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Show New York Harbor Litigation New York v. New Jersey 256 U.S. 296 (1921) Mr. Justice Clakke 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 dis- charging, 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 twenty-five miles of it there are located the cities of Pater- son, Passaic, and Newark, and also a number of such large towns that the population uj>on 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% 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 devising 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 creating the Passaic Valley Sewerage 714 |