Ward. — Elimination of Stream Pollution in New York 5 



the stream or water body into which the sewage is emptied. 

 Now, take a large manufacturing city, and think for a moment 

 how extensive those chemical wastes are that thus indirectly 

 reach, with the sewage of the city, the stream with which we are 

 immediately concerned. 



The city of Troy, and I take that merely as an example, 

 because you all know of its reputation as the great place of manu- 

 facture for collars and cuffs and shirts, — the city of Troy has 

 enormous laundries. Washing fluids, coloring matter, chemical 

 materials of powerful character are being discharged into the 

 city sewage and are reaching the Hudson River through the 

 sewers. They are no less significant than are the discharges 

 from the paper mills located on the banks of the stream, that 

 happen to be pouring a quantity of waste directly into the waters 

 of the river, so that when we actually take up the analysis of the 

 question it seems to me important that we should dismiss from 

 our minds the somewhat artificial distinction between industrial 

 wastes and domestic wastes, for that distinction no longer holds 

 in practice, and the sewage wastes partake of the character of 

 the chemical wastes and consequently, the kind of chemical being 

 considered, produce the same sort of effect. 



I hardly need to tell you that in recent times stream pollu- 

 tion has enormously increased. There are some features of the 

 situation that all understand. The effect of waste is related 

 rather directly to proportion between its amount and the flow 

 of the stream, or the volume of the body of water which is dis- 

 turbed. If you throw into Lake Erie a teacupful of prussic acid, 

 which no one fails to recognize as a most violent poison, it might 

 be difficult to detect the influence at once and surely a short time 

 after the occurrence there would be no trace of the effect. Multiply 

 the contamination by a hundred or a thousand and the effects 

 become conspicuous. So it has been with stream pollution. 

 When the land was young and the population scattered, anything 

 could be done without serious results. Starting from that begin- 

 ning, a small factory or a little mill on a stream, we have come to 

 the point today where large mills and tremendous factories line the 

 banks of the stream, and while the individual contribution seems 

 to have but little effect, the total contribution is of very great 

 influence. That has introduced into these situations an element 



