OUR VANISHING FOOD FISH 



555 



Other countries have been forced, by 

 like conditions, to meet the same issue. 

 Cannot we profit by their experience of 

 centuries? England, France, Holland, 

 Germany, Norway, Denmark and 

 Sweden, in each of which countries 

 every small principality, every county 

 and shire, ha\ing its ancient special fish- 

 eries rights, grants and charters, were 

 forced to reach a mutual understand- 

 ing in order to save the fisheries of the 

 North Sea and the Channel from abso- 

 lute destruction. In the Mediterranean, 

 like conditions forced joint action and 

 control. 



RIVER POLLUTION. 



Another cause of the diminution of 

 our marine fisheries is the practice 

 prevalent in this country of pernntting 

 our cities to dump their sewage and 

 seepage into the waters of our bays and 

 rivers. Not alone do we expose the 

 health and lives of millions of our citi- 

 zens to the ravages of disease and con- 

 tagion through scattering broadcast the 

 germs which such refuse often contains, 

 but in numerous instances this refuse 

 has contaminated the waters to such an 

 extent as to deprive them of their nor- 

 mal proportion of oxygen, rendering it 

 impossible for the fish to ascend them 

 to their spawning beds, except under 

 conditions rarely present. 



A few of our cities already have 

 partly established sewage disposal 

 plants, and others now have them under 

 construction. Our Federal Government 

 should be foremost in setting a com- 

 mendable example in this respect. Even 

 at this late day, the boasted capital of 

 our nation possesses no sewage plant 

 but floods its sewage into the Potomac, 

 whence it is carried down stream to the 

 infection, distress, and injury, of the 

 marine life inhabiting those waters. 

 Plans for a sewage disposal plant for 

 Washington are now under considera- 

 tion and more active steps in that direc- 

 tion will be taken in the near future. 

 At Annapolis, the United States Naval 

 Academy dumps its sewage into the 

 Severn. It is to be hoped that the 

 Naval Academv will be provided with a 



sewage disposal plant of its own at an 

 early day, and that some means may be 

 found by which every city in our coun- 

 try that now casts its waste upon 

 flowing streams may be influenced as 

 speedily as possible to adopt those hy- 

 gienic methods of disposition evolved by 

 modern engineering science and skill. 



Where King Salmon Hit The Tkoll. 



In the New England States many 

 streams flowing adjacent to villages, 

 towns, and cities engaged in manufac- 

 turing, become the depositories of the 

 seepage of the manufacturing plants. 

 The aggregate result of this inflow is 

 the contamination of the stream, de- 

 nuding it of its life-giving properties 

 and rendering it uninhabitable by the 

 fish. So filthy have some of these 

 streams become as a result of this 

 practice that their waters are unfit to 

 bathe in.* 



The practice of dumping the sewage 

 of our cities into our bays and rivers 

 has not alone resulted in loss through 

 the damage done the marine life inhab- 

 iting the waters thus defiled, but at the 

 same time we have wasted a tremendous 



* Testimony of Hon. Wm. S. Greene, of Massachusetts, before House Committee on 

 Merchant Marine and Fisheries. 



