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Title 33, Navigation and Navigable WatersRelease 119-102

§567a Flood and Pollution Control Compacts Between Certain States

Title 33 › CHAPTER 12 — RIVER AND HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS GENERALLY › SUBCHAPTER I — GENERAL PROVISIONS › § 567a

Last updated Aug 21, 2026|Official source

Summary

Congress allows Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Ohio — any two or more of them — to make agreements to manage river and stream flow, reduce flood damage, remove water pollution, or do other public works on waterways that cross their borders. Any such agreement does not bind a state unless the legislature of every state that would join it and Congress approve it.

Full Legal Text

Title 33, §567a

Navigation and Navigable Waters, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

The consent of the Congress of the United States is given to the States of Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Ohio, or any two or more of them, to negotiate and enter into agreements or compacts for conserving and regulating the flow, lessening flood damage, removing sources of pollution of the waters thereof, or making other public improvements on any rivers or streams whose drainage basins lie within any two or more of the said States. No such compact or agreement shall be binding or obligatory upon any State a party thereto unless and until it has been approved by the legislatures of each of the States whose assent is contemplated by the terms of the compact or agreement and by the Congress.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Approval of Compact by CongressAct
July 11, 1940, ch. 581, 54 Stat. 752, provided in part that: “The consent and approval of Congress is hereby given to an interstate compact relating to the control and reduction of the pollution of the streams of the Ohio River drainage basin negotiated and entered into or to be entered into under authority of Public Resolution Numbered 104, Seventy-fourth Congress, approved
June 8, 1936, [this section] and now ratified by the States of New York, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana, and by the State of Ohio (whose ratification is to go into effect at the time at which the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia enter into said compact as parties and signatory States), also by the State of West Virginia (whose ratification is to go into effect at the time at which the States of New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania enter into said compact as parties and signatory States) * * *.” “Sec. 2. Without further submission of said compact, the consent of Congress is hereby given to the State of Virginia or any other State with waters in the Ohio River drainage basin, entering into said compact as a signatory State and party in addition to the States therein named or any of them. “Sec. 3. The commissioners to represent the United States, as provided in article IV of said compact, shall be appointed by the President. “Sec. 4. Nothing contained in this Act or in the compact herein approved shall be construed as impairing or affecting the sovereignty of the United States or any of its rights or jurisdiction in and over the area or waters which are the subject of such compact. “Sec. 5. The right to alter, amend, or repeal the provisions of section 1 is hereby expressly reserved.”

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

33 U.S.C. § 567a

Title 33, Navigation and Navigable Waters

Last Updated

Aug 21, 2026

Release point: 119-102