People of State of New Yrok v. State of New Jersey v. 11 12, 1918

Citation41 S.Ct. 492,256 U.S. 296,65 L.Ed. 937
Decision Date10 March 1919
Docket NumberNo. 2,O,2
PartiesPEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YROK v. STATE OF NEW JERSEY et al. riginal. Argued Nov. 8, 11, and 12, 1918. Restored to the Docket for Further Argument
CourtUnited States Supreme Court

[Syllabus from pages 296-297 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Charles E. Hughes, Maurice B. Dean, William A. McQuaid, and William J. O.'Sullivan, all of New York City, and Merton E. Lewis, of Rochester, N. Y., for the People of State of New York.

Messrs. Adrian Riker and Robert H. McCarter, both of Newark, N. J., George W. Wickersham, of New York City, Chandler W. Riker, of Newark, N. J., and John W. Wescott, of Camden, N. J., for the State of New Jersey.

Mr. Justice CLARKE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The people of the state of New York, in their bill filed in this suit, pray that the defendants, the state of New Jersey and the Passaic Valley sewerage commissioners, be permanently enjoined from discharging, as it is averred they intend to discharge, a large volume of sewage into that part of New York harbor known as the Upper Bay, for the reason, as it is alleged, that such pollution of the waters of the harbor will be caused thereby as to amount to a public nuisance, which will result in grave injury to the health, to the property, and to the commercial welfare, of the people of the state and city of New York.

The Passaic river rises in the northeasterly part of New Jersey and empties into Newark Bay. High land separates its watershed from direct drainage into the Hudson river or New York Bay, and on the lower 25 miles of it there are located the cities of Paterson, Passaic, and Newark, and also a number of such large towns that the population upon and near to the river is treated throughout the record as approximately 700,000 in 1911, when it was thought the sewer would be completed, and as likely to be about 1,650,000 in 1940, to which year it was designed to furnish adequate sewerage capacity. These cities and towns, from their earliest settlement, had all drained their sewage into the river. The ebbing and flowing of the tide almost to Paterson delayed the escaping of this sewage from the river and resulted in the water becoming greatly polluted. This polluted water was emptied directly into Newark Bay, but, ultimately, 84 per cent. of it, modified, no doubt, by nature's agencies, but still polluted, found its way through the natural channel of Kill van Kull, into Upper New York Bay.

This drainage of sewage into the Passaic river resulted in the stream becoming such a menace to the health and property of the adjacent communities that, in 1896, a commission was appointed by the Governor of New Jersey, under the provisions of an act of the Legislature, to study the problem presented, for the purpose of divising some system of sewage disposal which would afford relief. After this commission had reported, a second commission of investigation was provided for by act of the Legislature in 1897, and its report was followed by a third similar commission in 1898.

The reports of these various commissions led, in 1902, to an act of the New Jersey Legislature (P. L. 1902, p. 190) creating the Passaic Valley sewerage district, with boundaries embracing substantially the entire watershed of the Passaic river, and to another act, in 1907 (P. L. 1907, p. 22), prohibiting the dis charge of sewage into the river after a date named, and directing the defendant, the Passaic Valley sewerage commissioners to prepare plans and specifications for a trunk sewer to dispose of the sewage and authorizing municipalities to contract with them for the service which they might require.

Under authority of this act, the defendant sewerage commissioners in April, 1908, adopted a plan for sewage disposal, which provided for a main intercepting sewer, extending from the city of Paterson, along the right bank of the Passaic river, to a point in the city of Newark, and thence by a tunnel under the waters of Newark Bay and the cities of Bayonne and Jersey City to a point in Upper New York Bay about 500 feet north of Robbins Reef Light, where it was proposed to discharge the sewage at a depth of 40 feet of water below mean low tide. The estimated cost of the proposed sewer was $12,250,000.

It was provided in the act authorizing the construction of the sewer that before any work should be undertaken or obligations incurred, a further investigation should be made by the commissioners as to whether the discharge of the sewage into New York Bay would be likely to pollute its waters to such an extent as to cause a nuisance to persons or property within the state of New York, and that the result of such investigation, with the reasons for it, should be presented to the Governor of the state.

Such an investigation was made and upon report of the commissioners the Governor concluded that the discharge of the sewage as proposed would not pollute the waters of New York Bay so as to cause a nuisance to either persons or property within the state of New York, and the Attorney General of the state also advised the Governor that in his opinion the state of New York could not have any valid legal bojection to the use of the sewer as proposed.

There can be no doubt that the various commissioners who investigated this subject were men of the highest character and intelligence and that they studied it with the aid of the best obtainable sanitary engineers, chemists and bacteriologists, for the purpose of arriving at a solution which would protect and preserve the interests of all of the great communities involved. It is equally beyond doubt that the Governor and other officials of New Jersey, with full appreciation of the magnitude and seriousness of the undertaking, proceeded with great caution and with a settled purpose to fully respect the rights of the people of the state of New York.

Learning of the plans of the state of New Jersey, thus detailed, the Legislature of New York passed an act providing for a commission to investigate the probable effect upon the waters of New York Bay of the proposed Passaic Valley sewer, with power to co-operate with the authorities of New Jersey with a view to arriving at some mutually satisfactory solution of the problem. The record shows that various conferences were held between the New York commission thus created and the Passaic Valley sewerage commissioners, but for some reason, which does not clearly appear, no mutually satisfactory course of action was arrived at, with the result that, in October, 1908, this suit for an injunction was commenced.

For the purpose of showing its right to maintain the suit, the bill thus filed sets out, with much detail, an agreement between the states of New York and New Jersey, approved by Congress in 1834, establishing the boundary line between the two states and giving to New York, to the extent therein written, exclusive jurisdiction over the waters of the Bay of New York.

But we need not inquire curiously as to the rights of the state of New York derived from this compact, for, wholly aside from it, and regardless of the precise location of the boundary line, the right of the state to maintain such a suit as is stated in the bill is very clear. The health comfort and prosperity of the people of the state and the value of their property being gravely menaced, as it is averred that they are by the proposed action of the defendants, the state is the proper party to represent and defend such rights by resort to the remedy of an original suit in this court under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S. 208, 241, 243, 21 Sup. Ct. 331, 45 L. Ed. 497; Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., 206 U. S. 230, 27 Sup. Ct. 618, 51 L. Ed. 1038, 11 Ann. Cas. 488.

Also, for the purpose of showing the responsibility of the state of New Jersey for the proposed action of the defendant, the Passaic Valley sewerage commissioners, the bill sets out, with much detail, the acts of the Legislature of that state authorizing and directing such action on their part.

Of this it is sufficient to say that the averments of the bill, quite undenied, show that the defendant sewerage commissioners constitute such a statutory, corporate agency of the state that their action, actual or intended, must be treated as that of the state itself, and we shall so regard it. 180 U. S. 208, 21 Sup. Ct. 331, 45 L. Ed. 497, supra.

The remaining essential allegations of the bill are that the defendants are about to construct the sewer we have described and to discharge the sewage thereby collected into the Upper New York Bay, through a single opening 12 feet in diameter, at a point about half a mile north of Robbins Reef Light; that there would be about 120 millions of gallons of such sewage discharged into the bay every 24 hours in 1911, and in excess of 357 millions of gallons by 1940; that such sewage would be carried by the currents and tides into the Hudson and East Rivers and would be deposited on the bottom and shores of the bay and upon and adjacent to the wharves and docks of New York City, thereby so polluting the water as to render it a public nuisance offensive and injurious to persons living near it or using it for bathing or for purposes of commerce, damaging to vessels using the waters, and so poisonous to the fish and oysters subsisting within it as to render them unfit for food. To prevent the public nuisance, which it is averred would thus be created, a permanent injunction was prayed for.

The essential denials and allegations of the answer are as follows:

Admitting their intention to construct the sewer substantially as described, it is averred: That New Jersey has a shore line of 25 miles on New York Bay and on the Hudson river, and that large cities and towns of that state border upon the bay, so that it has as important an interest as New York has in maintaining the waters free from...

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