The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-12
FISH DYING IN
 VAST NUMBERS
STRANGE EPIDEMIC IN WATERS
 OF LOUISIANA.
Millions of Dead Fish and Crabs or Shores of Lake Pontshartrain. No Explanation of Mortality.
 Another Epidemic Much
 Like It a Year Ago.

New Orleans, Aug. 10-Fish and crabs in Louisiana waters have been dying off in enormous quantities for the last year, and opinions differ as to whether their de- struction is due to natural causes, to some new fish disease or to the effects of the new drainage system of New Orleans. The shores of Lake Pontchartrain. just north of New Orleans, have been covered for the last week with millions of dead fish and crabs. So great has the mortality been that there have been apprehensions as to it's effect upon the health of the people living near the lake and the visit ors to the various summer resorts there.
 No satisfactory explanation has been given of this destruction of fish life. Pop ular opinion attributes it to the empty ing of the New Orleans drainage canal into Lake Pontchartrain. These canals. as matter of face, contain no sewerage and are supposed to carry off nothing but surface or rain water. The water, how ever, becomes more or less polluted in the streets and gutters of a great city. That it becomes polluted to such great de- gree as to kill the fish and crabs is doubted by scientists.
 Besides. the fish have died by wholesale in other Louisiana streams and lakes wholly uncontaminated by drainage from New Orleans. Thus about a year ago millions of buffalo fish died suddenly in Harvey's Canal and Bayou Barataria. on the other side of the Mississippi The number of dead fish then was far greater than 1t Is now.
 The destruction of fish life then was attributed to the great salt water wave which swept along the Gulf coast of Lou isiana and Texas. converting fresh water streams into salty or briny waterways, and cutting down the rice crops nearly one-quarter. The fresh water fish were driven upstream, it was said, and finally asphyxiated by being packed too tightly together.
 Popular opinion also found some con- nection between this phenomenon and the Martinique volcanic disturbance. It was suggested that the waters of the Gulf had been poisoned E} the gases from Mont Pelee.
 These epidemics among fish are only two of many that have occurred of recent year, s and threaten to leave the Louisiana streams without fish. None of the. ex- plantations given of these epidemics is satisfactory.
 the present epidemlcs must be due, 1t Is agreed, to causes that have arisen of late years. The drainage of New Orleans in- to Lake Pontchartrain was more offensive thirty years ago than today, but 1t did not kill the fish.
 On the other hand, factories have in- creased in number and they may have contributed to the pollution of the water. There Is, for instance, a strong distrust of Beaumont or fuel oil.
 Whenever this oil has been used. it has been possible to trace the evils 1t has caused Thus. short time ago. a distinct avor of Beaumovt oil was detected among the Plaquemine oysters, and 1t was found that some of the tank steamers dumped refuse oil into the river.
 Although the amount so dumped was infinitesimal compared with the mighty flood of the Missississippi. so powerful the odor and the flavor of fuel oiI' that they made themselves felt The . police jury of Plaquemines got an injunction from the United State Court prohibiting the dumping of any fuel oil into the river, and the oysters are no longer oily and sulphurous.
 But while the oil may explain some of the trouble with the fish. 1t does not ac- count for all the phenomena. It looks at times as though there were an epidemic among fish. or that the streams and bayous may be too densely populated. so that the fish are getting badly crowded and may he dying of asphyxiation. v
 Fortunately. with few exceptions those that are dying are of the less valuable varieties The buffalo fish and choupique are the worst sufferers, and 1t lookk as though they would be ultimately extinct in southern Louisiana. so many millions of them have died in recent years. Form erly. they were so abundant in the haybus1 of the alluvial district that they cpifid be baled out with dipper. s| Ti i pi'
 The fresh water muilets have siitsFed badly. but the catfish very slightly. The alligators and gars have been practically killed on