr. Powell. We are not condemning anything. From a sanitary standpoint there is a condition of affairs which needs a remedy. Our expert has taken into consideration all the schemes, and he has made a report; and we have laid it before you and desire to know if you accept it or if you reject it, and have you anything to advance as a substitute for it.
Mr. Perkins. I did not say you were condemning the sanitary canal but the pollution of Niagara River.
Mr. Powell. We are not condemning anything.
Mr. Perkins. You are condemning the pollution of the Niagara River as an open sewer.