## Facts

- Frank W. Meeker owned and operated a dairy farm through which Canoe Brook and tributary streams flowed, and he relied on an on-site spring for domestic and dairy-related uses.
- The City of East Orange acquired a large tract in the Canoe Brook valley and constructed a municipal water-supply system using numerous artesian wells located downstream from Meeker’s farm.
- The city pumped percolating groundwater beneath its land in quantities that, but for the interception, would have reached Meeker’s spring and streams.
- No surface water was directly taken from Meeker’s streams or spring after it emerged on the surface.
- The pumping substantially diminished or dried Meeker’s spring and surface flows, impairing his farm operations.
- Meeker sought damages for the diversion of percolating groundwater that would naturally have supplied his land.

## Issues

1. Whether a landowner or municipality may pump and appropriate percolating groundwater for off-tract municipal distribution in quantities that materially diminish a neighbor’s spring and streams without liability.
2. Whether the governing common-law rule for percolating groundwater is absolute ownership or limited to reasonable use tied to beneficial enjoyment of the overlying land.
3. Whether statutory authority to develop municipal waterworks immunizes a city from liability for injuring neighboring landowners’ groundwater-dependent uses.

## Decision

- The Court of Errors and Appeals reversed judgments for the City of East Orange.
- The court held the city could not, without liability, withdraw percolating groundwater for distribution away from the land when the withdrawal substantially diminished a neighboring owner’s established spring and stream supply.
- The matter was remanded with recognition that Meeker could recover damages consistent with the reasonable-use limitation on percolating groundwater withdrawals.

## Legal Principles

- Rights in percolating groundwater are not absolute as against neighboring landowners; they are limited by a reasonable-use doctrine.
- A landowner may take percolating groundwater for uses connected to the beneficial enjoyment of the overlying land, but may not extract and export/sell it in a manner that materially interferes with neighbors’ reasonable uses.
- Neighboring owners have correlative rights to the continued availability of underground waters in their natural condition, subject to reasonable, non-injurious use by others.
- Statutory authorization to acquire land and operate waterworks does not, without clear language, abrogate common-law protections or grant immunity for unreasonable interference with neighboring groundwater-dependent supplies.

## Conclusion

The court adopted a reasonable-use limitation on percolating groundwater, holding that a municipality that pumps groundwater for off-tract distribution is liable when the withdrawal materially impairs a neighboring landowner’s spring and stream supply.


Meeker v. City of E. Orange, 77 N.J.L. 623, 74 A. 379 (N.J. 1909)