32:20-1. Interstate compact; preamble

Whereas , The States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware have each created, and now maintain, a Commission (or Committee) on Interstate Co-operation for the purpose of establishing and maintaining governmental machinery to facilitate communication, negotiation, understanding and co-operation between said States, respectively, and other States of the Union, both regionally and nationally, with power to establish such committees, subcommittees, and advisory boards as are deemed advisable to conduct conferences and to formulate proposals concerning subjects of intergovernmental co-operation, to study the laws of the several States, hold public or private hearings, make findings and recommendations, and to submit drafts of legislation to promote uniform laws for the elimination of the confusion and conflict between the several States of the Union and the Federal Government in the matter of laws and administrative practices concerning conservation, prevention, abatement and control of pollution, water supply, public welfare, flood control, and other subjects; and

Whereas , Said Commissions (or Committees) on Interstate Co-operation of said States have organized and established and are now maintaining as an instrument of governmental machinery a joint advisory board known as "The Interstate Commission on the Delaware River Basin," as a regional commission composed of standing subcommittees of said Commissions (or Committees) on Interstate Co-operation, respectively, for the purpose of entering upon a program to study the conservation, water supply, pollution and other potential uses and benefits of, and to develop integrated plans to conserve and safeguard, the waters of the Delaware river basin, in the following specified particulars:

A. To serve as a fact-co-ordinating body and to develop the means and procedure by which the general plans and policies proposed for the development of the region may be carried out;

B. To sponsor the carrying out of properly developed plans which result from surveys and research concerning population, land and water resources and uses, and other related subjects;

C. To co-ordinate the activities of the Commission and Committees on Interstate Co-operation and their joint agency, the Council of State Governments, with the work of the appropriate State and Federal agencies for the prevention and abatement of pollution.

D. To encourage interstate compacts and the enactment of uniform State laws for the abatement of water pollution, for flood control and for the proper general use and control of the waters of the Delaware river.

E. To advance, perpetuate, and outline the work recommended by its conferences, and to develop and propose new objectives; and

Whereas , It is the purpose of the Commissions (or Committees) on Interstate Co-operation of said four States, acting through said Interstate Commission on the Delaware river basin, to eliminate confusion and conflict among said States by the promotion and enactment of uniform laws in said States to preserve in a safe and sanitary condition the waters and watershed of said Delaware river basin and to provide uniform concurrent regulations for the control and the enforcement of the elimination of pollution in the waters thereof in said States, respectively; and

Whereas , Said Interstate Commission on the Delaware river basin, in co-operation with the State health departments of said States, respectively, and the National Resources Committee and the Public Health Service of the Federal Government has made a study, for the purposes above recited of said Delaware river and its tributaries in said Delaware river basin, and has formulated proposals for the inter-governmental co-operation of said States in the correction and control of pollution of the waters thereof, which have been formally approved, ratified and accepted by the health departments of said States, the United States Health Service and the said National Resources Committee, respectively, in the following form:

Whereas , A substantial part of the territory of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware is situated within the Delaware River drainage basin; and

Whereas , The increase in the population of the various municipal areas situated within the Delaware river basin, and the growth of industrial activity within the basin, have resulted in increasingly serious pollution of the waters of the Interstate Delaware river and its tributaries; and

Whereas , Such pollution constitutes a grave menace to the health, welfare, and recreational facilities of the people living in the Delaware river basin, and occasions great economic loss; and

Whereas , The control of future pollution and the correction of existing pollution of the waters of the interstate Delaware river and its tributaries is of prime importance to the people living in the Delaware river basin and can best be accomplished through the co-operation of the representatives of the people in the basin, in the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware;

Now, therefore, the State of New York and the State of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of Delaware agree and are bound as follows:

L.1939, c. 146, p. 488. Preamble.