City of Utica v. Water Pollution Control Bd.

• Decision Date: 22 January 1959
• Citation: 5 N.Y.2d 164,182 N.Y.S.2d 584
• Parties: , 156 N.E.2d 301 In the Matter of the CITY OF UTICA, Appellant, v. The WATER POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 584

182 N.Y.S.2d 584

5 N.Y.2d 164, 156 N.E.2d 301

In the Matter of the CITY OF UTICA, Appellant, v. The WATER POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Jan. 22, 1959.

Jack J. Danella, Corp. Counsel, Utica (Stanley Drejza, Utica, of counsel), for appellant.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. (Richard H. Shepp and Paxton Blair, Albany, of counsel), for respondent.

FULD, Judge.

After years of careful and detailed study of the problem of water pollution and its abatement (Report of Joint Legislative Committee, N.Y. Legis.Doc., 1927, No. 78; Reports of Special Committee on Pollution Abatement, N.Y.Legis.Docs., 1947, No. 59; 1948, No. 50; 1949, No. 51), the Legislature in 1949 enacted the Water Pullution Control Law (L.1949, ch. 666; Public Health Law, McK.Unconsol.Laws, c. 45, art. 12, §§ 1200-1263). The act, designed to prevent pollution of the waters of the State, created the Water Pollution Control Board and directed it to develop a comprehensive program for the abatement and control of such pollution.

Acting under the authority of the statute, the Board held public hearings and in 1950 adopted classifications and standards of quality and purity (N.Y.Off.Comp. of Codes, Rules & Regulations, 6th Off.Supp., 1951, p. 208 et seq.). Then, in 1954, following extensive studies and surveys, and after further public hearings, it assigned classifications and standards of quality and purity to the waters within the Utica area (N.Y. Off.Comp. of Codes, Rules & Regulations, 10th Off.Supp., 1955, p. 300 et seq.). Some months later, in March of 1955, the Board submitted a pollution abatement plan to the City of Utica. It was noted in that plan that sewers were discharging untreated sewage from the City into the Mohawk River and the Barge Canal, and the suggestion was made that the City should proceed with the completion or revision of final plans, approved six years before, for a proposed sewage treatment plant. When, however, two years more went by and nothing was done to abate the pollution caused by the sewage discharge complainted of, the Board brought a proceeding against the City, charging it with violations of section 1220 of the Public Health Law.

The City thereupon instituted this article 78 proceeding, in the nature of a writ of prohibition, to restrain the Board from continuing with the hearing of charges against it upon the ground that the Water Pollution Control Law is unconstitutional. The court at Special Term dismissed the petition, the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed and the City prosecutes the present appeal as of right on constitutional grounds. Although it had originally urged additional infirmities, it is the City's present position that the Water Pollution Control Law constitutes an invalid delegation of legislative authority, a grant of power, without adequate standards for the Board's guidance, in violation of the State Constitution (art. III, § 1).

The Water Pollution Control Law opens with a clear statement of policy. 'It is declared to be the public policy of the state of New York', the statute recites, 'to maintain reasonable standards of purity of the waters of the state consistent with public health and public enjoyment thereof, the propagation and protection of fish and wild life * * *, and the industrial development of the state, and to that end require the use of all known available and reasonable methods to prevent and control the pollution of the waters of the state of New York' (Public Health Law, § 1200). The purpose of the law is then set out 'to safeguard the waters of the state from pollution by: (a) preventing any new pollution, and (b) abating pollution existing when this chapter is enacted, under a program consistent with the (above) declaration of policy' (§ 1201). Various terms, such as 'sewage,' 'industrial waste' and 'other wastes,' are defined (§ 1202), and section 1209, reflecting an awareness of the complicated nature of the problem presented, goes on to recite that, 'due to variable factors, no single standard of quality and purity of the waters is applicable to all waters of the state or to different segments of the same waters' (§ 1209, subd. 1). The Board, and there is a direction for the use of qualified, fully trained, technical experts in the field of environmental sanitation, pollution abatement and public health (§ 1206), is empowered to classify the waters of the State 'in accordance with considerations of best usage in the interest of the public' (§ 1209, subd. 2). The factors to be weighed, in adopting the classification, include the physical nature of the stream itself, the character of the district bordering the stream, the uses that have been, or may be, made of said waters for any of the purposes stated and the extent of their present defilement or fouling (subd. 3). And, in establishing standards of purity and quality, it is further specified (subd. 5), consideration is also to be given to such other factors as 'the extent' to which enumerated substances, expressed in terms of their physical, chemical or biological properties, 'may be permitted in the water'.

And we would simply and that the Board's classification of waters and the standards of qualify and purity formulated by it are to be adopted only after public hearing, on notice, to the municipalities and all others concerned (§ 1209, subds. 2, 7), and that the Board's action in this regard, as well as its powers of enforcement, are subject to judicial review (§ 1244).

The abatement and prevention of water pollution is a matter of state concern, and legislation designed to regulate and control such pollution is within the scope of the state's police power. See, e. g., Suffolk County v. Water Power and Control Commission, 269 N.Y. 158, 164-165, 199 N.E. 41, 42-43; City of Niles v. Stream Control Commission, 296 Mich. 650, 654, 296 N.W. 713; Shirley v. New Hampshire Water Pollution Commission, 100 N.H. 294, 299-300, 124 A.2d 189; State Board of Health v. City of Greenville, 86 Ohio St. 1, 21-22, 98 N.E. 1019; Board of Purification of Waters v. Town of Bristol, 51 R.I. 243, 246, 153 A. 879; City of Huntington v. State Water Commission, 137 W.Va. 786, 794, 73 S.E.2d 833 et seq.; Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District v. Committee on Water Pollution, 260 Wis. 229, 249, 50 N.W.2d 424 et seq. The City does not dispute this, and we turn immediately to a consideration of the question presented, namely, whether these has been an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power, whether, in other words, the Water Pollution Control Law contains sufficiently definite standards to guide and limit the Board's exercise of power.

The Legislature may constitutionally confer discretion upon an administrative agency only if it limits the field in which that discretion is to operate and provides standards to govern its exercise. See, e. g., Packer Collegiate Institute v. University of State of N. Y., 298 N.Y. 184, 189-190, 81 N.E.2d 80, 81-82; Noyes v. Erie & Wyoming Farmers Co-op. Corporation, 281 N.Y. 187, 194, 22 N.E.2d 334, 336; Small v. Moss, 279 N.Y. 288, 295, 298-299, 18 N.E.2d 281, 283, 284-285; Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446; see, also, 1 Benjamin, Administrative Adjudication (1942), p. 294. That does not, however, mean that a precise or specific formula must be furnished in a field 'where flexibility and the adaptation of the (legislative) policy to infinitely variable conditions constitute the essence of the program.' Lichter v. United States, 334 U.S. 742, 785, 68 S.Ct. 1294, 1316, 92 L.Ed. 1694. It is enough if the Legislature days down 'an intelligible principle', specifying the standards or guides in as detailed a fashion as is reasonably practicable in the light of the complexities of the particular area to be regulated. See Lichter v. United States supra, 334 U.S. 742, 785, 68 S.Ct. 1294, 1316, 92 L.Ed. 1694; American Power & Light Co. v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 329 U.S. 90, 105, 67 S.Ct. 133, 91 L.Ed. 103; Buttfield v. Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470, 496, 24 S.Ct. 349, 48 L.Ed. 525; Texas Co. v. Montgomery, U.S. Dist.Ct.E.D.La., 73 F.Supp. 527, 533-534, affirmed 332 U.S. 827, 68 S.Ct. 209, 92 L.Ed. 402; Marburg v. Cole, 286 N.Y. 202, 212, 36 N.E.2d 113, 117, 136 A.L.R. 734; Johnson v. Parsons, 207 Misc. 107, 113-114, 135 N.Y.S.2d 672, 677-678, affirmed 285 App.Div. 601, 139 N.Y.S.2d 676. Obviously, the Legislature cannot 'constitutionally (be) required to appraise beforehand the myriad situations to which it wishes a particular policy to be applied and to formulate specific rules for each situation. Necessity therefore fixes a point beyond which it is unreasonable and impracticable to compel (the Legi...