Prof. Weil. On the grounds of expense?
Mr. Tawney. Yes.
Prof. Weil. That means, then, that the expense is to fall on the municipality?
Mr. Tawney. No; the selecting of the third site, as I understand it, was to save expense to the municipality.
Prof. Weil. But that means that the expense must fall on the municipality?
Mr. Tawney. Yes.
Prof. Weil. In a big question of sanitation like this, should the matter of expense be the question of a municipality that is not growing?
Mr. Tawney. Here is the situation: These waters into which you are discharging your raw sewage are international waters. The result is the contamination or pollution of these waters, which, whether it does now or not, may in the future result in a violation of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain. The two Governments, which have agreed that neither will permit on their respective sides the pollution of these waters to the injury or health or property on the other, have a right to put a stop to it by requiring the municipalities which are thus offending against the treaty to either treat their sewage or discharge it elsewhere than in these international waters.
Now, the purpose is to find the most practicable and economical method for the treatment of the sewage by these cities that are using these international waters as open sewers. We are engaged in an effort to carry out the provisions of the treaty, or to advise the two Governments how the provisions of the treaty may be carried out with the least possible expense to the municipalities that are using these waters as open sewers for the purpose of disposing of their raw sewage, and the only methods that our consulting sanitary engineers have been able to devise and recommend are those which are proposed here.
I did not quite get your objection to the third site suggested by the consulting engineer—I mean the site east of Pine River, which is indicated on plate No. 16.