and experiments, the Committee shall make use of information gained from any similar studies, surveys, or experiments which are available to the Committee, and, with the consent of the head of the department or agency concerned, shall designate employees of any other department or agency of the United States to perform functions in connection therewith. Substitute for Sec. 6 (a), Page 3: ESTABLISHMENT OF SANITARY WATER DISTRICTS SEC. 6. (a) In order to effectively prevent or abate the discharge or deposit of any waste or other harmfui substance into the navigable waters of the United States or into any stream from which the same may float or be washed into such navigable waters in any area comprising the watershed thereof which is not wholly contained within the boundaries of one State, the committee shall establish, as speedily as possible, such area as a Sanitary Water District and shall define the boundaries thereof. (b) The Committee shall fix standards of purity for the waters of each such District, shall establish minimum requirements as to the treatment of polluting material before it is discharged into such waters, and shall promulgate regulations governing the discharge of any matter or materials into such waters. DISTRICT BOARDS SEC. 7. (a) In each Sanitary Water District there shall be a district board. The number of members of each such board and the method of selection or appointment, terms of office, and compensation of such members shall be fixed by the Committee in its discretion, except that not less than three-fourths of the members of each district board shall be bona fide residents of the District and shall be apportioned among the States comprising such District as nearly equally as may be. (b) It shall be the duty of each district board (1) To prevent the pollution of waters within the District by voluntary methods insofar as practicable.› (2) To investigate the desirability of making loans or grants in such District for the construction of sewage disposal plants and works for the treatment of trade wastes and to recommend the making of such loans or grants to the Committee. (3) To institute proceedings for the prevention and abatement of water poldution in such district. LOANS AND GRANTS SEC. 8. The committee is authorized to make loans or grants, or both, to States and political subdivisions and municipalities thereof, and to make loans to persons or corporations for the construction, enlargement, or improvement of sewage disposal plants and plants or works for the treatment of trade wastes. Such loans and grants shall be made upon such terms and conditions as the committee shall prescribe, subject to the following limitations; (1) Loans or grants shall be made only upon the request or recommendation of a State agency or the district board of a Sanitary Water District. (2) No grant shall be made in respect to any project of an amount in excess of per centum of the cost of the labor and materials employed upon such project. INJUNCTION PROCEEDINGS FOR THE ABATEMENT OF POLLUTION SEC. 9. The discharge or deposit of any waste or other substance, whether in a solid or liquid or gaseous state, into any of the navigable waters of the United States, or into any stream from which the same may float or be washed into any of such navigable waters, in violation of regulations promulgated by the committee, if such waste or other substance is or may be injurious to public health, domestic animals or poultry, fish or its environment or shellfish, migratory waterfowl, or other wild game, or impairs in any manner the utility of such waters for navigation purposes, is declared to be against the public policy of the United States and declared to be a public and common nuisance. An action in equity to prevent or abate any such nuisance may be brought in the name of the United States by any United States attorney, and it shall be the duty of such attorneys to bring such an action when requested to do so by the National Resources Committee or the district board of a Sanitary Water District. Such action shall be brought as an action in equity and may be brought in any court of the United States having jurisdiction to hear and determine equity cases. MISCELLANEOUS SEC. 10. Nothing contained in this Act shall be construed to limit in any manner the rights of any person or public body to bring actions for damages on account of the pollution of any waters or for the abatement of such pollution. SEC. 11. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums as may be necessary to carry out the provisions and purposes of this Act. SEC. 12. This Act may be cited as the "Water Pollution Act." DISCUSSION Dr. EMMALINE MOORE (New York Conservation Dept., Albany). I call your attention to Sec. 9 under Injunction Proceedings for the Abatement of Pollution, about half way down the page, reading: If such waste or other substance is or may be injurious to public health, domestic animals or poultry, fish or shellfish there is a great deal of difficulty in establishing just what is injurious to fish life in all of our court cases. Mr. LADNER. What do you suggest? Dr. MOORE. Could we not include "fish or its environment"? Dr. CARL L. HUBBS (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.). I move that the proposed act be amended to use the words: "Fish or its environment." (Unanimously carried. These words were inserted in the copy of the proposed act.) KENNETH A. REID, Pennsylvania. I am in accord with this, but am afraid if we bring in environment it may open up a bitter fight. It seems that "fish and aquatic life" would cover this point. At least five Congressmen said yesterday that they thought Congress was without power to handle such matters as dumping pollution in creeks. Mr. LADNER. My experience shows that no one has successfully enacted the Deposit of Rubbish Act of 1899. The test is whether or not pollution floats or is washed into navigable streams. Oil pollution affects navigation when carried into navigable portion of a stream. That is within the power of Congress to protect navigable waters. We will have to meet this question on the floor of Congress. It seems that the answer is that if we have the right to stop pollution in navigable streams we must necessarily have the right to stop it at the source where it comes into navigable streams. This act does not go so far as to set a standard that would be injurious to those different things. Unless it affects any one of those, the National Resources Committee could not draft regulation. Merely limitation, not authorization. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any more questions on this subject? I think we should make a motion to endorse the text in this bill. (Moved and seconded.) It has been moved and seconded that we endorse this proposed bill and that the general convention be requested to adopt it also. Those in favor indicate by the usual sign. The approval of this motion was unanimous. EFFECTS OF POLLUTION ON FISH (By M. M. ELLIS, Ph. D., U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, Columbia, Mo.) The changes in a stream incident to pollution from uncontrolled soil erosion and through the introduction of municipal and industrial wastes tend to reduce the fish fauna of that stream both by indirect effects acting through the aquatic complex and by direct effects on the fish themselves. Among the indirect effects may be enumerated the destruction of plankton organisms on which young fish feed, the production of unfavorable conditions at the bottom where food animals such as insect larvae and worms are normally abundant, the blanketing of spawning grounds, and the alteration of the quantities of dissolved gases, salts, and other substances in the water. The direct effects of pollution on fish, for convenience, may be discussed in groups according to the time at which the pollutant actually kills the fish. In some types of stream pollution fish in particular, and other aquatic organisms as well, are overwhelmed almost immediately by the pollutant because of its high concentration, great bulk, or physical state. If a large quantity of boiling water be suddenly discharged from an industrial plant into a small stream during the course of boiler cleaning, cooked fish near the outlet are the result. Similarly, large volumes of heavy salt liquor, such as the waste from certain bromine plants, if allowed to run rapidly and without agitation into a river, may fill the hollows and depressions in the stream bed for some distance below the source of this effluent. Before diffusion currents in the stream can dilute this heavy salt liquor to a concentration tolerated by aquatic life, the fish in the deeper parts of the stream will be killed through the dehydration and coagulation of the exposed surfaces and membranes because of the high osmotic tension of this salt solution. The great masses of mine slimes which are flumed intermittently into some streams and which can change the clear water of a mountain stream into thin mud in the course of a few minutes constitute another example of this group of pollutants. Such cases of stream pollution, while not unusual, are in the nature of catastrophes so that this group of pollutants need little comment here. In a second group may be placed a few pollutants which because of their high toxicity and ready penetration into the tissues of the fish kill quickly even in very high dilutions. Substances of this group are not numerous in the ordinary industrial wastes but when found in polluted waters present grave hazards to fish life. Two examples will suffice. Many types of crude oil carry certain highly volatile compounds which are very toxic to fish because of the anesthetic properties of very small quantities of these substances. Fish exposed to very low concentrations of these poisons recovered from Wildlife Conference Proceedings: 1936 PLATE 69 A, Gone forever! This last heath-hen ended its journey to extinction on Marthas Vineyard, Mass. Though reported dead many times, it reappeared each spring, but failed to reappear in 1933. (Photo by Dr. A. O. Gross.) 933 B, Woodchuck at entrance to its home on the Seney Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, Mich. (Biological Survey photo.) |