88 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
In the summary above no note has been made of a very im- 
portant movement inaugurated by the department, which has 
every prospect of reaching a satisfactory conclusion next winter, 
namely: the abolition of water pollution. For years efforts were 
made by the Fish Commission and others to have laws enacted 
which would put a stop to this great evil and which was doing 
more than anything else to destroy fish life in the waters of the 
commonwealth. Every effort, however, met with crushing de- 
feat through the work of industrial establishments and people 
interested in their maintenance. It was charged and maintained 
that all bills introduced were too drastic and would result in the 
extermination of many industries with accumulated capital of 
millions of dollars and would even put some small cities and 
towns out of business, in other words ruin them financially. The 
new Department of Fisheries made a careful investigation and 
found many of the allegations true. It took the stand at once, 
on completing investigation, that the Department of Fisheries, 
or the commonwealth of Pennsylvania should not destroy any 
vested industry. On the other hand, that it was not right for 
these same industries to destroy the fish. It felt also that where 
industries were established in good faith and under laws which 
existed, that it was not just for the commonwealth, or for the 
department to advocate the enactment of laws, which would in 
effect put an undue burden on those interests. It found the 
great majority of the owners of industries were in full accord 
and were ready to support any measure which would in the 
future prevent the pollution of water and the consequent de- 
struction of fish, provided, it did not practically ruin them or 
unduly interfere with the existing legal rights. After careful 
study of the whole situation the department has prepared a bill 
to meet the issue, and at the same time conform with decisions 
of the Supreme Court on this very matter. It is a bill to which 
a large number of manufacturers and persons engaged in pur- 
suits, in which there is waste, dangerous to fish life, express their 
approval of and which they have promised to support. It has 
also met the approval of every legislator to whom the draft of 
the bill has been submitted. In effect it provides that hereafter 
no new industry shall permit any substance deleterious to fish 
life to flow into any stream, and that wherever the Department 
