of publications of the Environmental Health Center and its successor, the 

 Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center. 



During this period the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established a 

 special pesticide bioassay laboratory at Columbia, Missouri, the purpose of 

 which was to evaluate the toxicity of the new synthetic organic pesticides 

 to aquatic life. Another laboratory was set up at La Crosse, Wisconsin, 

 for the purpose of discovering materials or chemicals that were specific 

 for the control of undesirable aquatic species and that would act without 

 harm to desired organisms. This laboratory has a field station at Warm 

 Springs, Georgia. 



After 1950 the growth in the use of bioassays was so rapid and so many 

 new workers entered the field in both the freshwater and marine environ- 

 ments that it is impossible to deal with all the developments and findings 

 in a review of limited size. It is proposed, therefore, to limit the 

 coverage of research activities after 1950 to those developments that in my 

 opinion have been most important in leading to the present pollution 

 abatement program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 



DETERMINATION OF WATER QUALITY REQUIREMENTS FOR AQUATIC LIFE AND 

 DEVELOPMENT OF WATER QUALITY STANDARDS 



In 1950 the pollution abatement program was not progressing as 

 expected. It appeared to me that, while some improvements had been made, 

 overall the situation was worsening. Several approaches had been tried, 

 but apparently a different approach was needed. Pollution abatement cases 

 in court were drawn-out and were often lost in long arguments over what 

 concentrations of wastes were really harmful and what really constituted 

 pollution. Local people and the courts were influenced by threats of 

 industry to move to another state. Some companies hired consultants to run 

 short-term bioassays to indicate that the concentrations of their waste in 

 the receiving water was not lethal. Hardship cases were pleaded on the 

 grounds that industries that were forced to treat their wastes, while 

 industries in other states were not, would be at an economic disadvantage. 

 Further, although chemical analyses had been made and the materials in 

 wastes identified, no firm data were available to indicate the maximum 

 concentration of waste that was not harmful under long-term or continuous 

 exposure. Courts were often not in sympathy with what they considered 

 drastic action in view of the supporting data, and they and many people 

 locally affected concluded that the only choice was fish or jobs, as 

 suggested by industrial and chambers-of -commerce spokesmen. In such a 

 situation they decided to take the jobs and let the environment take care 

 of itself. Suggestions had been made that government should tell 

 industries how to treat their wastes. Lack of such information was used by 

 some industries as an excuse for inaction, as no one had told them how to 

 treat their wastes at a profit. After reviewing the situation, the 

 ever-increasing number of new wastes and materials, and the present state 

 of knowledge as to what constituted pollution, I reached the conclusion 

 that the best way to attain pollution abatement was to set water quality 



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