The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-09-29
The Pollution of Streams.

Possibly the matter will, some time, at
tain Importance enough to question the
present assumption Of municipal and other
corporations of the right to use any flowing
stream as an open air sewer. In Hartford,
Conn, this aspect of the question has as
sumed serious character. A stream
called Park river, an affluent of the Con-
necticut river, receives the principal por-
ton of the sewage of the city of New Brit
ain, the sewage of not less than ten manu-
factories within the limits of Hartford, and
then courses the boundaries of the Bush
nell Park, on which stands the Capitol, re-
ceiving in its course around the park the
emptyings of several of the principal sew
ers Of the city. The result is an open
sewer of the vilest description in the heart
of the city. In the light of the common
law and of recent decisions on this subject,
it is possible that suit by any individual
citizen might not lie against the city as a
corporation for permitting the befoulment
of the stream to the annoyance of passen-
gers on the streets and visitors to the park,
A case was recently tried in the Supreme
Court of New York, in which the plaintiff
sued the city of Rochester for damage to
him by reason of sewage poured into a
stream that flowed through his land, the
water being used for his cattle. The court
gave him a verdict for damages. The
Judge decided that the plaintiff has a right
to say that nobody shall increase the natu-
raj flow, nor can he be compelled to take
any more drainage than flows by reason of
the natural shape of the land, nor can the
people above him turn anything into the
stream which would not naturally flow
there if left to its ordinary course. They
cannot increase the area drained, the
amount of the drainage, or send down into
the stream any waters or things that would
not naturally flow there,
The Sanitary Engineer, in summing up
the common law on this subject, makes
these points from authorities
"The fact that the water of a stream
has been polluted in a similar way for
more than twenty years, does not confer a
prescriptive right to continue it, particu-
larly when the nuisance results from the
increase of the pollution. The fact that a
town has Legislative authority to dispose of
its sewage does not give it the right to dis
charge that sewage into a stream adapted
for domestic use. The fact that person
owning property ON the banks of a stream,
and thereby owning an interest in the
water, does not use the water for domestic
purposes, and has no desire to SO use it.,
does not prevent him from bringing an
action to protect himself against the ac-
quirement by others of prescriptive right
to pollute the stream, and thereby depriv
ing him of his right to receive the water
unimpaired either in quantity or quantity.
The English precedents forbidding the
contamination of streams by sewage are
very numerous, and take the ground that
the fact that the preservation of the health
of large city requires the removal of its
sewage, and that this cannot be done ex
cept at great expense without discharging
it into stream, does not Justify such dis
charge if there are even but very few
persons to be affected by the nuisance thus
created The city must either buy the
rights of these few persons or compensate
them for their violation. Scientific
american.