New Jersey P.L.1910, c.215

CHAPTER 215, LAWS OF 1910

AN ACT prohibiting the discharge of sewage, excremental matter, domestic refuse and other polluting matter into fresh water.

BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. No person shall hereafter discharge or permit to be discharged into any fresh water any sewage, excremental matter, domestic refuse or other polluting matter. The term "fresh water" as used in this act shall be taken to mean and include all water commonly known as fresh and which may be used for human consumption, irrespective of whether such water shall be found in a stream where the tide ebbs and flows or not; provided, that nothing in this act contained shall be construed to apply to the effluent, or other matter discharged from any sewage disposal plant, or plant for the treatment of sewage, heretofore approved by the State Sewerage Commission when said Commission existed, or heretofore or hereafter approved by the Board of Health of the State of New Jersey, which said effluent or other matter so discharged is hereby expressly declared to be not sewage, excremental matter, domestic refuse, or other polluting matter.

2. Any person who shall violate any of the provisions of this act shall be liable to a penalty of fifty dollars for each offense, to be recovered in an action of debt by the Board of Health of the State of New Jersey; said penalty when recovered by said Board of Health of the State of New Jersey to be paid into the treasury of this State.

3. It shall be the duty of the Board of Health of the State of New Jersey to give notice, in writing, to any person violating the provisions of this act, to discontinue such violation, and if said violation be not discontinued within ten days from the date of service of said notice, then it shall be lawful for the said Board of Health to institute a suit to recover the penalty provided for in the second section of this act. The said notice shall describe in general terms the location of the premises from which said violation occurs.

4. Whenever any person shall violate any of the provisions of this act, it shall be lawful for the State Board of Health, either before or after the institution of proceedings for the collection of the penalty imposed by this act for such violation, to file a bill in the Court of Chancery in the name of the State, at the relation of such board, for an injunction to restrain such violation and for such other or further relief in the premises as the Court of Chancery shall deem proper, but the filing of such bill, or any of the proceedings thereon, shall not relieve any party to such proceedings from the penalty or penalties prescribed by this act for such violation.

5. The word "person," as used in this act, shall be construed to imply both the plural and the singular, as the case may demand, and shall include corporations, companies, associations and societies, as well as individuals, and the word "corporations" shall include municipal corporations.

6. Nothing in this act contained shall be construed to operate as a repeal of any act of the Legislature designed to secure the purity of the public supplies of potable water, or to prevent the pollution of streams, whether such streams be tidewater streams or not, but this act shall be deemed only to be additional legislation.

7. This act shall take effect immediately.

Approved April 9, 1910.