Freedomain Radio

So There's a polluted river near my house. Since there are laws governing what can be put in it, the river has revived since the 1970s, but still recieves regular doses of pollutant

Previously no fish could live in the river, which drove off most of the birds. Many of them have come back since the laws went into effect, but people are warned that the fish are contaminated and should not be eaten.

So I want to know how river pollution would be controlled in an anarchist model. Here is my thinking:

1) A man/corporation would own the river or part of it.

2) He could optionally decide to accept pollution into the river in return for money from the factories/ water treatment faciliites that dump into it. Minus the payments, this is the status quo. The DEP designates what type and how many pollutants can be released.

3) However, someone else would own the sound the river empties into. That sound owner could tell the river owner that he may not dump polluted water into his sound because he wants to lease the rights to fisherman.

So what happens? They have some sort of dispute resolution agency they go to. The owner of the sound has a right to not have his property destroyed by pollution, so they tell the river owner he must stop discharging pollution from the river. 

Does that work?

Of course, if both the river and sound owner agree that they don't mind pollution and that the sound owner will accept it from the river owner for a fee, you could have rivers that are far more polluted than they are today. If enough of the oceans are owned by pollution-tollerant people, then they could be utterly destroyed. 

Any thoughts on this? What am I missing.

Just off the top of my head:  anyone who has any interest in the quality of the water or adjacent lands: e.g. people who have properties along the water, people who fish and/or boat on the water,  owners lake portions themselves, etc.  If there are polluters, the people interested in stopping the pollution could convene together, perhaps by contacting their own DROs, or perhaps they could collectively join a 'watchdog' group, paying a small fee periodically to have this organization work on the maintainance of the lake land and water quality.  If someone pollutes, this group could attempt to reach a resolution with the polluters DRO, or go to litigation or arbitration to get compensation for the damage to their payees.  If these polluters didn't comply, ostracization could occur which would be detrimental to their business.  Complying/compensation would be far more profitable than the ostracization.  At least, that's how I would imagine it, there are no doubt many potential solutions.

If I owned the whole river, I'm not sure that someone with land next to the river would be "hurt" by my allowing my river to become polluted. I didn't give them the right to fish/swim in the river, so and as long as my pollutants are not destroying their land (This could happen, in which case I would have to compensate them or stop) then I don't see how they could object. My own DRO could not chastise me because I have no contract with those land owners.