204 CONSERVATION OF GROUND WATER 



The contaminating materials in many places are not prod- 

 ucts of industrial processes but rather unusable by-products of 

 development of other resources. Around Saginaw Bay, Mich., 

 the usable ground water is being contaminated by highly min- 

 eralized waters that flow out of thousands of abandoned holes 

 which were drilled in a search for coal. Many streams flowing 

 from the coal regions, especially in Pennsylvania, are contami- 

 nated by acid waters pumped from the mines. 



The discharge of industrial wastes into streams has had both 

 direct and indirect effects upon the ground water along cer- 

 tain watercourses. The ground waters along the Arkansas 

 River and several other streams are more saline than they 

 would be under natural conditions because of discharge of 

 brines into them, and subsequent seepage into the alluvium. 

 In the Philadelphia-Camden area a progressive increase in 

 chemical constituents in water from several wells is attributed 

 to the great pollution of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, 

 which cross the recharge area of the aquifer tapped by those 

 wells (page 149). As an indirect effect of industrial wastes, the 

 yield of some wells at Kalamazoo, Mich., appears to be ad- 

 versely affected by the discharge into the river of paper-mill 

 wastes which collect along the river bottom and impede the 

 infiltration that replenishes the wells. 



Our rivers have become the great sewers of the nation, and 

 it is inevitable that one of their functions will always be the 

 disposal of some of the waste from living processes as well as 

 industrial process. This waste may render the stream water 

 unusable for others unless it is sufficiently diluted, and many 

 states require that certain wastes be discharged into a stream 

 only when there is sufficient water for adequate dilution. For- 

 tunately, many of the harmful forms of pollution can be elimi- 

 nated by treatment before the waste is discharged, and, for- 

 tunately too, polluted streams are not permanently affected 

 and may eventually be restored by correction at the source of 

 the pollution. However, if ground water becomes contami- 

 nated by infiltration from the polluted stream, the pollution 

 problem may be far more serious. Wherever wells pump water 



