Ward. — Preservation of Fish Fauna 169 



Mr. Buller: We find the same thing. But they do not feel like 

 abandoning their plants or spending thousands of dollars without gain- 

 ing some definite benefit from it. 



Mr. Schaeffle: Naturally. 



Mr. Buller : A great many contrivances are used which are suc- 

 cessful up to a certain point, but when they reach that point it is as 

 bad as ever. 



Mr. Schaeffle: I would like to say also that in San Francisce, 

 where we have only one gas light plant, making 15,000,000 cubic feet a 

 day from crude oil, that we have at last effected a means of restrain- 

 ing the lamp black, oil, tar and other products that went into the bay 

 for 40 years. The gas company has spent $75,000 in constructing a filter 

 plant which is now in operation, that not only saves this waste, but 

 makes a valuable by-product from it. They are making briquettes 

 from the lamp black in which there is enough tar to act as a binder. 

 The same company is working on a new process of manufacturing in 

 which there will be no waste product ; the entire body of petroleum 

 will be made into gas, although there may be a very slight amount 

 of coal tar left. That was the worst problem we had at San Fran- 

 cisco Bay for 40 years. From the work that our chemists have done 

 during the last year, it appears that in addition to the thousands of 

 tons of lamp black and coal tar that have been poured into the bay, 

 about one million pounds of cyanide of potassium has gone in along 

 with the other material. But we have not found a way of restraining 

 this cyanide, which is still going in with the wash water. 



Mr. Buller: For the benefit of any member here, in states where 

 there are acid of wood alcohol plants, I might state that at a plant 

 that I examined a short time ago I found the system in use that abso- 

 lutely prevents any pollution from getting into the stream. A couple of 

 years ago they ran all the refuse into the stream, and destroyed the 

 fish in the stream entirely. Today, by eliminating that refuse, the 

 stream is being restored as a good trout stream again. The makers 

 of the apparatus are Rieser & Sons, Tanners' Falls, Pa. Their sys- 

 tem of taking care of this refuse is that after all the grease is taken out 

 of their vats the refuse that ran in the stream before, which was a black 

 substance about the consistency of crude petroleum, and very hard to 

 handle, is run into large boiling vats and boiled down to a consistency 

 where they can shovel it, and they now use it in their furnaces ; and 

 while they are not making money, it is paying them to use it as fuel ; 

 and there is absolutely nothing going into the stream but the steam 

 that condenses in these vats ; and I have requested every acid manu- 

 facturer in the State of Pennsylvania to do likewise, to boil their waste 

 and use it in that way. 



Mr. Schaeffle : How do you handle the waste wash water from 

 petroleum refineries in Pennsylvania; I refer to the wash water con- 

 taining sulphuric acid? 



