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Title 33 — Navigation and Navigable Waters

Chapter 9 — Protection of Navigable Waters and of Harbor and River Improvements Generally

§ 421. Deposit of refuse, etc., in Lake Michigan near Chicago

Statutory text

It shall not be lawful to throw, discharge, dump, or deposit, or cause, suffer, or procure, to be thrown, discharged, dumped, or deposited, any refuse matter of any kind or description whatever other than that flowing from streets and sewers and passing therefrom in a liquid state into Lake Michigan, at any point opposite or in front of the county of Cook, in the State of Illinois, or the county of Lake in the State of Indiana, within eight miles from the shore of said lake, unless said material shall be placed inside of a breakwater so arranged as not to permit the escape of such refuse material into the body of the lake and cause contamination thereof; and no officer of the Government shall dump or cause or authorize to be dumped any material contrary to the provisions of this section: Provided, however, That the provisions of this section shall not apply to work in connection with the construction, repair, and protection of breakwaters and other structures built in aid of navigation, or for the purpose of obtaining water supply. Any person violating any provision of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall be fined for each offense not exceeding $1,000.

Legislative history

Reconstructed from this section’s Code source credit and amendment notes, resolved against the local Statutes at Large. Editorial notes are evidence, not the law that made the change.

  1. Pub. L. 61–359 · 36 Stat. 593

    Enacted · 33 U.S.C. § 421

    (June 23, 1910, ch. 359, 36 Stat. 593.)

    Source evidence

    Code source credit
    (June 23, 1910, ch. 359, 36 Stat. 593.)

0 of 1 references resolved to an enrolled provision · 1 partial

Editorial Notes

Codification

Section is from act , popularly known as the “Rivers and Harbors Act of 1910”.

Credits

(June 23, 1910, ch. 359, 36 Stat. 593.)

Parsed from the official OLRC USLM XML in data/usc_all/usc33.xml · release point 119-108 · OLRC build 2026-04-17

USLM identifier /us/usc/t33/s421