RIVER POLLUTION.

Evening Star, Issue 14932, 19 July 1912, Page 5

RIVER POLLUTION.

A case of very great importance to flaxmillers was heard at the last sitting of the Supreme Court at Palmerston North, in which a settler named Pearce, on the banks of the Oroua River, sought to show that four flax-millers whose mills are" on the banks of,the Oroua River cast or allowed refuse from their mills to flow or get into the river, with the result that the water wss polluted and made unfit for consumption by stock; further, that the bed of the river was raised, causing the river at flood time to overflow and flood plaintiff's land. Reserved judgment was delivered yesterday, in which the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) decided in favor of plaintiff. He said that the defendants could not put effluents from their mills into the river, and so pollute it. "It may he," said the Chief Justice, "that a considerable industry may be crippled or destroyed if they cannot continue what they have done, and it may be that the plaintiff's loss or damage will be very small compared with the loss defendants suffer by the alteration of the present methods of the disposal of effluents, but I cannot consider such results.'' The Court held, however, that none of the defendants were liable for the damage sustained through the overflow of the river. Judgment was given for £5 damages in each action, with costs on the lowest scale, an injunction to issue to prevent effluents from going into the river in the present state.