THE ELIMINATION OF STREAM POLLUTION IN 

 NEW YORK STATE. 



By Henry B. Ward, 

 University of Illinois. 



Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Society: 



The importance of the problem of stream pollution may be 

 judged from a recent statement by one of the members of the 

 United States Food Administration, charged with responsibility 

 for the fish foods and their distribution, who said that among all 

 the suggestions which had been made from all the states of the 

 Union with reference to the improvement of the fisheries and the 

 increase in the product, more than sixty per cent of them dealt 

 with stream pollution. 



The situation is naturally worse in the seacoast states, in the 

 older states and in the manufacturing states. It naturally is 

 least significant in the parts of the country that lie at a distance 

 from the ocean and removed from centers of manufacture. You 

 will easily recognize that in the heart of the Adirondacks stream 

 pollution is not a serious problem. Most of you who read the 

 newspapers are aware of the fact that New York City regards 

 stream pollution as a very important problem from the stand- 

 point of the municipality and its activities, and no one connected 

 with fish work who comes in contact with the Hudson will question 

 that the yield of that stream and its value as an asset for the 

 state and the nation are greatly reduced by the conditions that 

 exist in the stream at the present time. 



The importance of the question was such and my interest in 

 the biological side of it, which I had studied incidentally for some 

 time, was so great, that I accepted with pleasure the invitation 

 from the Conservation Commission of New York State to spend 

 the summer working with them to bring together the data, to 

 organize them into a plan, and to see what steps might be prac- 

 ticable in attempting to reach a solution of the problem, a re- 

 moval of the difficulty; and I want here to acknowledge publicly, 

 if I may, the courtesies that I have received at the hands of the 

 Commission. Every one of the gentlemen with whom I have 



