A Bold Program For Clean Water
Abzug, Bella S.
A Bold Program for Clean Water by BELLA S. ABZUG Our nation's waters—our most pre- cious natural resource—are rap- idly being transformed into a vast, ran- cid sewer. Scarcely an uncontaminated...
...Lake Erie, once the source of a thriving fishing industry, is now considered "dead...
...Taxpayers would no longer have to carry the burden of cleaning up after industry...
...Scarcely an uncontaminated body of water remains in the United States...
...samples taken there recently showed the intestinal bacteria concen- tration to be 170 times the "safe" limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA...
...We cannot do the job by patching up old programs...
...It will not be cheap...
...The cumbersome procedure of enforcement conferences would be eliminated...
...My bill authorizes $5 billion a year for construction of these facilities —more than any other bill pending and a minimum to begin to do an ef- fective job...
...Operated by local governments, these facilities treat residential and in- dustrial sewage before it enters open waters...
...The Navy contaminates our harbors and estuaries with waste from more than 700 U.S.-based vessels, of which only three have any sewage treatment facilities at all...
...Stricter reg- ulation of agricultural, lumbering, and mining practices will be necessary to begin to cope with this problem...
...In Otsego, Michigan, a plant that had been dis- charging 1,500 pounds of effluents per day and overloading the local treat- ment center found ways to reduce the outflow to less than 500 pounds daily after user charges were instituted...
...It does not, in such instances, have to concern itself with the problem of disposal...
...Merely by running a pipe to such fa- cilities, industry is provided with a free and legitimate avenue for disposing of its waste...
...10366 would require states to set minimum quality levels for all navigable waters, and maximum levels for plant effluents, in accordance with Federal guidelines...
...Swordfish has disap- peared from our tables...
...Water sewage treatment facilities are an essential means of pollution control...
...The answer to pollution problems cannot be purely legislative...
...In 1968, the Depart- ment of Defense alone was responsible for more than 335 million gallons of human waste per day, of which ap- proximately twenty-five to thirty-five per cent was inadequately treated (i.e., given less than secondary treatment...
...Some 12,000 potentially toxic chemicals are in industrial use today...
...Each of us can play a part...
...Many other pollution problems com- plicate the control picture...
...However, big industry is not the only villain of this piece...
...Even the oceans are poisoned...
...The Cuya- hoga River in Cleveland is notorious for being so loaded with industrial wastes and oil that it is actually com- bustible...
...even if nothing but clean water entered the lake from this day on, it would take centuries to restore the lake to health...
...With full treatment, such plants have the capability of purifying sewage to the quality of drinking water...
...when the process has gone far enough, the body of water can be considered "dead...
...10366 is only one of more than 150 water pollution bills pending be- ber and the bill should reach the floor by mid-October...
...Relatively small concentrations of certain materials, especially metal compounds and pesticide residues, are concentrated in the bodies of water organisms and further concentrated in the bodies of predators of these species...
...This would provide a sig- nificant incentive for businesses to seek new production processes which would create less waste, to rely more on re- cycling of waste products, and to de- velop more effective in-plant controls...
...In every part of our country, indus- try has used our waterways as cheap dumping grounds in which to unload its waste...
...But for effective enforcement, the efforts of environmentally minded groups and citizens will be necessary...
...Many chemical wastes re- quire special and expensive treatment...
...We are trying to pass a bill which will tighten up enforcement pro- cedures...
...Without sustained work by environmental groups, we would not have even the rather weak legislation that now exists...
...The House Committee on Public Works, of which I am a member, is presently in the process of formulating new water pollution legislation...
...Only in the face of strong, united citizen pressure will the committees re- port out and Congress approve a bill that carries any hope of effectiveness...
...10366 would permit individual citizens to take the EPA to court if it failed to enforce the standards set under the law...
...The EPA has warned that touching or being splashed by water from the Potomac River is a health hazard...
...Existing law gives Federal and state agencies far too much discretion as to how and when to enforce the law...
...This process has resulted in the dan- gerously high levels of mercury in ocean fish which have already done great damage to the fishing industry and have led to the near-extinction of several species of sea birds through DDT poisoning...
...And despite Administration claims of progress, the situation is getting worse...
...what will be next...
...Criminal charges could be brought against willful violators of state stand- ards...
...and to create a climate of opinion within which the Administra- tion will have to enforce the legisla- tion...
...Present Government programs are hopelessly inadequate...
...to identify and publicize problems...
...They will need to use the citizen suit procedures...
...The Fed- eral Government itself is among the worst polluters...
...Phos- phates from fertilizers cause "eutroph- ication" of water bodies, depleting their oxygen supply to the point where only "trash fish" and algae can survive...
...A constant torrent of waste, mostly untreated, pours into our water- ways from farms, factories, and cities...
...In fact, however, much of the human waste produced by Americans is dumped into our waterways with little or no treatment...
...In addition, H.R...
...I have introduced a bill, H.R...
...10366 would greatly strengthen the enforcement powers of the En- vironmental Protection Agency...
...A recent study by the General Accounting Of- fice concluded that the $2 billion spent since 1956 on pollution control has merely slowed the deterioration of water quality...
...We can continue on our reckless way, or we can take steps—and they must be giant steps—to arrest the deterioration and to begin the job of cleaning up...
...Without strong and concerted cit- izen pressure, it will be impossible to pass effective legislation or to get it enforced...
...These plants were con- structed in anticipation of Federal funding, and it would certainly be un- fair to finance plants in these states which have failed to meet their re- sponsibilities for sewage treatment without reimbursing those which have...
...It has been estimated that more than half of the water pollution in some areas of the United States is caused by such non-point pollution...
...10366, which could make an effective start towards cleaning up our waters...
...More than 400 mil- lion gallons of such waste are dumped into the Hudson River every day after some chlorine has been added to kill the odor...
...In a recent survey, one out of every three samples of drinking water taken by the Department of Health, Educa- tion and Welfare's Bureau of Water Hygiene was found to be unsafe...
...The facilities which do exist are often overworked, or simply are not equipped to handle the new chemicals which appear as waste...
...A complex ecological system is reduced to a simple and degraded one...
...In the case of many lakes, the dam- age is already almost irreversible...
...Much pollution also originates in "non-point" sources such as agriculture and mining...
...Acid wastes and poisonous metal compounds from mines, fertiliz- ers and pesticides from farmlands, mud from eroded hillsides—vast quantities of these and other pollutants are washed into waterways by rain...
...Of course, the construction of more and better sewage treatment plants will be of little help if industry chooses not to use them and builds or relocates its facilities in areas which lack such plants...
...It is important for cit- izens to organize and express them- selves in relation to the legislative work now in process...
...In the few areas where user charges have been tried, they have been quite successful...
...Raising standards is only part of the answer, for even the weak standards which presently exist have not been vigorously enforced...
...Civil penalties have been levied too sparingly, and even the most blatant violators have rarely been brought to court...
...The waste from localities which do not have such facilities either goes into individual septic tanks (which of- ten leak into the surrounding soil and waterways) or directly—and without treatment—into nearby bodies of water...
...in some cases, industries simply sink the more toxic of these wastes into deep wells...
...The states would have to submit to the EPA detailed plans for implement- ing and enforcing these standards, in- cluding compliance schedules and timetables for restoring our waters to a safely usable state for drinking, recre- ation, fish propagation, and for the countless other uses we make of this valuable asset...
...BELLA S. ABZUG, New York Democrat, was elected to the House of Represen- tatives in 1970...
...Violators would no longer be given six months to comply with the law, but would have to do so immediately...
...We must recognize that our efforts up to now have been almost completely ineffective...
...A Bold Program for Clean Water by BELLA S. ABZUG Our nation's waters—our most pre- cious natural resource—are rap- idly being transformed into a vast, ran- cid sewer...
...A practicing attorney, she has been active in labor law, civil rights, and the Women Strike for Peace movement...
...Many of the existing treatment facilities treat waste only on a "primary" basis, which has been described by one official as "pull- ing the dead cats out of the water...
...Little information is available to the public on the dangers posed by these chemicals when they are improperly dispersed...
...they form a powerful lobby...
...Instituting a system of user charges, however, would do much to remedy this state of affairs...
...Most of us assume that the sewage we flush down our plumbing pipes is being properly treated by some un- known, unseen plant at the other end...
...We do have a choice about all this...
...These guidelines re- quire a provision excluding all materi- als designated "toxic" by the EPA from waterways and urge the establishment of programs for the recycling of waste...
...The polit- ical reality at this time is that Con- gress cannot specify the many detailed water quality standards, effluent lim- itations, and other specific measures re- quired to put legislation into effect...
...Obviously, this situation offers no incentive to industry to seek new means of disposing of its wastes or of reducing the volume of pollutants it discharges...
...It also provides for reim- bursement for local and state govern- ments which have prefinanced the con- struction of plants which meet grant requirements under present law but for which Federal money has not been available...
...A comprehensive and tough new approach is needed...
...Faced with a user charge of $1,400 a month, a Missouri packing plant altered its production processes and reduced its waste to a point where the charge dropped to $225...
...Major polluters have a large economic stake in avoiding and delaying expensive pollution control ef- forts...
...Water ecosystems are destroyed by thermal pollution resulting from use of water- ways to dissipate the heat generated by nuclear power plants and industrial processes...
...It would raise maximum fines and intro- duce minimum fines for the first time...
...A user charge system, then, would go a long way towards reducing the pollu- tion caused by industrial waste dis- charges...
...Similar horror stories can be told about almost every other major American waterway...
...Any bill we can get passed will leave much discretion on setting standards and their enforcement to the Adminis- trator of the Environmental Protection Agency...
...Under this policy, proposed in my bill, industries would pay for the use of treatment facilities, in proportion to the volume and strength of the waste products they discharge...
...Citizens would also be empowered to bring suit directly against polluters, and to re- ceive a portion of any fine levied by the courts...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 10
