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(c) to abate or remove, or cause to be abated or removed,
all or any impediments, obstructions or nuisances whatsoever
in the stream or on the banks thereof.
Such powers include the purchase of any necessary land by agreement
or compulsorily and the prohibition of the deposition of any
articles, matter, etc. in the stream or on the banks. Dredging of
streams covered by the Act is also prohibited except with the express
permission of the respective County Council. The County
Council's consent is also required in connection with the erection
of any buildings, etc., in or over the said streams.
Powers originally given to the Metropolitan Borough Councils
under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, are now to
be enforced by the London County Council.
Atmospheric Pollution—General.—The Royal College of
Physicians' publication " Smoking and Health," although very
naturally concentrating on cigarette smoking and its relation to lung
cancer, nevertheless suggested with some emphasis that from the
evidence already to hand it would appear that air pollution might
well be a potent factor in the incidence of cancer of the lung.
In my previous reports much has been written about the
enormous and costly damage to life and property by air pollution
but little with regard to the apportionment of responsibility.
At the time of the Beaver Committee's report on air pollution
in 1954 it was already recognised that domestic smoke was deeply
implicated but more recent investigations have shown that this connection
is greater than at first supposed.
There is no doubt that greater quantities of dust and grit are
emitted from industrial furnaces but the domestic fire, because of
its comparative low temperature of burning, is responsible for a
smoke much higher in hydrocarbon or tar content. Further, the
industrial pollution is usually dispersed at higher levels and the
concentrations are therefore well diluted by the time they reach
street level. Domestic smoke on the other hand is discharged at
low level from short flues with the result that it lingers and eddies
thus constituting a greater danger to the local inhabitants. In this
respect itj has been proved that smoke concentration is relative not
to the size of the town but to the density of the population and its
domestic coal consumption per square mile. Research has revealed
that for every ton of coal burned industrially, approximately 4½ lbs.
is lost in smoke whereas the comparable figure for a domestic
open coal fire is 90 lbs.