S

IN PERIL

TATISTICAL experts of authority assert that the sea produces for us. twenty-five per cent of all the food

of the Nation. Figured in dollars per year, this sum runs into many billions. Compared with this the value of any single agricultural crop seems insignificant. The market value of the food products of the land of the country exceeds annually one hundred billion dollars. One-fourth of this sum-viz., twenty-five billion dollars-would be, therefore, the market value of the sea-food products of the Nation per year. The loss caused by any agricultural pest (such as the boll weevil) is a trifling fraction of the loss caused by materially damaging supply of sea food.

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A single but glaring instance of such loss is that in 1884 the United States coast waters produced 600,000 barrels of salt mackerel. From 1916 to 1920 the production averaged 90,000 barrels per year, and this in 1921 dwindled to 43,000 barrels.

The cause, and the only cause, is pollution of the waters. Since then, and now, some of the Scandinavian countries furnish our supply, and in one or two of these countries they have remedies and precautions against this contamination, especially, however, against oil pollution

of coastal waters, for in Holland they maintain so-called petroleum harbors. In Northern waters there are no more catches of sheepshead where contamination has already found its seat; the fish have gone. For three years past there have been no spot fish (lafayettes) caught; they have disappeared. The Naugatuck River in Connecticut produces no more smelt. The Passaic River and Newark Bay, formerly good fishing places, are denuded. There are no fish in Black River. The other principal rivers in Connecticut-the Housatonic, Thames, and Saugatuck-which many years ago had a National reputation for salmon and shad, and the Delaware River, flowing in several States, famous alike for its production of shad, yield none of these delicate fish. The North (the Hudson) and the East Rivers, in New York, equally famous for their shad and striped bass less than fifteen years ago, have none of these fish in their waters. Gone also. Perhaps the best known of all, the shad which one used to smack his lips at, the planked shad at Gloucester-gone. Things of the past. What has brought all this extermination about? One, and only one, cause. Pollution-oil and tar, oil sludge and bilge. The same is true also of the Harlem

River and of Long Island Sound where it meets the East River. Not so long ago old and young men and women were found in the season actively engaged in their favorite sport-fishing-the most innocent and healthful recreation; commercial fishermen busy and intent on their catches in the North or Hudson River, to serve public hostelries and private families; the sturgeon fisherman in the upper Hudson was observed, and the interested public was his audience in hauling in his catch. Where are these scenes now, and where are the delicate morsels? Gone, never to return unless the cause which produced their extinction in these waters is eliminated, if that be possible, and these waters have been cleaned of all causes of possible contamination.

New conditions require new remedies to overcome them. When they become a menace to health and destroy food, they must be eradicated. Not in this case by one fell swoop, but by a system of co-operation, which if denied by those directly responsible leaves but one alternative-viz., compulsory legislation and its drastic enforcement.

We can, and must, stop this danger. Pound or commercial fishermen complain of small catches this year-some

times little or none on the northern coast for days and weeks. Bathing beaches are being ruined by oil and tar pollution. In some instances women and children have had their skin poisoned, their eyes ruined, and ears and noses and throats have been affected.

The Raritan River and Bay are defiled, Jamaica Bay water is contaminated, as well as parts of Long Island Sound; the entire Atlantic coast waters from Maine to Florida already show danger from this pollution; the shores of the Gulf of Mexico evidence its approach. The shell-food and oyster industry in the North faces extinction in some parts, as no shell-fish or oysters åre being taken from any of the contaminated waters nor sent to the markets; both spawn and adult fish are destroyed, the larvæ and young oyster killed. Can the amount of this loss and destruction be figured in dollars without amazement when the result is arrived at?

This pollution of coast and streams is not creeping ahead. It is marching on the double-quick, with nothing at this time to stop it. It has reached the peak of the Florida peninsula, has made its appearance off the coast of Miami and Tampa, oil-burning ships and phosphate mines adding their help to the defilement there.

There are several causes of pollution of coast and inland waters.

I have heretofore referred to the pollution of coastal waters by oil and tar. Let us now view the cause which befouls and poisons our inland streams. A great many of these are tributary to navigable waters.

Trade waste, the deleterious substance from industrial plants-creameries, tanneries, coal and phosphate mines, paper and pulp mills, paint factories, steel mills, steel plants, oil refineries, asphalt factories, enameling plants, starch, shoe and leather factories, chemical plants, sugar refineries-is the cause. This presents an entirely different problem. There is not one of the shell or finny fish tribe which can possibly escape the deadly effects of pollution from trade waste.

Certain scientific reports presented to

COURTESY OF ARTHUR W. TUTTLE, CHIEF ENGINEER BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND APPORTIONMENT, N. Y. TY

INTERIOR OF DYCKMAN STREET SCREEN HOUSE, IN NEW YORK CITY, SHOWING MACHINERY FOR OPERATING THE TWO REINSCH-WURL SCREENS WHICH ARE LOCATED BELOW THE FLOOR LEVEL. THE SCREENS REMOVE COARSE FLOATING SOLIDS FROM THE SEWAGE, BUT THEY DO NOT ELIMINATE OIL OR CHEMICALS

sections of the American Public Health Association classify the industries into over twenty groups. Experiments show that certain forms of life in waters are very sensitive to change in the conditions of the water, and the slightest change will drive certain forms of life away or destroy them. Caustic soda issuing out of a plant will kill fish and other life. Dyes and the waste from wood pulp and canning factories and tanneries are deadly poison and are carried great distances, deprive the stream of all its oxygen, and life is destroyed by suffocation. Oysters are destroyed by suffocation; they may lie in a stream from ten to fifteen miles away from a factory or copper refinery, yet the poison reaches the grown oyster.

Professor Thurlow Nelson, of Rutgers College, an eminent authority, holds that

the condition which now faces Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York, the three leading oyster-producing States, means that the industry there is facing extinction, а loss of approximately $5,000,000 annually. He maintains that pollution from the poisonous effects of industrial waste has increased the one of bacterial contamination and has invaded areas which a few years ago were miles away from any source of contamination. We have within a few weeks had an example; an epidemic of typhoid which broke loose at Franklin Furnace, New Jersey, an inland town with a population of 5,000, has just been checked by the State authorities. It is reported that it was brought on by impure water, the supply evidently having been polluted. Over one hundred cases received treatment. Is not this a very strong in

dication that the warning signals of the League should be heeded and its activities aided in every possible manner?

The problems presented are more than serious ones. We must maintain and preserve the health of our people. We must conserve our food supply, we must prevent pollution of our beaches, and we must maintain also the purity of our inland waters for ourselves and posterity.

We must look forward to a nation of sturdy men and women, to preserving our game fish, our wild fowl, and game; and to insure all these we must overcome the indifference of the public generally and arouse the people of the Nation to the dangerous condition. This niust be accomplished without imposing undue loss or hardship on the industries -a task fraught with the greatest difficulty.

The New Jersey Conservation Commissioner, Mr. Burlington, reports that the streams in the State produce very few, if any, native fish; that in one investigation a man who inserted his arm into the water of a stream to reach a dead fish withdrew it, only to observe the skin on his entire arm peel off from the effects of the poisoned water.

In Ohio boys who had been bathing were found suffering from running sores

expenditure of millions in the future. The situation in Ohio is similar to that in Pennsylvania, and there the Department of Agriculture is doing tremendous work. In Maryland Mayor Broening of Baltimore, in Delaware, Director Speakman of Wilmington, also Executive Committeemen of the League, have accomplished much in the right direction, and in California and Oklahoma people are concerned and active over conditions. All the officials of the States, and especially Conservation Commissioner MacDonald, of New York, are sorely troubled with the conditions. But they are powerless. We must have remedies, National and State, given by legislation.

all over their bodies. A young woman, the daughter of the president of a steel company, suffered similarly; yet her father, whose plant was causing the pollution, did nothing to stop it.

Of late there has been much agitation on the subject of the pollution of our coast and inland waters and beaches. Departments of the Federal and State Governments have become active in investigations which have only slightly scratched the surface. Some branches and representatives of both Government and various States, realizing the enormous gravity of the present conditions and the imminent danger of future situations, with the attendant consequences of destruction and damage by water pollution, not to mention stupendous sums and appropriations which must become necessary, are actively engaged in research and investigation, devoting their energies to prevent what may become a calamitous situation.

Departmental heads of the Government have urged Congressional action, States have appointed commissions for purification of streams. National and State health authorities have striven and are urging action, enactment of laws and regulations; conservation boards and commissions, as well as fisheries commissioners, dock department heads, and other arms of State and municipal government, seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and industries, are sorely troubled by the dangerous conditions. The United States Senate has passed the Frelinghuysen Bill, and yet, although hearings and hearings have been held by Congressional Committees, the pending bill, one of the first effective steps toward a beginning to prevent pollution of navigable waters and the tributaries to such, is still enjoying its silent and continued sleep in the committees' deliberation. The National Coast Anti-Pollution League advocates, fathers, favors, and urges immediate enactment of a law making punishable by fine and imprisonment the throwing, depositing, discharge, or pumping from any ship or floating craft, or from the shore or any wharf, factory, or mill, of any oil sludge, oil refuse, or any refuse or poisonous matter other than that flowing from streets and sewers, into any navigable waters of the United States, or into any tributary of any navigable water from which the same shall flow or be washed into such navigable waters.

In West Virginia the conditions are just as bad, as one of our Congressional Representatives reports. In Pennsylvania the Commissioner of Fisheries, Mr. N. R. Buller, and the Director of Wharves and Ferries of Philadelphia, Mr. George F. Sproule (the former the chairman and the latter committeeman of the League), are doing herculean work to prevent the further progress of this contamination; but they lack the power to bring about a different condition by compulsory means. In the anthracite coal mining district in that State for every single ton of coal mined from ten to twenty tons of poisoned sulphurous mine water finds its way into a navigable stream or into the tributary of a navigable stream. In the Pittsburgh district the quantity is about seven tons. This water means death to vegetation on the banks of the streams and to life in the streams or any streams it reaches. General Lansing Beach, Chief of the Army Engineers, says this condition can be remedied, that permitfing it to continue means Governmental

It has been said that the people of our Nation are suffering from too many

Federal laws. That may or may not be the case. True as it may be as to some in particular, yet the indisputable fact remains that in the matter of befouling our waters the Nation is suffering from the want of proper laws to safeguard it from this menace for the future. To overcome this the League is striving energetically, and welcomes the cooperation of all bodies of citizens. No efforts are too great nor too strenuous to accomplish the purpose. It sees what is in store. It realizes the fallacy and danger of delay, and therefore desires to enlist the aid of all to bring to a halt that which, if permitted to continue, grows steadily worse, aggravates, and finally destroys as it progresses, only eventually to mean disaster.

It is no exaggeration to maintain that unless the further sprea of the contamination of our coast and inland waters as well as our beaches is arrested there lurks to-day a greater evil in the menace of their pollution than the ravages of the oll weevil.

The bell-weevil pest and scourge is confined to the cotton belt and cotton industry. Congress was asked when it appeared first, not many years ago, to appropriate $100,000 to stamp it out, and thus prevent its spread. The wiseacres who then heard the appeal laughed at such a proposition, minimized the danger and criticised the efforts as absurd. Mark the result of their superior judgment-the year 1921 witnessed the greatest havoc-the cotton production was reduced by 109.1 pounds per acre, while the loss from all causes was 163.1 pounds per acre.

In 1921 this pest was responsible on the acreage planted in preventing the production of 6,277,000 bales. The loss in 1921 was greater by 37 per cent than in 1920. One-third of the potential production was prevented by the pest. The damage to the crop from all causes, climatic, defective seed, pest and plant disease caused by the boll weevil was greatest, for it was 10,712,000 balesmore than was actually harvested, viz., 7,954,000 bales, 34.7 per cent more. If there had been no damage at all the production for 1921 would have been 18,666,000 bales instead of what was actually produced. This would appear stupendous.

But these figures are small in comparison with the damage already done by pollution of some of our coast and inland waters.

This entire situation is fraught with greater danger than the average citizen realizes. In fact, I have heretofore pointed out that the great majority of our people know nothing of the matter, because it has never been brought to their notice. The few who do and realize both its importance and danger are in a haze because nothing is being accomplished toward an abatement of the aggravation, but are beginning to prod their friends. Goodness knows, we are suffering sufficiently now from the strain of taxation-over-taxation, if you

will! Are we inviting more of it by our apathy toward conditions which must impose additional burdens on us?

Who suffers by or from this pollution? 1. The people generally of course. It affects their health, their recreation, their pleasures, and will shift the burden of and increase taxation.

2. The sportsmen (we have a few million of them), for it destroys fish, it kills wild birds and game.

3. The farmers, for the overflow of polluted streams kills their lands and ofttimes cattle as well.

4. Commercial fishermen, catches are affected.

whose

widely known to Amer

ican anglers and sports

men as "the Father of the Black Bass," will discuss other phases of

the problem of stream pollution in a forth

coming issue of The Outlook. Dr. Hen

shall's lifelong study

of fish and his devotion to the cause of conservation make his testimony on the sub

ject of stream pollution

of great value.

them, which otherwise would have to remain on the owners of lands, whereon the assessed valuation would not be reduced to a minimum.

Permit the coast waters to remain and continue polluted, and millions upon millions in appropriations will be necessary to restore conditions, if they can be restored; and for a restocking of streams of course the people will have to pay the piper.

Some concerns are already co-operating and have installed methods to eliminate further pollution. They have realized the expenditure has paid for itself, and the future means a profit to them.

There are only six million sportsmen and sportswomen, constituting one of the most important factors of our citizenship. It is asserted by one publication that over $6,000,000 was paid into the various State treasuries last fall by hunters alone.

The hunters of Pennsylvania paid in $480,000 alone for the privilege, and nearly $200,000 for fishing licenses, while those in New York paid in $274,000. Ohio, Washington, California, Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado, and Idaho combined received $1,670,000, and New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Utah; South Dakota, Oklahoma, Maryland, Kentucky, Wyoming, Vermont, Texas, North Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, West Virginia, and Rhode Island together received $2,116,000 in hunting license fees. The figures collected from five scattered points show an amount of money spent in the various States by the sportsmen and sportswomen for sport and recreation pleasures exceeds in one year over $315,000,000.

The farce of the situation presented is that both Government and the several States appropriate and spend millions in moneys annually to raise and stock streams with game and fish and to conserve wild life only to have them killed by pollution of the waters.

For example, a few weeks ago the New York "Evening Telegram" published the fact that at and around Cape May wild ducks were so plentiful that boys and hunters were rowing out only a short distance from the shore and killing them with clubs or sticks. No wonder that these poor fowl, without a chance for their lives, were glued to the surface, their wings matted with oil, unable to rise or fly. Pollution.

There is a controlling sentiment in the abiding faith of every man and woman, no matter how fixed or partisan. Once aroused to the realization of the dangers which the conditions named have created and of their climax, those who have opposed the institution of remedies and refused their co-operation Ito halt its progress will quickly realize their error that has been to their own disadvantage and has visited on them penalties not soon forgotten.