DANGER TO FISHERIES FROM OIL AND TAR POLLUTION 



OF WATERS.^ 



By J. S. GUTSELL, 



Sn'entijic Assi.<itavt, U. S. Bureau of Fisheries. 



Recently the casting of oil on ahcudy sorely troubled waters has 

 increased at such a rate, has been accused as the source of so many 

 ills of fishermen and shell fishermen and even of ornithologists, and 

 has become such an obvious nuisance, that a considerable realization 

 of the extent of the contamination and a sense of the possible evil 

 eflects have been aroused. So great is the discharge of oils of various 

 sorts that in this country it has been proposed to skim off the oil 

 from some harbor waters and make it available by proper treatment. 

 In Switzerland a patent has been taken out for the recovery of oils 

 from backwaters. It is very desirable, therefore, to present a brief 

 review of the information available regarding the extent and nature 

 of oil and oil-like pollutions with consideration of the possibilities 

 of danger therefrom. 



SOURCES OF POLLUTION. 



Danger of fatal contamination from the poisonous substances seems 

 to lie cniefly in the gas plants and petroleum distilleries, which on one 

 occasion or another, if not regularly, find it convenient to let certain 

 products drain into the nearest body of water; in tankers and oil- 

 engined craft, which are able to use tar, tar oils, and a great variety 

 of petroleum distillates; in oil-burning steamships; and in the wash- 

 ings of oils and tars from roads. 



Gas houses and oil refineries are located on all sorts of bodies of 

 water larger than brooks. In smaller streams, and particularly in 

 those inhabited by salmonids, discharges are doubtless frequently 

 fatal to fish life and quite ruinous to the fish value of the water. In 

 larger bodies the actual destmction of fish is apt to be small or incident 

 to exceptional discharges, and the chief harm probably will come 

 from the uninhabitability of the water, especially if this means the 

 rendering unfit of a spawning ground or the forming of a barrier 

 thereto as for salmon or shad. 



In streams large enough for steamers, and in all larger bodies of 

 water, there are added to the contributions from gas houses and 

 refineries those from tankers and other ships, and the dangers to 

 fishes from poi-soning oi- coating of gills are correspondingly increased. 

 These larger navigable bodies may be spawning grounds and are 

 almost sure to be gateways to what should be sj)uwning grounds. 

 The danger here, Iherefore, of keeping lish away from the spawning 



« Appendix VII f o the Report of the U. 8. Commissioner of FUheries for IWI . ». F. I>i)c. «10. 



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