Mr. BILLINGS. That is right.

But the average of today is the poorest of tomorrow.

Now, the fifth thing which our experience has taught us is this: Control, to be most effective and of optimum benefit, must be as close to the source of pollution as possible.

People in city, county, and State offices have the best overall picture of what is going on in their own locality. They know better than anyone else exactly where the pollution problems are, which ones under discussion are real, and how widespread is their effect.

Senator MUSKIE. You think that is true?

Mr. BILLINGS. Yes, very definitely.

And anytime that you hear a people in an area

Senator MUSKIE. When you say the people in the area, what people are you referring to?

Mr. BILLINGS. I am talking about the local people, the local groups. Senator MUSKIE. The local citizens?

Mr. BILLINGS. The local citizens, that is right.

Senator MUSKIE. They know better than anyone else exactly where the pollution problems are, which ones under discussion are real, how widespread is their effect.

Suppose I should walk down the street of Waterloo, Maine, and pick any citizen and discuss the problem of pollution of the Kennebec River which flows through the city. Do you think they would know more about that than Mr. Murray Stein of the Federal Enforcement Agency?

Mr. BILLINGS. Probably not.

But if you walked down the street and picked out a member of the Izaac Walton League, or a member of one of the officials of the town who the Izaac Walton League has been operating on, they would certainly know more than Mr. Stein would, and it would not have been from just a short survey, because no man in Washington-Mr. Stein may be brilliant, but he cannot know as well as the person who lives in the area and sees the problems every day.

Senator MUSKIE. You think that citizen who had been worked on by the Izaac Walton League would have a good objective picture of the problem?

Mr. BILLINGS. I think so, because he has been around to see us and we would talk to him, too.

Senator MUSKIE. You have added another condition.

Now, he has had to be educated not only by the Izaac Walton League, but by you people. How many citizens have that broad an education?

Mr. BILLINGS. I think so. I think they do very well.

Senator MUSKIE. I guess I will have to try your city and walk down the street, because, if I were to try mine, I do not think I would get the kind of reaction you anticipate.

Mr. BILLINGS. These people in the area-you cannot stop

Senator MUSKIE. I think you are carrying your point a little too far, Mr. Billings.

I would agree that the people who have been intimately concerned with this problem in a State-and this includes the water control agency, whatever it may be; this includes the industries; this includes those communities in which the governing authorities have

concerned themselves with the problems-and there are many communities in which they have not-those people have been exposed to the problem and had to deal with it-undoubtedly, they have a more intimate and detailed knowledge of the problem than the people in the agency that has to work nationwide. This, I accept.

But when you urge upon me the thought that every citizen in these communities knows more than experts on the Federal level, I just cannot buy that.

Senator NELSON. I would like to add here, Mr. Chairman, in my little town we have three lakes. And from the time before I was born until 7 years ago, the creamery discharged all of its whey into the largest of the lakes, so that it was unusable all of my lifetime. Now, it is true everybody in that village knew about it. But the creamery was the biggest employer-80 or 90 people in a town of 700. So it took the State water pollution committee to order the creamery to stop. It would never have been done by the local citizens. Mr. BILLINGS. I think, Mr. Chairman and Senator Nelson

Senator MUSKIE. As a matter of fact, let me make this point. I I happen to know of a situation. I will not even hint as to where it is. But I know of a situation where a local water supply is being pol luted by natural radioactive materials of which the local people are completely unaware and of which the Federal agency is aware. So it is not necessarily so that local people know a problem better than the Federal agency.

Mr. BILLINGS. Could we go back and read this testimony once more? Notice that I did not mention all local people. I say

Senator MUSKIE. You did not in your written statement, but you broadened it as I asked you questions.

Mr. BILLINGS. People in city, county, and State offices have the best overall picture of what is going on in their own locality.

Senator MUSKIE. Then, you recall, I asked you about the man I stopped in the street.

Mr. BILLINGS. I got into the Izaac Walton League.

Senator MUSKIE. You educated him first. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to educate people.

Proceed, Mr. Billings.

Mr. BILLINGS. You must admit that the people in the city, county, and State offices, knowing the economic needs of the local industries and communities, they are in a good position to decide how to approach the specific improvement required. Too much pressure, too soon, by arbitrary orders which do not take into account the local situation, could shut a mill down and disrupt the local economy. Too little pressure, too slowly, could cause a program to drag.

It sounds, Senator Nelson, as though the program had dragged in one particular area here.

My experience with local authorities is that they are tough, smart, and fair and always keep the pressure on.

Senator MUSKIE. That statement goes a little far, too. With that comment, go on.

Mr. BILLINGS. Not in my case.

Senator MUSKIE. I know. But you do not qualify it.
Mr. BILLINGS. What is that?

Senator MUSKIE. You do not qualify it that way. You said that in your experience, those you have dealt with have always been like thisthen I have to take it. But when you say that they are alwaysMr. BILLINGS. In my experience.

Senator MUSKIE. All right.

Mr. BILLINGS. Without exception, I have found them to be sincere in their efforts to improve their own particular areas from all standpoints-recreational, industrial, agricultural, and esthetic. They have to be. They are close to the people they serve and directly responsible to them; they are in almost daily contact with them, and sensitive to all local feeling and sentiment.

Senator NELSON. I would like to point something out here. Probably everybody's experience is different, but I would wager that you could call in every conservation organization in America, and they would state exactly the opposite of your experience.

My experience has been that industry always says, "In our experience local officials are fair and square and control pollution." All industry says this. All conservation groups say exactly the opposite. Mr. BILLINGS. That they are not fair, and that they are not tough and smart?

Senator NELSON. Correct.

Senator METCALF. And that they do not improve their particular areas from all standpoints-recreational, agricultural, and estheticwhen there is an industrial conflict involved.

Mr. BILLINGS. They are trying to get the balance, I am sure.

Senator NELSON. My experience is that industry says one thing and conservation groups say exactly the opposite.

Senator METCALF. I wanted to join in with my experience. Now, your experience has been different than ours. Ours has been that when there is a conflict with recreational, agricultural, and esthetic uses of water as against the industrial use, the industrial use wins. and it wins every time, if the local people are involved, just as Senator Nelson pointed out in this creamery. What can the people of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, do against the people of the St. Regis Paper Co. in Libby, Mont. Not a single thing. The trout will belly up in the river. The local people do not know what happened. They ask the Public Health Service, "What happened to us?" The reply is "Someone made a mistake up at the St. Regis Paper Co. in Montana," and they cannot do a single thing about it.

Mr. BILLINGS. Does Idaho have a system such as we have in Wisconsin, of a committee on water pollution?

Senator METCALF. I do not know what the Idaho law is. But the water pollution occurs in Libby, Mont. And the people of Idaho have not a single thing to say about it. Nor have the people of Washington, or the people of Oregon, as that pollution goes on downstream.

In the first place, the local people do not know what happened to them. And then when they find out after consulting with the Public Health Service what has happened, they cannot do anything about it. Mr. BILLINGS. Well, Senator Metcalf, I probably should have known some of the people you have known, then, because we have had to spend an awful lot of money in Kimberly-Clark because of that pressure over the last 10 years.

Senator METCALF. As I say, your experience has been entirely different than mine.

Senator MILLER. Mr. Chairman, as long as you are talking about experiences, let me just add this to the record.

It has been my experience that there is a difference here between types of industry. I think that there are some that I have known about which actually did not even need any encouragement from local officials. They voluntarily took it upon themselves to do something.

There are others which you have to push right through the local officials up to the State level and possibly get the job done eventually, but you have the foot dragging.

I think that the point that is being made here is that the consensus of a group of people in a community or in a State probably will come up with a pretty good solution.

Now, you may need some encouragement from some people. Certainly if you had a Federal agency discharging some fissionable material, or radioactive material in the water, nobody knows about it

Senator MUSKIE. Oh, no, this is from natural sources. This is not from manmade sources.

Senator MILLER. Well, we have that situation, too. I thought that was the situation the chairman was alluding to. But if you have something that the people do not know about, if it is brought to their attention through the resources, the research facilities of the Public Health Service, I would guess that the people will make up their mind pretty fast, once they have the information, either at the local community or the State level.

I think that is the point the witness is trying to make.

I just want to say I have had experience both ways on this.

Senator MUSKIE. As a matter of fact, from my point of view, what is needed here is for widespread knowledge and better understanding of this problem by more people. I think the assumption that people know all about this is the one that restrains progress toward a solution most.

I think that a more widespread understanding and knowledge on the part of people, in my communities, at least, not only as to the nature of the pollution problem with which they are confronted, but also the technological and economic problems which are an obstacle to progress then the more likely you are to get an enlightened public policy which takes all these factors into consideration.

But I found the effort to be all too often to mislead the rank and file citizen, to convince him there is not an answer when there is.

So, when there is a case where there is not an answer, there is a tendencey on the part of the people to disbelieve those who insisted that is the case. I think more widespread knowledge could serve your purposes; it would certainly apply to the public interest; and it could also serve these other purposes.

But I have detected here, and I have looked ahead to the last part of your statement-I thought I detected perhaps in your reluctance or your insistence upon being as precise as you can be, a belief that you clean up rivers only to the extent that you need to for minimum alternative purposes. And that is alternative to your purposes.

Mr. BILLINGS. You might be interested-I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, that we had set up our policy in Kimberly-Clark by which we would be guided. I think it is policy No. 3 which states:

To do whatever possible from the business standpoint to improve the situations in our streams without the necessity of laws and orders.

Senator MUSKIE. Well, that is almost as ambiguous as the words "as clean as possible."

Mr. BILLINGS. Then, for once, I have matched you, sir.

Senator MUSKIE. Well, we are going to try to tighten up ours. How about you?

Mr. BILLINGS. We are doing that all the time.

On the Fox River, for example, the first order that we had from the States was for 40-percent reduction. We didn't stop at 40 percent, we went to 50, 55, 60, 65; we are now at 70, and we intend to do better. But the problem is it is like the last few yards down to the goalpost in the football game. When you get down there, those are very difficult.

Mr. MUSKIE. Do you not really believe that if the state of the art makes it possible that water almost ought to serve as many uses as possible?

Mr. BILLINGS. Certainly, as many uses as possible.

Senator MUSKIE. By golly, I find we are in agreement.
Proceed, Mr. Billings.

Mr. BILLINGS. Including industrial waste disposal.

Another big advantage of local control is the knowledge which the controlling bodies possess of local problems common to a number of organizations and industries. Such knowledge is invaluable in stream improvement efforts. This point can be demonstrated by Kimberly-Clark's papermill on the Greater Miami River at West Carrollton, Ohio. The Greater Miami River is a tributary of the Ohio and therefore ultimately affects the nature of that hard-working river. The State of Ohio Water Pollution Control Board naturally works in close cooperation with the Ohio River Sanitary Commis sion and has been a contributor to the outstanding success story of that organization.

The main problem confronting Kimberly-Clark's large deinking mill at West Carrollton was the mill effluent discharge of suspended fibrous matter to the river. A new waste treatment plant was put into operation a year and a half ago and today over 98 percent of the settleable solids are removed from the effluent before it passes to the river. This has been made possible by the local direction of the State of Ohio Water Pollution Control Board and the cooperation of local agencies and industries. I think that the committee might be interested in some of the organizations involved and problēms corrected by this successful venture. Here are a few:

The Miami Conservancy District needed 70,000 cubic yards of fil to complete the flood control levee for the West Carrollton side of the river. This 70,000 cubic yards came from our 28-acre disposal tract. The hole left will be filled with sludge from the treatment plant. To properly thicken the sludge, substantial amounts of lime are required. This lime is obtained in slurry form from the nearby plant of Air Reduction Co., Inc., where it occurs as a waste byproduct in the manufacture of acetylene. This solves a disposal problem