Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 241, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1910 — Fishermen May Have to Take Out License. [ARTICLE]

Fishermen May Have to Take Out License.

Fish poisoning In Indiana because of the dumping of city sewerage and factory refuse into the streams and lakes of the state bears promise of coming to an early end through a movement now under way to have the fishermen take out a license for fishing privileges, just as the sportsman who carries a gun Is required to take out a hunter’s license. For several years the state board of health has been fighting the dumping of sewage and refuse into the streams, and has met with only partial success, chiefly because the department was short of funds and was not able to collect and present properly the evidence required to put a stop to the objectionable practice. George W. Miles, recently appointed state fish and game commissioner, will go before the next session of the general assembly and seek to have enacted a law providing that the fisherman shall procure a license, to cost $1 a year. The proceeds of these license fees will be used for a two-fold purpose—to replenish the fish In the lakes end streams, and to combat the dumping of sewage and refuse into waters where the state is seeking to propagate fish. In addition to raising the money in this way for this purpose, the commissioner hopes to arouse public interest in the fight for pure streams, on the theory that whatever a man is compelled to pay for he will be most likely to conserve. The conditions of the proposed license have not yet beep determined on, but it is understood that the hunter’s license, as now issued, will constitute a license to fish in streams and lakes of the state, and that no license will be required for a resident who does not go outside his own township to engage in the sport. These are details which the commissioner has left for later consideration. In the last seven months reports received at the office of the fish and game commissioner indicate that millions of fish, ranging in weight front one-half pound to three and four poutMjs were killed following freshets which carried the pollutions from sewage pools in the lakes and streams into the waters where the fish were living. The sewage lying in a pool, through putrefaction, generates carbonic acid gas, and when a fish enters waters so charged, it gives a gasp or two, goes to the top and floats away lifeless. The city of Indianapolis empties its sewage into White river, and from the city south as far as ten miles or more, there are no fish to make angling worth while. Below that distance the stream abounds in good catches. Recently a freshet carried to two or three times the usual distance the contents of the sewage beds in the stream, and for days the dead fish dotted the surface of the rivers. It is only by compelling the cities now emptying their sewage into the streams to construct means of destroying the sewage, and by compelling the manufacturers to destroy the waste they produce that sport with the rod and reel can be assured for Indiana sportsmen in the future, the commissioner holds.