4 American Fisheries Society 



come in contact has manifested the greatest sympathy and in- 

 terest in the problem, and has gone out of his way to make me 

 acquainted with facts, and to assist me in analyzing conditions 

 and in formulating a plan for the change of these conditions. 



We have been accustomed from the engineering and scientific 

 standpoint to separate wastes into two types, speaking of domestic 

 sewage on the one hand and industrial wastes on the other hand, 

 domestic sewage consisting, briefly speaking, of waste discharges 

 of an organic character; materials that are rapidly attacked under 

 natural conditions, transformed into substances that serve as 

 food for different kinds of organisms, and in the processes of nature 

 are soon removed, or made over into useful substances; the 

 industrial wastes on the other hand consisting of chemical mater- 

 ials, dyes and acids, and other substances entirely foreign to 

 the water under natural conditions, substances which remain 

 often unchanged for considerable periods of time; and their 

 effects consequently are felt over a greater extent of the stream 

 than in the earlier case. Further, their effects are very much 

 more serious and are exerted often through the inflow of a smaller 

 amount of material. 



Now the classification is all right from a scientific and practical 

 point of view, but it is all wrong from the facts in the case; and 

 if you stop to think for the moment you will see what is meant. 

 This I consider of fundamental importance in our discussion 

 of the problem, because it has been customary in writings to set 

 aside domestic sewage, to say that it was under the control of 

 Boards of Health, that it was rapidly made over by processes of 

 nature, that it stood on an entirely different footing from indus- 

 trial wastes, and that probably it ought not to be considered in 

 such a discussion as this. 



The laws of New York State are drawn to distinguish between 

 the two ; very likely the laws of other States also ; but if you think 

 for a moment that even in the smallest town almost, there are 

 little manufacturies here and there, that there is an occasional 

 small mill or chemical shop, and that there is certainly a garage, 

 or two, or three; these are places from which chemical wastes, 

 acid wastes and oil wastes and other materials of that type are 

 being poured into the city sewage system, into the canals, the 

 sewers, and through these are reaching with the other material 



