Contesting pollution in Dixie: the case of Corney Creek.

NATIONAL SURVEYS OF WATER QUALITY IN THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY repeatedly identified the U.S. urban industrial core--the heavily populated areas of the Northeast and Midwest--as the "pollution belt" (see Figure 1). (1) In 1956 Congress strengthened the U.S. Public Health Service's ability to intervene in interstate pollution conflicts, and the "pollution belt" might logically have been the setting for the first enforcement effort. Rather, Corney Creek, an obscure stream in Louisiana (see Figure 2), was the initial battleground for federal action in 1957. Corney Creek is one of several waterways that drain a small rural basin that straddles the Louisiana-Arkansas state line. Concerns about water quality arose there after crude-oil production commenced in the basin's upper reaches during the late 1930s. A decade later, both Louisiana and federal agencies had documented an obvious pollution problem resulting from brine discharges from oil wells into surface waters. Soon thereafter, sport fishermen in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, complained of fish kills in the creek and in Corney Lake, a federal reservoir that impounded the stream's flow. These circumstances were unremarkable in the oil fields of Louisiana, Arkansas, and nearby Texas. Yet, sportsmen's complaints ultimately triggered the first federal interstate water pollution hearing. In contrast, subsequent enforcement actions elsewhere required a public health issue to provoke action. Of all the instances of stream pollution in the 1950s, what prodded a cautious federal agency to react in this case? What elevated a few fish kills in a tiny tributary to the Ouachita River to a status that justified federal intervention?

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While some answers to these questions are particular to the situation, the Corney Creek pollution case also provides insight into far larger issues in the emerging efforts to protect water quality in the United States and particularly in the South. This example highlights three points about southern environmental history: (1) unlike the Northeast and Midwest, southern pollution abatement began with natural resource protection, not urban public health, (2) contrary to the typical historical interpretation that southern states tolerated pollution caused by new industries, citizens of the region exhibited a fundamental popular opposition to environmental degradation, and (3) residents affected by pollution sought assistance from parish authorities, who turned directly to federal agencies rather than relying on state officials. These factors put a particularly southern frame around the situation.

Historians of the South have long recognized the importance of the environment--particularly in terms of agricultural pursuits and public health--even if writing explicitly on environmental history has been a bit thin. (2) Yet this particular environmental conflict had several distinctively southern elements. The Corney Creek incident centered on a location that was in transition from a rural agricultural society to a more urbanized and industry-oriented locale. Places across the former cotton belt passed through similar adjustments, and each endured numerous alterations that were bound up in local policy, economics, environment, and tradition. In this respect, the Corney Creek basin characterizes much of the upland South and represents a broader pattern.

One of the critical elements of this situation was the primacy of natural resources over public health in pollution policy. Government bodies certainly did not ignore public health in the South, but waterborne diseases took a secondary place to vector-borne illnesses and dietary ailments. Yellow fever plagued the South during the nineteenth century, but as medical science rejected the miasmatic theory in favor of insect-delivered bacteria, policies shifted to pest control. (3) Widespread installation of public sewer systems offered southern cities a means to reduce typhoid and diarrhea, but the intended purpose of the sewers was to export effluent from urban areas, which actually contributed to downstream pollution. (4) Few southern cities offered sewage treatment that would have diminished downstream threats by the mid-twentieth century; thus growing cities benefited from sewers at the expense of their rural neighbors. For the most part, larger rivers in the humid South could dilute the relatively small discharges from the modest-sized interior cities while the region's largest cities--New Orleans, Washington, and Houston--had no downstream neighbors to speak of. Indeed, the National Resources Committee (within the Department of the Interior) excluded southern states from its "pollution belt" (see Figure 1). While Atlanta's sewage presented a growing problem to the Chattahoochee River by mid-century, no river in the South had to carry a pollution load comparable to the Ohio or upper Mississippi Rivers. (5)

Beyond the South, many state legislatures placed primary authority for pollution control in public health agencies, and this choice handicapped wildlife agencies. (6) Illinois fish and game officials lamented that they had little authority to restrict discharges fatal to aquatic life: "We have found also that no matter how flagrant the case appeared, we as fish commissioners, having no authority further than that of any citizen, could only point out the sole means of relief, a suit for damage by nuisance." (7) Fisheries on the upper Mississippi River and the Great Lakes had endured much greater losses due to pollution than had those on tiny Corney Creek. Consequently, midwestern sport fishermen, working through such national organizations as the Izaak Walton League, mounted vigorous campaigns beginning in the 1920s to reverse the damage to aquatic life caused by urban and industrial discharges to major waterways. (8) While conservation efforts, when merged with public health agendas, secured some advances in sewage treatment, effluent flowing into "pollution belt" rivers continued to overwhelm these waters through the 1940s. Conservation alone did not secure abatement. Nationally, public health remained the primary water-quality concern when Congress passed the Water Pollution Control Act in 1948 and amended it in 1956. Yet, on the eve of the great mobilization of environmental activism, Corney Creek became the initial focal point for federal action. Louisiana, like several of its neighbors, placed primary pollution control in the hands of the fish and wildlife agency. This regulatory approach made game wardens into pollution enforcement officials, and the health of aquatic life served as the index of harm to waterways. In contrast to the approach used in other regions, this arrangement elevated natural resources to the primary concern. (9)

Several additional aspects of southern life influenced this antipollution struggle. First, the primacy of county or parish (the term used in Louisiana) government propelled the issue around the largely unresponsive state officials. (10) In Louisiana, local residents relied on their police juries (parish governing bodies) to contact federal officials (both congressmen and agency representatives). Local government, civic organizations, and ad hoc advocacy groups, not national organizations like the Izaak Walton League, applied the pressure. Unlike efforts in other regions that involved sympathetic state public health agencies, parish officials responded directly to local residents' complaints and took their concerns to the federal level. This reveals both a lack of confidence in the state to respond and a fundamental reliance on local government.

Since the end of the Reconstruction era, Louisiana and other southern states have often shown an overt willingness to accept federal support for local projects despite shrill states' rights rhetoric used by many southern leaders. Louisiana was able to divert levee-building and maintenance expenses to the national government's Mississippi River Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers beginning in 1879. (11) Federal funds flowed into all parts of the South through agricultural subsidies, with industrial development during World War II, and along with massive public works projects such as the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. (12) Of a more modest scale, Corney Lake was one of several federal projects that injected external funds into economic development projects in north Louisiana. Damage to the lake, which was administered by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (SCS), brought immediate federal attention to the problem and assisted local pollution opponents in reaching federal authorities. (13) That a federal agency managed the property created a ready conduit to federal authorities for Claiborne Parish residents. Familiarity with federal officials, an unintended consequence of accepting federal largesse, no doubt worked to the benefit of those who sought to halt pollution and place this incident on the agenda of the U.S. Public Health Service. Additionally, congressmen had greater influence with agency heads than did state officials. These factors conspired to make Corney Creek a likely candidate for federal action.

Furthermore, in north Louisiana traditional culture, fishing and hunting were fundamental activities that could not be infringed upon. In areas of the upland South such as Claiborne Parish, local hunters and fishermen had long sought to preserve common access to fish and game as an essential right. (14) Preservation of fishing streams was one part of community-based resource protection practices, not necessarily a reflection of incipient conservation or environmental impulses. Local sportsmen clearly sought to retain their customary rights to fish and fowl, and they turned to government officials to assist them. (15) Claiborne Parish fishermen were a far cry from conservation pioneers such as George Grinnell or Theodore Roosevelt. (16) Nonetheless, the Louisiana sportsmen were powerful agents in the local political apparatus who appealed directly to congressmen to maintain those rights. When national organizations such as the Izaak Walton League took the case of "pollution belt" fishermen in other regions directly to Congress, the groups faced considerable opposition from shipping and industrial interests. (17) For sportsmen to be successful at the national level and outside the South, conservation organizations had to bolster their positions with public health arguments. Beyond the national spotlight, Louisianians did not have to include the public health argument in conjunction with a natural resource position. During the 1957 Corney Creek hearing, local residents offered impassioned testimony recounting the decline in local sport fisheries and emphasizing the central importance of fishing in their lives. Public health was not an issue.

Climate, a factor long considered central to southern distinctiveness, also played an important role. (18) In this case vagaries in the normal precipitation pattern contributed to the environmental problems in Louisiana. Drought made pollution more apparent by reducing rivers' diluting capabilities--in the South and elsewhere. Each federal investigation of Corney Creek (1949 and 1954) followed a dry period when the small streams of the region would have endured higher and more toxic concentrations, even if there had been a constant volume of oil-field brine. The extended drought of the mid-1950s framed the final local push for action and the federal hearing. Beginning in April 1957, a few months after the hearings, copious precipitation pushed stream flows above average for several years, diluting any lingering brine releases and washing away public pressure. (19)

While enforcement actions on larger rivers, some in the urban-industrial core, followed soon after the Corney Creek hearing, the first hearing stands out as an anomaly because it was decidedly rural and focused on natural resources. (20) Quite likely, as others have argued, the Public Health Service's Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control assiduously avoided the major urban-industrial core for its initial inquiry in part to avert strong opposition from the states and also possibly to have a remote case serve as the trial balloon for the untested hearing process. (21) By conducting the hearing in the backwaters of north Louisiana, the Public Health Service was able to field-test the process and establish a precedent. Concentrating on the relatively minuscule pollution problem in Corney Creek, the agency could register a success with minimal effort.

In addition to their role in southern environmental history, the Corney Creek hearings represent a critical turning point in the shift from state to federal oversight. Much of the history written about water pollution has focused logically on the urban and industrial Northeast. In this region, population growth and industrialization put the greatest pressure on a resource expected to serve multiple purposes--potable water, industrial uses, fisheries, and waste transport--and as Joel A. Tart has reported, public policies first found full-blown expression there. (22) Theodore Steinberg's study of water management in New England emphasizes the importance of public health concerns in shaping early pollution regulations. He notes that early state laws sought to deter discharges immediately upstream from public water supplies, although the laws excluded the most severely polluted waterways from regulation. Likewise, John T. Cumbler traces the public health model used to regulate pollution in the Connecticut River basin. Guided by the germ theory of disease, New England officials pushed for waste treatment to eliminate downstream disease threats. Considering the entire country, Martin V. Melosi observes that the northeastern states enacted pollution regulations based on public health well before their southern counterparts. (23) While not a critique of southern states, Melosi's implicit message is that northern states responded with greater speed to control health-threatening conditions. With substantially more people at risk and heavier waste-transport demands placed on streams supplying potable water, public health concerns would have been at the forefront in the Northeast and Midwest. (24) Serious pollution problems lingered in these regions into the 1960s, however, serving as a reminder that policy formulation does not always remedy the problem.

The first three major interstate pollution cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court also demonstrate regionally specific concerns. Missouri sued Illinois for posing a public health threat when Chicago sent its sewage down a tributary of the Illinois River and into St. Louis's drinking water supply in 1900. A few years later, New York asked the high court to abate New Jersey's use of a common harbor as a sewage sink. New York claimed its neighbor's effluent threatened to increase disease risks to those living near or bathing in the polluted water. In neither of these cases did the Court call for cessation of sewage releases. When Georgia filed suit against a giant smelter near Ducktown, Tennessee, in the same decade, the primary concern was damage to farm and forest resources by air pollution. In contrast to the two northern cases that focused on public health threats and allowed the pollution to continue, the Court called for the smelter to modify its waste releases to protect private property rights in the South. (25) Granted, recognition of the human health threats posed by airborne contaminants was not a principal concern at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, nuisance law treated both atmospheric and water pollution as mobile causes of damage down gradient from the source. (26) Also, both the Mississippi River and New York harbor served as habitat for commercially harvested aquatic or marine life, but these resources were not the core issue of those lawsuits.

Federal agencies consistently emphasized that pollution was a greater problem in the country's economic core. A 1939 report by the National Resource Committee pointed out that public health was "a major objective" of water-quality policy and that states with the most severe problems tended to have more rigorous, even if marginally effective, regulatory mechanisms in place. The report's fundamental message was that southern states lagged behind their northern neighbors in enacting regulations, though it acknowledged that the South did not face as severe a problem. In 1951 the Public Heath Service again noted that "[p]ollution follows people" and that the majority of people and pollution clustered near the northeastern seaboard and the Great Lakes. Public health remained the primary pollution issue at the national level, although officials acknowledged threats to other water uses. (27)

Historians of both southern industry and the environment have developed the theme that states in the New South tolerated pollution issuing from recently arrived manufacturers. (28) Richard A. Bartlett makes the case that North Carolina went as far as revising a pollution law to protect Champion Fibre Company, a paper manufacturer, against private suits while it used the Pigeon River as a waste outlet. He also notes that southern industry tended to be more dispersed in rural areas and consequently produced fewer complaints. Yet in the South, rural populations were the majority through much of the twentieth century. Despite tolerance at the statehouse level, the rural population frequently voiced displeasure with damage to streams and their aquatic life, and downstream residents in Tennessee led the campaign against the paper producer's effluent. (29) The interstate nature of the Pigeon River conflict, like the Corney Creek case, complicated the efforts of those suffering from unwanted releases.

Several examples of in-state opposition appear in Louisiana's legal records. At the behest of farmers in 1910, the Louisiana legislature prohibited the oil-field brine discharges to streams during the season that farmers used the waters for flooding rice fields. (30) This legislation represented the first salvo in a long-term battle between established agriculturalists and new economic forces in the state. A handful of Louisiana cases demonstrate that the local courts tended to rule in favor of agrarian plaintiffs and grant sizable awards when industry damaged farmland or related agricultural resources. Yet, on appeal, oil and paper industries often saw damages reduced in their favor. One appellate judge even wrote that "if industry is to be permitted a reasonable chance to develop for the benefit of the whole community, some inconvenience must be endured by its inhabitants." (31) Although treated with some sympathy by the appeals courts, industry faced consistent opposition from landowners and sportsmen.

Louisiana fishermen mounted a campaign against interstate pollution from Arkansas paper mills that fouled the Ouachita River in the late 1940s. The sportsmen's legal advocate sent complaints to the War Department, which turned the matter over to the U.S. Public Health Service. It heard testimony from both sides and concluded that planned waste-treatment improvements would solve the problem. (32) Closer to Corney Creek, fishermen and farmers complained that an in-state paper mill was damaging fishing on Bayou Bodcau. In response to this internal case, the Louisiana Stream Control Commission held a hearing that prompted a promise from the paper mill that it would improve its treatment processes and reduce harmful releases. (33) Thus, Louisiana sportsmen and landowners contested industrial pollution. While such actions should not be labeled "environmentalism," they represent a fundamental effort to protect private property and natural resources used in common, and they arose at a popular level.

The state nonetheless earned a reputation for accommodating the oil industry. (34) During the early years of the state Stream Control Commission, the Louisiana Petroleum Refiners Waste Control Council, along with another industry trade organization, paid the salary of state biologists who were responsible for determining the toxicity of refinery wastes. (35) When petrochemical producers along the Mississippi River aroused public concern with their copious waste releases, the state sought a cooperative solution rather than resorting to legal action. (36) The lenient treatment of refiners also was apparent in the abatement orders issued by the state pollution enforcement body. Between 1950 and 1959 the Stream Control Commission issued 163 abatement orders, and only 1 demanded that a refinery halt discharges, although the commission handed down abatement orders to seventy-seven oil-field producers. In both 1954 and 1959 the state called for hearings to deal with oil-field pollution of the Little River in central Louisiana, but in sharp contrast to the Corney Creek situation, officials encountered stiff resistance from citizens. Local residents feared enforcement would cause the collapse of a vital economic activity, and they forced the hearings' postponement. (37) There were cleavages in state policy and citizen concern. Large industry along the Mississippi River held a privileged position that did not always extend to wildcat drillers who operated in the upper reaches of river basins where even small releases were more obvious and potentially detrimental. Fishermen were able to initiate a state response in some cases when small oil-field operators were damaging the state's waters, but economic concerns sometimes took precedence over natural resources--both at the state level and among citizens.

Concerned citizens framed the Corney Creek pollution conflict both as an effort to protect natural resources and as a popular movement to eliminate the destruction of fish habitat, and the social context shaped their actions. In the early 1950s south Arkansas and north Louisiana were in the midst of major social and economic transitions. Many Claiborne Parish families traveled former governor Huey Long's highways to work in town, contributing to the great urban migration and rural population loss so characteristic of the region. Nonetheless, the parish's rural population remained at nearly 70 percent in 1950, although the number of farming residents fell from nearly three quarters in 1930 to less than half of the rural total in 1950. As yeoman farmers planted pines rather than cotton, row-crop acreage fell, and woodlots expanded, reflecting a fundamental shift in traditional livelihoods and crops. The combination of migration and agricultural change produced an unsettled citizenry as oil emerged as the new economic engine in north Louisiana's piney hills. (38) Those not benefiting from the prosperity brought by petroleum sought redress for what they saw as the degradation of their property and the infringement of their property rights. (39)

Four oil fields in south Arkansas began production in the upper reaches of the Corney Creek basin in the late 1930s (see Figure 2). The Atlanta, Magnolia, and Shuler fields achieved peak output in the mid-1940s but were already in decline by the early 1950s. The proportion of brine typically rises as oil production falls, and this was the case for these fields. The fourth field, Village, was still experiencing production increases in 1948, so brine releases remained negligible. (40)

Local environmental and resource management issues shaped the conflict. Corney Creek drained a landscape with a mix of forests and farmland and, given its small discharge, was unable to dilute much brine. The stream fed the 1,940-acre Corney Lake, a Great Depression--era impoundment completed in 1938 under the auspices of a U.S. Soil Conservation Service program to reclaim "unfit" lands and convert them to recreational resources. As part of the effort to transform low-quality farmland, federal acquisition of bottomlands for the lake possibly contributed to a local expectation that the federal agencies should help resolve the pollution problem. In addition, in 1956 the Louisiana legislature appropriated $4 million for the planning and development of a second reservoir--Bayou D'Arbonne Lake (see Figure 2)--below Corney Lake. Louisiana officials were reluctant to begin construction until the pollution problem was corrected for fear that contaminants would make this expenditure a complete waste. (41)

Given the significance of agriculture's decline, state officials were interested in attracting more than recreational activity and thus sought manufacturing jobs for north Louisiana. Toward this end, the state initiated an investigation of water quality with industrial uses in mind, and it produced Louisiana's first official documentation of pollution in the Corney Lake basin. An analysis in July 1941 by a chemical engineer with the Department of Conservation found "extremely high total solids and chloride concentrations," which rendered the lake water "useless as an industrial supply." (42) Another report from the same summer indicates "an excessive amount of chloride" in the creek and lake and notes that the salts were "probably from the oil fields in Arkansas." (43) Investigators claimed that the Corney Creek/Lake chloride readings were the "worst" of the several bodies of water in north Louisiana that they sampled, and they recommended investigating ways to reduce chloride concentrations there. Soon thereafter, the Lions Club in Haynesville, another Claiborne Parish town, complained to the Louisiana Stream Control Commission that brine from Arkansas was harming fishing in Corney Lake. (44) In 1943, a year with distinctly low stream flow, field personnel from the Louisiana Department of Conservation investigated and reported healthy fish populations in Corney Lake and nontoxic chloride levels in its tributaries. (45) Despite the state agency's skeptical response, local fishermen remained convinced that brine was harming wildlife, and the Lions Club's complaint initiated the popular effort by sportsmen, in alliance with others, to abate pollution.

With increased brine releases during the mid-1940s, residents began to complain to Louisiana agencies, and they relayed the citizens' concerns to Arkansas. At the behest of Arkansas authorities, some drillers began re-injecting brines (a technique previously employed in East Texas during the 1930s). By returning the salty liquid to the oil-bearing formations, the oil workers in Arkansas eliminated the surface water pollution problem and also re-pressurized the wells to increase their yield. Despite cooperation by some drillers, brine releases increased again, and consequently discharges to the Corney Creek system rose through 1948. (46) Both Arkansas and Louisiana were experiencing dry conditions again in 1948, which minimized the dilution capabilities of the small streams draining the oil fields and exacerbated the impact of oil-field discharges. Climate data indicate "mild drought" conditions in both Louisiana and Arkansas during the late summer and early fall months of 1948. (47) As a result, stream discharges in the area ran between 12 and 25 percent below their long-term averages. (48) Though the drought broke late that year and stream discharges for 1949 returned to normal, north Louisiana fishermen had initiated their complaint during low-water conditions.

Shortly after Congress approved the federal Water Pollution Control Act (1948), the Claiborne Parish police jury adopted a resolution in January 1949 asking Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries officials to "take the matter to the proper United States Authority" in order to stop Corney Creek pollution by "salt and poisonous chemicals." To accelerate the process, the parish officials circulated the jury's petition to the district's congressman, Overton Brooks, and his Arkansas counterpart, Oren Harris. (49) Meanwhile, C. W. James, a prominent citizen whose family owned an oil-field contracting and road construction business based in nearby Ruston, Louisiana, also complained directly to Representative Otto E. Passman, who relayed the criticism to the Public Health Service. Passman's letter noted some startling figures: 500,000 gallons of salt water were entering Corney Creek daily; chloride pollution had increased 60 percent between 1947 and 1948; and local fishermen feared the entire length of Corney Creek would be "ruined for fishing" in the near future. (50)

This appeal brought a response. Passman requested investigations by both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Public Health Service, and they acknowledged that the situation fell under the interstate pollution provisions of the newly passed federal statute. This was the first complaint under the act, and at the time, the Public Health Service office envisioned for the region had not been staffed. Nonetheless, in July 1949 the Public Health Service dispatched Hayse H. Black, its senior sanitary engineer based at its Environmental Health Center in Cincinnati, to investigate the situation alongside representatives from Louisiana and Arkansas fish and game agencies. Black sampled Corney Creek and its tributaries for chloride and detected concentrations above 2,000 parts per million (ppm). While this concentration is toxic to some fish, his measurements were well below levels observed in the early 1940s, suggesting that the water quality had improved. He noted that tributaries draining the oil fields that did not practice proper housekeeping had salty-tasting water and oil-stained banks devoid of vegetation--obvious signs of oil-field pollution. He also suspected that brine had killed numerous cypress trees in Corney Lake. (51) Black concluded that when oil-field operators flushed their retention ponds and released toxic concentrations of brine, periodic fish kills resulted, even during increased stream flow following rainfalls. (52) He also pointed out the possibility that oil itself--along with other toxic releases from the oil fields and low oxygen levels produced by decomposition of vegetation--contributed to fish kills. (53) Although avoiding a single-cause explanation for the fish kills, Black's investigation kept the focus on the Arkansas oil fields and the poor waste-management practices there. The federal official was more circumspect than area fishermen about the reason for declining fish populations.

Armed with the conclusions in Black's report, Arkansas authorities again encouraged producers to handle their wastes properly, but in the absence of legal threats some continued to release brine into the Corney Creek system during the early 1950s. As oil yields declined, brine discharges increased, and Louisiana sportsmen responded with a second round of protests. At the encouragement of local fishermen--and at a time when the region was entering an extended drought--the Claiborne Parish Police Jury passed a resolution in late 1952 charging that the federal government was allowing Corney Lake "to deteriorate to a point where it is of little use as a recreation area due to pollution from South Arkansas Oil Fields." The resolution called on federal authorities to stop pollution arising from the neighboring state. (54) Sixty-three citizens from Claiborne Parish signed a petition addressed to Louisiana senator Russell B. Long in October demanding restoration of Corney Lake's water quality. (55) Long asked the Soil Conservation Service, which had responsibility for the lake, to take action. The SCS chief replied to the senator in early 1953 that Arkansas officials were moving to remedy the situation. (56) Indeed, Arkansas authorities had convened an in-state hearing in Magnolia in late 1952 to consider testimony about the situation. Some fifty Louisiana residents attended and charged that two oil producers continued to improperly discharge brine. (57) Arkansas authorities assured Louisiana residents that they would take steps to abate the problem, and a representative of the U.S. Public Health Service threatened federal action if Arkansas did not follow through on its promise. (58) Shortly thereafter, the Arkansas Water Pollution Control Commission approved sending a "cease and desist order" to the Corney Creek basin producers. (59) In January 1953 Louisiana congressman Overton Brooks proclaimed that pollution would end soon. He told the press that oil-field operators had been given thirty days to halt discharges, after which they would face fines. He also reassured his constituents that should pollution continue, he would take matters to the Public Health Service. (60)

Brooks, a staunch southern states' rights legislator, had participated in convincing Arkansas authorities to intervene in the late 1940s. He claimed that he had induced operators to "recycle" (re-inject) salt water in the past but that increased pumping combined with low flow had once again overwhelmed the streams. He also helped initiate the instate hearings in Arkansas. Throughout, he sought a means whereby the states could achieve an acceptable solution and avoid, as he termed it, "encroachment" by the federal government in local affairs. (61) Nonetheless, pollution continued, and the ongoing problem prompted a second investigation by the Public Health Service in 1954 that documented continued interstate water pollution. (62) Although it took another three years for federal authorities to actually intervene, the 1954 stream survey provided the final documentation necessary to prompt the first federal interstate pollution hearing.

Long-standing opposition by states toward federal involvement in struggles about local pollution, despite compelling evidence of improper practices, led the Public Health Service to move cautiously. Federal intrusion regarding state water pollution had caused anxiety in Congress and statehouses since the debates about federal water pollution regulation in the 1930s. State representatives at congressional hearings had lobbied against authorization of a federal agency to intervene in intrastate matters through the late 1940s. (63) Nonetheless, Congress passed the 1948 act that lessened state primacy in water pollution matters. It promoted passage of improved state legislation, established a program to assist with urban sewage treatment systems, and encouraged research on industrial waste problems. The new act also created a mechanism for states to seek federal assistance in interstate pollution situations, but it mandated that the U.S. Public Health Service could begin legal proceedings to compel pollution abatement only if it could obtain the permission of officials in the state where the pollution originated. (64)

In response to the 1948 act, both Louisiana and Arkansas, along with most other states, either modified their pollution control laws or created new commissions dedicated to enforcing pertinent statutes. (65) Yet continuing poor water quality, particularly in the urban-industrial core, prompted Congress to enlarge federal authority in the 1956 amendments to the 1948 federal Water Pollution Control Act. Although states were "apprehensive" of enlarged federal authority in pollution matters, conservation organizations such as the Izaak Walton League championed extending additional enforcement authority to the Public Health Service. (66) The amendments that ultimately emerged from Congress in 1956 contained one dramatic change. It allowed the federal government to initiate enforcement action even without an invitation from the state where the pollution originated. Indeed, the act mandated a federal response if water-quality surveys documented interstate pollution. All that was necessary was for a federal agency to provide official documentation that pollution existed. Once pollution was a matter of public record, the Public Health Service could call a public conference (referred to as a hearing in the Corney Creek case). The act's concession to states was that the initial step was merely a "conference" during which the parties involved would seek a voluntary agreement. If effective progress did not ensue, the Public Health Service had the authority to institute a formal hearing that could yield specific recommendations to polluters. And if the hearing proved unsuccessful, the Public Health Service could turn the matter over to the attorney general for legal action if asked to do so by the state affected by its neighbor's pollution. (67) By requiring two enforcement actions before litigation could begin, the 1956 act maintained the states' primary position in the battle against pollution, while cracking the door for uninvited federal intervention.

For the Corney Creek case, the 1949 and 1954 investigations provided adequate documentation that pollution existed. Prepared during a "severe drought" with stream flows running 50 percent below average discharges, the second investigation unsurprisingly justified federal action. (68) A series of notifications to Arkansas officials and oilfield producers without satisfactory responses offered a second justification for the 1957 intervention. (69) The notifications represented federal responses to Louisiana residents' repeated appeals for abatement. Sportsmen and police juries, the most vigilant observers, had prodded their congressman to spur federal intervention. Without the incessant pleas from the local populace, Corney Creek may never have become the focus of federal action. Congressman Overton Brooks's written statement to the hearing reflected the numerous attempts to resolve the issue between the two states, and despite being a staunch advocate of states' rights, he felt it necessary to invoke the federal statute in this case. He also revealed the core issue for southern pollution battles: "industrial development is desirable but this development should not be at the complete expense of wildlife of the community." (70) He was willing to invite Washington bureaucrats into his district to intervene in a natural resource issue.

Once the Public Health Service made the decision to intervene, it selected a panel of five members to hear the testimony. The panel consisted of one federal official, a Louisiana representative, an Arkansas representative, an Indiana public health officer, and the chair, a private "conservation consultant." Murray Stein, chief of the Public Health Service's Interstate Enforcement Section, moderated the proceedings in his debut performance. (71) In the course of the hearing, Stein outlined the Public Heath Service's findings in its two earlier reports. Subsequently, federal officials, representatives of each state, the oil producers, and those affected by the pollution presented testimony.

The board heard from a series of witnesses who emphasized the long-term nature of the damage. Two local physicians who regularly fished the creek represented the local elite and lent a degree of scientific authority to largely anecdotal evidence about declining fish populations during recent years. Both spoke of the near disappearance of catches in recent years and the value of the water bodies for sport fishing. Dr. C. O. Wolf of Haynesville stated, "Fishing is my recreation.... This area of Louisiana lacks recreation areas and needs the Corney Creek and Corney Lake waters restored to their former normal condition for recreational purposes." (72) Federal witnesses provided more substantive documentation of water-quality decline. The U.S. Forest Service manager of recreational facilities at the lake noted that there had been a decline in fishing permits sold and also decreasing visitation to the lake, problems stemming from poor water-quality conditions. (73) The Public Health Service's regional engineer from its Dallas office reiterated evidence from prior federal studies and forcefully argued that brine concentrations had increased since the 1930s and that pollution was responsible for fish kills. (74) A biologist from nearby Louisiana Tech charged that even if the brine concentration were not toxic to fish, it would kill their food supplies and indirectly contribute to declining populations. (75)

Three small-scale users of the river who were not of the local elite added their accounts. A commercial fisherman claimed that contaminants had so reduced catches that most other fishermen had abandoned the stream. As he struggled to try to make a living from Corney Creek, he discovered that the brine was corroding metal tackle and other equipment. (76) A farmer complained that oil-field pollution not only damaged fish life but also rendered the creek useless for watering livestock. He had sold most of his small herd of cattle after finding substantial fish kills in the creek and had moved the remainder of his animals to a relative's land. He also charged that salt-laden floodwaters wiped out his cotton crop and introduced contaminants to his well in 1952. These events largely forced him to give up farming. (77) A trapper from south Arkansas testified that with the loss of aquatic life in the stream, fur-bearing animals no longer traveled along the stream and he had been forced to shift his operations elsewhere. (78) The composite testimony covered most issues concerning both traditional private property and natural resources. Landowners and waterway users were being denied their livelihood by the damages caused by oil-field releases. The presence of a state boundary between most of the aggrieved parties and the pollution source rendered state law ineffective and forced Louisiana complainants to view the stream and its fish as part of a larger common resource.

Floyd James, a member of the prominent family that owned an oil-field production and road-construction company based in nearby Ruston, offered the most compelling testimony of the pollution's ill effects. James and his brother had built a camp (or fishing cabin) on the creek in 1947 and soon thereafter began to notice a decline in fish catches along with an increase in oil emulsions on the stream surface. James carefully chronicled the deteriorating conditions and led the local campaign to stop pollution. In 1952 he even organized a bus tour to take local authorities to see the pollution source in Arkansas, and he lobbied through the Corney Pollution Control Committee, an ad hoc citizens' group, for police juries to pass resolutions against the pollution. James charged that the damages rendered his camp useless. This undermined his ability "to make fishermen" out of his boys by not allowing them to take part "in one of the finest sports there is." The pollution also imperiled the local Boy Scouts' fight against juvenile delinquency by removing a prime fishing stream from use. (79) Pollution, to hear James tell it, threatened to unravel the very social fabric of north Louisiana. Yet, there was not a word spoken about public health concerns! Since neither the stream nor the reservoir supplied potable water, this lack of attention was to be expected, but conferences beyond the South all addressed public health issues.

At the federal hearing, Arkansas officials defended their numerous efforts to abate pollution. They reminded the board that in 1949 they had called for a voluntary pollution-abatement program. In addition, they recounted a 1952 request to the local prosecuting attorney to institute proceedings against a handful of recalcitrant producers who had not initiated pollution-control efforts. When the prosecutor did not take action, the commission called for the in-state 1952 hearings that led to the cease and desist order from the state of Arkansas in January 1953. Federal funding for the Arkansas Water Pollution Control Authority expired, and the commission had to terminate its staff in March 1953. This lack of staff, the Arkansas spokesman argued, rendered his state's agency unable to enforce the order. Yet improvements had occurred. Of the 332 wells in the Corney Creek drainage basin, only 19 continued to operate in violation of the cease and desist order as of October 1953. However, complaints had continued to arrive at the commission's unstaffed office, and its director called on other agencies to monitor the situation. Arkansas nonetheless took no further action and waited several years as the federal government cautiously assembled its case. (80)

Meanwhile in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana Stream Control Commission had discussed the lingering problem at its June 1953 meeting. The U.S. Public Health Service regional office had requested that Louisiana proclaim its official position. In response, two members of the state commission offered their thoughts on the matter. John Hussey of the Louisiana Department of Conservation suggested responding that since the U.S. Public Health Service's Division of Water Pollution Control was created to assist the states in dealing with problems arising in other jurisdictions, Louisiana would appreciate its help. John O'Neill of the Louisiana Department of Health pointed out that state officials were hopeful that Arkansas authorities would abate the pollution, but if not, Louisiana would have to request federal assistance. Ultimately, the commission left the task of drafting the letter to the commission's executive secretary. (81) This lukewarm response by Louisiana officials was hardly a resounding endorsement of the much more vigorous effort expended by fishermen and residents in the affected parishes. Indeed, when called on to testify at the hearing, the Louisiana Stream Control Commission representative offered a terse one-paragraph statement. It announced, "The records of the Stream Control Commission show concurrence with the findings of the Public Health Service, particularly in the period up to and including 1954 insofar as Louisiana is concerned." (82) Once again, the Louisiana officials showed little interest in pressing the issue. Louisiana's limp statement suggests that agency officials did not want to rankle their counterparts to the north or the oil interests, but they were willing to allow federal agencies to resolve the conflict. Ultimately that happened because beginning in 1956 even a hesitant request from an aggrieved state could allow federal authorities to take enforcement action.

Following the Public Health Service's January 1957 hearing, the five-member panel deliberated on the evidence. The following month, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare issued a cease and desist order to the operators of what were by that time only eighteen recalcitrant polluting wells. The producers had ninety days to comply, and by May 1957, Public Health Service inspections revealed that operators had either capped their wells or instituted brine collection or re-injection systems on all but one well. (83) A follow-up study published in 1960 indicated that chloride concentrations in the Corney system had declined in the intervening years, partly due to above-average precipitation levels and increased stream flow. Biologists concluded that without further "deliberate pollution" the stream would recover and aquatic life would return to pre-pollution levels. (84) Federal action, in concert with improved rainfall, produced a result that Arkansas officials had been unable to achieve.

Remarkably, a small number of wells that had continued to damage a tiny drainage basin and impact a relatively small number of individuals--mostly bent on recreation--prompted this first federal hearing on interstate water pollution. Given that pollution had more serious effects on fisheries and public water supplies elsewhere, the problems of Corney Creek seem ill-suited to test the federal hearing system. However, the case offered a low-profile situation where the Public Health Service could give its procedures a trial run before tackling larger problems in other settings.

Shortly after the Corney Creek action, the U.S. Public Health Service initiated other interstate pollution conferences where public health issues prevailed. Several such gatherings took place in rapid succession in the Missouri River basin. Drought over the Great Plains during the mid-1950s had contributed to several years of low stream flow that accentuated the impact of municipal sewage and industrial waste releases on that region's waterways. (85) At the first of these meetings, Kansas officials argued that their "chief concern is the protection of the Big Blue River as a source of municipal water supply for the city of Marysville." (86) While the conference addressed other water uses, including fishing, public health was the primary motivation for Kansas's complaint. Another 1957 conference reported on water quality problems in the Missouri River caused by St. Joseph, Missouri, meat-packers and the city's sewage. Dwight Metzler, the sanitary engineer for Kansas, argued that "our chief concern is for the protection of the Missouri River as a source of municipal water supply for the cities of Atchison, Leavenworth, and Kansas City, Kansas." Murray Stein, the conference moderator, noted that discharges from St. Joseph "contribute significantly to deterioration of water quality for public water supply" for several Kansas cities along the Missouri River and that they "constitute a health hazard." (87) While testimony also established damage to fish and wildlife as well as to other uses of the river's waters, public health was the issue compelling federal intervention. Likewise, additional conferences on interstate pollution of the Missouri River held in Kansas City and Omaha that same year found public health a primary concern, while acknowledging damage to natural resources. (88) Loss of fish alone was not sufficient cause to initiate a conference in these situations. As the conference process moved into the "pollution belt" during the next several years, public health surfaced as the core issue. (89)

In the South however, subsequent conferences continued to emphasize the natural resource imperative. The Pearl River rises in north Mississippi, and its lower course forms the interstate boundary between the "toe" of Louisiana and southwest Mississippi. When the Public Health Service convened a conference in New Orleans in October 1963 to deliberate Pearl River pollution, the discussion focused on aquatic life and to a lesser extent on marine life near the river mouth. The lower Pearl did not serve as a public water supply, but it was a popular sport-fishing stream. Severe fish kills in 1960 and again in 1962 highlighted the impact of wastes from a Louisiana pulp and paper mill and a Mississippi turpentine refinery. (90) Testimony from the director of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, a sportsmen's advocacy group, highlighted the overall decline in fishing that reportedly had forced fishermen to turn elsewhere for recreation. (91) Fish kills constituted grounds for this conference.

A hearing in 1966 regarding the Chattahoochee River also emphasized resources over water supplies, although the proceedings can be seen as marking a transition toward expanding public health concerns in the South. Draining the southern Appalachians, the Chattahoochee flows by Atlanta and eventually forms a considerable portion of the boundary between Georgia and Alabama. This conference focused on the pollution of two federal reservoirs used for sport fishing, recreation, and public water supplies, but the moderator proclaimed that protecting the river as a "natural resource" was the chief concern. (92) Local circumstances minimized the public health issue. Atlanta was both the major polluter and the main water consumer. But since Atlanta removed its water supply well above its sewer outlets, the largest population consuming river water was safe. Only two smaller downstream communities that drew potable water from the reservoirs faced excessive bacteria counts. At the center of the discussion, the pollution load from Atlanta and several textile mills depleted the river's dissolved oxygen and seriously threatened aquatic life, particularly in the reservoirs. The one prominent public health concern centered on water-based recreation in the river and reservoirs. Although sportsmen's groups were absent from this hearing, federal authorities, seeking to protect the multiple-use qualities of the reservoirs, stressed the natural resource component. Considerable growth of Atlanta's sewage discharge in the postwar years propelled it beyond the pollution-assimilating capacity of the Chattahoochee and created a situation similar to areas downstream from major cities outside the South. (93)

Corney Creek was not an important source of drinking water for humans. Some livestock relied on it, but its principal value to north Louisiana residents was its attraction as a site for sport fishing. Its main importance was that it provided a habitat for natural resources deemed central to activities valued by community leaders. As local residents raised a ruckus about declining water quality and fish populations, they operated within a political system that relied principally on parish-level officials, who in turn voiced concern to federal officials. This enabled local sportsmen to be effective in garnering the attention of federal authorities--and at a propitious moment. That a federal reservoir was being damaged even as Congress passed federal pollution-control laws no doubt helped the sportsmen to make their case. The southern outdoorsmen did not turn to the Izaak Walton League or other national organizations. Rather, they knew their congressmen would hear their pleas to protect a natural resource since fishing was such a common and fundamental pursuit in the South. It did not take the threat of a cholera or typhoid epidemic to spur federal officials to act, even though the Public Health Service was the lead agency. Public health concerns were essential for enforcement action outside the South, but they were not even mentioned in this situation. Water-borne diseases did enter into discussions about other southern waterways, but only when the region's urban populations reached the scale of cities in the country's industrial core.

Popular opposition was the key to pollution enforcement action. Politically influential sportsmen in several communities pushed civic clubs and parish governing bodies to pass resolutions and make contact with members of Congress. When dry conditions accentuated pollution, citizen complaints garnered the attention of federal authorities. State officials' response was lackluster at best. Louisiana officials communicated with their Arkansas counterparts and federal officials but showed little interest in pressing the issue even when asked to do so. Arkansas officials issued a toothless cease and desist order, only to see their funding dry up, thereby rendering enforcement impossible. Without the persistent efforts of the prominent James family, recurring drought, and federal management of the Corney Lake reservoir, the problem likely would have languished even longer. Pursuit of outdoor recreation was extremely important in the 1950s and drove a pre-environmental pollution-abatement effort that was southern in approach. While there are countless other examples of southern pollution and pollution abatement not discussed here, similar patterns likely prevailed across the region. Perhaps this article will encourage further exploration of this dimension of southern environmental history.

The case of Corney Creek opened the way for a wave of subsequent interstate enforcement actions. Not only did it provide a practical example of successful local action, but it also redefined waterways and their aquatic life as common resources. As the Louisiana fishermen discovered, even tiny Corney Creek was part of a larger environmental system whose protection required federal action. The environment as a public common was a core principle of the environmental movement, so in this respect, Louisiana fishermen shared one tenet with the larger national effort. Nonetheless, they were unintentional environmentalists.

(1) The term is used explicitly in House Document, 76 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 155: Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory Committee on Water Pollution ... (Washington, D.C., 1939), 3941; hereinafter cited as Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory Committee. A subsequent report notes the correspondence between urbanization and pollution. See U.S. Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service, Water Pollution in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1951), 12.

(2) Two recent overviews argue that the South has received less attention than it deserves. Otis L. Graham, "Again the Backward Region?" Southern Cultures, 6 (Summer 2000), 50-72: Mart A. Stewart, "Southern Environmental History," in John B. Boles, ed., A Companion to the American South (Malden, Mass., 2002), 409-23. The best overview is Albert E. Cowdrey, This Land, This South: An Environmental History (rev. ed., Lexington, Ky., 1996). Recent examples that expand southern environmental history include Pete Daniel, Toxic Drift: Pesticides and Health in the Post-World War II South (Baton Rouge, 2005), and Mikko Saikku, This Delta, This Land: An Environmental History of the Yazoo-Mississippi Floodplain (Athens, Ga., 2005).

(3) John Duffy, Sword of Pestilence: The New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853 (Baton Rouge, 1966); Margaret Humphreys, Yellow Fever and the South (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992); Cowdrey, This Land, This South, 156-57. See also Ari Kelman, A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans (Berkeley, 2003), esp. pp. 87-118; and Craig E. Colten, An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature (Baton Rouge, 2005), esp. pp. 47-76.

(4) Stuart Galishoff, "Germs Know No Color Line: Black Health and Public Policy in Atlanta, 1900-1918," Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 40 (January 1985), 22-41; Craig E. Colten, "Basin Street Blues: Drainage and Environmental Equity in New Orleans, 1890-1930," Journal of Historical Geography, 28 (April 2002), 237-57; Werner Troesken, Water, Race, and Disease (Cambridge, Mass., 2004).

(5) A complete survey of southern fiver basins appears in U.S. Federal Security Agency, U.S. Public Health Service, Summary Report on Water Pollution: Southeast Drainage Basins (Washington, D.C., 1951), and the pollution belt is depicted in Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory. Committee, 39-41.

(6) A review of state laws and the role of agencies responsible for their enforcement during the 1930s appears in Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory Committee, 90-159.

(7) Illinois Board of State Fish Commissioners, Report of State Fish Commissioners (Springfield, 1900), 11.

(8) Philip V. Scarpino, Great River: An Environmental History of the Upper Mississippi, 1890 1950 (Columbia, Mo., 1985); Margaret Beattie Bogue, Fishing the Great Lakes: An Environmental History, 1783-1933 (Madison, 2000).

(9) Discussions of fish and game authorities in southern states serving as pollution enforcement officers appear in Craig E. Colten, "Texas v. the Petrochemical Industry: Contesting Pollution in an Era of Industrial Growth," in Philip Scranton, ed., The Second Wave: Southern Industrialization from the 1940s to the 1970s (Athens, Ga., 2001), 146-67; and Colten, "Too Much of a Good Thing: Industrial Pollution in the Lower Mississippi River," in Colten, ed., Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs: Centuries of Change (Pittsburgh, 2000), 141-59. Arkansas also gave its fish and game agency primary authority for pollution control, as the ensuing discussion will reveal.

(10) On the strength of county governments in the South, see Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov, The Upland South (Santa Fe, 2003), 61-70.

(11) Created by Congress in 1879, the Mississippi River Commission had responsibility for the levee system along the lower river. See D. O. Elliott, The Improvement of the Lower Mississippi River for Flood Control and Navigation (3 vols. in 1; St. Louis, 1932), and Colten, Unnatural Metropolis, esp. chap. 1.

(12) Ready acceptance of federal agricultural subsidies is detailed in Pete Daniel, Breaking the Land." The Transformation of Cotton, Tobacco, and Rice Cultures since 1880 (Urbana, 1985), esp. pp. 65-152. Enthusiasm for federal public works is treated in Jeffrey K. Stine, Mixing the Waters: Environment, Politics, and the Building of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (Akron, 1993). Postwar economic change is discussed in James C. Cobb, The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development, 1936-1990 (2nd ed.; Urbana, 1993).

(13) The "unfit" lands program was an effort to transfer title of poor quality farm lands to the Soil Conservation Service, which would transform them to activities less prone to erosion than row crops. "Overton Brooks Tells Congress Savings in Caney, Corney Lakes," Minden (La.) Press, July 3, 1953, p. 1.

(14) Steven Hahn, "Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging: Common Rights and Class Relations in the Postbellum South," Radical History Review, no. 26 (1982), 37-64; Robert Kuhlken, "Settin' the Woods on Fire: Rural Incendiarism as Protest," Geographical Review, 89 (July 1999), 343-63. Stuart A. Marks discusses the importance of hunting, and if we extend his definition to include aquatic life, his work is most illuminating. Marks, Southern Hunting in Black and White: Nature, History, and Ritual in a Carolina Community, (Princeton, 1991).

(15) Karl Jacoby, Crimes against Nuture: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley, 2001), 193-98.

(16) John F. Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation (3rd ed.: Corvallis, Ore., 2001). Donald J. Pisani demonstrated the link between pollution and incipient conservation policies. See Pisani, "Fish Culture and the Dawn of Concern over Water Pollution in the United States," Environmental Review, 8 (Summer 1984), 117-31.

(17) Scarpino, Great River; John O. Anfinson, The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi (Minneapolis, 2003), 240-55.

(18) The classic work on this subject is A. Cash Koeniger, "Climate and Southern Distinctiveness,'" Journal of Southern History, 54 (February 1988), 21-44. The importance of drought in another setting is emphasized by Georgina H. Endfield, Isabel Fernandez Tejedo, and Sarah L. O'Hara, "Drought and Disputes, Deluge and Dearth: Climatic Variability and Human Response in Colonial Oaxaca, Mexico," Journal of Historical Geography, 30 (April 2004), 249-76.

(19) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Arkansas and Louisiana Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1937-1963, Time Bias Corrected Divisional Temperature-PrecipitationDrought Index. For a description of the dataset, see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/ onlineprod/droughffreadme.html (accessed April 2006). To download the dataset, go to http:// www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cirs/(accessed April 2006). The Palmer Drought Severity Index is a climatological method to indicate the severity of a dry spell.

(20) A summary of federal enforcement actions up to 1968 appears in U.S. Senate, Committee on Public Works, 90 Cong., 2 Sess., Water Pollution, 1968: Hearings ... (2 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1968), I, Appendix, A69-A97.

(21) This point is made by William L. Andreen, "The Evolution of Water Pollution Control in the United States--State, Local, and Federal Efforts, 1789-1972: Part II," Stanford Environmental Law Journal, 22 (June 2003), 215-94, esp. pp. 240-41. See also Terence Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: From Cooperation to Confrontation (Dekalb, Ill., 1997), 49.

(22) Joel A. Tarr has discussed the significance of public health concerns in selecting waste disposal technologies. See his essays in Tart, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Akron, 1996). A notable exception to the eastern focus is Donald J. Pisani, "The Polluted Truckee: A Study in Interstate Water Quality, 1870-1934," Nevada Historical Quarterly, 20 (Fall 1980), 150-66.

(23) Theodore Steinberg, Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), 227-39; John T. Cumbler, Reasonable Use: The People, the Environment, and the State, New England, 1790-1930 (New York, 2001), 135-38, 187; Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore, 2000), 230.

(24) See Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes, 19; William L. Andreen, "The Evolution of Water Pollution Control in the United States--State, Local, and Federal Efforts, 1789-1972: Part I," Stanford Environmental Law Journal, 22 (January 2003), 145-200; and Andreen, "The Evolution of Water Pollution Control in the United States--State, Local, and Federal Efforts, 1789-1972: Part II," 215-94. A discussion of a midwestern river basin is Craig E. Colten, "Illinois River Pollution Control, 1900 1970," in Lary M. Dilsaver and Craig E. Colten, eds., The American Environment: Interpretations of Past Geographies (Lanham, Md., 1992), 193-214.

(25) Missouri v. Illinois. 200 U.S. 496 (1906): New York v. New Jersey, 256 U.S. 296 (1921): Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Company. 206 U.S. 230 (1907). New York v. New Jersey was not simply a public health case, but human health was a crucial issue in the ultimate decision. The justices concluded that evidence did not prove sewage would increase the danger of disease to New Yorkers.

(26) The rise of public health concern about air pollution stems from an infamous incident in Donora, Pennsylvania. Lynne Page Snyder, ""The Death-Dealing Smog over Donora, Pennsylvania': Industrial Air Pollution, Public Health Policy+ and the Politics of Expertise, 1948-1949," Environmental Histon Review, 18 (Spring 1994)+ 117-39. On early federal involvement in air pollution cases, see also Scott Hamilton Dewey, Don't Breathe the Air: Air Pollution and U.S. Environmental Politics, 1945-1970 (College Station, Tex.+ 2000)+ 28-29.

(27) Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory Committee+ 39-41, 68 (first quotation): U.S. Federal Security Agency. Water Pollution in the United States, 12, 17 (second quotation), 38-39. The National Resources Committee did recognize that some regulations had more than one goal: "In all instances public health is defined as a major objective, but in some instances it is given a position of secondary importance by comparison with the protection of aquatic life." Water Pollution in the United States: Third Report of the Special Advisory, Committee, 68.

(28) James C. Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Society. 1877-1984 (Lexington, Ky., 1984): Cowdrey, This Land, This South, 187. A case study of a state's unwillingness to intervene in a pollution matter is Scott H. Dewey, "The Fickle Finger of Phosphate: Central Florida Air Pollution and the Failure of Environmental Policy, 1957-1970," Journal of Southern History, 65 (August 1999), 565 603.

(29) Richard A. Bartlett, Troubled Waters: Champion International and the Pigeon Rivet" Controversy (Knoxville, 1995), esp. pp. 38 39.

(30) "Act 183: An Act to Protect the Rice Planters," Acts Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana, 1910 (Baton Rouge, 1910, 272-73. For a more complete discussion see Colten, "Too Much of a Good Thing," 141-59.

(31) The cases were McFarlain v. Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate et al., 118 La. 537 (1907): Long v. Louisiana Creosoting, 69 So. 281 (1915): Williams et al. v. Pelican Natural Gas Co., Inc., et al., 175 So. 28 (1937); and Connell et al. v. International Paper, 99 F. Supp. 699 (1951). The quotation is from Connell et al. v. International Paper, at 701.

(32) Hayse H. Black, Preliminary Investigation of Kraft Mill Wastes, Crossett Paper Mills, Crossett, Arkansas as Related to Ouachita River Pollution in Vicinity of Arkansas-Louisiana State Line (Cincinnati, 1949).

(33) Louisiana Stream Control Commission. Public Hearing Before Stream Control Commission of Louisiana, at Bossier City, Louisiana, February 27 and 28, 1945, unpublished hearings in the collection of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Library, Baton Rouge. A few years later Bayou Bodcau was also the scene of Connell et al. v. International Paper, suggesting that new treatment facilities did not eliminate downstream damage.

(34) The cozy relationships that developed between large oil producers and refiners and state government are discussed in Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley, 2002), 234-62; Timothy J. Minchin, Forging a Common Bond: Labor and Environmental Activism during the BASF Lockout (Gainesville, 2003); and Barbara L. Allen, Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes (Cambridge, Mass., 2003).

(35) Louisiana Department of Wild Life and Fisheries, Second Biennial Report, 1946-1947 (Baton Rouge, 1948), 328-29.

(36) Louisiana Department of Wild Life and Fisheries, Third Biennial Report, 1948-49 (Baton Rouge, 1950), 368-69.

(37) Louisiana Department of Wild Life and Fisheries, Eighth Biennial Report, 1958-1959 (Baton Rouge, 1960), 170-71.

(38) According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Claiborne Parish population fell from 32,285 in 1930 to 25,063 in 1950, farm acreage decreased from 354,508 in 1940 to 289,463 acres in 1954, and woodland increased from 126,293 in 1939 to 146,348 acres in 1954. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Population, Volume III, Part 1, Reports by States ... Alabama-Missouri (Washington, D.C., 1932), 981; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, Volume 1, First and Second Series, State Reports, Part 5, Statistics for Counties... (Washington, D.C., 1942), 127; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, A Report of the Seventeenth Decennial Census of the United States. Census of Population: 1950, Volume II, Characteristics of the Population ... Part 18, Louisiana (Washington, D.C., 1952), 25; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Agriculture: 1954, Volume 1, Counties and State Economic Areas, Part 24. Louisiana (Washington, D.C., 1956), 62-63; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, A Report of the Seventeenth Decennial Census of the United States. Census of Population: 1950, Volume 11, Characteristics of the Population ... Part 4, Arkansas (Washington. D.C., 1952), 29.

(39) Farmers initiated suits against oil-field producers and new manufacturers in Louisiana. See Colten, "Too Much of a Good Thing." A case in point from another area involved a group of landowners near a chemical plant in Virginia who sued the manufacturer for damages to a shared waterway. See Craig E. Colten and Peter N. Skinner, The Road to Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste before EPA (Austin, 1996), 49-50.

(40) Hayse H. Black Sr., Arkansas Oil Field Wastes as Related to Lake Corney and Corney Creek Pollution in Vicinity of Arkansas-Louisiana State Line (Cincinnati, 1949: National Technical Information Service [NTIS] stock no. PB-217 407). The most complete treatment of the relationship between declining yields and increased brine is Hugh S. Gorman, Redefining Efficiency: Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms, and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry (Akron, 2001), esp. chap. 2.

(41) "Overton Brooks Tells Congress Savings in Caney, Corney Lakes," Minden Press, July 3, 1953, p. 1 (quotation); Testimony of Representative Overton Brooks, in U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System (Arkansas-Louisiana): Proceedings of Public Hearing Held at Homer, Louisiana, on January 16-17, 1957 (2 vols.; Homer, La., 1957; NTIS stock nos. PB-230 868, PB-230 869), I, 27-29; hereinafter cited as Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System. Kristin M. Szylvian discusses the rising importance of recreational fisheries in the Great Lakes for a period just a few years later. Szylvian, "Transforming Lake Michigan into the "World's Greatest Fishing Hole': The Environmental Politics of Michigan's Great Lakes Sport Fishing, 1965-1985," Environmental History, 9 (January 2004), 102-27.

(42) Louis Cusachs. Analysis of Lake Waters, North Louisiana, Louisiana Department of Conservation, July 21, 1941, General Correspondence, 1941-1947, Historical Files, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Library. Stream flow was above average in the area during 1941, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The data can be downloaded from the U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana: Calendar Year Streamflow Statistics for Bayou D'Arbonne (near Dubach, La.) and Corney Bayou (near Lillie, La.), http://nwis .waterdata.usgs.gov/la/nwis/annual/?site-no=07365000&agency_cd= USGS and http://nwis .waterdata.usgs.gov/la/nwis/annual/?site-no-07366000&agency_cd= USGS (accessed April 2006). Corney Creek did not have a stream gauge; therefore, no record exists for this stream. Bayou D'Arbonne and Corney Bayou both drain south Arkansas and empty into the Ouachita River. They are the two closest streams with stream-flow data for the time period and are assumed to have responded to regional drought conditions in much the same way as Corney Creek. Data for Bayou D'Arbonne covers the years 1941-1968, and it had an annual average flow of 403 cubic feet per second (cfs) for the period. Corney Bayou data covers the years 1941-1956, and it had an annual average flow of nearly 463 cfs. Bayou D'Arbonne's 1941 average was 521 cfs, and Corney Bayou's was 597 cfs for the year.

(43) Thomas Logan, Analysis of Lake Waters in North Louisiana, Louisiana Department of Conservation, July 18, 1941, General Correspondence 1941-1947, Historical Files, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Library.

(44) R.E. Youree (Haynesville Lions Club) to John McHugh (Louisiana Department of Conservation), March 26, 1943, Correspondence 1940-1946, Historical Files, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Library. Brine would have been more obvious due to the low stream flows reported by the U.S. Geological Survey.

(45) Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes, Appendix D-4, pp. 43-48. The U.S. Geological Survey reported below-average stream flow in the region during 1943. U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana. Bayou D'Arbonne's average was 126 cfs in 1943, and Corney Bayou's was 174 cfs.

(46) Excellent accounts of re-injection practices are Gorman. Redefining Efficiency, chap. 7; and Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes, 15.

(47) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Arkansas and Louisiana Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1937-1963, Time Bias Corrected Divisional Temperature-Precipitation-Drought Index.

(48) U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana. Bayou D'Arbonne's flow for 1948 was 306 cfs, and Corney Bayou's was 402 cfs.

(49) Resolution, Claiborne Parish Police Jury Minutes, January 5, 1949, p. 176 (available from Claiborne Parish Police Jury, Homer, Louisiana).

(50) Otto E. Passman (U.S. Congress) to Albert M. Day (Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), May 24, 1949, copied in Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes, 26. The early years of the James family's climb to prominence and regional influence are chronicled in Lee Morgan, T. L. James: A Biographical Memoir (Shreveport, 2002).

(51) Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes, 19-20. Stream gauges on nearby Bayou D'Arbonne and Corney Bayou reported that stream flow was above or near average flow in 1949, considerably higher than in 1948. Bayou D'Arbonne's average flow was 481 cfs in 1949, and Corney Bayou's was 454 cfs. U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana.

(52) Toxicological literature from the time reported that concentrations of 4,000 ppm had "been reported to be harmful to" bass. Other, more sensitive species suffered death at 200 ppm. See J. E. McKee, Water Quality Criteria (Sacramento, 1952), 210. Texas could take enforcement action when concentrations reached 2000 ppm. Colten, "Texas v. the Petrochemical Industry," 154. Louisiana had no set standards.

(53) Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes, 22-23.

(54) Resolution, Claiborne Parish Police Jury Minutes, September 10, 1952, p. 312. The Palmer Drought Severity Index reveals that both Louisiana and Arkansas entered a prolonged drought condition in 1951 that deepened in 1952. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Arkansas and Louisiana Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1937-1963, Time Bias Corrected Divisional Temperature-Precipitation-Drought Index.

(55) Petition to Russell Long from Citizens of Claiborne Parish, October 26, 1952, in File 268-18, Senate Office Files, U.S. Senate Series, Russell B. Long Papers, Mss. 3700 (Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge). A second petition was sent in December 1952. The U.S. Geological Survey measured zero flow in nearby Bayou D'Arbonne in October 1952, and Comey Bayou near Lillie had a discharge that month at just over 1 percent of its average. U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana: Monthly Streamflow Statistics for Louisiana, http:// nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/la/nwis/monthly (accessed April 2006).

(56) Robert M. Salter (Chief. Soil Conservation Service) to Russell B. Long (U.S. Senator), February 6, 1953, File 268-18, Senate Office Files. U.S. Senate Series, Long Papers.

(57) "2 Oil Concerns Called Polluters of Creek Water," Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, November 27. 1952, p. BI.

(58) "Corney Pollution Subj. of Hearing in Magnolia Tues.," Homer (La.) Guardian-Journal, November 27, 1952, p. 1.

(59) Arkansas Water Pollution Control Commission, Minutes, December 19, 1952, obtained from the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, Little Rock.

(60) "Ark. Commission Moves to Stop Corney Pollution," Homer Guardian-Journal, January 22, 1953, p. 1.

(61) "Congressman Brooks Expects Pollution of Corney Lake to Be Stopped Soon," Homer Guardian-Journal, December 18, 1952, p. 2.

(62) U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Press Release on Corney Drainage Pollution, December 13, 1956, sent to Senator Russell B. Long, in File 268-18, Senate Office Files, U.S. Senate Series, Long Papers. The 1954 report is also referenced in Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System, I. 22.

(63) See Statement by the New Jersey Department of Health, in U.S. Senate, Committee on Public Works, 80 Cong., 1 Sess., Stream Pollution Control: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Works ... April 22, 23, 24, 30, May 1, 2, 7, 9, 14. and 28, 1947 (Washington, D.C., 1947), 364-66, which asserted that states were capable of handling the problems and that centralized control invited "deficiencies." Also, George W. Cox (Texas State Health Officer) argued that state regulation was adequate to the task of internal pollution, but he acknowledged that federal legislation could help with interstate problems. Ibid., 374.

(64) Water Pollution Control Act, Public Law 845, 80 Cong., 2 Sess. (June 30, 1948), 1155-61. See also Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes, 17-39.

(65) A brief survey is Anthony Anable and R.P. Kite, "Pollution Abatement: Appraisal of Current Regulations," Chemical Engineering Progress, 44 (January 1948), 3-16. A more detailed review of state policies is Water Resources Policy Commission, Water Resources Law (3 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1950).

(66) A characteristic statement from a "pollution belt" state is Nicholas V. Olds (Asst. Attorney General of Michigan), "Statement," in U.S. Senate, Committee on Public Works, 84 Cong., 1 Sess., Water and Air Pollution Control: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Works ... April 22, 25, and 26, 1955 (Washington, D.C., 1955), 134-47 (quotation on p. 139). The Izaak Walton League statement and additional documentation appear ibid., 100-109.

(67) Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1956, Public Law 660, 84 Cong., 2 Sess. (July 9, 1956), 498-507 (quotation on p. 504). See also Murray Stein, "Federal Water Pollution Control Enforcement Activities," Proceedings of the Eighteenth Industrial Waste Conference (Lafayette, Ind., 1964), 264-72; Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes, 49; and Frank J. Barry, "The Evolution of the Enforcement Provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act: A Study of the Difficulty in Developing Effective Legislation," Michigan Law Review, 68 (May 1970), 1103-30.

(68) U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for Louisiana: Monthly Streamflow Statistics for Louisiana; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Arkansas and Louisiana Palmer Drought Severity Index, 1937-1963, Time Bias Corrected Divisional Temperature-Precipitation-Drought Index; Black, Arkansas Oil Field Wastes.

(69) Testimony of Richard Shakeshaft (U.S. Public Health Service), in Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System, I, 42-45.

(70) Testimony of Overton Brooks, ibid., I, 38.

(71) Murrary Stein, "Oil Well Brine Problem of the Corney Drainage System (Arkansas-Louisiana)," in Proceedings of the Twelfth Industrial Waste Conference (Lafayette, Ind., 1957), 432.

(72) Testimony of Dr. Marvin Green and Dr. C. O. Wolf, in Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System, 1, 150-58, 128-30 (quotation).

(73) Testimony of June Terry (U.S. Forest Service), ibid., I, 63-67.

(74) Testimony of Keith S. Krause (U.S. Public Health Service), ibid., I, 93-117.

(75) Testimony of J. R. Fowler (Louisiana Tech), ibid., I, 175-87.

(76) Testimony of Christy Bayles (commercial fisherman), ibid., 11, 252-57. The lake manager also reported corrosion of metal fishing gear and boats on Lake Corney. Testimony of June Terry, ibid., I, 64.

(77) Testimony of Robert L. Hicks (farmer), ibid., 11, 265-70.

(78) Testimony of S. G. Jennings (trapper), ibid., II, 317-21. The hearing did not include testimony from African Americans or women, a reflection that the male elite controlled this issue.

(79) Testimony of Floyd B. James (sportsman), ibid., II, 335-40 (quotations on pp. 338 and 340). James was part of the same family as C. W. James, who led earlier efforts to secure federal pollution-abatement assistance. The testimony of J.M. Fallen (Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries), ibid., II, 274, reveals his participation on the bus trip to Arkansas that Floyd James sponsored. According to family members, no record of Floyd James's anti-pollution work survives.

(80) Testimony of W.L. Wood (Arkansas Water Pollution Control Commission), ibid., II, 345-55.

(81) Louisiana Stream Control Commission, Proceedings of Meeting, June 29, 1953, pp. 9-11, Historical Files, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Library. No record of the commissioner's letter survives.

(82) Testimony of John E. Trigg (Louisiana Stream Control Commission), in Public Health Service, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Corney Drainage System, II, 359.

(83) Stein, "Oil Well Brine Problem of the Corney Drainage System," 428-34.

(84) John R. Fowler and Gustaf H. Panula, Pollution Abatement Studies of Corney Creek Drainage Area, Corney Lake, and Corney Bayou ... (Ruston, La., 1960), 75. There was a similar heightened response to oil-field pollution in Texas during the early 1950s. Colten, "Texas v. the Petrochemical Industry."

(85) U.S. Geological Survey, Surface-Water Data for the Nation, http://nwis.waterdata .usgs.gov/usa/nwis/sw (accessed April 2006). See information on the Big Blue River at Randolph, Kansas, and near Manhattan, Kansas, and the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. Low flow was most pronounced in 1955 and 1956.

(86) U.S. Public Health Service, Summary of Conference: Pollution of Interstate Waters of Big Blue River, Nebraska-Kansas (Washington, 1957; NTIS stock no. PB-229 207), 11.

(87) U.S. Public Health Service, Conference at St. Joseph, Missouri on Interstate Pollution in the Missouri River (Washington, 1957; NTIS stock no. PB-217 998), 13 (first quotation), 40 (second quotation).

(88) U.S. Public Health Service, Transcript of Conference: Pollution of Interstate Waters, Missouri River, Kansas City Metropolitan Area (Kansas City, 1957; NTIS stock no. PB-217 378), 74; and U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Transcript of Proceedings of the Progress Evaluation Meeting in the Matter of Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Missouri River, Omaha, Nebraska Area ... (Washington, 1965), 139. The transcript of meetings held in Omaha in 1965 contains the only available summary of the initial conference held in June 1957.

(89) A survey of the conference process appears in "Activities of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, United States Department of the Interior, June 1968," in U.S. Senate, Committee on Public Works, 90 Cong., 2 Sess., Water Pollution, 1968: Hearings, I, A69-A97.

(90) The fish kills are discussed in U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Conference in the Matter of Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Pearl River and Its Tributaries ... ([New Orleans], 1963), 8 and 85-87. Landowners downstream from the largest city in the Pearl River basin did protest the impacts of urban sewage, but the effluent from Jackson, Mississippi, was not considered a factor in the fish kills on the lower river. See statement by C. W. Beggenly (Pearl River Purification Committee), ibid., 202-3.

(91) Charles Borch, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, ibid., 207-8.

(92) U.S. Department of the Interior, Pollution of the Interstate Waters of the Chattahoochee River and Its Tributaries, from Atlanta, Georgia to Fort Gaines, Georgia ... (2 vols.; Atlanta, 1966; NTIS stock nos. PB-230 422; PB-230 423), I, 60-62, II, 203 (quotation).

(93) The public health concerns are discussed ibid., I, 37-47, 59-63.

MR. COLTEN is the Carl O. Sauer Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University.