WATER POLLUTION 



George W. Field 



When Colonel Acklen referred to the pollution of the 

 streams of the United States, I felt that he had struck 

 the keynote of the meeting. This is one of the most 

 important problems before us, both as citizens and as 

 commissioners. The condition in Massachusetts has been 

 acute for many years. Two years ago a law was passed 

 by which it was absolutely forbidden to place in the 

 streams of the Commonwealth sewage, manufacturing 

 waste, or any material whatever which in any way, di- 

 rectly or indirectly, could be prejudicial to fish life, and 

 by that I mean not alone injuring the fish but injuring" 

 the food — the microscopic plant or the microscopic animals 

 in the water upon which the fish depend in any degree. 

 Now, as a result of the conditions there, two very important 

 decisions have been made by the courts, which I feel are of 

 very great value to all of us, not alone to the citizens of 

 Massachusetts, but to the citizens of the United States. Of 

 the two hundred and more cases upon which we have taken 

 action, only two have been appealed from the decision of 

 the lower court. One of these went to the Supreme Court 

 on the grounds that the defendants had been putting this 

 polluting material into the streams for upwards of 200 

 years; therefore they claimed that they had gained by pre- 

 scription the right to continue the pollution. The Supreme 

 Court decided specifically that no individual or corporation 

 could acquire by prescription such a right against the state ; 

 that the fact that they had not earlier been prevented from 

 putting this material into the stream was no reason why 

 they could not be so prevented at any time. 



The second case is equally interesting and important from 

 another point of view. When the issue arose as to what 

 constituted the "fisheries value" of the stream, we were di- 



