Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1910 — PLAN TO DAM KANKAKEE. [ARTICLE]

PLAN TO DAM KANKAKEE.

Governor Marshall Will Seek Injunction to Prevent Building Structure That Will Back Water. I he state of Indiana having in 1889, embarked on a conservation project and carried it to a successful end, will now appeal to the courts to conserve the conservation. A corporation seeking water power is prepar ing to construct a dam across the Kankakee river, at Momence, 111., and Governor Marshall will attempt in the federal courts to have an injunction issue to pre vent the construction of the dam. The proposed dam, it is said, will cause water to back up in the Kankakee and overflow thousands of acres of land which the state years ago reclaimed from swampy wastes and which is now under cultivation.

James Bingham, attorney-gen-eral, in an opinion rendered to the Governor, held that the state would have recourse against the corporation proposing to make the - improvements, on the grounds that the state still has title to many acres of land that would be affected by the proposed dam, and on the further grounds that the backing up of the water, as represented to be a natural result of the dam, would result in the destruction of much property belonging, to citizens of the state. In the opinion of the attorney-general, the state could support a bill for an injunction from the United States courts.

Governor Marshall asked for the opinion on "receipt of a letter from an Illinois farmer, living near Momence, whose lands, it was represented, would be affected by the proposed improvements. The land owner’s question to the Governor was whether the state could bring suit, or whether it would be necessary for some individual citizen to act.

The general assembly, in 1899, appropriated $40,000, which was used in removing a ledge of limestone in the Kankakee near Momence, with the result that the river was opened and thousands of acres of land in Indiana and Illinois drained and subsequently made tillable. Much of the land on this side of the line was owned by the state, by natural swamp land rights, and was sold to citizens. Some of the land is now in litigation in the Starke county court to establish the right of the state’s, ownership against the claims of persons who are now occupying "it without proper land patent. —Indianapolis News.