January 31, 1963
PAGE 1454
AMENDMENT OF WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ACT
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I introduce, for appropriate reference, a bill amending the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended. I ask unanimous consent that it remain at the desk for 10 days to afford my colleagues an opportunity to cosponsor the legislation.
Federal financial assistance to cities to aid in the construction of necessary sewage treatment plants is an important and significant feature of a well-rounded Federal water pollution control program. Such Federal inducement to spur cities to undertake needed construction is fully consonant with Federal aims and responsibilities for restoration and conserving the quality of the Nation's water supplies.
The response on the part of the communities is certainly heartening. Encouraging progress is being recorded. The full potential of this stimulatory program is not being realized, however, in the case of our larger cities. As presently authorized, a grant for a single project may not exceed 30 percent of the reasonable construction cost or $600,000, whichever is less. In the case of a joint project in which several communities participate the ceiling is $2,400,000. These ceiling limitations are unrealistic when applied to the considerably greater expenditures which a larger city must bear in installing necessary treatment works. In application, they approximate as little or less than 10 percent of the costs involved and thus they fail to achieve what is at once a primary and necessary objective in efforts to control water pollution. The bill, which I introduce today, would bring these amounts more in line with the equities and purposes involved by increasing the single project grant maximum to $1 million and the joint project combined grants maximum to $4 million.
An even more excessive financial burden confronts our older established cities. They are currently faced with the necessity of separating their combined storm and sanitary sewers. The reserve capacity provided in their treatment plants to handle periodic storm water runoffs is presently not even adequate to properly process sanitary sewage alone. Consequently, after a rainfall large overflows of these combined storm and sanitary wastes are diverted from entering the treatment plants and are discharged raw without any treatment to the streams.
The harmful effects of these periodic doses of concentrated pollutants are felt not only in the adjoining vicinity but also far downstream. Interferences with many legitimate uses of water result. Obviously body contact water pursuits are out of the question in such situations and closed bathing beaches serve as a forceful reminder that the quality of the water is severely impaired.
As I have stated, the separation of these combined collection systems requires huge expenditures on the part of the communities. In order to encourage and assist these hard-pressed cities, my bill would provide Federal financial participation to the extent of 30 percent of the total estimated reasonable costs and would authorize appropriation of $100 million annually from which these grants would be made.
In the previous Congress, I presented a proposal to provide for more effective utilization of certain Federal grants by encouraging better coordinated local review of State and local applications. This proposal is effectively advanced in a provision of my bill which would authorize an additional 10-percent grant to be made for those projects that are certified by an official State, regional, or metropolitan planning agency as being in conformity with a comprehensive plan of development. The grave errors of our past practices in metropolitan development that now arise to haunt us in the form of blighted areas must not be allowed to be repeated; by no means should Federal funds be permitted to contribute to their perpetuation.
Today, more than ever before, the individual citizen is aware of the needs for preventing and controlling water pollution. In order to assist him in his willingness and desire to avoid contributing to bad pollution practices and to deter those who willingly pursue such deleterious practices, authority is provided for the issuance of rules and regulations by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare setting forth standards of quality necessary for all legitimate water uses to be applicable to interstate or navigable waters and the type, strength, or volume of matter which may be permissibly discharged into these waters. In my own State, our previously abundant shellfish-producing waters have been immeasurably harmed through disposal of deleterious wastes. The economic losses that have ensued are irreparable.
The responsibilities in regard to Federal water pollution control are as seriously important as any of the other considerable responsibilities now residing in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The successful and effective discharge of these water pollution control responsibilities must in no way be Prevented through lack of adequate recognition of their import. For this reason, my bill would establish the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration as a direct operating arm of the Department. The potentialities to be realized from effective water pollution control are too significant and the consequences of failure too serious to allow those responsible for the administration of the Programs to be hindered through lack of adequate status and authority.
I ask unanimous consent that the complete text of the bill, and a section-by-section analysis of the bill be printed in the RECORD at this point.
The VICE PRESIDENT. The bill will be received and appropriately referred; and, without objection, the bill and section-by-section analysis will tie printed in the RECORD, and the bill will lie on the desk, as requested by the Senator from Maine.
The bill (S. 649) to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, to establish the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, to increase grants for construction of municipal sewage treatment works, to provide financial assistance to municipalities and others for the separation of combined sewers, to authorize the issuance of regulations to aid in preventing, controlling, and abating pollution of interstate or navigable waters, and for other purposes, introduced by Mr. MUSKIE (for himself and Mr. HUMPHREY), was received, read twice by its title, referred to the Committee on Public Works, and ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[BILL TEXT OMITTED]
The section-by-section analysis presented by Mr. MUSKIE is as follows:
SECTION -BY-SECTION SUMMARY OF THE BILL
Section 1. National water pollution control policy: Adds new subsection (c) stating the act's purpose to establish a positive national water pollution control policy of keeping waters as clean as possible as opposed to the negative policy of attempting to use the full capacity of such waters for waste assimilation.
Section 2. Establishment of Federal Water Pollution Control Administration: Renumbers existing sections 2 through 14 of the act as sections 3 through 15, respectively, and inserts a new section 2 creating the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. A Commissioner of Water Pollution Control is to administer the act through the Administration under the supervision and direction of the Secretary and an Assistant Secretary. The Commissioner and other required staff are to be provided from the personnel of the Department.
Section S. Waste treatment plant construction grants and grants for separation of combined storm water and sewage systems: Subsection (a) provides for increasing the dollar ceiling limitation on any grant for a single waste treatment plant construction project from $600,000 to $1 million.
Subsection (b) provides for increasing the dollar ceiling limitation on a grant for a project which will serve more than one municipality from $2,400,000 to $4 million, Subsection (c) adds new subsections (g) and (h), the former providing for a new program of grants to assist municipalities in the separation of combined sewers which carry both storm water and sewage or other wastes in an amount not to exceed 30 percent of the estimated reasonable cost of the construction. Authorizes appropriation of $1 million per fiscal year for this purpose. Provisions for allocation and payment of grant funds and applicability of Davis-Bacon Act provisions now pertaining to waste treatment plant construction projects are made applicable to the new grants program.
The new subsection (h) authorizes the Secretary to increase by 10 percent the amount of a grant for any project which has been certified to him by an official State, metropolitan, or regional planning agency as conforming to a comprehensive plan developed or in process of development for the metropolitan area wherein the project is being requested.
Section 4. Standards of quality and matter discharged: Redesignates subsection (1) of the redesignated section 9 as subsection (j) and inserts a new subsection (i) to provide that the Secretary shall issue regulations, after reasonable notice and public hearing, setting forth (a) standards of quality to be applicable to interstate or navigable waters and (b) the type, volume, or strength of matter permitted to be discharged into these waters or a tributary of such waters. The standards are to be based on present and future uses of interstate or navigable waters for public water supplies, propagation of fish and aquatic life and wildlife, recreational purposes and agricultural, industrial, and other legitimate uses.
The alteration of the physical, chemical, or biological properties of these waters by acts in violation of the Secretary's regulations are declared a public nuisance and subject to abatement under the section's enforcement provisions. The applicability of the enforcement provisions to any case where they would otherwise be applicable is not to be prevented by this subsection.
Mr. HUMPHREY subsequently said: Mr. President, earlier today the Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE] introduced amendments to the Water Pollution Control Act. I am very much interested in this proposed legislation, since I have been sponsoring such legislation in the past together with Representative BLATNIK.
I now ask unanimous consent to have my name added as a cosponsor of the legislation proposed by the Senator from Maine. I have cleared this with the Senator from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.