20 American Fisheries Society 



Pollution in Pennsylvania is at present increasing, due to the great 

 activities of the war, and the Department of Fisheries is flooded with pro- 

 tests from all sections of the state concerning the destruction of fishes. 

 The great munition plants have so increased their activities and capacity 

 that on the west branch of the Susquehanna River from Emporium to Sun- 

 bury, a distance of about ninety miles, the discharge of the past six months 

 has killed every living thing in the river, where heretofore there was re- 

 ported good fishing. The Attorney General of the Commonwealth has 

 advised that under present conditions no prosecutions shall be brought, 

 but that investigations be made and data furnished the War Industries 

 Board at Washington. This board has indicated to our Fisheries Depart- 

 ment that they are investigating and that if it is possible to avoid this 

 pollution it will be stopped. 



Mr. Carlos Avery, of Minnesota. Dr. Ward has sounded the key note 

 in saying that a campiagn of education is first absolutely necessary. We 

 naturally apply what he says to our own localities and conditions. The 

 Upper Mississippi has been for years and is yet one of the most famous 

 breeding grounds for many varieties of food fishes. At the Twin Cities we 

 have a population now approaching a million people using the Mississippi 

 River as a sewer, and nobody has ever thought of anything different. All 

 the way down the river we find the smaller cities doing the same thing. 

 Now if that is going to result in the extermination, or in a serious depletion, 

 of the fish life of the Mississippi River, we ought to begin to consider that 

 problem. In connection with the educational program that Dr. Ward has 

 suggested, it seems to me that we ought to go farther and be prepared with 

 some suggestions as to remedies. I would like to ask him whether he could 

 in the case of Minneapolis and St. Paul, suggest anything that would, in 

 a measure, dispose of the sewage of those cities without polluting the Miss- 

 issippi River. 



Fishermen have told me that they have found solid wastes from the 

 packing plants of South St. Paul forty and fifty miles below that point, 

 grease, hair and other wastes that could be positively identified as coming 

 that long distance, showing that it must affect the river for many miles. 

 If Dr. Ward could supplement what he has already said by some suggestions 

 along this line it would be very helpful to us in our locality. 



Mr. M. L. Alexander, of Louisiana. The manner in which Dr. Ward 

 has analyzed this situation has given us an entirely different view point 

 on the question. We have been impressed too much in the past with the 

 value of the industry located on the stream. We have lost sight of the 

 fact that the streams and the life of the streams belong to the whole people, 

 and therefore should be protected. I am thoroughly convinced of the fact, 

 however, that it is going to take a campaign of education to bring about 

 the desired results. I believe that this Society could not take up any greater 

 work than this of educating the people throughout the United States to the 

 necessity of eliminating stream pollution and of devising ways and means 

 by which factories and other great industries located along the streams 



