POISONING STREAMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9714, 9 January 1895, Page 4

POISONING STREAMS.

A subject of the first importance was discussed at a meeting of the Acclimatisation Society yesterday. We refer to the question of preserving the purity of our running streams. For some time past an advertisement has appeared in our columns, emanating from the Department of Mines, notifying that after a certain date the whole of the network of streams constituting the sources of the Thames River will be proclaimed " water-courses into which tailings, mining debris, and waste water of every kind used in, upon, or discharged from any claim or licensed holding adjacent to such water-courses shall be suffered to flow or be discharged. Considering the number and extent of the - streams dealt with, this _ notification might probably be considered a wide license even in past times, but now that the treatment of ores and tailings by the cyanide process is becoming more or less universal, such a license becomes a matter of the gravest importance. It is wellknown that the discharge of tailings that have been so treated into a running stream involves the destruction of all fish life in the vicinity, even eels, which are credited with considerable vital powers, being unable to resist the deadly influence of cyanide. This question of pollution of streams is one that has taken first rank in the old country, and great expense has been gone to in the endeavour to cleanse streams that have for years been the receptacle for the residuum of various manufacturing products. In many cases the efforts of local bodies have been defeated by the plea of vested rights of long standing, and it must be apparent how undesirable it < is to afford any ground for the belief that statutory rights have been conferred, whereby not only the purity of our streams can be destroyed with impunity, but the water rendered absolutely unfit for use. In many cases it was found that the very waste • that was poisoning streams was capable of being turned into a product of value. But even if there is no means of rendering tailings treated by the cyanide process innoxious, it becomes a question whether such debris should not be conveyed away and stacked clear of the stream so that the drainage may filter through the earth. Perhaps some additional cost would be involved, but judging from the value of shares in at

■ . =s!!sSs 3^ least one mile in the district, there i« a margin fof some additional expend -The question of the effect of cyanide tailings on riitning streams is one on Which a science opinion, apart from mining interest, should be sought by the Qovernmeu before statutory right* are conferred; 7lnch may be difficult and expensive t} extinguish.