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Textile Period (c. 1880 - c. 1940)
Off to a slow start Because the whaling industry generated large amounts of capital, there was little interest in New Bedford to venture into other businesses. New Bedford's economy from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s was dependent primarily on whaling and related businesses. By 1850, the textile industry was well established in nearby Fall River and other towns in Massachusetts, but was just beginning in New Bedford. The Wamsutta Mill, opened in 1848, was the first successful textile mill in New Bedford. But because of the continued prosperity of the whaling industry, it was another 30 years before the textile industry really started to expand in New Bedford. The Municipal Water Works, which opened in New Bedford in 1869, insured a good supply of water and made expansion of the textile industry possible.
Population boom With the decline of whaling in the 1880s, profits from the whaling industry were used to finance textile mills. As the labor-intensive textile industry expanded, New Bedfords population increased dramatically, from about 27,000 in 1880, when there were two mills, to about 121,000 in 1920 when there were 31 mills (Fig. 8). In contrast, the populations of Fairhaven and Acushnet remained much lower during this period.
Ecological impact of mills The major source of pollution from textile mills is wastewater from bleaching and dyeing processes. However, most of the mills in New Bedford did not finish or dye the cloth, they just spun yarn and wove cloth. Therefore, the primary environmental effect of the New Bedford mills was where they were built - on the relatively cheap wetlands along the west shore of the Acushnet River, north and south of the central business district, and also at the head of Clarks Cove (Fig. 9). Construction of the mills led to a loss of about 134 acres of wetlands, including almost all those along the west side of the Acushnet River. The loss of these wetlands decreased the habitat available for resident and migratory species, and decreased nursery areas for aquatic species. The function of these wetlands, to filter excess nutrients, pollutants, and microorganisms in runoff from the land, and to provide erosion control for the shoreline, was also lost.
Odors weren't the real problem When the first textile mills were built, residents probably thought it was good to fill in wetlands and thus, reduce disease. This idea came from the filth theory of disease transmission, which was widely accepted until the 1890's. According to that theory, diseases were caused by impure air generated by putrefied organic material, including human and animal excrement, rotting garbage, and vapors from swamps and stagnant pools. The filth theory was the basis of the nineteenth-century Sanitary Movement, which emphasized the importance of emptying cesspools and privy vaults, collecting garbage, cleaning streets, and filling in wetlands to eliminate sources of impure air. In the 1890s, bacterial research showed that the germ theory, which states that disease was caused by bacteria, was correct.
It was the sewage However, sewage was the biggest environmental insult of the textile period. New Bedford's dramatic increase in the population produced a dramatic increase in the amount of sewage. By 1900, the sewer system in New Bedford had been extended north, west, and south of the original system, with the pipes still emptying directly into the river. Sewage had become a nuisance and a public health issue. In 1870, Edward P. Haskill filed a law suit, Haskell v. New Bedford, against the city for the large amount of sewage that was accumulating at the end of his dock, causing bad odors and restricting boat access to the dock. On July 15, 1899, the local newspaper, Morning Mercury, reported that the board of health described the Acushnet River as "...water thick with slime and shores covered with filth from the sewers" and the evening edition (The Evening Standard) for that day, reported that the board said bathing in the river was dangerous to health. The sewage was also contaminating shellfish in the harbor. From 1900 through 1903, 575 people in New Bedford contracted typhoid fever (93 died) from eating contaminated shellfish. By 1904, the State Board of Health closed the Acushnet River to shell fishing (Fig. 10).
An attempt to solve the sewage problem In 1912, construction began on an interceptor sewer line to divert sewage into Buzzards Bay off the tip of Clarks Point (Fig. 10). The interceptor line and system was only partially completed, five of nine pumping districts were connected, when work on it stopped in the 1920s and did not resume until 1947. Even when the interceptor line was completed, it did not completely stop sewage from emptying into the harbor. The sewer system in New Bedford was, and still is, a combined one, which carries storm runoff in the same pipes as domestic and industrial wastes. During heavy rains, the pipes are not large enough to handle the volume, and some untreated sewage enters the harbor at various points through combined sewer overflows, or CSOs (Fig. 10). The outfall from the Fairhaven Water Pollution Control Facility, built in 1969, is located in the lower harbor. Fairhaven's wastewater treatment facility has had secondary treatment of waste from initial construction. Their sewer system is not a combined one, storm runoff does not enter the sewer pipes and treatment plant.
The Acushnet River has remained closed to shell fishing since 1904. The economic loss of having these shellfish beds closed has been estimated, in 1986 dollars, at 22 million dollars per year.
The problem with sewage Recent studies have shown that sewage effluent from outfalls causes a number of environmental problems: it increases organic carbon, reduces oxygen concentrations, reduces macrofauna, reduces species diversity, and increases numbers of opportunistic species. The presence of large amounts of sewage in New Bedford Harbor from the late 1800s on is well documented, and we can assume that during and after the textile period, sewage degraded the harbor's ecology. Contemporary data (Nelson et al., 1996) confirm that these effects remain: organic carbon is as high as 13% in sediments from the upper harbor, species diversity is low, number of dominant species is low, and opportunistic (pollutant-tolerant) species are present.
Other industries impacted the environment also During this time, other industries in the watershed were also likely to release pollutants (Fig. 11). As in the whaling period, metals were used by foundries, machine shops, and casting, plating and metal-working companies. A few soap-making companies were left, but most were gone by the turn of the century. The other industries depicted in this figure - oil refining, tanning, printing, production of coal gas, electricity generation, and manufacture of glass, paint and varnish, and rubber products - were possible sources of metals, acids, petroleum hydrocarbons, phenols, cyanide, solvents, and biological wastes. Textile mills are included in this figure, although they were not major polluters. There were a few dye houses in New Bedford, although only one was in the watershed. They released bleach and dyes that probably contained metals and petroleum hydrocarbons. In contrast to New Bedford, there were relatively few industries in Fairhaven.
Decline of textile industry A number of factors contributed to the decline in textile manufacturing in New Bedford: more favorable economic conditions for mills in the south, a prolonged mill workers strike in New Bedford in 1928, the stock market crash in 1929, and the Great Depression in the early 1930s. Mill workers were left unemployed, with few other jobs available locally. The loss of the textile mills and their tax revenues left the city in poor financial shape.