June 21, 1968
Page 18245
WATER POLLUTION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Nation is confronted with an urgent need to develop adequate programs to fight water pollution. Congress has taken steps to assure that this need will be met.
In 1965 and again in 1966, the Federal Government responded to the national demand for water pollution control. The latter legislation, the Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966, has aroused little if any criticism because it authorized a massive investment of Federal funds to construct water pollution control facilities.
The Water Quality Act of 1965, which was a synthesis of the concern expressed by both Houses of Congress, seems to create a different response. The 1965 act required establishment of federally approved water quality standards for every interstate river, lake, stream, and coastal water of the United States. But, more than that, the Water Quality Act of 1969 issued a declaration that the water pollution control philosophy of the people of this Nation is to enhance water quality.
Today, some individuals and organizations seem to be attempting to undermine the basic concept of that legislation. Many of them are now saying that water quality enhancement is inconsistent with the purposes of this legislation.
State and local water pollution control officials and many representatives of industry are being deluged with propaganda which suggests that Congress wanted something else other than water quality enhancement.
There has been little open public discussion of this issue and a plethora of misinformation.
However, a recent article in the May 30 issue of Engineers News Record provides a more detailed discussion of the questions at hand.
I know that Senators are concerned with this issue, and I know that a great deal more light needs to be shed on the controversy. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the article entitled "Water Pollution Control Is Tough" be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
WATER POLLUTION CONTROL IS TOUGH ENOUGH, LET'S NOT INJECT POLITICS
In water pollution control, it's the season of discontent. Money is short, the program is falling, behind schedule, states are confused over national goals, and federal program directors are disorganized and fumbling their public relations.
To get the program well organized before it falls apart completely is going to require a return to the nonpartisan atmosphere that prevailed on Capitol Hill when Congress passed the landmark pollution control bills of 1965 and '66. Right now politics is running ahead of pollution control.
In Hawaii, the Western Governor's Conference unanimously approved a resolution criticizing the federal water pollution control program (ENR 5/23, p. 52). Southern states are up in arms over one section of the program that is raising the states' rights issue. In Washington, some Republican members of the House Public Works Committee hammer at Interior Secretary Stewart A. Udall over his policies, and Democratic members are forced to defend his positions.
Overlooked in the confusion and argument is the simple fact that the water cleanup program is based on less-than-exact knowledge. When legislation triggering the present water quality standards program passed, it was known that upgrading would come along someday. Congress acted primarily to meet a growing crisis in the country that required some immediate action.
FULL SPEED ASTERN
Something less than immediate action is what it got.
The states did get their water quality standards in by the June 30, 1967, deadline. Most call for initial waste treatment plant construction to be completed in about five years. According to the procedure outlined by Congress, the standards were submitted to the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration for its review and then final approval by the Secretary of the Interior.
Construction of needed facilities could not start in earnest until standards got Interior approval.
The Congress authorized a massive $3.2 billion, four-year grant program to assist in construction of municipal waste treatment plants.
By mid-July, Udall approved the first standards. At a press conference, he said that if there is any significant characteristic of the standards, it is that they "call for a minimum of secondary treatment for all municipal wastes and a comparable degree of treatment for industrial wastes."
Word got around that secondary treatment (85% removal of biochemical oxygen demand –
BOD) would be the minimum degree acceptable, and the first real battle between Udall and the states started. Nevada objected to such a blanket regulation, and FWPCA officials hinted at court action. The issue is still officially unsettled, but Interior officials have since said that it is mainly just a battle over terminology anyway.
MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING
Meanwhile, more storm clouds were gathering.
Appropriations for the fiscal 1968 waste treatment grant program were 50% below the level Congress authorized, and state officials wondered how water quality standards could be met if the federal government was going to renege on its promise of money.
Then, after the rush approval of the first 10 states' standards packages, the approval process slowed down. It is now 11 months behind schedule. Most of the problem stems from FWPCA's disorganization. The agency was unprepared to deal with the masses of data it got from the states. The first approvals may have been made to pacify a Congress grumbling at the slowness of its "immediate action" program. Whatever the reason behind the quick approvals, they are coming back to haunt Interior now.
At hearings before the Senate public works air and water pollution subcommittee, Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.) chided then FWPCA Commissioner James M. Quigley on the blanket endorsement implied in his letter of approval to Georgia. Said Muskie: "I recognize you are not going to get perfection, with the time element involved, with respect to both quality standards and plans for implementation. But I think that the deficiencies ought to be honestly identified and pointed out to the states and that, where deficiencies exist, standards ought to be approved on a provisional basis, with plenty of handle left to the federal agency to press for improvement with a cooperative approach"
But Interior was not, then, provisionally approving standards and the mistake is coming home to roost as some states are asked to reopen their standards and change them to reflect new policies. Ironically, Georgia is the most verbose and determined of the states balking at reopening their standards.
After the first rush of approvals, there was a curious silence from Interior. Months dragged by with no approvals at all as FWPCA strove to organize its review machinery and an internal debate raged over national goals. Then, in February, Udall settled the debate when he announced that water quality standards permitting high quality waters to be degraded below their present quality would no longer be approved. What has followed is a barrage of protest.
In Hawaii this month, 13 western governors (11i of them Republicans) accused the Department of the Interior of insisting on "improper and unauthorized federal intervention in states' water pollution control programs." The governors called on Interior to "rescind or properly amend those federal requirements which have caused an unfortunate situation to develop."
The federal requirement the governors were criticizing is degradation. The unfortunate result is a slowing down of the already staggering treatment plant construction program while the states and federal government battle over the degradation issue. Until the controversy is settled, the states have not included a degradation clause in their water quality standards will be reluctant to go ahead with plans for treatment plants that may prove to be inadequate. So far, only four states have included the clause.
Colorado Gov. John A. Love calls acceptance of the policy "traitorous." And Georgia pollution official R. S. Howard, Jr., says adoption of the policy would mean the state would "have to get Interior approval for any future discharges. The federal government would be exercising control over Georgia's future economic and industrial development.
COMMUNICATE, DON'T DEGRADATE
Degradation itself is probably not the real problem. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1965 clearly states that its purpose is to "enhance the quality and value of our water resources." Degradation of water quality cannot be called enhancement.
Public relations and communications is the problem here. When Udall made his policy statement, it had the ring of an Olympian decree. He actually was restating the purpose of the federal program, but it sounded new to state officials, some of whom promptly jumped to the conclusion that Udall was empire building. Udall cannot be faulted for his statement, but he can be, and is, criticized for not fully explaining himself, his interpretation of policy, and his methods of achieving it. Now FWPCA Commissioner Joe G. Moore, Jr., has the odious chore of traveling around the country soothing feelings and explaining the policy. His meeting with Georgia and other southern state officials, who have already voted to reject the degradation policy, got him nowhere. Western pollution control men, who had no stand to retreat from before the governors' resolution, were more cooperative. Other states, meanwhile are in a quandary, some with legal restrictions that prohibit them from changing their standards without public hearings and/or legislative action.
One reason for the intensity of the attack against the policy is that it was the subject of debate within Interior and FWPCA. Quigley was afraid of stiffing industry, but Frank DiLuzio, the assistant secretary of Interior for water pollution control, campaigned for clean water at almost any cost. The argument went to Udall for resolution, leading some state officials to believe that degradation was a new policy or one that was subject to debate.
While that battle rages, others keep cropping up to slow the program. Another low budget request ($225 million) for fiscal 1969 is in the offing. To get around the problem, Interior developed a new waste treatment finance plan which guaranteed federal payments on municipal bonds. The finance plan is now sputtering through Congress, while state officials complain that interest on the bonds would not be tax exempt, that the population criterion would prevent small communities from participating, and that the program would hurt other state bond programs. The complaints stem from the Budget Bureau and Treasury Department tampering with the basic Interior idea.
The importance of the new plan was outlined by Udall when he appeared before a House public works subcommittee last month: "Whatever the cost finally turns out to be, the fact remains that these facilities will be needed or communities will not meet the schedules of the water quality standards and will face state and federal enforcement actions."
In fact, most states, particularly the big ones, will probably not meet the deadlines anyway. With debates continuing over standards, the states still face the long lead times necessary to design and build treatment facilities, not to mention the time it takes to arrange financing. And if the states do manage to build the plants, there is still the problem of manning them with competent operators. There is a shortage now, and it's likely to get worse.
These are the obvious problems the program will have to deal with. Still unknown is whether the construction industry will be able to handle the expected flood of contracts to design and build the hundreds of plants needed. Industry spokesmen say they can handle it, but will innovations in treatment have to be bypassed in the rush to get the plants up? No one knows yet. And no one knows what other major problems lurk in the stacks of papers that are the standards.
If the program is to move ahead, it will take renewed spirit, among federal, state and industry officials, and a renewed willingness to proceed with the knowledge that there will be problems just as there were in 1965 when the Water Quality Act was passed. Those problems were solved in a nonpartisan atmosphere; the new problems can be solved only in a similar atmosphere.