Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1945

Prohibition of discharge of corrosive matter.

42.—(1) It shall not be lawful for any person, save with the permission in writing of the Board and in accordance with the conditions as to time, place, and manner stated in such permission, to deposit, discharge, or allow to escape, directly or indirectly, from any land, premises, or place or any vessel in or into any river in which or on the banks of which a generating station is being constructed or operated by the Board or in or into any river or stream tributary to such river or in or into any lake or pond or any canal or other artificial water-way or any artificial water-course connected with such river any chemical or other substance (whether solid or liquid) of a nature calculated to corrode, erode, entangle, stop, break, or otherwise injure such generating station or any part thereof or any works subsidiary thereto or connected therewith.

(2) Every person who deposits, discharges, or allows to escape, directly or indirectly, in or into any river, stream, lake, pond, canal, artificial water-way, or artificial water-course any substance in contravention of the foregoing subsection of this section and the owner of the land, premises, or place or the master and also the owner of the vessel from which such substance is so deposited, discharged, or allowed to escape shall be guilty of an offence under this section and shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds together with, in the case of a continuing offence, a fine not exceeding twenty pounds for every day on which the offence is continued.

(3) It shall be a good defence to a charge of having committed an offence under this section to prove that the deposit, discharge, or allowing to escape which is alleged to constitute the offence took place at a point in the river below the generating station of the Board or in or into water communicating with such river only at a point below such station and that the substance alleged to have been deposited, discharged, or allowed to escape could not, having regard to the direction of flow of the water and the other circumstances, have entered or been carried into the said generating station or any part thereof.

(4) The foregoing provisions of this section shall have effect without prejudice and in addition to and not in substitution for the provisions of the Fisheries Acts, 1842 to 1944, and the provisions of the Oil on Navigable Waters Act, 1926 (No. 5 of 1926).