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- Despite some people's views of the state of Victoria, it still manages to qualify as a fairly advanced industrial State with the pollution problems associated with unmindful development. Some of the criticisms have made national headlines, such as when Prince Charles observed that swimming at one of the Melbourne beaches was rather like swimming in a sewer. The Yarra River, the scenic pride of Melbournians, a muddy creek to foreigners from out of State such as most honourable members, is unlovely in many places. School children are now acutely aware of the threat to their environment. Recently, the children in my daughter's class have been engaged in a study of the area in which they live. This has" involved many critical excursions to the Yarra, inspections of rubbish dumps into the river, observation of colour changes in the water due to chemical mixing with drainage from - who knows where? A. D. Hope observed in his poem 'Australia': . . her five cities, like five teeming sores Each drains her, . . . The Yarra for much of ils course through Melbourne is a dead river, simply a large drain for one of the teeming sores on this continent. Articles on the subject now appear at regular intervals in the Melbourne newspapers. They describe factories belching out smoke and soot and sulphur dioxide and discharging waste into waterways, noise and smoke from jet aircraft, the debate on discharge of effluent from the Carrum sewerage works into Port Phillip Bay, industrialisation around Westernport Bay and the threat to the ecology of the area, including the penguins - these and many other examples are discussed frequently. Dr W. D. Williams, from Monash University, recently described the counts of coliform bacilli as a measure of the pollution of water by human faeces, and indicated some figure ; that the Americans have adopted as standards. Water with less than 50 coliform bacilli per 100 millilitres is good for swimming, with 50 to 1,000 organisms it is doubtful, and if there are over 1.000 per 100 mis the water is unfit for bathing. A limit of 1,000 coliform organisms per 100 mis has been proposed by the Commonwealth Department of Works for Australian streams. Dr Williams asks: How do bacterial counts for Australian polluted waters compare with such standards'.' Unfortunately, few data are published. However, in a recent survey of a creek located in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, E. coli I counts/ 100 ml ranged from 150 in the head-waters to 34,000 in the lower reaches. One does not need to have a medical degree to appreciate the potential health hazard presented by this creek. A second important form of domestic pollution is detergent pollution. Dr Williams notes: