Hearings of the International Joint Commission in re remedies for the pollution of boundary waters between the United States and Canada

by International Joint Commission

Mr. Gardner. Mr. Kreinheder, I believe you were about to make a statement and were interrupted.

Mr. Kreinheder. I was merely going to say that the city of Buffalo extends its greetings to this commission. Since your last meeting in this city Buffalo has taken on an entirely new cloak in that it is now governed under a new form of government, the commission form of government. All the powers for conducting the city’s business are vested in five men. The propositions that this council has to deal with are many. One of them is the pollution of boundary waters, the subject that you gentlemen have under consideration at this time. The new administration since the issue of your report has not had time to go into it thoroughly in order to determine which of the six plans that you suggest is feasible. It may be that your commission can suggest which one of those plans is feasible. However, if that is left to the different cities it will be necessary, in order to satisfy our municipality and the taxpayers, to employ an engineer to go over your suggestion with respect to these different plans and determine which of them is the most feasible. After that determination is made there comes a question of providing the money, and that may possibly take considerable time, because without money these big projects can not be carried out.

Now, that in toto is our proposition to-day. The council is represented here and is very glad to extend to the commission every courtesy and at the same time do all we possibly can in order to bring out the points involved and see whether we can carry this matter to a proper solution. That is the attitude of the city of Buffalo, and we would like you gentlemen to so understand it.

Mr. Clinton. May I be permitted to ask a question? The jurisdiction of this commission depends entirely upon the determination of the question as to whether the pollution of boundary waters affects the waters on both sides of the boundary lines. If it does not, the commission of course has no jurisdiction, and it is not an international question. But I understand that the commission has heretofore determined that in the case of the Niagara River the discharge of sewage by the city of Buffalo does affect the international waters, and that therefore the question involved in this vicinity is an international question. Since the final determination of the location of the boundary line I think the prior attitude—if I may call it an attitude—assumed by the commission in that regard is strongly fortified; but I do not understand whether the commission has yet decided that the present and inevitable growth of the discharge of sewage into the Niagara River so affects the health, the welfare, and I may say, to a certain extent, the business of both communities—that is, the community on either side of the line—as to make it necessary that no sewage from the city of Buffalo—and I may add Lackawanna—shall be discharged into the Niagara River through the lake. I do not recall in the reports any such decision.

Mr. Tawney. Is it not a fact that the bacteriological examination of the Niagara River shows conclusively that the waters are being polluted clear across the stream to an extent that is injurious to health and property on the other side?

Mr. Clinton. I drew that conclusion from one of the reports made by the commission.

Mr. Tawney. That is included in the progress report, the report of the bacteriologists.

Mr. Clinton. Yes; but I am not aware that the commission has decided that the extent of that is such that the discharge of sewage must be stopped.

Now, I regard that as of considerable importance not merely to my people but to the city of Buffalo, and I wish to say to this commission that I am more deeply interested on the part of the city of Buffalo than I am on the part of our proposed corporation. The expense to the city of Buffalo in caring for that sewage, if it must be taken out of the Niagara River altogether, will be tremendous. That is the reason I asked the question.

Your honorable commission will say to our people eventually that this sewage must be taken out. I think some limit has been placed upon it, but I regard that as merely tentative; it must be taken out eventually. Then it becomes a mere question for the city authorities to determine upon the methods of caring for the sewage.