Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-04-03
q of bars near Albany. no small part of

ing of bars near Albany, no small part of
which was sawdust. The dumping of saw.
mill refuse is ruinous to the Upper Hud-
SOD, because at many points below Glen's
Falls and Feeder Dam it has clogged,
choked and filed the channel, so that in
summer a person can walk across it with
out wetting his feet At Fort Edward an
accurate survey has shown that saw
mill refuse to depth OF eight feet, more
or less, covers eight acres of the
rivers bed within the corporation
limits of that village. For miles below
Fort Edward in summer, when the water
of the upper Hudson has fallen, little re-
mains to mark the -iver's course save great
bars of sawnill refuse, so completely has
its channel been filled in. Below Fort Ed
ward are immense bars in places in the
channel where fifty years ago men fished,
where the water was from thirty to forty
feet deep. The channel of the upper
Hudson was clear and well defined before
the dumping of sawmill refuse was so great.
Nowadays, says one writer, bars of saw.
mill refuse are formed with great rapidity,
because the volume of the upper Hudson
is yearly growing smaller, its channel
what remains of it-narrower and shall.
lower, and the dumping of sawmill refuse
greater. Years ago canal boata were foated
up the river to Fort Edward. Now there
are times when not even rowboat can be
floated to that place on what is called the
Hudson.
1t is shown that the dumping OF sawmiil
refuse is poisonous to the valley of the Up
per Hudson, because the rotten accumula.
ton Of acres and acres of it lodged in
its channel breeds diseases which fifty years
ago, when the channel was clear, were IN
known to the inhabitants of that valley.
A correspondent OF the Herald asks
"What will it be few, very few years
hence, il the dumping of sawmill refuse
continues Must the people of this State
be taxed that the upper Hudson
may be sacrificed to the convenience
and profit Of few sawmill owners
Must the people stand silently by aud see
an important part of the Hudson river
filed mp with waste and refuse without
lifting one hand to stop it: Must health
be destroyed and life taken to
satisfy the avarice of a few saw
mill owners of Northern New York?n
The New York papers and the Legisla-
ture have taken the matter up, and New
Workers. are now to be treated to real
{" slickens contest. To the people of the
Sacramento Valley, who have seen heavy,
ceueDt.like matter from hydraulic mines,
and Improbable sand f-om the same
source, fill up and all but destroy naviga-
BILE streams, causing oveEhows, and spread
ing out over and raining agricultural land,
and actually burying orchards and dwell
ings, and turning fertile spots into desert
wastes this scare over the light article
sawdust appears almost farcical. It, how.
ever, serves one purpose-it will call atten-
ton to the duty of preserving navigable
streams from destruction by artificial pro-
cesses as well as natural action, and out of
that we of the Sacramento Valley may
profit. It will add also the sentiment JUS
tifying the decisions of the Courts that no
one has the right, under any grant whatsO-
ever, to use navigable streams to their
destruction or the damage of riparian
jewellers,