NEW WATER LEGISLATION. Toward the end of the year, the President signed the Water Quality Act of 1965. This Act amends previous federal water pollution control legislation in several significant respects. It provides that the water pollution control effort be moved from the Public Health Service, where it now resides, to a new Water Pollution Control Administration in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This shift largely reflects pressures from various groups that felt that the PHS water pollution control program continued to overemphasize public health to the exclusion of other values associated with clean water. The new Act also provides for an additional Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and an Administrator to guide the program. Neither appointment was made during the year.
An earlier Senate version of the bill would have authorized the Secretary to recommend water quality standards for interstate waters. The final version much more nearly reflected the House version of the bill which put the responsibility upon the states to enact such standards. However, they must do so within a comparatively short time or else will be faced with federal initiative. The new legislation provides that if a state will, before June 30, 1967 and after a public hearing, adopt water quality criteria applicable to interstate waters or portions thereof within its borders, and plan to implement and enforce such criteria, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare will make a determination as to whether the state's criteria and plan are consistent with protection of the public health or welfare and are designed to enhance water quality and, in general, serve the purposes of the Act. If the determination is favorable, the state criteria and plan will thereafter be the water quality standards applicable to those interstate waters or portions thereof. Otherwise the federal government will establish standards.
The establishment of interstate standards will greatly simplify enforcement of federal water pollution control legislation. Formerly, it was necessary for the federal authorities to demonstrate actual interstate damage resulting from pollution discharges. Now it will be necessary to demonstrate only that the water quality criteria applying to interstate waters are being violated. If so, the program of hearings and ultimate recourse to the courts can get under way. If a suit is finally brought to secure abatement, the court is instructed to enter whatever judgment and orders the public interest and equities of the case may require after having given due consideration to the practicability and to the physical and economic feasibility of complying with the applicable standards.
The new legislation strengthens the hand of the federal government in water pollution control. The exact character and emphasis of the federal role will depend substantially on how the program is administered.
What next? Further steps that might require federal initiative over and above that included in the Act would probably be in the direction of providing incentives for the formation of regional agencies that could implement efficient systems for the achievement of whatever water quality standards in the streams are finally deemed to be desirable.
AIR POLLUTION. Federal efforts to combat air pollution entered a new phase last October with passage of the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, calling for establishment of enforceable standards for new motor vehicles. This goes beyond previous congressional action, which in 1955 authorized a program of research; and in 1963 (in the Clean Air Act) strengthened the research provisions by authorizing grants to state and local governments and provided for legal action by the federal government when damage from air pollution could be established in interstate cases.
The new Act for control of motor vehicles was passed in the form of an amendment to the 1963 Clean Air Act. It directs the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish standards for the emissions from new motor vehicles of any substances that cause air pollution that he considers certain or likely to endanger the health or welfare of any persons. In establishing the standards, the Secretary is directed give consideration to technological feasibility and economic costs. The regulations are to become effective after a reasonable period necessary for compliance by the industry. On December 31, the Secretary announced the standards he intends to set, beginning with the 1968 model year. Industry has thirty days in which to register its reaction before final standards are determined.
After the regulations have been promulgated, federal suits can be brought simply for violation of standards anywhere in the United States; the government will not have to establish specific damage or be confined to interstate cases
Costs enter strongly into setting standards. Current technical methods for controlling pollution exhaust fumes are expensive. On the other hand, present costs will be an incentive to improvements in technology. Both these points are illustrated by experience in California, which already has state legislation for control of exhaust gases. If all cars in the state were required to have devices to reduce hydrocarbons from exhausts, the total cost, it has been estimated, would run into hundreds of million dollars—perhaps as much as a billion. The regulations at present apply only to new cars. Several manufacturers are equipping 1966 automobiles with "after-burner" devices in the engine, which may be less expensive than the exhaust-mounted equipment used heretofore.
The new federal legislation is linked as a serious and growing source of air pollution. In recent years the volume of the so-called primary pollutants—relatively stable particles in the form of dust, smoke, fumes, and droplets—has apparently been declining. One reason is thee large-scale abatement methods of steel and other industries. The other is the shift from coal to oil and gas. But the secondary pollutants from these newer fuels are difficult to deal with, especially fumes from internal combustion engines. Smog in Los Angeles and other places is largely the result of unburned fuels irradiated in stagnant air by sunlight. Whether the control methods now planned can do more than keep up with air pollution is problematical. It has been estimated that in Los Angeles if population and automobile use continue to grow at their present pace, the atmosphere will be as bad a decade hence as it is today even if current control regulations are fully enforced.
SOLID WASTES. The Solid Waste Disposal Act, also passed in October as an amendment to the Clean Air Act, carries federal efforts to improve environmental quality into a new field. The Act provides for a national program of research and development, including studies of both reducing the amounts of wastes and of recovering and using the wastes that do accumulate. It also provides for technical and financial assistance to state and local governments and interstate agencies for planning, developing, and conducting solid-waste disposal programs.
The Act authorizes appropriations to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, rising from a maximum of $7 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1966 to a maximum of $20 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1969; and to the Secretary of the Interior (for work connected with extraction and use of minerals and fuels), rising from not more than $3 million to a maximum of $12.5 million over the same period.
Solid wastes include junk automobiles and other durable goods, paper and packaging materials of various kinds, and sewage sludges and solid and semi-solid industrial waste products. Disposal of these materials is becoming an increasingly critical problem. Technological changes in steel production, earlier retirement of automobiles, and a rapid rise in automobile output have upset the workings of the scrap cycle. Thousands of automobiles are abandoned on the street yearly in all major cities, while others accumulate in junk yards or in the open country.
Disposal of solid wastes has had perhaps less research than any other major environmental sanitation problem. Most commodities that consumers purchase are not really consumed—they merely have a certain utility extracted from them and are abandoned or perhaps they are changed in form. Rapidly rising population and per capita income will intensify the problem. There is a particular need for research to develop technologies that can keep waste products in the cycle of productive activities—reuse of scrap metals and composting of sewage solids and garbage come to mind as possibilities. Care must also be taken that possible interdependencies between air, water, and solid waste disposal are recognized. For example, incineration of solid waste may well contribute to air pollution problems, while garbage grinders may contribute to water pollution problems. Research and demonstration projects are badly needed in this area. Appropriations under the Solid Waste Disposal Act should give impetus to such efforts.
THE MINING ENVIRONMENT. Mineral producers, particularly those mining from the surface, faced increased demands for protection of land, air, and water resources. Coal fires both underground and in dumps, acid mine drainage, subsidence, sedimentation downstream from waste piles, and land restoration after mining were all discussed at length during 1965. In some instances legislation was put on the statute books. The Appalachian Regional Development Act authorized a national study of surface mining and its effects—one of the few sections of the Act that applies to the whole country. A report is due in two years, but the section on Appalachia itself is due in July. A number of states strengthened their laws to control the activity of mining companies as it affects the environment. The laws in Pennsylvania, perhaps the strictest in the country, now require almost complete restoration of the mining site and, as of January 1, 1966, prohibit the release of acid to streams. It remains to be seen how effective the new law will be or how it will affect the industry. Against the frequent assertion that stricter laws will adversely affect costs and therefore output, there is some evidence to indicate that they crowd out some smaller producers who cannot afford the expense of reclamation, but leave total production unaffected.
Coal purchasers have begun to recognize the importance of restoration. Several utilities in Pennsylvania have undertaken land restoration schemes in their market areas as a means of community redevelopment. And the Tennessee Valley Authority, the biggest utility coal consumer in the country, undoubtedly stung by complaints about the effects of strip-mining activities near its mine-mouth power generating plants in Kentucky, decided to include a land restoration clause in all term contracts for strip-mining coal, but stressed that in its opinion " ... strong, well-enforced legislation is the only means by which solution of the problems of strip-mining will be assured."
In the meantime, action along the lines taken by TVA would eliminate any competitive advantage previously accruing to coal producers from not restoring strip-mined land.
One result of the interest in pollution problems associated with mining was a proposed Interstate Mining Compact. This compact, drafted by an ad hoc committee organized by the Council of State Governments, would commit member states to pass laws to control the surface effects of mining, and also authorizes the creation of a commission to study and make recommendations about the conduct of mining. At year's end, the final text of the compact had not been completed.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1966 issue of Resources magazine.
