The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1945-06-22
Masonic Waste Kills Tons Of Fish In Singing River;
Angry Residents Demand Action By State Authorities
No More Excuses
IAN


The residents of Jackson county this week received one
of their periodic consignments of dead fish and polluted river
water from the Masonite plant at Laurel, and we propose
to raise some questions as to why this spolation of one of
the finest rivers in America can continue year after year
despite the passage of specific statutes to prevent it.
The state game and fish commission is empowered to
prevent this, and specifically charged with the duty to do SO.
We refer the reader to the news article on this page for a
ton abuses of the Masonite corporation in mind. This act
has not been enforced, and tons of dead fish and shrimp
stretching from a few miles above Pascagoula all the way to
Laurel could be produced last week as proof.
And now we should like to ask Mr.. Dearman. di-
rector Of the commission. and Attorney General Greek
L. Rice. why they have failed to carry out this law
which is their responsibility. We commend to the at
tention of Governor Bailey the fact that this periodic
pollution of the Pascagoula river continues. running one
of the finest natural resources of the state years after a
specific law was passed to prevent it.
We have heard various albis advanced for and by the
Masonite people, but we do not believe they merit serious
reply. One excuse is that the recent discharges are only an
old sediment that has been washed down by the rain. Var
dial measures have already been taken to dump the current
waste in sludge pits. We don't believe it. The fish continue
to be killed just as they have been for the past seven or eight
years, and not until this condition is stopped has the COM
pany complied with the law, nor have the conservation
director or attorney general properly enforced it. That law
was written to get results-not explanations and more dead
fish.
This is a more important matter than the running
of the sport Of a few anglers and the business of a few
fishing camps. Bad conservation practices have a cumu-
lative effect and in the long run. they can. and they do
ruin whole countrYsides and river valleys. A healthy
and pleasant countryside is a priceless asset which be-
longs to all the people of the state. and indeed the coun-
try. The spoilation of a river brings immeasurable
loss in public assets and in private real estate values.
One corporation. pumping waste at the source of a
stream can ruin a river worth 4 hundred fold its annual
payroll.
We are solidly behind the principle of industrialization,
and we think that the more corporations like Masonite come
into the state the better off we shall be-. But we know that
the total value of these corporations, and more besides, can
be ruined forever If our conservation and law enforcement
officers are too short-sighter and inefficient to insist on the
adequate and relatively-inexpensive conservation measures
necessary to keep this country fit to live in. Conservation
is for the good of industry too, if they would only realize it.
MISSISSIPPI has already lost a great part of its numbering
industry by short-sighted and ruinous practices, although
we might have kept 1t a prosperous industry forever by far
sighted conservation. Oil fields have now been prematurely
ruined IN Texas and Louisiana by stripping. 1t will do the
state no good to gain a hundred or a thousand big plants
at the cost of a grimy, sinking countryside no longer fit to
1--we In. 1t will no longer be the Mississippi that we know.
with the open spaces and forests, the fields, the clean rivers
with white sanbars stretching in the distance.
And such a future is not necessary. We can have in
dustry, and we can have a decent countryside, if we have
waste disposal and conservation measures. To repeat, it is
not only a question of saving a fe Wish, although to many
so-caued practical people it may seem So We simply do not
want MlsslsSppis streams turned into barren, lifeless, stink
ing industrial rivers like the Hackensack and the Delaware
ana all those other streams of the eastern seaboard which,
though once clean and beautiful, have been turned into pois-
onous canals.
The P~aScagoula has been the Singing River of story and
legend from the days of the old Indian tribes. We are tired
OF watching the state fish and game commission do nothing
Whlle the pollution goes on that will eventually turn it into
the Sinking River. This river belongs to us and to the
people OF Mississippi and to our children. And we demand
that the state take steps to secure it to US and our posterity
by enforcing the clearly written statutes on he law books.
What are you going to do about it, Mr.. Dearman? Cen
eral Rice? Governor Bailey?