Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, the number of bills pending before our subcommittee, and the number of Senators scheduled to testify offer dramatic evidence of the concern throughout the United States for the problem of water pollution control.

We are finally aware as a Nation that the seemingly limitless resources of this rich land are indeed limited. We cannot and we must not, if we are to preserve the bounty of this land for future generations, continue to waste and despoil our water, our soil, and our other natural resources.

This growing concern and popular awareness are the product of the attention which has been focused on the problem by the Congress, in the Senate, under your capable leadership, Senator Muskie, of this subcommittee, and in the House under the able direction of your counterpart, Representative John Blatnik.

I have been privileged to serve with you on this subcommittee since its organization. Last year, the Congress took a great stride forward in the enactment of the Water Quality Act of 1965 to which reference has been made. This authorized the promulgation of standards of water quality in interstate streams. Virtually all of the bills that are before this subcommittee have their parentage in that act. This fact testifies to the years of labor and effort in this committee which culminated in that act.

The proposed measures which will be before us in the subcommittee in the next few weeks provide an arsenal of weapons to combat water pollution.

I am particularly concerned, of course, with S. 2947, of which I am privileged to be a cosponsor, with many other Senators, as you have indicated. This bill is the product of hearings and conferences conducted by the subcommittee last year and the authorization figure of $6 billion proposed was not just drawn out of the air. It represents the best estimate of professional intelligence, that is, the Federal portion of one-third of the $20 billion estimated as the need for municipal sewage treatment work required by 1972.

But I point out, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee that even this amount, if authorized and appropriated, would not complete the job. It would provide treatment facilities for 80 percent of our population. But more important, it is my understanding that when we refer to secondary treatment process as withdrawing 90 percent of the biological oxygen demand, we are referring to only 90 percent of the 68 percent of the biological oxygen demand, which is processed in a 5-day treatment period.

It is for this reason, among others, that the research and demonstration funds that are proposed are of primary significance, for we need to find economical methods of removing 90 percent of the total biological oxygen demand, not just 90 percent or two-thirds of it.

The administration's proposal S. 2987, has some imaginative and constructive concepts, particularly that of river basin planning for water pollution control. However, I hope that the requirement for comprehensive basin planning would not lead the Congress into deferring a construction grant program for municipalities when it has been so clearly demonstrated that there is an urgent need for accelerating such a program. I am confident that this subcommittee, under your

knowledgeable leadership, can weld the beneficial aspects of the various bills before us into a coherent and cohesive water management program.

I speak with conviction not only as a member of the subcommittee, but also as a Senator from the State of West Virginia, a State which has often been referred to as the Mother of Rivers, because the origin of so many rivers occurs among our West Virginia hills. Yet, many of these streams, flowing from pure springs and freshets in the mountains, take on the characteristics of industrial and municipal sewers as they run to the sea.

Such a river is the Monongahela, formed by the confluence of the West Fork and Tygart Rivers at Fairmont, W. Va., the drainage basin including the southwest corridor or corner of Pennsylvania, the northeast portion of West Virginia, and a small section of western Maryland. The Monongahela and its tributaries are severely polluted by the discharge of untreated and inadequately treated municipal sewage and waste, and mine wastes.

I am told that the rudder of a river barge on the Monongahela River lasts from 6 to 8 months, due to the action of mine acids, as compared to an average lifetime on the Ohio River of approximately 18 months. I add that the Ohio River leaves much to be desired in the field of pollution abatement.

Another heavily polluted river in West Virginia is the Kanawha River, which originates in the south-central region of our State, in Fayette County. From there, it flows in a northwesterly direction for approximately 97 miles, before emptying into the Ohio River. Though the Kanawha is entirely within the boundaries of West Virginia, it is a major tributary to the Ohio River, and wastes discharged into the Kanawha affect the Ohio. The Kanawha Valley in the area of Charleston is frequently referred to as the Little Ruhr, because of the heavy concentration of industries, largely petro-chemical. There are some 30,000 employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of capital investment in the chemical industry in the Kanawha Valley. These industries are a major segment of the economy, not only of that area, but of the State. And though they are a source of great economic benefit to our State, they are also a source of water pollution. Several years ago the State water pollution control commission directed the industries of the Kanawha Valley to reduce their pollution load by 50 percent over a 5-year period. I am informed that substantial progress is being made, but much more remains to be done by both the industries and the municipalities that are located on the river. Finally, there is the Ohio River which is formed by the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers at Pittsburgh and flows into the Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill., some 900 miles below its point of origin. This great river includes in its drainage basin parts of the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. In each of the 5 areas of the basin, there are serious interstate, pollution problems; and these come from industrial and municipal wastes. If I have been somewhat provincial this morning, I accept it, because I speak not only for West Virginia, but for the region in which critical problems of an interstate nature have developed.

Mr. Chairman, I know that under your direction these hearings will probe thoroughly all areas of the problem of water pollution control.

And it is my confident hope that the subcommittee, the full committee, and both bodies of the Congress, will bring into being a comprehensive and coherent program to attack the problems of water pollution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MUSKIE. Thank you, Senator Randolph.

Senator Cooper?

Senator COOPER. I am not a member of this subcommittee, but as a member of the full Committee on Public Works and Member of the Congress I am very much interested in the legislation that this committee will send to the Senate.

I would just like to say that under your leadership this subcommittee reported and passed legislation which initiated a significant advance in the field of water pollution control. I have no doubt that you will match your past efforts in the work of these hearings. Senator MUSKIE. Thank you, Senator.

Senator Moss?

Senator Moss. First of all I want to commend the chairman heartily for calling these hearings on air and water pollution. I consider this one of the most important fields of responsibility of the Senate Public Works Committee. In the past few sessions we have moved decisively to provide more Federal assistance in abating our water pollution and cleaning up our increasingly polluted atmosphere and general environment. But we must greatly intensify our attack. The bills before the subcommittee today will give us some of the tools.

The present conservation wave is the third of this century. The first wave came in the early 1900's under Theodore Roosevelt, and the second in the 1930's under Franklin D. Roosevelt. This third wavewhich will go down in history, I believe, as the Kennedy-Johnson wave has a new emphasis. We are now emphasizing making the world a more satisfactory home for man-and especially urban man. We are stressing space and beauty for use and enjoyment-open spaces and green belts, parks, and roadside beautification, scenic highways, and wild rivers."

We are stressing opportunity for solitude in an unquiet, bustling, increasingly populated civilization-wilderness and quiet to knit up the raveled sleeve of care, to calm jangled nerves and scrambled emotions to keep us sane, efficient, and working, if possible.

We are stressing the preservation, in a natural environment, of plants and animals about to disappear from the face of this earth. We may yet rescue the whooping crane and the grizzly bear from decline. toward extinction.

We are concerned in this third wave of "wise use" of man's estate on earth, with harmful and unnecessary pollution of the environment, whether it be contamination with pesticides, atomic fallout, or the now more conventional but no less distressing pollution of air and

water.

The seriousness of the water pollution problem is in a degree indicated by the rising tempo of attention the Congress has accorded it in the past decade, even though our efforts, in retrospect, now appear to have been too little, and very late.

The first comprehensive Federal Water Pollution Control Act of July 9, 1956, provided for grants to assist States and interstate agen

cies in their water pollution control activities, as well as grants for the construction of municipal sewage works, and a procedure governing Federal abatement action against interstate pollution.

In July 1961 we moved forward by strengthening abatement enforcement, increasing Federal assistance to municipalities in their construction of waste treatment works, and by recognition of research needs on these problems. Also water quality control was recognized as an appropriate aspect of multiple-use of storage reservoirs.

By 1965 we were even more seriously concerned about water quality in many areas, including Lake Erie, and about quantity as well, especially as regards supplies for some of our larger urban developments. Again, we passed legislation.

The Water Quality Act of 1965 established a basic program for the enhancement of our water resources through a coordinated approach to water quality standards, treatment systems, and enforcement. It, too, has been recognized as a major step in a national effort to grapple with a very refractory cluster of problems, but hardly the final answer. A Federal Water Pollution Control Administration was created, but the major premise continued to be to provide Federal support and encouragement to actions by interstate, State, and local governments toward prevention, control, and abatement of water pollution. It has continued to be the declared policy of Congress to recognize, preserve, and protect the primary responsibilities and rights of the States in preventing and controlling water pollution.

Encouragement is not only by grant for needed facilities but encouragement with respect to establishment of adequate water quality standards, and, finally, provisions for enforcement. Even enforcement might be described as encouragement involving, as it does, conferences, public hearings, and apparently only reluctantly and as a last resort, a request by the Secretary to the Attorney General to bring a suit in behalf of the United States to secure abatement.

Now, in 1966 we are back with two major bills which will provide for still further progress on this problem. In general, I favor both of them, and hope we may retain the more useful features of both.

S. 2947, as proposed, would go further than present legislation in facing up to the very large amount of financing which will surely be needed to make an effective attack on the pollution problem. It amends the Federal Water Pollution Control Act by (1) providing for a 6-year, $6 billion program of grants to municipalities for sewage treatment construction, with the Federal Government paying 30 percent of the total cost, (2) removing the present limits on individual project grants, (3) providing incentive for State participation in the program by offering a 10-percent bonus on grants in cases where the State matches the Federal contribution, (4) providing for a long-term, low-interest loan program to assist communities in States where State funds are inadequate, (5) providing for an increase from $5 million to $10 million in grants for State programs to assist States in improving their own programs, and (6) authorizing a $25-million-a-year program of grants for demonstration of advanced waste treatment. and water purification methods.

S. 2987, the proposed Clean Rivers Restoration Act, would amend the Water Pollution Control Act and provide for development of a

Federal water pollution control and abatement program under a coordinated river basin approach. It would make eligibility for Federal sewage treatment construction assistance dependent in part on participation in a river basin plan which would include the use of water quality standards, expanded enforcement and long-term financial arrangements.

It would tighten enforcement procedures, including (1) a reduction in the time required to implement enforcement actions under the present act, (2) authorization for subpena powers for the Secretary in connection with enforcement procedures, (3) provision for citizen suits in Federal district courts where damage from pollution is alleged, and (4) expansion of the Secretary's authority to set water quality standards.

It, too, would provide for increases in Federal assistance for (a) sewage treatment construction, (b) State pollution control programs, and (c) Federal water pollution control research.

In my opinion, both approaches are needed-and promptly. There must be more money authorized, as well as a well-developed program of standards and stepped-up enforcement.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.

Senator MUSKIE. Thank you, Senator Moss, for your excellent state

ment.

Senator Murphy.

Senator MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to join in my congratulations to the chairman for his wisdom and foresight in tackling this job and calling these hearings. I think there is no more important subject to consider here in the Senate of the United States.

I would like to say that I consider it a distinct privilege and pleasure to be on the Public Works Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution. I feel there are no more important problems facing our Nation than our efforts to combat air and water pollution which increasingly plagues more and more of our communities. The community in which I live is experiencing more problems, probably, than all the others. Because of my interest and concern with the water problem of the country, I am pleased to cosponsor Senate bill 2947, which was introduced by the distinguished chairman of this subcommittee, Senator

Muskie.

The scarcity of water has tormented man down through many centuries. Today our water needs are great and growing faster than ever before. Tomorrow, the demand for adequate water supply to industry, agriculture, our increasing population will be even greater. The world demand is expected to double before the end of the 20th century. It has been estimated that by 1980 water supplies in the United States will be inadequate to meet the water requirements of our population. Scientists tell us that the earth's original supply of water is still in use. Little has been added or lost. The centuries-old hydrologic cycles of water continue today. It is therefore not the total water supply that is of concern to man, but its management, its distribution, and its use that will determine whether adequate water will be available to the generations to come.

The history of my State shows a strong link between the development and use of its water resources. We in California have long ap