June 26, 1964
PAGE 15192
WATER POLLUTION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, water is a natural resource of inestimable worth. Every level of government, and industry, agriculture, and private citizens share a duty to assure to this generation and to the Americans who come after us a plentiful supply of water of reasonable purity to meet a wide range of human needs. Critical to that end is the vigorous pursuit of the prevention, control, and abatement of water pollution.
My interest in clean water is not new; but the gravity of the water pollution problem in the United States, the real progress being made in many areas to come to grips with it, and the size of the job yet to be done, have been most strongly impressed on me during my service during the past 14 months as chairman of the Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, of the Committee on Public Works. Our deliberations, the constructive action of the full committee, and the overwhelming approval by the Senate resulted in the passage by this body of a bill, S. 649, to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to give further impetus to the national effort to raise the quality of America's waters. This bill and a similar House measure now await the action of the other body.
The Federal act properly recognizes the primary responsibilities and rights of the States in the field, and gives to the Federal Government a significant supporting role -- technical assistance, financial assistance, research, comprehensive river basin programs for water quality control, encouragement of interstate cooperation, and, finally, the abatement of the pollution of interstate and navigable waters.
"Enforcement lies at the very heart of any effective program in the elimination, prevention, and control of pollution," in the words of the justification statement for the program's budget.
The law itself sets wise limitations on the use of the Federal authority. On the judicious use of this tool depends in no small measure the ultimate effectiveness of other needed efforts to halt pollution. A tribute to its success is the fact that in the 30 instances in which the Federal enforcement power has been invoked, in only 4 has it gone beyond the initial stage set out in the act -- the conference -- to the more formal public hearing proceeding; and in only a single case has it gone to the third, and final, stage for which the law provides -- court action.
The conference is not an adversary proceeding. It is a meeting of the Federal and State conferees, and of those of any interstate agencies which may be concerned, with the participation of other interested persons whom they may invite to the conference. Its object is to set a timetable for remedial action, preferably under State and local law, to raise the quality of the waters involved, to permit their use for the maximum number of legitimate purposes.
In my own New England, with some of the oldest industries in the United States, are some of the Nation's oldest and most persistent pollution problems. The region's greatest stream, the Connecticut River, has for generations received the wastes of city and factory. It was at the urging of the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. RIBICOFF], the former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, that the present Secretary called a conference on the matter of the interstate waters of the Connecticut and its tributaries in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The conference convened in Hartford, last December 2. The State and interstate authorities did not at first welcome the action.
They had an understandable desire to pursue the problem without the intervention of the Federal Government. But the conference was a success. The conferees approved a timetable which should mean that in a few years, longstanding sources of pollution will be under control. That conference, like others, should encourage a speed up in pollution abatement on waters not actually within the conference area. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the State and interstate authorities, and the Senator from Connecticut may take pride in this splendid result.
The short history of Federal enforcement in water pollution control includes other cases, which I shall not here recite, in which the State and local authorities and, above all, the people, have had reason to thank the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for helping them restore the waters of their areas to reasonable purity, for the use and enjoyment of their citizens.
A few weeks ago, public attention was focused on the conference, held in New Orleans, on the matter of the pollution of the interstate waters of the lower Mississippi and its tributaries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Every year since 1960, massive fish kills took place in the fall and winter months in the lower Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers and the Gulf of Mexico. The kills were particularly heavy in the winter of 1963-64. Their size was roughly estimated at 3.6 million in 1960; 275,000 in 1961; 275,000 in 1962; and 5.2 million in 1963.
At the request of the Louisiana authorities, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare investigated the cause of the kills. I am informed that Public Health Service scientists conducted rigorous examinations. Their findings were embodied in the technical report of the PHS, together with conclusions, which was presented at the New Orleans conference held on May 5 and 6 of this year the conclusions of the scientific investigators stated first, that the pesticide endrin was responsible for the fish kill observed in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya during the fall and winter of 1963-64; second, that industrial wastes and drainage from contaminated areas in the Memphis, Tenn., area are sources of endrin pollution in the Mississippi River; third, that other sources, which must be identified through further study, contribute to the endrin found in the lower Mississippi drainage area; fourth, that sewage and industrial waste discharges may cause interstate pollution, and will require further study; fifth, that the presence of minute endrin concentrations in the treated water of the Vicksburg, Miss., and New Orleans water supplies is a matter for concern, for while acute effects on humans of endrin in water have not been detected, the effects of continued ingestion of even these minute quantities must be evaluated; and, sixth, that it is obvious that endrin discharges in the Memphis area, with other identified discharges endanger the health or welfare of persons in a State or States other than those in which the discharges originate, and that such discharges are subject to abatement under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
It is not surprising that the conference engendered controversy.
It is not surprising that the industry most concerned took vigorous exception to the conclusions of the technical report. I am told that the Velsicol Chemical Corp. sent to the conference an articulate witness who made a strong statement of the corporation's contention that endrin from its Memphis plant was not the causative factor in the fish kills. To review the whole matter is certainly within the purview of a Senate committee charged with the broad oversight of Government activities. It is my privilege to serve as a member of the Committee on Government Operations, and as chairman of its Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations. The Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations has been exploring the relatively new area of governmental policy respecting pesticides. Its hearings, under the chairmanship of the Senator from Connecticut, have resulted in better interagency procedures for pesticide regulation, and have been constructive in the development of new legislation in the field, for action by the cognizant committees of Congress. I hope, therefore, that the subcommittee hearings, due to resume next Monday, for the purpose of considering charges that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare mishandled its investigation of the recent Mississippi River fish kill, will also contribute to greater effectiveness of the role of Government in pesticide use, regulation, and research. In his remarks in the Senate on June 18, announcing the hearings, the Senator from Connecticut set out points at issue between the Government and the industry, as follows:
First. That the industry has disputed the Public Health Service conclusion that endrin was responsible for the fish kill. I am advised that, after exhaustive investigation, the Public Health Service scientists came to their conclusion that endrin was responsible for the fish kill in the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers last fall and winter. A variety of fish were analyzed; and the investigators found that all died with the same symptoms at the same time. Careful field and laboratory work led to the elimination of disease and other possible causes as factors in the kill. Endrin was found in every dying fish examined. To establish endrin concentration in blood after a lethal exposure, laboratory tests were conducted on channel catfish, a freshwater variety selected for the purpose, because its blood content is relatively high. The salt water menhaden, for instance, has too little blood to permit its ready use for such tests. The studies showed a clear difference between the blood concentration of endrin in living and dying channel catfish. Those found dying in the Mississippi had concentrations as high or higher than those killed in laboratory exposures to endrin. The dying river fish and those used in the laboratory tests had identical symptoms. Kidney damage was similar. The findings supported the conclusion that the fish kill was the result of endrin poisoning.
Second. That the endrin manufacturer whose Memphis plant was found by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Department of Agriculture to be a major source of the pollution which killed the fish, has denied the charge.
Experts of the Public Health Service, I am told, made four field trips to the Memphis area, in the weeks immediately preceding the conference. Their investigations were hampered by a series of difficulties: smoke bombs were detonated by a city public works crew checking for sewer line leaks, making sampling impossible.
They received confusing information about the location and functions of sewers carrying industrial and sanitary wastes.
There were signs of construction work on the sewer system between their visits. Despite these obstacles, the investigations were made, and led to conclusions presented at the conference. Among other conclusions was the finding that endrin concentrations in the water and underlying mud in the ditches and natural surface waters in the Memphis area far exceeded all previously recorded data for a variety of pesticides of the same classification. Not all, but generally the worst, of the contamination was noted at sites known to be downstream from present or past waste discharge or disposal points used by the manufacturer in question.
Third. That industry disputes the PHS findings, which measured and identified various pesticides. Industry claims that what PHS identified as dieldrin sludge and mud near the Memphis plant is actually an alcohol known as 237 chlorhydrin.
Chemistry is a field in which I do not purport to be an expert; but I am informed that dieldrin, manufactured only in Denver, Colo., and endrin, manufactured there and in Memphis, are the assigned common names for two closely related compounds. The PHS identified dieldrin in the sewage sludge of the endrin manufacturer, and found that the Memphis complex, and particularly that manufacturer, is a significant source of both endrin and dieldrin contamination in the Mississippi River. As yet, I am not informed as to what 237 chlorhydrin is. I have been advised that the Public Health Service made the statement that it found dieldrin in the Memphis area, but made no statement as to how it got there. Just what 237 chlorhydrin is, I have not learned.
Fourth. That the question was raised as to whether the Government exaggerated the extent of the fish kill in the first place -- that first reports referred to millions of dead fish whereas the New Orleans conference seemed to concentrate on only 175,000.
Two different sets of figures are involved in this purported discrepancy. The Louisiana official who sought PHS help in investigating the fish kills gave, as his best estimate of the number of fish killed during the 4 years, these figures:
He said there was reason to believe that only a small portion of the die-off had actually been observed, and that it was therefore extremely difficult to estimate the number of fish killed. It is possible that many, many more fish died in the massive kills of the 4-year period. The figure 175,000 refers only to the estimated number of fresh water fish killed in the year 1963.
Fifth. The question has been raised as to whether the Federal agencies conduct their regulatory proceedings in a manner that is fair to both the public and the industry. The enforcement conference in New Orleans was held under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Industry was effectively represented there. The conclusions which appear on the last page of the 119-page PHS report prepared for the conference were the conclusions of the technical investigators. As the transcript of the conference clearly shows, they were not intended to be used, nor were they used, in fact, as conclusions of the conferees. They were written in Washington, D.C., before the enforcement conference convened. Because the investigators' conclusions were so comprehensive, covering all points, they were used as a checklist of points by the conferees, in arriving at conclusions.
The Department of Agriculture announced on June 1 that none of the evidence presented at its public hearings held in April in Washington, Memphis, and Baton Rouge, nor at the HEW conference was scientifically adequate, in the Department's judgment, to justify withdrawal of endrin, aldin, or dieldrin from farm use.
The conduct of the USDA hearings, the absence of findings by the examiner, and the method of the announcement of the Department's general conclusion are also to be examined in the forthcoming hearings of the Senate subcommittee.
Because the objections of industry to the actions of the Government have been laid before the Senate in recent days, I feel constrained to make these remarks for the further information of Senators and others who read the RECORD. The subcommittee hearing to be held beginning June 29 should afford an opportunity for clarification of the issues. I trust that they will have that salutary result.