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Show Delaware River Litigation New Jersey v. New York 283 U.S. 336 (1931) Hearing on exceptions to the report of the Special Master, in a suit by New Jersey to enjoin diversion of water, in New York, from tribu- taries of the Delaware River. The State of New York and the City of New York were the defendants. Pennsylvania became a party by intervention. See 280 U.S. 528,533 * * * Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a bill in equity by which the State of New Jersey seeks to enjoin the State of New York and the City of New York from divert- ing any waters from the Delaware River or its tributaries, and par- ticularly from the Neversink River, Willowemoc River, Beaver Kill, East Branch of the Delaware River and Little Delaware River, or from any part of any one of them. The other rivers named are among the headwaters of the Delaware and flow into it where it forms a boundary between New York and Pennsylvania. The Delaware con- tinues its course as such boundary to Tristate Rock, near Port Jervis in New York, at which point Pennsylvania and New York are met by New Jersey. From there the River marks the boundary between Pennsylvania and New Jersey until Pennsylvania stops at the Dela- ware state line, and from then on the river divides Delaware from New Jersey until it reaches the Atlantic between Cape Henlopen and Cape May. New York proposes to divert a large amount of water from the above-named tributaries of the Delaware and from the watershed of that river to the watershed of the Hudson River in order to increase the water supply of the City of New York. New Jersey insists on a strict application of the rules of the common law governing private riparian proprietors subject to the same sovereign power. Pennsyl- vania intervenes to protect its interests as against anything that might- be done to prejudice its future needs. We are met at the outset by the question what rule is to be applied. It is established that a more liberal answer may be given than in a controversy between neighbors members of a single State. Connecticut v. Massachusetts, 282 U.S. 660. Different considerations come in when we are dealing with independent sovereigns having to regard the wel- fare of the whole population and when the alternative to settlement is war. In a less degree, perhaps, the same is true of the quasi-sovereign- ties bound together in the Union. A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it. New York has the physical power to cut 623 |
