CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

March 15, 1966

Page 5984

Senator Edmund S. Muskie Outlines Broad Program of Water Quality Control Before American Water Works Association

EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. JENNINGS RANDOLPH of WEST VIRGINIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

March 15, 1966

Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, earlier this month, the American Water Works Association, the oldest association of its kind in the field, conducted a public water supply seminar at the Sheraton Park Hotel. Featured among the participants was the junior Senator from Maine, [Mr. MUSKIE] who is recognized as one of our Most effective exponents for a more aggressive attack on problems of water pollution.

It has been my privilege to serve on the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution since its organization under the knowledgeable and capable leadership of the Senator from Maine. His speech before the members of the American Water Works Association, "Water Quality and the National Interest," gives further evidence of the Senator's broad grasp of the field and his farsighted approach toward water resources planning. I commend this address to the attention of Senators , and ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

WATER QUALITY AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST

(Remarks by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution at the public water supply seminar, American Water Works Association, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1986)

President Baxter, officers, members, and friends of the American Water Works Association. I am glad to be able to join with you on your seminar on our public water supply requirements. The times are auspicious for such an occasion. On February 18 I introduced on behalf of myself and a number of my colleagues -- now 40 in number -- amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Act, as amended. On February 23 the President sent a special message on our natural heritage to Congress. Much of that message dealt with water pollution control and abatement. Yesterday legislation to implement the President's proposals was introduced in the Congress. Tonight President Baxter and I are scheduled to leave for Germany with Secretary Udall and other members of a special Presidential mission to study pollution and related matters.

No one can complain that water pollution is not getting its share of attention. The real test will come in seeing how well we translate words and aspirations into effective action.

The problems of pollution are not new. They have plagued man from the earliest civilizations. Man cannot live without creating wastes, and those wastes represent a potential threat to his health and to life itself.

But in recent years the threat has been magnified and has become, in effect, a new problem. Our population has grown to a point where our water needs are almost greater than the available supply. At the same we have succeeded in creating chemical and radioactive wastes whose characteristics have almost defied our efforts to clean them up.

The Water Quality Act of 1965 represented one of the major steps in a national effort to grapple with the fact that water is not an unlimited resource. As Abel Wolman has put it in his imaginatively titled Scientific American article, "The Metabolism of Cities" -- "As man has come to appreciate that the earth is a closed ecological system, casual methods that once appeared satisfactory for the disposal of wastes no longer seem acceptable. He has the daily evidence of his eyes and nose to tell him that his planet cannot assimilate without limit the untreated wastes of his civilization."

There are those who reject this approach. There are others who pay lip service to the doctrine of pollution control and abatement -- as long as it doesn't cost any money. But, fortunately for the conservation of our water resources, there is an increasing number of our citizens who are ready and willing to make the necessary investment in the improvement of water quality.

High quality water is more than the dream of the conservationists, more than a political slogan; high quality water, in the right quantity at the right place and at the right time, is essential to health, recreation, and economic growth.

This was the philosophy of the Water Quality Act of 1965, the basic purpose of which is to enhance the quality and value of our water resources. Prior to the enactment of this legislation, our primary concern was with repairing past damage and slowing the advance of pollution. Now, we have turned the corner, to focus on tomorrow's needs as well as today's crises.

We know, for example, that our present national water use rate is in the vicinity of 350 billion gallons a day. Our total supply of water is 1,200 billion gallons a day. The most we can extract, economically, is about 550 billion gallons a day. By the year 2000, barring major advances in reuse, we will have a water deficit of 200 to 400 billion gallons a day. And that deficit will not be evenly divided.

The Water Quality Act is not the final answer to these needs. But it was designed to provide us with two important instruments for the establishment and implementation of a national water policy: (1) the new Water Pollution Control Administration, directly responsible to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and armed with a mandate to consider all aspects of water pollution control and abatement; and (2) the water quality standards section, designed to stimulate cooperative Federal-State-local water resources planning and aimed at improvement as well as repair of those water resources.

In addition, the act provided for modest increases in Federal authorizations for sewage treatment construction grants, a pilot program to deal with the problem of combined storm and sanitary sewerage, a bonus for regional planning of sewage treatment systems and a special enforcement provision for situations where shellfish harvesting is prevented as a result of pollution.

The act, as finally signed, was the product of a long struggle. There were times when we despaired of obtaining agreement. But the compromise achieved by the Senate and the House, was, in several respects, more effective than either the original Senate or House version.

Our success in implementing the Water Quality Act and in providing additional tools for the war against pollution will depend on our skill in identifying specific pollution problems, in planning the optimum utilization of our water resources, in making appropriate decisions on the construction of effective municipal and industrial waste treatment works, and in achieving scientific and technical advances in the removal of waste and the treatment of water for reuse.

The identification of water pollution problems is not as simple as it may seem. In the past we have concentrated our attention on what we might call "conventional" pollution -- human waste, organic materials from food processing, suspended solids and toxic residues from industrial processes. For the most part those wastes could be traced and controlled. Now, however, in addition to attacking these wastes, we must cope with the impact of dispersed and persistent wastes which cannot be traced to individual plants or municipal sewer systems. The "new" wastes include fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and irrigation residues from agricultural pursuits, detergents from homes, radioactive wastes from atomic energy and research plants, and salts and other materials which wash off highways, parking lots, garages, and buildings.

Many of these pollutants are not biodegradable. They defy conventional treatment and build up in water supplies, making them undesirable and dangerous for reuse. And, as we learn more about the dangers of long-term low level exposure to some of these materials we realize that no waste substance can be written off as harmless in our increasingly crowded society.

The Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution is aware that research in the area of detecting, identifying, controlling, and treating "dispersed" and chemically complex wastes must be accelerated.

The second major area of water quality activity must come in the acceleration of our waste treatment facility construction. Several steps were taken in the 1st session of the 89th Congress, including the temporary increase in sewage treatment grant authorizations, the bonus provisions for regional sewage treatment systems, and the research and development funds for improved methods of dealing with combined storm and sanitary sewage -- all in the Water Quality Act -- the water and sewage grants in the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 and the Public Works and Economic Development Act, and the new rural community water and sewer program under the Aiken act.

Any extension of the treatment systems, particularly on a regional basis, suggests the possibility of more integration between municipal and industrial treatment systems. We recognize that there are problems of waste compatibility, but there is evidence that in many areas economies could be achieved, to the advantage of industries and municipalities.

The final major area of concern is advanced waste treatment and purification of water reuse. The drought which has affected the Northeast in the past few years has accelerated concern with water supplies. Technologically there are several ways of dealing with the problem. We can transport water from areas where the supply exceeds the demand. We can draw on the resources of the sea through desalination plants. We can treat our waste water and reuse it to a much higher degree than we do today.

Each method has its disciples, and the discussions of the relative merits of each sometimes approach the level of a theological debate. The general approach our subcommittee has taken is that no one system provides the answer, but that a combination of all three will be needed to meet different circumstances in different parts of the country.

The Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution is endeavoring to meet each of these major concerns, with new programing and increased fund authorizations.

"Steps Toward Clean Water," a recent report by the subcommittee, documents the costs of launching an effective program of pollution control and abatement. For instance. the present level of Federal aid for treatment plants is $150 million a year. But the subcommittee has estimated that present needs in our major cities, alone, total more than $1.3 billion. In 6 years this total will double.

The subcommittee found that the national price tag for needed treatment facilities will be about $20 billion by 1972. This would provide secondary treatment facilities for 80 percent of the population, plus tertiary treatment for 20 percent of the population, including some joint industrial-municipal systems.

In our quest for clean water, we are in a race against the clock: a race we cannot afford to lose.

To meet this challenge there must be a greater effort by all levels of government. To beef up Federal participation and to stimulate our States and cities my subcommittee has made several recommendations.

These include increasing Federal authorizations nearly seven times, to a total of $6 billion through 1972; eliminating the present dollar ceiling for Federal grants for treatment facilities; paying 30 percent of the costs of treatment facilities, regardless of the individual project price; providing a bonus to projects in which the State matches the Federal contribution; providing Federal loans for cities when the States do not share in the cost; enabling cities to apply directly for Federal help when their States do not match Federal grants; and strengthening research and development efforts for advanced waste treatment and industrial -municipal systems.

All of these proposals would support an effective implementation of the water quality standards provisions of the act of 1965 and the development of sound water resource planning and development.

Since the enactment of the Water Quality Act of 1965, the members of the subcommittee have been concerned with the appointment of a Water Pollution Control Administrator. He has now been appointed. But there is still a period of administrative uncertainty ahead.

The President has proposed the transfer of the Water Pollution Control Administration to the Department of the Interior in a reorganization plan he submitted to the Congress yesterday. A number of us have reservations about the proposal. We must resolve our questions or act to disapprove the plan within the next 60 days.

In addition, the President has proposed organizing the water pollution control program along river basin lines. This proposal is based partially on the Water Quality Act of 1965 and partially on the Water Resources Planning Act of 1965. It would, in effect, tie eligibility for Federal sewage treatment construction assistance to participation in a river basin plan which includes the use of water quality standards, expanded enforcement and long-term local financing arrangements.

A second major feature of the President's proposal is a tightening of enforcement procedures, including a reduction in the time required to implement enforcement actions under the present act, authorization for subpoena powers for the Secretary in connection with enforcement procedures, provision for citizens' suits in Federal district courts where damage from pollution is alleged, and expansion of the authority of the Secretary in setting water quality standards.

Finally, the administration's legislation provides some increases in Federal assistance for sewage treatment construction, an increase in Federal assistance in State pollution control programs and an increase in the authorization for Federal water pollution control research.

The President's proposals are far reaching. They provide additional evidence of his concern with the conservation of the quality of our environment. Taken with the other proposal pending before the committee, they offer the Congress an opportunity to build an imaginative and sound water quality improvement program on the foundation of the Water Quality Act we developed and enacted last year.

But beyond the action of the Congress, beyond the recommendations of the President, the final responsibility for achieving our goals will rest with you who must labor in the field, helping to develop water quality standards to meet your local and regional needs, developing the specific sewage treatment systems, and administering control and abatement programs at the State and local level. As we approach our hearings on the legislation before us, we shall solicit your counsel and advice on the most desirable and effective ways in which we can improve the Federal role in enhancing the quality of our water resources.