The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-23
The Pollution of Streams.

Possibly the matter will, some time,
attain 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 as
pect of the question has assumed a Sc
rious character. A stream called Park
river, an affluent Of the Connecticut
river, receives the principal portion of
the sewage of the city of New Britain,
the sewage of not less than ten manu-
factories within the limits of Hart
ford, and then courses the boundaries
of the Bushnell Park, on which stands
the capitol, receiving in its course
around the park the emptyings of
several OF the principal sewers of the
city. The result is an open sewer OF
the yilest description in the heart of
the city. In the lightsOf the common
law and of recent decisions on this
subject, it is possible that suit by
any individual citizen might not HE
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 Y ork, in which
the plaintiff sued the city of Rochester
for damage to him by reason of sew
age poured into stream that flowed
through his land, the water being
used for his cattle. The court gave
him verdict for damages. The
Judge decided that the plaintiff has a
right to say that nobody shall increase
the natural flow, nor can he be COM
PEELED 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 Enquirer, in summing
| up the common law on this subject,
makes these points from authorities
1.-THE fact that the water of a stream
has been polluted in a similar way for
more than twenty years, does not con-
fer prescriptive right to continue it,
particularly when the nuisance re-
suits from the increase of the pollu-
| ton The fact that town has legiS-
latlve authority to dispose of its sew
age does not give it the right to dis
charge that sewage into a stream
adapted for domestic use.
'The fact that a person owning
property on the banks Of a stream,
and thereby owning an interest in the
water, does not use the water for do
nestle purposes and has no desire to
so use it, does not prevent him from
bringing an action to protect himself
against the requirement by others of
a preScriptive right to pollute the
stream, and thereby depriving him of
his right to receive the water unim-
paired either in quality or quantity.
The Engl sh presidents forbidding
the contamination of streams by sew
age are very numerous, and take the
ground that the fact that the preser-
walton of the health of a large city re-
quires the removal of its sewage, and
that this cannot be done except at
great expense without discharging it
into q stream, does not Justify such
discharge. if there are even but very
few persons to be affected by the nuis-
ance thus created The city must
either buy the rights of these few
persons or compensate them for their
violation"