SYMPOSIUM ON SANITATION 59 



sive condition and that they shall not be detrimental to 

 health. This leaves to the commission not arbitrary powers, 

 but the simple function of determining points of fact within 

 limits prescribed by prior legislative enactment. That is to 

 say. the commission will determine when a stream is in dan- 

 ger of being made offensive and when it is in danger of being 

 made detrimental to health, and thereupon decide what, if 

 any, purification of sewage is necessary, what, if any, purifi- 

 cation of industrial wastes is necessary, whether water sup- 

 plies may or may not be taken from streams and to what ex- 

 tent they must be purified. Such a commission should be 

 supplied with ample appropriations to enable it to obtain all 

 necessary information for its guidance whether this consists 

 in maintaining laboratories or carrying on experimental and 

 research work. As even the best of commissions may at 

 times grow arbitrary or become unduly baised in its views 

 there should alawys be made provision for ready appeal from 

 the decisions of a commission to an independent special arbi- 

 tration board of experts, and. of course, there must exist the 

 inalienable right of appeal to the courts. 



Summary 



Summarizing in the briefest possible terms, it may be 

 said that all surface streams must of necessity be polluted to 

 an extent that renders them unsafe as domestic water sup- 

 plies without purification. On the other hand the public is 

 entitled to clean streams and special protection should be 

 afforded to those streams which because of their beauty and 

 accessibility from the cities constitute valuable recreation 

 grounds for urban populations. \\'hen not a menace to health, 

 certain exceptions may be permitted with respect to the main- 

 tenance of clean streams. Such exceptions, however, must 

 always be regarded as special cases, necessitated by unusual 

 local conditions. A limitation of stream pollution is most 

 effectively and most equitably carried out when under the gen- 

 eral supervision of some central expert authority operating 

 under somewhat elastic general laws which represent in broad 

 terms the will of the people. 



