The film was probably made by William Joy Smith, of Portland Oregon. Smith was State Manager of the National Life Insurance Company and President of the Oregon Wildlife Federation. It was made before establishment of the state Sanitary Authority and fostered much of the original interest in water quality in Oregon. The film may also have been known at the time of its creation by the title "The Polluted Willamette".
The Willamette River Pollution Film (FV P059:1) is a 16 mm color, silent film (39 minutes) of various point sources of pollution in the Willamette River and its tributaries. The film begins near Springfield and progesses downstream to Portland and includes footage of various forms of industrial, agricultural, and municipal effluent being dumped into the Willamette River and its tributaries, including the Pudding and South Santiam Rivers. The footage includes tests of the length of time that small fish can survive in water from the Willamette River and chemical tests of the river water. The film includes footage of the river or its tributaries at Springfield, Eugene, Corvallis, Crabtree, Lebanon, Salem, Woodburn, and Portland.
The full film is available online as a streaming media file:
Collection is open for research.
Willamette Pollution Film (FV P 059), Oregon State University Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.
A digital duplication master (miniDV format) was made of this film in 2003. A VHS use copy is available for reference use.
This copy likely was part of the State of Oregon Board of Health Film Library at some point prior to its donation to the Archives. It was acquired by the OSU Archives prior to 1966. The film may have been donated to the Archives by either Philip Wiliam Schneider, Sr., or his son, Philip William Schneider, Jr. The senior Schneider graduated from Oregon State College in 1940 with a BS degree in fish and wildlife; the younger Philip Schneider also attended Oregon State University and earned a B.S. and Ph.D. (1975) in fisheries.
The OSU Archives holdings include a variety of collections with
documentary and visual materials pertaining to the Willamette River. The