Refuse Act
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The United States Refuse Act of 1899 is a long-ignored federal statute. It prohibits all industrial discharges into bodies of water. Every industrial discharge since 1899 has been a crime.
Refuse Act (33 USC 407), is section 13 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.
The 1899 Refuse Act is a powerful, but little used, weapon in the Federal arsenal of water pollution control enforcement legislation. Section 13 of the Act (Title 33, United States Code, section 407) prohibits ANYONE, including any individual, corporation, municipality, or group, from throwing, discharging, or depositing any refuse matter of any kind or any type from a vessel or from a shoe-eased building, structure, or facility into either (a) the nation's navigable rivers, lakes, streams, and other navigable bodies of water, or (b) any tributary to such waters, unless he has first obtained a permit to do so. Navigable water includes water sufficient to float a boat or log at high water. This section of the Act applies to inland waters, coastal waters, and waters that flow across the boundaries of the United States and Canada and Mexico.
Violations of the Refuse Act are subject to criminal prosecution and penalties of a fine of not more than $2,500 nor less than $500 for each day or instance of violation, or imprisonment for not less than 30 days nor more than 1 year, or both a fine and imprisonment (Title 33, United States Code, Section 411). A citizen who informs the appropriate United States attorney about a violation and gives sufficient information to lead to conviction is entitled to one-half of the fine set by the court.
The Justice Department recently issued a policy statement to United States Attorneys, concerning the enforcement of the Refuse Act. It instructed them not to use the act as a pollution abatement statute in competition with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act or with state pollution abatement procedures. It should, in the Department's opinion, only be used to supplement them.
Link: http://www.motherearthnews.com/printable/1970_November_December/The_1899_Refuse_Act
