Ward. — Elimination of Stream Pollution in New York 9 



in it to bring about such conditions that they appeal to us, to 

 our eyes, as departing from natural conditions, and as affording 

 limitations or restrictions upon the development of aquatic life; 

 but the essentials of existence under the water are the same as 

 those which prevail on the land. A land animal requiring oxygen, 

 must be able to breathe. It requires food. You shut it off from 

 a supply of fresh oxygen, and it dies. You eliminate the food, 

 and the animals are driven away or perish. Precisely the same 

 conditions prevail under the surface of the water. If any factors 

 reduce beyond a reasonable limit the supply of oxygen, the organ- 

 isms that live in the water will be smothered. If any conditions 

 drive away or destroy the food, the animals which depend upon 

 that food will migrate or starve to death. 



Let us apply this to the streams. It has been rather the 

 fashion to test the effect of pollution on streams by looking for 

 the fish, and if a fish was seen in the water, to say that that water 

 was all right. It has been, in other words, the habit to rely upon 

 a single criterion for judgment as to the quality of the environ- 

 ment. Most of you have seen areas here and there devastated 

 by forest fires, and should anyone attempt to say to you that 

 such an area was not damaged because he saw a deer run across 

 it or a bird fly up and into it or out of it, you would smile at the 

 crudity of such a suggestion. The same thing, however, applies 

 perfectly well to fish. The fish are the largest and most powerful, 

 and many of them are the freest in movement of all the water 

 organisms. They course up and down streams. They make 

 casual movements and migrations that cover considerable ter- 

 ritory under varying conditions. They go about in search of 

 food. When one area is crowded, pushing themselves off into 

 other parts of the stream and seeking more favorable conditions 

 for existence, they spread from point to point; and it is only 

 rarely that one finds a stream in such a condition that the fish 

 will not venture to enter into the water. 



I can cite to you one instance which shows full well the sig- 

 nificance of the argument that I am trying to bring before you 

 at the present moment. The situation in Illinois is well known 

 over the country in general. The city of Chicago has built a 

 drainage canal which carries the city sewage down and into the 

 Illinois and Mississippi rivers. The city of St. Louis at one time 



