711.42157 Detroit/67
The Secretary of War (Dern) to the Secretary of State
Dear Mr. Secretary: Reference is made to your letter of February 8, 1934 (WE 711.42147 Detroit/60), forwarding a further note dated February 2, 1934, from the Department of External Affairs of Canada,81 concerning dredging operations which the War Department is conducting in the St. Clair River.
By letter addressed to you under date of September 12, 1932,79 this Department asked that the sanction and approval of the Canadian Government be obtained for dredging shoal areas and spoiling waste on the Canadian side of the boundary in St. Clair River. In a note dated March 21, 1933,82 copy of which was furnished this Department with your letter of March 27 [23] 1933,79 the Department of External Affairs advised that the Canadian Government had granted the necessary permission subject to certain conditions enumerated therein. In compliance with these conditions the War Department engineers submitted to the Canadian engineers the final plans for the dredging and spoiling of material in that section of the St. Clair River from the head of the St. Clair Flats Canal upstream as far as Algonac, Mich. In a note dated June 10, 1933,83 the Department of External Affairs advised that the work “may be proceeded with according to the scheme submitted, in so far as the section of the river improvement under this portion of the proposal is concerned.” In a note dated January 10, 1934,84 that Department also advised that the plans submitted [Page 984] by the United States Government engineers for the section from Algonac to the vicinity of Marysville had been examined by the Canadian Government engineers, and stated that the work in this section may be proceeded with in accordance with the scheme submitted.
In its note of February 2, 1934, the Department of External Affairs sets forth three additional conditions which the Canadian Government engineers now wish to have followed in carrying out this work. The first two of these additional conditions are in accord with the general terms upon which the consent of the Canadian Government was sought, and are unobjectionable.
The third condition which the Canadian engineers now desire to impose reads as follows:
“That none of the material deposited in the north channel (so-called), during the improvement to the navigation channel in the vicinity of Algonac, shall be removed without the prior consent of the Engineers of the Dominion Department of Public Works.”
The north channel (so-called), specified in the foregoing condition, lies entirely within the territory of the United States. This Department is of the opinion that supervision by the Dominion of Canada over the use and development of this waterway by the removal of material therefrom is inadmissible except as a part of a reciprocal agreement for the joint control of the removal of material from the St. Clair River and its outlets.
The enlargement of the St. Clair River by the dredging of gravel for commercial purposes tends to lower the level of Lake Huron. The two countries acting independently now exercise control over the removal of this material on their respective sides of the border with a view to preventing any enlargement which will have deleterious effects on lake levels. Joint control by a suitable control board, while not of pressing importance, has certain obvious advantages and merits consideration, but until such joint control is agreed upon the Department is of the opinion that this Government should not consent to the control by the engineers of the Dominion Department of Public Works of the removal of material from the north channel of the St. Clair River.
Sincerely yours,
- Neither printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1933, vol. ii, p. 93.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Ibid., p. 96.↩
- Ibid., p. 97.↩