## Facts

- A borough owned a public park containing a pond fed and drained by natural watercourses, including a small ditch/stream that flowed into the pond and then onward via a spillway.
- A developer built a one-family residential subdivision in a neighboring township.
- To provide sewer service, the developer’s principals formed a sewerage company under state public-utilities statutes with the township’s consent; the township retained an option to purchase the system.
- A sewage treatment plant, approved by the State Board of Health, was built to serve approximately 300 homes and began operating in late 1954; roughly 30 homes were connected by trial.
- The plant discharged treated liquid effluent into a natural ditch/stream on defendants’ land that flowed less than a mile into the borough’s park pond.
- Defendants presented evidence that the effluent received substantial treatment and that no offensive odor or measurable increase in pollution in the pond had been shown.
- The borough sought an injunction, alleging the discharge impaired recreational use of the park pond and invaded its downstream riparian rights.

## Issues

1. Whether a riparian owner may discharge treated sewage effluent into a natural watercourse when the downstream riparian owner fails to prove substantial injury or unreasonable interference with its beneficial use.
2. Whether discharge of sewage effluent into a stream is per se unreasonable (and therefore enjoinable) as a matter of riparian-rights law.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the judgment denying injunctive relief.
- The court applied a reasonable-use standard to competing riparian uses rather than a strict natural-flow rule.
- The court rejected a per se rule barring treated sewage effluent discharges into a natural watercourse.
- On this record, the borough did not establish actual or imminent substantial harm or unreasonable interference with its park pond’s beneficial uses.

## Legal Principles

- Under the riparian reasonable-use doctrine, a riparian owner may use a watercourse in any manner that does not unreasonably interfere with other riparian owners’ beneficial uses.
- Alteration of a stream’s flow or quality is not automatically unlawful; liability and injunctive relief depend on whether the use is unreasonable under all the circumstances.
- A downstream riparian seeking an injunction must show substantial injury or an unreasonable interference that is actual or reasonably imminent, not merely that the upstream activity involves sewage.
- Governmental authorization and public-health approval of a sewage facility are not dispositive of private riparian rights but are relevant to assessing reasonableness.

## Conclusion

The court held that treated-effluent discharge into a natural watercourse is evaluated under riparian reasonable-use principles and, absent proof of substantial, unreasonable interference with the downstream owner’s beneficial use, injunctive relief is not warranted.


Borough of Westville v. Whitney Home Builders, Inc., 122 A.2d 233 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1956)