An Inquest on our Lakes and Rivers

"It's too thick to drink and too thin to Plow." The speaker was a tall, lean middle-aged man long identified with the University of Pennsylvania's crews who raced on the Schuylkill river in sculls. That day the water of the Schuylkill did, indeed, look like the viscous liquids of a cesspool as we peered at it from a Philadelphia bridge.

But the Schuylkill is pure, compared with some of our other waterways. Recently I revisited Houston, Texas, and the Buffalo Bayou, as fascinating a waterway as God ever made, which skirts the San Jacinto Battleground, famous in Texas history. Once it sparkled with myriads of life. The alligator was there and many species of fish. Birds without number frequented it, including great white pelicans and the water'turkey that swims under water in pursuit of fish and has so little oil on its wings and body that it must spend long hours each day on the sunny side of a tree, drying its feathers. Then men dug out Buffalo Bayou, making it wider than a football field, deep enough for ocean liners and 50 miles long. As a result, Houston today is the nation's third largest port, supporting the largest industrial complex in the Southwest. But Buffalo Bayou today is a stinking open sewer and a disgrace to any area. It carries to the Gulf the sewage of about 2,000,000 people and 200 industries. One need not be an expert to detect both its chemical and its fecal odor. Buffalo Bayou is now a dead river, supporting only the gar, a symbol of ugliness. A red-brown scum covers the surface and occasionally streaks of white detergent foam. Fascinating Buffalo Bayou is now a smelly corpse.

Almost every community faces a substantial pollution problem. Rock Creek, once a sparkling stream fed by a spring in Maryland, was for years one of Washington, D. C.'s main attractions. Today it is a serious health hazard. It receives discharges from District sewers that are combined to carry both storm waters and sewage at times of heavy rain; people use it as a dump; the zoo puts its wastes into Rock Creek. The famous creek that Teddy Roosevelt tried to preserve is so heavy with silt from upstream construction projects that an old water wheel that once ran a gristmill will not work. And one who talks to the experts in the nation's capital learns that it will take until 2000 A.D. to convert Rock Creek into sanitary swimming holes for children.

The entire Potomac is so heavily polluted that it taxes the ingenuity of public-health experts to make the water both safe to drink and palatable. Every city in the several states the Potomac drains has a sewage-disposal plant, but the population explosion has made most of those plants inadequate to handle the supply. The Army Corps of Engineers, instead of coming up with an over-all sewage-disposal system that would clean up the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay as well, proposes a huge dam at Seneca that would destroy 80 miles of the river, produce a fluctuating water level that would expose long, ugly banks of mud and that would, the engineers say, provide a head of water adequate to flush the Potomac of sewage—at least in the environs of Washington.

Lake Erie, the fourth largest of the Great Lakes, is almost a dead lake. In addition to sewage from many cities, it receives over a ton of chemicals a minute from plants in four states. Beaches along the lake shore have had to be closed. Boating has dropped off because of the filth that accumulates on the hulls. Sport fishing has declined. Commercial fishing is only a small fraction of what it was. Pickerel and cisco disappeared and trash fish took their place. Large areas of the lake were found to have zero oxygen; plant life and fish life disappeared and the anaerobic, or nonoxygen, species of aquatic life (such as worms) took over. "What should be taking place over eons of time," one Public Health Service officer said, "is now vastly speeded up"—due to the pollutants. This expert says that Lake Erie is very sick and will have a convalescence running into many years.

Lake Michigan is sick, according to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall; and unless corrective steps are taken, it, too, will be dead. Michigan is, indeed, in a more precarious position than Erie; for while the latter is the beneficiary of a cleansing flow from Superior and Huron, Lake Michigan is isolated.

Some parts of the Ohio river have zero oxygen and not even the hardy trash fish can live there. At a zero oxygen level, a river becomes septic. A healthy river, the experts say, must have five parts of oxygen per million parts of water. When it has two parts per million, it has "the minimum quality which can be tolerated" for fish life.

The pollution of the Willamette river in Oregon is one of the nation's most notorious examples. I believe it was in 1946 that Stanley Jewett of the Fish and Wildlife Service and I took fresh, healthy rainbow trout and put them in a steel-mesh cage and lowered them at the mouth of the Willamette. We estimated that the oxygen content of the water at that point was probably 0 mg. The fish were, indeed, fairly inert within five minutes. The river has not improved since that time. As a matter of fact, its summer flow marks such a low concentration of dissolved oxygen that a salmon probably could never get through alive, whether it was going upstream or coming down. While there is very little upstream migration at that time, there is considerable downstream migration. Fish need a dissolved oxygen concentration of 5 mg. per liter to survive, and the Willamette studies indicate that the level in its lower reaches drops to somewhere between 0 mg. and 2 mg.

The problem of the Willamette is largely created by seven pulp mills. With two exceptions, these mills use a sulphite pulping process, rather than cooking chemicals by condensing and burning wastes as do plants with more modern processes. About 70 percent of the damaging pollutants in the Willamette comes from the pulp mills, and the pulp mills have pretty well controlled the state politics of Oregon when it comes to pollution control.

The St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects Duluth, Minnesota, with the ocean, is hailed as a great achievement. But there is already alarm over the pollution taking place (a) by vessels emptying their bilges in the Great Lakes, (b) by garbage disposal and (c) by the dumping of raw sewage.

The Merrimack in Massachusetts, to whose pollution Thoreau objected in 1839, has been getting progressively worse. It has turned a filthy brown and emits bubbles that carry nauseating gases.

In the lower Mississippi, millions of fish turn belly up and die. Near St. Louis, chicken feathers and viscera pile so high they stop a motorboat. In portions of the Hudson, only scavenger eels live.

The Presumpscot river near Portland, Maine, gives off malodorous hydrogen sulphide from paper-pulp sludge that has accumulated over the decades.

Beautiful Lake Tahoe—the sapphire that lies partly in Nevada and partly in California—seems doomed. I recently flew over it in a small plane; and the brown streaks of sewage had already possessed nearly half of the lake. The gambling casinos on the lake's edge attract tens of thousands, and it is largely their sewage that is doing the damage. Two hundred thousand gallons of sewage a day enters Lake Tahoe.

Progress seemed under way when a Federal abatement order in 1966 caused California and Nevada to sign an interstate agreement that would, among other things, export the sewage by pipeline out of the Tahoe drainage basin by 1970. But in 1967, Governor Reagan upset the settlement by turning over the problem "for study" during the next 18 months to two California and three Nevada counties.

The powerful forces that may turn the tide are the citizens' groups that are rallying public opinion. The case is, in a way, easy to plead, for the impending demise of Tahoe can be seen from almost any height.

The same story could be told about some stream or about some lake in every state of the Union, except possibly Alaska, where the total population is still only about 250,000. But where people pile up and industry takes hold, the problem of pollution multiplies.

A typical city of 100,000 produces every day of the year one ton of detergents, 17 tons of organic suspended solids, 16 tons of organic dissolved solids, 8 tons of inorganic dissolved solids and 60 cubic feet of grime.

While most cities have sewage-disposal plants, many communities do not; and the use of septic tanks and cesspools in congested areas has raised profound problems that affect the quality of the underground percolating waters. Indeed, the earth of an entire area may become so polluted that the natural processes of drainage purification and bacterial action are so overtaxed they are ineffective. Where the surface supply is also in jeopardy, the problem of a safe water supply then becomes almost insoluble. Some parts of the country, notably Suffolk Country, New York, have approached this critical condition.

Of the cities and towns that have sewage-disposal plants, it is estimated that about 18 percent still discharge untreated waste into the country's waterways.

Some progress is being made. A compact of the six New England States plus New York has put all their waterways into various classes. Class A is uniformly excellent water. Class B is suitable for swimming, for fishing, for irrigation and for drinking after it is treated. Class C is suitable for boating, for fish life, for irrigation and for some industrial uses, while the other classes are largely available only for industrial uses. It is to the lower categories that the Merrimack, which I have already mentioned, has been relegated.

The Congress has been busy, and recent acts under the title of Federal Water Pollution Control have put into motion important machinery. Each state was given until June 30, 1967, to adopt water-quality criteria applicable "to interstate waters or portions thereof" within the state, and to submit a plan for the (continued on page 177) An Inquest (continued from page 98) implementation and enforcement of those water-quality criteria. These standards are subject to Federal approval. In the absence of state action adopting water-quality criteria, the Federal Government can move and establish its own. After the standards are fixed, there are methods for policing and enforcing them. As this article is written, the hearings are going on across the country.

Why the program was put in the Department of the Interior is a mystery. For Interior harbors two of our worst polluters—the Bureau of Mines, which allows acid to despoil our waterways, and the Bureau of Reclamation, whose projects now fill our streams with salt.

Missouri recently held its hearings on standards for the Missouri river. Missouri has a water-pollution-control association that pointed out at the hearing that the Missouri river was an excellent water supply for half the people of the state and for a significant portion of its industries. The association, however, went on to say: "Use of the Missouri river for removal and ultimate disposal of the sewered wastes of cities and industries has economic value far greater than does use of the river as a source of municipal and industrial water supply. Without exception, cities and industries along the Missouri river could obtain adequate supplies of water of good quality from subsurface sources. Likewise, other means can be found for transportation, fish and wildlife propagation, livestock watering and recreation." In other words, this association proposes that everybody abandon the Missouri and, in the cause of economics, leave it to the polluters.

This association at the hearing predicted economic doom unless streams in Missouri are used for their capacity to assimilate wastes, saying that the failure to do so would "lower standards of living and the general economy and decrease employment."

In taking direct aim at those who like a clean river for its beauty, for its swimming holes, for its fishing, boating and canoeing, the association said at the hearing: "While the entire public will share in paying the cost of maintaining that water quality, only a fraction of the public will enjoy the benefits of those water uses for which water-quality requirements are most demanding."

The inertia of those who have a vested interest in pollution is one obstacle. These interests are powerful. They are represented by most of our vast industrial complex. They are made up of huge metropolitan areas like New York, and they have never made any attempt to treat their sewage. They are made up of many who still look upon a river as having no value except as a carrier of wastes.

In addition to the inertia is the cost of cleanup, and the cost is going to be staggering. For example, the city of St. Louis recently undertook a contract to build a sewage-disposal plant—not an up-to-date variety, but one of the most primitive nature. It will contain only a primary treatment process, which does little more than settle out the solids. This contract alone is estimated to cost at least $95,000,000. While the Federal share of these programs was promised for from 30 percent to 50 percent of the cost, the Federal budget has already been drastically cut, due to Vietnam expenditures; and the appropriation of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration was cut by two thirds for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1968.

Industrial use frequently requires cool water for its processes, the water eventually returning to the river at a high degree of temperature. This process, if continued, may raise the temperature of the entire stream. A stream for trout must be a cool-water stream. Raising a stream's temperature may change its entire life, ruining not only its recreational potential but its commercial potential as well; e.g., its production of shellfish.

This has happened to several streams, notably the St. Croix in Minnesota and the lower Potomac in Virginia. The heating of the lower Potomac waters is apparently modifying vast populations of microscopic plants that start the food chain in the river. It has reduced the white perch and certain flatfish and caused the soft-shelled clams to disappear. It has killed tens of thousands of crabs.

The dangers of thermal pollution multiply fast; and with the oncoming use of nuclear power that demands great quantities of cooling water, the risks ahead are increasing.

Saving a stream from this fate means requiring industry to build cooling towers for its water and using the same water over and over again.

Strip mining for coal is another source of great infection. Strip mining uses massive machinery to remove coal near the surface. And it is a process notorious for desecrating wild land and poisoning pure water. There is sulphur in these Appalachian lands, and sulphur when wet produces sulphuric acid, which destroys all vegetation and all aquatic life in the streams and ponds that it reaches. At least 4000 miles of Appalachian streams are being poisoned in this way. TVA as well as private operators are the despoilers, TVA flying the Federal flag of conservation. It uses coal from strip mining to run its stand-by steam plants.

Why must we the people tolerate this ruination of our mountain waterways?

The problem has been neglected so long, the population has been increasing so fast, that the conditions across the country have reached an emergency status. So the crisis that has been developing around our waterways is one of the greatest we have had to face, at least since the Civil War.

And so the battle lines are being drawn in the late 1960s.

We in America have no monopoly on this pollution problem. Europe knows it intimately, and recently the conditions on the Rhine reached such desperate proportions that steps are under way to preserve the river.

The same awareness exists in the Soviet Union. We are told by the Soviet Academy of Science that in the heavily industrialized Ural Mountains area there is not "one single unpolluted river." Domestic and industrial water supplies have been greatly impaired. Fish have been deprived of spawning and feeding grounds and pollution has been so severe in spots that some Russian rivers have become impassable.

When I was in Siberia in 1965, I visited Lake Baikal. The lumber industry was getting under way and the cutting caused soil erosion that filled the river beds with mud and even brought it into the lake. Lake Baikal is unique in scientific circles. It has, it is said, the purest water in the world and it is the site of intense Russian scientific endeavors. When I was there, Russian pulp mills, newly constructed near Lake Baikal, were running their discharge pipes to the lake. The Russian scientists were up in arms and their power and prestige in the Soviet Union was so great they were able to get a change that might save the lake from pollution. The alternative they proposed was that there should be constructed a long pipeline that would carry the industrial wastes from the pulp mills through a small mountain range into a stream flowing north into the Arctic Ocean. By 1968, the Russian scientists had lost their battle and Lake Baikal was being polluted by the industrial waste from the new pulp mills.

The answer to the problem of pollution is no longer a mystery. Wherever and whenever it takes place, technology has most of the answers and the problem is to mobilize the people and the financial resources to clean up the lakes and rivers. Science is constantly putting these problems in new dimensions. Thus great progress made in desalting water from the ocean—an experiment headed up by Israel beginning about 20 years ago. While costs are still higher than those normally associated with the creation of municipal water supplies, they are within reach once the urgency is felt.

In 1964, when Fidel Castro decided to cut off all Cuban water on Guantánamo Bay, we decided to be independent of him and quietly installed a big desalting plant. Sea water is heated under pressure to 195 degrees F., when it flashes into steam. This process is repeated many times, the steam producing a condensate that is almost tasteless, since it contains no minerals. At Guantánamo we are producing one gallon of fresh water out of 16 gallons of sea water. Now, we produce at Guantánamo 2,250,000 gallons a day—more than enough to meet the needs of the base; and with the steam that is generated, we operate an electric power plant of 1500 Kws.

The point of this is that not only is desalting useful to seacoast cities short of water but it is also useful to take the nutrients out of sewage, making it possible to return pure water to the river or the lake and to pipe the residue off to centers where it can be processed for industrial or agricultural use. The avenues leading to the solution of the pollution problem are numerous and science is constantly opening up new ones.

The problem of our rivers does not end with pollution. The erection of dams is probably our problem number two. Dams for hydroelectric power became a very popular political slogan about 30 years ago. Hydroelectric power is cheap power and it has become associated in the public mind in this country with public power. Whether a dam is built to generate public power on the one hand or private power on the other, it still ruins a river as a free-flowing stream. There is no turning back the clock by removing the dams that we already have built. But there is still opportunity to save what remains of our free-flowing rivers and seek our power from other sources. The remaining free-flowing rivers that we have are national treasures and should be cleaned up and preserved for their great recreational and spiritual values.

Sometimes these dams are proposed for flood control, sometimes for a water supply. There may be no alternative to one dam or a series of dams when it comes to flood control or for water supply. Yet even here, if the design is to save a free-flowing river, such dams as are needed can be put way upstream or on a tributary, saving the main water-way for fishermen, canoeists, swimmers, and the like.

A case in point is the Potomac river. As I have said, the Corps of Engineers has planned a dam to provide a head of water to flush the river of sewage. It has also proposed dams for a water supply, and there is no doubt but that the metropolitan area of the nation's capital needs prudent planning in that connection. But here again, alternatives are available. There is the estuary that runs for about 30 miles from Little Falls just above Chain Bridge down into Chesapeake Bay. This part of the estuary is not salt or brackish water. It is tidal water that stays fresh. The technicians will probably deny that the water is fresh, because the water in the estuary contains tracings of salt. But those small portions of salt still leave the water potable, and it is potable water that is needed for the city's domestic use.

So in making plans for the city's future water supply, a pumping plant could easily be installed below Little Falls to move into action when the water above Little Falls becomes dangerously low. The estuary contains 100 billion gallons of potable water and this, plus the flow of the river, is enough to keep the nation's capital supplied for the indefinite future, no matter how big it grows—once the Potomac is cleaned up.

Why does the Corps of Engineers therefore suggest dams instead of a pumping plant in the estuary plus complete sewage treatment and removal of all of the pollutants from the water? That remains a mystery. Many think it is because the Corps builds dams very well and does not do other things quite as well and, therefore, it imposes upon society its specialty, like the chef who imposes his own favorite dish on all the patrons! That has led some to say, "We pay the farmers not to plant crops. Why don't we pay the Corps of Engineers not to build dams?"

My point is that the free-flowing river usually can be saved by the use of alternatives and our search should be for those alternatives.

The reason for this is accentuated when one studies the history of the dams. In my state of Washington, there is a very fine dam on the Wenatchee that is now useless because it is sanded in. There have been suggestions that the dam be blown out so that the sand can escape. But the fish experts veto that proposal, because it would ruin spawning grounds for 20 or 30 miles downstream. So the dam stands as a white elephant.

Go to Texas and you will see dam after dam silted up and no longer useful, or fast becoming such, as at Lake Austin, Lake Kemp, Lake Corpus Christi, Lake, Dallas, Lake Bridgeport, Eagle Lake, Lake Waco, Possum Kingdom Reservoir and Lake Brownwood.

The life of a dam there is shorter than the life of a dam in the Pacific North-west, because rivers in Texas run heavy with silt.

Dams that ruin free-flowing rivers are temporary expedients for which we pay an awful price. The search, as I said, should be for other alternatives, whether the dam be used for power, public or private, water supply, flood control or irrigation.

I have mentioned the powerful Corps of Engineers as one of our despoilers. TVA is another. As this is written, TVA is promoting the building of a dam on the Little Tennessee—not for power, not for irrigation, not for flood control. The dam, it is said, will provide new industrial sites for industry. But TVA already has hundreds of industrial sites that go begging for purchasers or lessees. Why destroy the Little T? It is some 30 miles long and is the best trout stream in the Southeast. Its water is pure and cold. Its islands are wondrous campgrounds. Its valleys are rich and fertile, being some of the very best agricultural lands in the South. Here was the home of Sequoya, the great Cherokee chief. Here are the old Cherokee village sites never mined for their archaeological wonders. Here is the old Fort Loudoun, built by the British in 1756. All of these wonders will be destroyed forever and buried deep under water for all time. Why not save this recreational wonderland for our grandchildren? Why allow it to be destroyed in a real-estate promotion by TVA?

The truth is that our momentum is toward destroying our natural wonders, converting them into dollars. The modern Genghis Khans are not robber barons; they fly the "conservation" flag; they promote "employment" and "development" and "progress." They have many instruments at their command. Industrial waste and sewage is one; destruction of free-flowing rivers through the building of dams is another.

Yet in spite of this destructive trend, there are a few encouraging signs.

The cause of free-flowing rivers received new impetus in 1964 when Congress created the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, which will preserve in perpetuity portions of the Jack's Fork river in Missouri. By this law, Congress directed that the natural beauty of the landscape be preserved and enhanced, that the outdoor resources be conserved and that the Secretary of the Interior establish zones where hunting and fishing are permitted. A related idea is expressed in the Wild Rivers Bill that Senator Church of Idaho has been promoting. It passed the Senate in 1967 and is now pending in the House. This proposed National Wild River system would comprise large segments of the Salmon and Clearwater in Idaho, the Rogue in Oregon, the Eleven Point in Missouri, the Buffalo in Arkansas, the Cacapon and its tributary the Lost river in West Virginia, and the West Virginia portion of the Shenandoah. The Wild River area would be administered for water and wildlife conservation, and for outdoor-recreation values. Yet it would not interfere with other uses such as lumbering, livestock grazing, and the like, though it would bar industrial wastes and sewage. The idea is to hand down to the oncoming generation a few of our important free-flowing streams in a pleasing and relatively unaltered environment.

There is a growing interest among the states in the preservation of their free-flowing rivers. Maine has taken the lead in saving the Allagash, a famed canoe waterway even before Thoreau, which runs north through Telos Lake to the St. John. Most of this will now be preserved as a wilderness waterway, with a belt of land between 400 feet and 800 feet wide on each side that will be managed to maintain the wilderness character of the waterway. The electorate in November 1966 approved a bond issue to help finance the land- and water-rights acquisition. Federal funds will also help in the acquisition program. The state will control all campsites. Most motors will be barred, this being a canoe sanctuary for hunters, fishermen and those who like the thrill of white water.

In 1947, Congress approved a Water Pollution Control Compact between the New England States, and they have made considerable progress in providing water-quality standards and in classifying rivers. But sad to say, quite a number of the New England rivers, conspicuously the Merrimack and Nashua, are put in the lowest categories, which means they are little more than carriers of waste.

In 1961, Congress authorized the Delaware River Basin Compact between Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Some progress has been made in establishing water-quality standards for that river.

On September 26, 1966, the Hudson River Basin Compact became law, whereby Congress gave New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut authority to preserve the natural, scenic, historical and recreational resources of the Hudson, to abate water pollution and develop water resources, to preserve and rehabilitate the scenic beauty of the river and to promote its fish and wildlife and other resources. Now the troublesome Hudson, saturated with raw sewage, can be surveyed in its entirety and over-all planning instituted that in time may make it safe, healthwise, even for swimming.

There is another interesting development—this one in the state of Washington. The Yakima river flows off the eastern slopes of the Cascades to form the Columbia near Pasco. In its upper reaches it is a clear, cold, free-flowing river filled with trout, excellent for swimming and a fine canoe waterway. Mrs. Douglas and I became disturbed at a creeping real-estate development. Realestate operators are selling lots on the river front and it is plain that in time the riverbank will be packed with houses. Sewage from their cesspools and septic tanks will pollute the waters. Industry is moving in, and there are telltale signs that industrial wastes are beginning to poison the river. We helped form the Yakima River Conservancy to design state procedures for protecting this watercourse. Others in the state capital took up the cause; and now there is a bill pending that would set aside this part of the Yakima and parts of several other rivers in Washington as wild rivers, putting under special zoning control a sanctuary belt that is one quarter of a mile wide on each side of each of these rivers. In this way, the natural state of a river will be preserved, its free-flowing character maintained, its scenic values and its purity honored, while no inconsistent use will be banned. In other words, agricultural uses could go on unimpaired; even some residential sites and campgrounds could be sanctioned. But the essential character of the stream will be kept inviolate; and 100 years from now, there will be unspoiled waterway wonders for our great-great-grandchildren.

Some ponds and swamps in national wildlife refuges and game ranges are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and it is directed under the Wilderness Act of 1964 to make recommendations concerning their preservation as roadless wilderness areas. In 1967, numerous hearings of that character took place; one of the first concerned the Great Swamp in New Jersey, which harbors otter, beaver, and many other species of wildlife and many botanical wonders. Developers have had their eyes on it, especially for an airport. No decision has been reached by the agency on the Wilderness issue. The lands around the Great Swamp have been increasing in value and the speculators' appetites for the Great Swamp are keen. But for most of us, what Brooks Atkinson recently wrote is the essence of the cause: "In Great Swamp the property values are low because the land is good for nothing except life, knowledge, peace and hope."

The Forest Service and Park Service are also required by the Wilderness Act of 1964 to determine what roadless areas will be preserved in their respective domains. The hearings, now going on and to take place, will sometimes involve the fate of rivers. A notorious example is the Minam river in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest of eastern Oregon, one of the very few rivers in the Pacific Northwest not paralleled by a road. Lumbermen are anxious to build such a road, not only to make money from timber sales but primarily to make a small fortune in building the road itself. The Minam—as crystal clear as any in the land—would be heavily silted by logging: the road would soon be clogged with cars; and the banks would be packed with people. The quiet and seclusion of the sanctuary would be lost forever and the natural character of the free-flowing Minam would disappear.

There will be a chance to save a number of waterways under the Wilderness Act from all pollution and all "development."

The same, of course, is true of many lakes in the high country. But as respects the lakes in our low country, we have made amazing progress. The Dust Bowl of the Twenties and Thirties taught us something of soil and water conservation. At that time, our natural ponds and marshes were fast being drained. The cycle has been reversed. Due largely to the Soil Conservation Service, about 1,500,000 new farm ponds have been formed. These have some recreational value, but their greatest impact probably has been on the duck population. Many are wonderful fish ponds. Over half of them have been a great boon to waterfowl. Those new ponds in the North Central States are in areas where several hundred million bushels of waste corn are commonly left in the fields. These are prized feeding grounds for waterfowl and probably have changed some of the ancient flyways.

In 1960, President Eisenhower vetoed the proposed Federal Water Pollution Control Act, which would have increased Federal grants for the construction of sewage-treatment works and such purposes. His veto was based on the fact that water pollution is "a uniquely local blight" that must be assumed by state and local governments.

That Federal attitude has changed under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, so that today there is a pervasive program for Federal control, in case the states fail to act promptly. The diminishing Federal funds available for cleanup of the rivers and lakes of the nation is part of the tragedy. Another is that the Eisenhower attitude still obtains in critical agencies such as the Bureau of the Budget. And in the absence of a tremendous popular drive, the critical conditions promise to get worse and worse.

One expert in the field of preservation of our streams and lakes recently said, "We can hardly expect to be as smart in the future as we've been stupid in the past." But with the mounting public concern evident on every hand, it may be possible by 2000 A.D. to restore some of our watercourses and lakes to their pristine condition.