Summary of the Law Relating to Pollution of Waters of Lakes and Streams

Front Cover
American Water Works Association, 1900 - Water - 34 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 5 - ... without diminution or alteration. No proprietor has a right to use the water, to the prejudice of other proprietors, above or below him, unless he has a prior right to divert it, or a title to some exclusive enjoyment. He has no property in the water itself, but a simple usufruct while it passes along. Aqua currit et debet currere ut currere solebat is the language of the law.
Page 5 - For water is a movable, wandering thing, and must of necessity continue common by the law of nature; so that I can only have a temporary, transient, usufructuary, property therein: wherefore, if a body of water runs out of my pond into another man's I have no right to reclaim it. But the land, which that water covers, is permanent, fixed, and immovable: and therefore in this I may have a certain substantial property; of which the law will take notice, and not of the other.
Page 4 - Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet ? And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet : and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.
Page 6 - All that the law requires of the party by or over whose land a stream passes, is, that he should use the water in a reasonable manner, and so as not to destroy, or render useless, or materially diminish or affect the application of the water by the proprietors above or below on the stream.
Page 5 - ... solebat), without diminution or alteration. No proprietor has a right to use the water to the prejudice of other proprietors, above or below him, unless he has a prior right to divert it, or a title to some exclusive enjoyment. He has no property in the water itself, but a simple usufruct...
Page 5 - The owner must so use and apply the water as to work no material injury or annoyance to his neighbor below him, who has an equal right to the subsequent use of the same water...
Page 5 - ... and there will no doubt inevitably be, in the exercise of a perfect right to the use of the water, some evaporation and decrease of it, and some variations in the weight and velocity of the current. But de minimis non curat lex...
Page 22 - No sewage, drainage, refuse or polluting matter, of such kind and amount as either by itself or in connection with other matter will corrupt or impair the quality of the water of any pond or stream...
Page 22 - ... used as a source of water supply by any town, village or city ; nor shall any such sewage, drainage, refuse or polluting matter or excrement be placed upon the banks of any such pond, lake, stream or river...
Page 17 - ... rendered unfit for use. In cases of this nature the preventive jurisdiction of equity is well established, the general doctrine being that the fouling or pollution of water in a stream by such sewage constitutes a nuisance, and affords sufficient ground for relief by injunction.

Bibliographic information