February 3, 1966
Page 2006
STEPS TOWARD CLEAN WATER
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Water Quality Act of 1965 is a meaningful document. But it does not complete the responsibility of Congress in the critical area of water pollution control and abatement.
The Water Quality Act gave the Nation the basic tools to enhance the quality of our water resources. To put those tools to work, we need the muscle of greatly increased Federal, State, and local money behind them.
The Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution has recently published a report which documents this need. The report is entitled "Steps Toward Clean Water," and is based on 12 days of hearings last year. More than 900 pages of testimony and supporting evidence were recorded.
The findings and recommendations of the report are a sobering evaluation of the problem and the need to solve it.
The subcommittee estimates that the national cost of meeting our treatment plant construction needs by 1972 is at least $20 billion. The present Federal effort is only $150 million a year. The subcommittee reports this "is entirely inadequate even to keep pace with the problem."
Furthermore, present restrictions on individual grants gravely limit the program, especially in large communities. While these may be the most obvious deficiencies in our program, they are not the only ones.
For instance, the overwhelming majority of States does not assist communities with matching grants under the sewage treatment construction grant program.
Except in isolated cases, we do not have a coordinated program for handling effluent from industrial and municipal sources in river basins. The increased cost of waste treatment for industries is a threat to their economic vitality.
Finally, present waste treatment systems too frequently are based on concepts developed 40 years ago.
Because of the interrelationship of these needs, no one part can be ignored without jeopardizing our success with the others.
During the coast-to-coast hearings last year, the subcommittee learned firsthand of the nature and scope of these inadequacies. To succeed, the subcommittee has made six recommendations. We should consider them carefully.
First. Do away with the dollar ceiling limits on treatment construction grants, and instead provide a 30-percent grant for each project, regardless of its cost.
Second. Provide a bonus of 10 percent of the Federal grant when the State matches at least 30 percent of the project cost. In addition, cities should be authorized to apply directly for Federal grants when States fail to match the Federal grant. A revolving fund should be established for long-term, low-interest loans to help cities meet local matching requirements when the State fails to match the Federal share.
Third. Authorize $6 billion for Federal treatment construction grants through fiscal year 1972.
Fourth. Double the authorization for grants to States and interstate agencies for program support to $10 million a year for 5 years, providing the States increase their share.
Fifth. Authorize $25 million annually for 5 years for research, development, and demonstration of advanced waste treatment and purification methods, and for development and demonstration of new or improved methods for treating compatible municipal and industrial wastes.
Sixth. Provide for collection and publication of information on treatment practices in industrial, manufacturing, and processing establishments. Use the contract authority more extensively in the conduct of research, training, and demonstrations in connection with such authority, start a program of training operators of municipal and industrial or other private treatment plants.
These six recommendations are a bold but necessary program to meet the realities of the water pollution crisis.
By eliminating the dollar ceiling on individual project grants, we could bring meaningful support and encouragement to the Nation's cities. Their problems are at the heart of the national problem.
Presently, the maximum Federal grant to a single project is $1.2 million and the maximum for a joint project undertaken by two or more communities is $4.8 million.
For major cities, these amounts are woefully inadequate. New York City alone faces the expenditure of $780 million for needed facilities.
In Atlanta, the price tag is $100 million. In Los Angeles, it is $75 million. In Detroit, it is $151 million. In Pittsburgh, it is $32 million. In Houston, it is $43 million. Even in the Portland, Maine, area, the cost has been estimated at more than $20 million.
For the last decade, Federal construction grants have stimulated local abatement and control projects. Municipal response to the grants was immediate and encouraging even at its initial modest and totally inadequate level.
However, because of the grant limits, the resulting activity has barely kept pace with the needs of growing populations and urbanization. The tremendous backlog of needed facilities, now totaling at least $20 billion, remains unmet. The lifting of ceilings and the stepping up of authorizations, as recommended by the subcommittee, would permit and stimulate the necessary attack on the backlog.
Since the national pollution abatement program began in 1948, the basic legislative policy has been that the control of pollution is a State responsibility. Regrettably, most States have failed to help communities meet the costs of abatement and control. Presently, only six States have authority to apply State funds for this purpose.
Our job, then, is to provide more incentive to the States. A 10-percent Federal bonus for State matching funds, and the opportunity for doubled Federal appropriations for program support will stimulate State participation.
A challenge to our technology is the development of efficient methods of treating combined municipal and industrial effluent. An appropriation of $125 million over 5 years would foster the depth of research needed to find and demonstrate the answers. In the long run the answers would save countless dollars and help us achieve the water quality we will need.
Industry, like municipalities, will increasingly feel the financial burden of treatment. In many instances, this burden can adversely affect an industry's growth and prosperity. Many companies already face this problem. It calls for a reevaluation of our policy on financial assistance to industry for treatment works.
Summing up, there are three basic elements in the Federal Government's water pollution control effort: Treatment, enforcement, and research.
The Water Quality Act of 1965 gave us the means for developing and establishing meaningful water quality standards. But if communities do not have the resources to achieve adequate treatment, standards and enforcement will mean little.
And without research to find more efficient methods of treatment, the costs could overwhelm us in the decades ahead.
Our next legislative attack on dirty water should begin where the Water Quality Act left off. The subcommittee's recommendations are guidelines for our work in the months ahead.
I urge my colleagues to read the subcommittee's report.