August 4, 1977
Page 26765
Mr. STEVENS. My problem is that I do not have anything to amend. I understand the EPA does listen to the committee and it is a very firm date of January 1978.
I would not want to offer an amendment to the bill to, in effect, correct the report.
I am only talking about one location in Alaska that I know of. It is the only one with a critical problem now.
As a matter of fact, both the EPA and the shellfish processing people are in town now working on the definition of the study to be completed.
As I say, I am asking my State to make a related study in Finger Bay which would not be covered by this deadline anyway. But to get that study completed in Finger Bay to show the EPA what actually occurred when the seafood processing industry worked in Finger Bay for a period of years — I believe it was in excess of 4 years.
We now will go back in and show what happened to it at Finger Bay and find whether it is better to have dispersal over a broader area and the depth of it limited, or whether the EPA is correct in limiting the circumference of the disposal area and not to consider at all the depth of the material
On this incident in Sitka Bay where the disposal piled up year after year after year, we had a chemical reaction underneath it and the bay literally exploded by virtue of coverage there because of the depth of the material.
The EPA seems to be taking us back to the idea that the dispersal should be limited in area on the ocean floor. We take the position it should be as broad as possible on the ocean floor, and we would like the time to prove that to EPA.
But the committee has said, "Get this done by January 1978."
Now, we cannot do it in Dutch Harbor in that time, and EPA is saying to the people in the seafood processing industry at Dutch Harbor that unless they can demonstrate the EPA is wrong, they will have to start barging this material for dispersal out further into the ocean.
This is an area of extreme winds, extreme weather, extreme icing.
We believe that the safety factors of using a barge there, as opposed to using the outfall sewers, are such that we should discourage barging. The industry has indicated that it is willing to extend the outfall pipes but it wants an opportunity to demonstrate to EPA that the radius they currently require — it is a circle with a 30 meter radius — and that the dispersal from any pipe cannot exceed that area on the ocean floor are wrong, particularly where they are dispersing material on a slope, which by nature means that you are limited to half the circle for dispersal area.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. STEVENS. I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. I gather what the Senator is concerned about is that the time allotted for the study will not be sufficient to cover all points in which he is interested.
Mr. STEVENS. That is our point, that it cannot be done properly by the State, by the industry, and by EPA within the time frame of the committee's direction to the EPA.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I recommend this to the Senator: Every member of the committee was puzzled about this whole question of alternatives to secondary treatment for discharges into the oceans, and we all felt the lack of complete knowledge on which to base a policy. If the Senator will address a letter to me — I assume that I will be chairman of the Senate conferees, at least — I will address it specifically and undertake to stretch out the time of the study and even further refine the characteristics of the study, so that we may get into the questions that the Senator has raised, if that will be of help to the Senator.
Mr. STEVENS. My good friend from Maine makes an offer I can hardly refuse, except for the fact that I do not refuse it yet — the direction of the committee is that the study must be completed by December of 1978.
Is the Senator indicating to me that he thinks perhaps the committee would authorize a letter that would say to the EPA, in effect, with regard to Dutch Harbor, that the deadline can be January of 1979? If the Senator is willing to consider that, I do not think that is an offer we should refuse. I do not have anything to amend.
Mr. MUSKIE. I cannot predict what the House may agree to, but I think that 6 months to a year in addition to what we have allowed is something the House would consider reasonable, and we can talk to each other before then and try to be more precise as to the scope of the study, the characteristics of the study, and the time of the study. I assure the Senator of my cooperation.
I have a similar problem in my State — not as complicated as that of the Senator — and we are all puzzled as to what the best answer is. We all need more information. The Senator's colleague, Senator GRAVEL, has communicated some of the same concerns.
Mr. GRAVEL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. GRAVEL. This language in the report is language of Senator CHAFEE'S and mine. Based on information we now have, we ask that the report be changed to reflect an extension of an additional 6 months, so that they have a full year to perform this study. I think the representations made by the Senator from Maine to go into more precise definition of this study will be helpful. I certainly want to go on record now that the study would include Dutch Harbor as one of the areas in question.
However, the area that will rise as a difficulty will be the period from June 30, and I presume my colleague would join me in extending it in the report language to June 30.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. GRAVEL. That would not require an amendment. I think this is sufficient to do that. But the time element between then and the end of October, when EPA would be constrained under the law to force these people if they chose to barge, might pose a problem. The companies in question tell me that the lead time to get the barges and to do this, if they are compelled to do this, might pose a problem.
I think we could focus on that in conference and have the staff go into that. We have been communicating with EPA on it, and we are assured that we are in a good holding pattern with what we have right now, and the next step is the conference and working with the staff to resolve it at a later time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will work with both Senators from Alaska to try to accommodate the need for the study and the expedition of the matter, but not so much that the job does not get done.
Mr. STEVENS. I appreciate the comment of the Senator from Maine and of my colleague from Alaska.
My problem is that this fishing season is a winter season.
Mr. MUSKIE. I understand that.
Mr. STEVENS. To put the industry ina position of studying the dispersal at a time when the studies cannot be made is wrong. If this is due, it should be due at the end of the next season, which wouldbe January of 1979.
It seems to me that we should have the ability to demonstrate to EPA our Alaska feeling that the broadest possible dispersal from a fixed pipe is much better than trying the barges on the Aleutian chain. But that is going to take some time.
I am willing to accept the offer of both Senators with respect to their assistance, because I think we are working for the same purpose. I assume that in conference, the conference committee could modify this January 1978 provision in the conference report.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have no doubt about that.
Mr. STEVENS. On that basis, that will be my plea to the Senator, that he consider that. An amendment would not lie to change this. That would raise a ruckus here that is not necessary over this issue.
With the Senator's assurance that he is willing to consider it, I appreciate the cooperation of the Senator from Maine, and I thank the Senator from Vermont for yielding time. I am grateful for the Senators' consideration.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator from Vermont yield me 3 minutes?
Mr. STAFFORD. Mr. President, I am glad to yield 5 minutes on the bill to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if I may get the attention of the Senator from Maine for a question.
While the Senator from Maine is returning to his desk, I want to spend a few moments discussing the user fee section of the bill. Specifically, I say to the Senator from Maine that on page 27 of the report there is a discussion under the general topic of metering with which I find no fault. It discusses what happened in our committee.
Incidentally, historically we would say that the Senator from Maine had an amendment that was adopted, indicatingthat metering was not a necessary approach to establish user fees and then the junior Senator from New York, joined by the Senator from New Mexico, amended the amendment that the Senator from Maine offered, and further clarified that ad valorem taxes could be used under certain circumstances to defray the requirements of our bill that there be user fees. I just want to ask one very specific question about that.
In the last paragraph, it reads:
Greater flexibility will be provided for the assessment of user charges among residential users. The community may use water meters, sewer meters, flat rates—
Which was one of the conclusions we had arrived at—
— or ad valorem taxes, so long as the basic requirement of proportionality in the distribution of costs among each recipient of waste treatment services is assured.
I say to the Senator from Maine that I believe that the thrust of the Moynihan-Domenici amendment permitting ad valorem taxes would be totally lost unless the word "proportionality" there means no more proportionality is required than is required of a flat fee. Otherwise, I think we are back to requiring that ad valorem taxes be either as accurate as metering or some other technique that I do not think we intended nor the committee intended in permitting ad valorems and their set aside for O&M internally in a community.
Will the Senator discuss that with me?
Mr. MUSKIE. Let me say to the Senator that the phrase "flat fee" is subject to the same ambiguity that the Senator attributes to the word "proportionality."
By flat fee, I take it from my recollection of our discussion in committee, that the Senator did not mean that every person in the community shall be charged the same rate. You can have classes of flat rates.
Mr. DOMENICI. That is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. And those classes of flat rates can be geared to the best evaluation that one can make of proportional use of the water upon which the sewage discharge volume is based.
Mr. DOMENICI. In the judgment of the community.
Mr. MUSKIE. In the judgment of the community.
Mr. DOMENICI. Correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. So proportionality in terms of the committee amendment means the same thing it means with respect to flat rate. We do not mean everybody is charged the same rate. The community is free to take into account the size of the household, the size of the residence, the number of facilities which draw upon water and which discharge sewage. In other words, you can classify residences upon the basis of objective tests that can be fair, that can be legitimate and that can be justified. But that is something different from the kind of precise metering of each household's use that metering implies.
I do not really think the Senator and I are apart, although our rhetoric in committee sometimes suggests we are further apart than we really are. But I think when the Senator talks about flat rate he is talking about the same thing I am talking about when I am talking about proportionality — that there must be a rational basis for distributing the costs of the system based upon some objective tests of the uses imposed or the burden imposed on the system by the users.
Mr. DOMENICI. I just want to clarify in establishing these kinds of classes, all I want to be sure of is, that they need not do it on the precise basis of consumption nor need there be a different fee for each house. It can be some general scheme that lends itself to the conclusion discussed in this report.
Mr. MUSKIE. I agree with the Senator.
May I commend to the Senator my rather extensive discussion of this subject in my prepared presentation this morning, which was at such an early hour that I would not expect anybody except the floor manager to be present. I think he will find that discussion to be consistent with this informal colloquy we have just had.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. I appreciate the Senator's raising the question because it is going to continue to be controversial, going to continue to be subject to interpretation. What we want to do in this is to establish some aura of certainty about what it is the committee and Congress desire, and I think the Senator's question and colloquy may have contributed to that.
Mr. DOMENICI. I also clearly intended to allow the community as much flexibility and exercise of its own judgment with reference to the assurance we seek from them.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is exactly right.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.