April 22, 1964
PAGE 8756
"WATER QUALITY AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST" -- ADDRESS BY SENATOR MUSKIE
Mr. METCALF. Mr. President, still pending before the House of Representatives is the water pollution control bill which the Senate passed by an overwhelming margin last October. During consideration of this legislation in the Senate, and again in the House hearings, concern has been focused primarily on two aspects of the bill: First, the establishment of a Federal Water Pollution Control Administration within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and second, the establishment of water quality standards on interstate waters.
Recently, the Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE] author of the bill, addressed the 13th Southern Municipal and Industrial Waste Conference at Duke University on the subject of "Water Quality and the National Interest." In that address, he discussed these two aspects of S. 649 in detail. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that address be printed in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
WATER QUALITY AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST
Address by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, Democrat, of Maine, Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution
Duke University, Durham, N.C., April 16, 1964
Dr. Cole, Dean Meriam, Dr. Bryan, and members of the conference, if I have any regret, this morning, it is that I cannot remain with you throughout your sessions. I have much to learn about the intricacies of water pollution control and abatement, and I know I could learn much from you.
Your 13-year program is one of the outstanding contributions to our national effort to improve the quality of our available water supplies. Your professional approach, the breadth of your interests, and the constructive suggestions you have developed are worthy of emulation in many areas of the United States.
Fortunately, more and more citizens, businessmen, and public officials are sharing your awareness of the extent and seriousness of water pollution in the United States. They recognize that water pollution is a threat to health, to industrial production, and to recreation.
Many once glistening streams of our country have been fouled by our own neglect and by the increasing demands of a burgeoning population in a complex technological society. Those demands are building almost faster than our ability to repair the damages of the past.
THE PROBLEM
We now have a population of about 180 million with a daily fresh water demand of 355 billion gallons. By 1980 our population will be about 250 million and our daily fresh water demand will be about 600 billion gallons. Our total supply at that time will be 515 billion gallons, requiring the reuse of at least 85 billion gallons a day. By the year 2000 -- a mere generation from now -- our daily demand for fresh water will have reached 1,000 billion gallons. The maximum volume we can make available, by the construction of engineering works, is 650 billion gallons a day.
Under these circumstances, to insure an adequate supply of the right quality water at the right place at the right time will tax our technical skills, our ingenuity, and our capital resources -- public and private. There is no easy, simple, or cheap solution to the problem of water pollution control and abatement.
I have been encouraged in the past year by the more realistic. approach to the water pollution control and abatement question by several segments of industry. This results, I think, from the realization that high quality water is necessary for industry as well as for fish, for factories, as well as for people.
The magnitude of the economic problem of improving our water quality has stimulated more support for the Federal sewage treatment grant-in-aid programs and Federal research. There is far less unanimity on the appropriate role of the Federal Government in enforcement. That lack of unanimity has been reflected in the debate over S. 649, which passed the Senate, 69 to 11, last October 16 and is now pending before the House Committee on Public Works.
In a sense, we are on the threshold of new directions in water pollution control and abatement. We have resolved the question of Federal responsibility in financing and the basic authority for enforcement procedures. We have agreed that on interstate and navigable rivers, the Federal Government must be authorized to help the States stop gross pollution. Now, the question is: Do we use the Federal program to stimulate, encourage and enforce upgrading of the quality of the Nation's rivers?
A fruitful way to begin a discussion of the Federal role in enhancing the quality of our water supplies is to review and analyze the highlights of S. 649.
GUIDELINES
In developing that legislation the committee was guided by the following considerations:
First, the problem of water pollution is a national problem, affecting the physical and economic health of the entire country;
Second, the Federal Government has a substantial role to play in research, in the encouragement of cooperative programs, in the stimulation and support of interstate, State and local water pollution control programs, in the encouragement of compliance with water quality standards, and in enforcement of interstate and navigable streams where there has been a refusal to accept public responsibility at a lower level;
Third, the water pollution control problem covers a wide scope of public concerns, including health, economic welfare, recreation and the conservation of fish and wildlife;
Fourth, the administration of such a vital program must be upgraded and accorded proper emphasis within the Federal structure in order to insure adequate attention and progress in meeting our national water pollution problems;
Fifth, the primary emphasis in corrective action, in planning for future uses, and in long-range programs must remain and, under the bill, will remain at the local and State level where the ultimate responsibility rests; and
Sixth, we must be alert to the problems created by our rapidly advancing technology, particularly in the development of organic chemicals which pose special and complex pollution problems.
NATIONAL POLICY
These were the guidelines. The specific provisions of the legislation fell into four categories: Administration, financial assistance, enforcement, and the resolution of complex chemical pollution. The committee also developed a new statement of purpose for the Water Pollution Control Act which indicates the broadened concern of Congress for improved water quality. In the words of the bill:
"The purpose of this Act is to enhance the quality and value of our water resources, and to establish a national policy for the prevention, control, and abatement of water pollution."
This statement of purpose defines our goals and sets the tone for the administration of the Water Pollution Control Act.
We recognize that there are many uses for water, that all water need not be of the same quality; and that judgments have to be made on our specific water need and requirements. We also realize that only through the enhancement of water quality can we assure maximum utilization of this resource. This is, we believe, a reasonable goal to which all reasonable men can subscribe.
FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ADMINISTRATION
The first step in implementing this goal is the upgrading of the administrative status and capability of the Federal water pollution control program. In S. 649 we provided for an additional assistant secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare who would supervise the program. In addition, the bill authorizes the establishment of a Federal Water Pollution Control Administration which would have specific responsibility for
1. Comprehensive programs;
2. Interstate cooperation and uniform laws;
3. Enforcement measures to abate pollution;
4. To establish and maintain compliance with standards of water quality; and
5. The control of pollution from Federal installations.
Other functions related to water pollution are retained within the Secretary's discretion. He may assign those functions to the new Administration or to other sectors within the Department.
The proposal to establish a new Water Pollution Control Administration is one of the most controversial sections of S. 649. Some have opposed it on the simple grounds of dislike for any new agency within the Federal Government. Others have attacked it because of the traditional role of the Public Health Service and the potential impact of such a change on the Service and its personnel. Others have claimed that removal of major functions from the Public Health Service will remove some of the glamour of the program and will reduce the appropriations potential.
These arguments were considered in the development of the bill. In the end the members of the subcommittee agreed that the points raised by the opponents either were not applicable or were not of sufficient moment to outweigh the advantages of the new Administration. The new Administration would not involve a substantial increase in personnel, but it would involve an upgrading of the status of the program.
The problem of water pollution is much broader than health, and much more important than its position in the organizational structure of the Public Health Service now implies. We are aware of the contributions the Public Health Service has made in the field of water pollution control. We respect this time-honored agency for its high tradition of service to the Nation. We believe it has an important role to play in water pollution control as it affects environmental health.
As the committee said in its report to the Senate:
"The Public Health Service has a primary interest in the protection of health. In the field of water pollution it has made a major contribution to our understanding of the nature of water pollution, its effect on individuals, and appropriate measures of pollution control. The basic orientation of the Public Health Service, however, is toward cooperative health programs with the States. It is not oriented toward the broader problems of public welfare, including the economic, and technical problems of industrial pollution.
"The Public Health Service should be free to concentrate on its primary concern with health, in the water pollution field, as it is in other areas. It should be in a position to speak with an independent voice on such matters, unhampered by the problems which arise from enforcement proceedings.
"On the other hand, the administration of the water pollution control program should not be subordinated to considerations which are important to the Public Health Service, but are not directly related to the sound application of this act."
It is my firm conviction that both the Public Health Service and the water pollution control program would be better off under the arrangement proposed in S. 649.
FEDERAL AID PROGRAMS
The second major category of proposals in S. 649 is that relating to Federal aid programs. This was one of the least controversial elements of the bill. Briefly, it would provide a 4-year, $80 million matching grant program for research and development of improved methods for meeting the combined storm and sanitary sewer problem, an increase in maximum sewage treatment grants to larger communities from $600,000 to $1 million, and from $2,400,000 to $4 million for combined projects involving several communities; and, finally, a 10-percent incentive for communities developing sewage treatment plants as part of a comprehensive metropolitan planning program.
Each of these provisions is designed to provide more flexibility and greater utility in the sewage treatment construction program.
WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
On several occasions in this talk I have mentioned the "enhancement of water quality” as one of the principal goals of this legislation. The provision of S. 649 dealing directly with this question is also one of the critical areas of debate on the bill. This is the section authorizing the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish water quality standards on interstate water or portions thereof.
This provision has drawn the fire of the opponents of Federal enforcement and the suspicion of those who look to the Federal Government for more vigorous antipollution action. The "anti-Feds" look on the quality standards section as an encroachment on States rights. The conservationists see the standards section as a potential classification device where waters would be maintained at the lowest possible level of quality.
Neither aim motivated the committee. We believe that the authority to establish water quality standards would have two beneficial results:
1. It would lead to the clear and objective statement of water quality criteria, available for application to particular situations; and
2. It would encourage the orderly improvement of water supplies through compliance rather than enforcement.
Under the bill the standards would be formulated in accordance with accepted administrative procedures, calling for notice, public hearing, and consultation with affected Federal, State, interstate, and local interests. The Secretary is directed to encourage the establishment of State and interstate standards which carry out the purposes of the act. The committee did not intend that the Secretary should classify or establish rigid quality standards on every interstate water in the Nation, but rather that he should use this tool selectively as a device to reduce the need for abatement and enforcement proceedings
Under present law, in enforcement cases, the Secretary applies ad hoc water standards in determining whether the water in question is harmful to the health or welfare of persons and in determining what specific steps must be taken to abate pollution. We believe it more appropriate to set objective standards in advance of such proceedings, wherever possible.
Every day we make more demands on our water supplies. We must use many rivers for multiple purposes, including industrial, agricultural, recreational, public water supply and fish and wildlife uses. In other cases, the uses of a given river or portion of a river will be more limited, depending on the nature of the waterway, the intensity and history of use, and alternative sources of water in the area. As the committee noted in its report: "Economic, health, esthetic, and conservation values which contribute to the social and economic welfare of an area must be taken into account in determining the most appropriate use or uses of a stream."
We are convinced, also that there are positive economic advantages to communities and industries in the establishment of standards as the report points out:
"Water quality standards would provide an engineering base for design or treatment works by municipalities and industries. Such standards would enable municipalities and industries to develop realistic plans for new plants or expanded facilities, without uncertainties about waste disposal requirements on interstate waters."
There is another point which should be noted here. The bill provides that the discharge of matter which reduces the quality of water below the established standards, either at the State or Federal level, is subject to abatement under the present enforcement procedures. Should such enforcement procedures result in court action, the court, in receiving evidence, is to give due consideration to the practicability of complying with the applicable standards. The bill clearly states that the authority to establish standards does not extend the jurisdiction of the Secretary over waters not covered in the basic act.
The committee did not intend that the standards section should interfere with State responsibilities in water pollution control. We regard this as another tool to be used cooperatively for the benefit of particular areas and for the Nation.
DETERGENTS
If our pollution control problems were limited to the traditional sources of industrial, municipal and agricultural wastes, dealing with pollution control and abatement would be a relatively simple and straightforward matter of applying known techniques and of improving them whenever possible.
Unfortunately, however, modern chemistry and technology bring many problems along with the blessings we enjoy. This problem was brought forcefully to the attention of the committee on the detergent question.
Testimony presented to the committee indicated that although modern detergents have eased our problems of cleaning in homes, farms, factories, and commercial buildings, they have complicated the problem of pollution abatement and control. Because the synthetic detergents are not biodegradable, present-day water and sewage treatment processes are incapable of breaking the compounds.
Public officials, private individuals and industry representatives all agreed that something had to be done. Industry representatives assured the committee that soft detergents will be available in the latter part of 1965. We accepted these assurances.
We considered the detergent problem in the context of the general question of modern organic chemicals, which are in widespread use and cannot be controlled at the site of discharge as can chemicals being used in an industrial plant.
We did not think we would be justified in singling out a particular industry as a culprit in pollution control. Neither did we think we would be justified in ignoring the problem or in not establishing sound procedures for a solution to this problem.
The result is a proposal which may form a pattern for possible solutions to the waste discharge problem as it concerns other industries producing similar products for general use -- including pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.
Briefly, the bill accepts the industry-set target date of December 31, 1965, for the development of biodegradable detergents. It authorizes a technical committee, composed of industry and public representatives, to evaluate progress in the development of biodegradable detergents and to recommend standards of biodegradability.
When the technical committee has recommended standards of decomposability and certified to the Secretary that detergents meeting such standards are generally available to manufacturers of detergents, the Secretary may establish rules and regulations prohibiting the transportation and sales in interstate commerce of detergents not meeting the standards. He is also directed, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Treasury, to issue rules and regulations prohibiting the importation of detergents not meeting the standards of decomposability. The rules and regulations would take effect December 31, 1964, or 6 months after the issuance of the regulations, whichever is later.
Since the Senate passed S. 649 one company has announced the development of what it calls a biodegradable detergent. During the course of hearings we hope to schedule later this year, the subcommittee will examine this product and the claim made with reference to it. At present there is no indication that this development has reduced the need for legislation. The House Committee on Public Works has completed its hearings on S. 649 and related legislation. It is my hope that executive sessions on the bill will be held in the near future and that favorable action will be taken by the committee and the House.
The legislation we have approved and sent to the House is designed to bring our water pollution control program up to date. We continue to emphasize primary responsibility at the State and local level. At the same time we recognize the national interest in insuring an adequate supply of water to meet the demands of a modern, expanding society. That national interest must be matched with effective legislation at the Federal and State level.
More than 100 years ago the young French political scientist, De Tocqueville, made some penetrating observations about our system of government. At one point he wrote:
"The end of good government is to ensure the welfare of the people, not merely to establish order in the midst of their misery."
I can think of no more important area to apply that maxim than in the conservation of our natural resources. Man cannot live without clean water, society cannot grow without it. If we do not move to improve the quality of our water, we should condemn ourselves to establishing order in the midst of our misery.