FARMER'S CLAIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 52, 2 March 1929, Page 12

FARMER'S CLAIM.

AGAINST QUARRY COMPANY. ALLEGED POLLUTIOX T OF A STREAM. Judgment was given bv Mr. Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court to-day in the case in which James Walker, farmer, of Papakura, claimed an interim injunction against the Guillard Blue Metal Quarry Co., Ltd., to restrain defendants from polluting a stream which flowed through plaintiff's land, and whkh, it was alleged, caused injury to Walker's cattle. Plaintiff also claimed £250 damages. His Honor said pTaintifl wa« the owner and occupier of a farm on the banks of the Hayes Stream. Defendant company carried on, higher up that stream, the business of metal crushers Since January. 1928. the defendant company had used the water of the stream to free crushed metal from clay. The water used was carried by a pipe to a washer; clay, which was washed off, fell into a truck and was then deposited away from the stream, while muddy water, with clay in suspension, flowed back into the stream. In the meantime, some clay, carried in suspension, settled, and the water, still carrying clay in suspension, flowed down stream through and along the plaintiff's farm. What the defendant company had done was admitted, but there is a contest as to whether, by reason of the operations ot the company, the stream was rendered less fit for any purpose for - which it ! might otherwise be used. The ultimate question between the parties would be i decided on the evidence called at the trial. His Honor was'satisfied on the evidence now before him that the water -flowing through and along the plaintiff's tarm was not reasonably fit for consumption and was not rendered less fit for that purpose by the operations of the detendant company. There had, however, been pollution and the stream .was, in his-opinion, less fit for the use of animals and possibly for some domestic purposes other than use for human consumption. The evidertce now before him did not establish substantial injury. The application for an interlocutors injunction was refused, but liberty was reserved to plaintiff to make further, application should the pollution now obtaining be in the meantime Increased to his injury. The costs of the application were reserved, to be dealt with at the trial of the action.