74 New York State 



of such trade wastes is furthermore an evident responsibility of 

 the business involved. It is not too much to ask that the business 

 should assume this responsibility in the same way that it does other 

 obligations involved in the transaction of its business affairs, even 

 though the assumption makes it liable to expense. The partial 

 reclamation of industrial wastes is often profitable and occasionally 

 highly so. But the partial utilization cannot be looked upon as an 

 advantage to the public until it has been demonstrated that the 

 residue is less poisonous to animal life or in some other way less 

 significant as an element of danger in the water system into which 

 it is discharged than the total industrial waste which it displaces. 



Education of Public Opinion 



In order to secure adequate support for the proper enforcement 

 of any conservation law dealing with stream pollution, it will, in 

 my opinion, be necessary to educate public opinion on the signifi- 

 cance of the present situation. It is not too much to maintain that 

 the average citizen fails to comprehend the value to him and his 

 fellow citizens of the natural waterways. Of course, one would 

 expect that those engaged in manufacturing and personally interested 

 in the problem of disposing of waste matter in the easiest and most 

 inexpensive manner would be likely under any conditions to take 

 advantage of an easy opportunity which presented itself for remov- 

 ing this material from the immediate vicinity of their own activity ; 

 but manufacturing concerns have not really been the leaders in 

 adopting such a method for the disposal of waste. In the average 

 mind a stream is regarded as a convenient and natural means of 

 getting rid of waste matter, whatever its source or character; any- 

 thing thrown into the water is carried away, and the locality is 

 thereby relieved of the burden of accumulating wastes; the objects 

 are removed from sight and smell and the mind easily relieved of any 

 sense of obligation for the materials which have accumulated in the 

 course of various activities. In this way the average citizen began 

 what the manufacturer has continued on a larger scale. 



How deeply fixed in the average mind such a habit is may be 

 illustrated by occurrences which have come under the observation 

 of all and which I have indeed myself witnessed. Wagons loaded 

 with refuse taken from streets and alleys are dumped on low lying 

 lands, where a slight rise in the water level carries them into the 

 stream, or even are thrown from the banks of the stream into the 

 current itself. Now if this is not commonly practised at the present 



