STATEMENT OF SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3988 and S. 4 which are pending before this committee deal with matters basic to the conservation and utilization of water and our other natural resources and are of major concern to my Department. Protection of water quality from degradation is important alike for outdoor recreation and for mineral development, for communities, for industry, and for agriculture. Clean water is vitally important for the propagation of our Nation's fish and wildlife resource.

For too long, waterways have been used as sewers and dumps for wastes and refuse. For too long even so-called good waste disposal practice has been geared merely to the concept of limiting polllution loads to the assimilation capacity of streams. This is a negative approach. We must begin now to adopt a positive approach to insure clean water for these resources.

President Johnson, in his natural beauty message of last week, forcefully pointed out that pollution destroys the natural beauty, menaces the public health, reduces our efficiency and property values, and raises taxes. The President emphasized the need to act now to combat pollution in our waterways when he recommended that

"Enforcement authority must be strengthened to provide positive controls over the discharge of pollutants into our interstate or navigable waters. I recommended enactment of legislation to

"Provide, through the setting of effective water quality standards, combined with a swift and effective enforcement procedure, a national program to prevent water pollution at its source rather than attempting to cure pollution after it occurs."

The bills before your committee will provide legislative authority for preventing the discharge of waste materials before they destroy or irreparably damage our natural resources, and menace our health and welfare. They provide for the preparation and promulgation of water quality standards by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare applicable to interstate waters, after consulting with this Department and other interested public and private agencies. These standards will be designed to protect the public health and welfare and enhance the quality and value of water resources. They will consider the use and value of these waters for public water supplies, propagation of fish and wildlife, outdoor recreation, and agricultural, industrial, and other legitimate uses. The objective is to keep the Nation's interstate waters as clean as practicable. We heartily endorse this objective.

Water, the indispensable requirement of all uses of natural resources, is becoming an increasing concern throughout much of the United States-not only in the Western States but even in many of the humid Eastern and North-Central States. There are present and prospective water shortages in the humid portions of the country, as well as in the dry portions, because water quality, as well as water quantity, is an important factor in meeting water use requirements.

Water shortages are in prospect for us not because our basic national supply is scant in relation to present and prospective population. On the contrary, the water of our lakes, rivers, and underground reservoirs, is abundant in relation to foreseeable requirements for many decades ahead-that is, it is abundant if we develop and use it wisely.

One of the greatest wastes of water resources is pollution. Substantial advances in water resource conservation can be made by eliminating or, at least, substantially reducing the amount and concentration of waste materials discharged into our waterways, and also by reprocessing degraded waters to higher quality levels.

Protection of water quality requires careful and continuing attention to polluting substances that may be discharged into lakes and rivers. Implementing that requirement necessarily rests on the regulation of polluting discharges. It is the responsibility of the State and Federal Governments to establish reasonable and practicable standards of water quality which will insure clean water for future generations. These bills recognize this.

The task of setting water quality standards will not be easy. The formulation and application of water quality standards are complicated by important interrelated factors, both technical and economic.

Technically, pollution of a body of water generally is a complex of many variables including the volume and rate and turbulence of flow, the character of the body of water (that is, whether a reservoir, estuary, or surface stream) and the chemical and physical properties of the receiving waters, as well as like

variables in the waste materials discharged into it. The discharge of a given quantity of certain materials at one point along the river system may be seriously injurious to aquatic life and damaging to other users while the same quantity of the same material discharged at a different location or at a different time may have little, if any, injurious effects. The different results in such cases could be due to either the volume of flow of the receiving waters which dilute the waste material, or it could be the presence or absence of other materials dissolved or suspended in the receiving waters, or their temperature. These factors may intensify or ameliorate the injurious properties of individual contributions of wastes. Further, the quantities of certain materials that may be discharged into a water system may differ between surface or subsurface locations, or they may vary according to types of soil, or they may depend upon interactions between pollutants, or they may involve other complex factors.

To be practical, in many cases it may be necessary to formulate the standards in relation to the factors just mentioned; that is, such things as the rate and volume of flow and the chemical and physical characteristics of the receiving waters. In practice this could mean that often offending mateerials might have to be rigorously withheld during periods of low river flow, and perhaps they would be impounded or otherwise handled until river stages are high enough to provide safe dilution, or this could mean the allocation of discharge of offending materials between subsurface and surface streams.

The economic effects of pollution abatement requirements is another factor. For example, streamflow conditions in one mineral-producing area may necessitate more costly pollution abatement measures than might be required in another area producing the same minerals but with streamflow conditions that tolerate less rigorous and less costly measures. You can well realize that the consequent production cost differentials thus introduced into a competitive market might seriously disrupt an industry.

There is also a need to recognize that the application of water quality standards can be no better than water quality measurements. The measurements of water quality is not a simple task of taking samples. The entire program of sampling for water quality must be approached on a scientific network basis with full cognizance of the behavioral characteristics of the water systems that form the basis for sample locations, sample frequency, nature of instrumentation, sample interpretation, and similar questions.

Needless to say, this type of water quality surveillance generally requires an elaborate system of monitoring streamflow and subsurface flow. The Department of the Interior, through the Geological Survey, is responsible for the design and operation of the national network for acquiring data on the quantity and quality of surface and ground waters, including sediment load of streams. The network will meet the water quantity measurement requirements of all Federal agencies and will provide water quality measurements common to the needs of two or more agencies.

It is important to emphasize, however, that the promulgation of water quality standards is not enough. The standards themselves will not enhance the quality of waterways. They must be combined, as the President stated, with swift and effective enforcement procedures.

The present procedures in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act have proved to be inadequate. They are too cumbersome and time consuming. While these procedures are solwly being followed, the damaging pollution continues. Our natural resources and, in some cases, the public health and welfare are being menaced by this continuing pollution.

Legislation should be enacted and will be submitted by the administration to insure adequate and swift enforcement measures. An acceleration of the present enforcement proceedings is not only highly desirable, but is necessary to prevent serious and continuing damage to the health and welfare and to our natural resources from the discharge of excessive amounts of pollutants in our waterways.

The President has also recommended that the water quality standards should be applicable to navigable, as well as interstate water. The present abatement provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of both kinds of waters. These bills amend this act and to be adequate should provide that water quality standards apply to both navigable and interstate waters. They should not leave uncontrolled waterways that have been traditionally recognized by the act as being subject to control.

Subject to the consideration of these comments, we recommend the enactment of the Senate-passed bill, S. 4.

Secretary UDALL. This is retread legislation. I testified on it last year. I know how busy the committee is and I know how busy I am, and I would just like to hit the highlights here for a moment in the hope that I can help the committee move forward rapidly.

Mr. Chairman, I think that within recent weeks there has been an important new initiative, both with regard to conservation out of doors and with the regard to the resources of our country. The President 10 days ago sent up to the Congress a very wide-ranging message on natural beauty, which is an important first in the history of our country. He mentioned rivers in the state of the Union message and in his special message at great length. I think the American people are in the process really of rediscovering their rivers and their importance to all of us.

Ì am here this morning not because my Department has primary responsibility in pollution abatement-this is the responsibility of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under this legislation-but because water is a very complex subject which affects our natural resources. I think we are just now perceiving its potential value for outdoor recreation; for example, if we cleaned up our rivers. The President's instruction to me is to head up a team. Secretary Quigley and I were talking this morning about our teamwork on it, his instructions to clean the Potomac River as an example to the country and keep it clean. I think we are going to be amazed at what happens, what tremendous benfits will flow from this if we can accomplish it. This is a special challenge that we are working on. But whether one talks about our fish and wildlife resources, about outdoor recreation, about irrigation in the western part of the country, or about the scenic aspects of rivers, I think the time is long overdue when the American people should take a deep interest with a followthrough stroke and do something about cleaning up and conserving

our rivers as a resource.

I think in our own time, one might say the big conservation scandal that originally aroused this country and a great President, Teddy Roosevelt, at the turn of the century, was a waste of our forests. We later waster the soil of this country. We did something about it in the thirties. I think the No. 1 conservation scandal of our time is the pollution of our rivers, and I think that this legislation is directed very pointedly at this problem.

President Johnson, in his natural beauty message of last week, forcibly pointed out that pollution destroys the natural beauty, menaces the public health, reduces our efficiency and our property values, and raises taxes. The President emphasized the need to act now to combat pollution in our waterways.

I am quoting now from page 2 of my statement:

Enforcement authority must be strengthened to provide positive controls over the discharge of pollutants into our interstate or navigable waters. I recommend enactment of legislation to provide, through the setting of effective water quality standards, combined with a swift and effective enforcement procedure, a national program to prevent water pollution at its source rather than attempting to cure pollution after it occurs.

I think one other thing this committee will be interested in that was mentioned in the President's message-ineed, there is in the executive branch, a team that will shortly begin to study this-is what can be

done in terms of changing our tax policies so that our tax policies encourage the attainment of our objectives, provide incentives for pollution abatement, and so that our tax policies in general encourage conservation rather than discourage it.

I think that this whole field is very important, because I think that American industry will take up the challenge and will do the job if we will give them a little help. I think that we may be surprised at what we can turn up on that front.

But the provisions I think in this legislation are well conceived. Secretary Quigley is the one who must administer this problem and I would leave the details up to him. I just make the general appeal to this committee again this morning, that I think this is very vital legislation. I commend the committee for the work that it has done in the past on this problem and the pioneering that it did a few years ago in getting this program started. I am delighted to be here with the committee this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BLATNIK. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

You referred to one area we have never considered and that is the matter of the tax laws.

Mr. Secretary, you are referring to some form of depreciation, or some form of tax writeoff for that part of the industrial installations that is constructed solely for the abatement of pollution caused by a particular plant; is that not correct?

Secretary UDALL. Well, Mr. Chairman, there are various proposals that have been mentioned. The one you mention, is a prominent one that might be used.

We, in many ways, use tax policy not only to produce revenue, but to serve other national purposes, and I think this is an area that is long overdue. It relates not only to water pollution, but to many other aspects of the beauty of the country, the conservation of our resources, and so on. I think you will find this is a primary discussion topic for the White House Conference that the President is calling for May, and we are already at work on it in the executive branch.

I am sure that you people are giving this some thought. But I think this is an area-we in the last 2 or 3 years have been doing a lot of revising of our tax laws, tax structures, to serve important new national purposes-that certainly deserves very close analysis. Mr. BLATNIK. Any questions?

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. BLATNIK. Mr. Thompson of Louisiana.

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to compliment the Secretary on his ability to state his purposes in such a brief manner. But I do want to say this, Mr. Secretary, your work involving this committee is complemented by the work you and your staff have done involving another committee on which I serve, the matter of migratory waterfowl. I do believe this to be most important. The two purposes can be served.

Secretary UDALL. I think it is very important that the Congressman is on this commitee, because these two programs are interrelated, as he and I well know. The problems we deal with in conserving wildlife and waterfowl are similar. These wildlife and waterfowl resources depend upon water that is usable, just as human beings, and this is a very important part of our conservation responsibility.

Mr. THOMPSON. I do want to compliment your staff on the complete cooperation they have been giving to us in our efforts on this committee and the other one on which I serve.

Mr. BLATNIK. Any questions on my left?

Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Chairman, I have one or two.

I want to welcome the Secretary before the committee.

He touched on some of the aspects of the legislation. Of course he did not touch on other aspects of it, and I am sure the distinguished Secretary knows there have been differences of opinion with regard to what the effect of this legislation might be if we in fact take from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare the administering functions and put them in the hands of the new Assistant Secretary.

Are you testifying for that proposal on behalf of the Administration in that I understand your administration, at least last year, was not strongly in support of changing that function? Or are you leaving that to some other Department?

Secretary UDALL. No, I will let Secretary Quigley testify primarily on that. However, it is my understanding the administration does favor this proposal and I would say, as an administrator that handles very similar problems, that I think this is a very important step forward to give it this focus.

I hope the Congress does enact this provision as part of this legislation.

Mr. CRAMER. Well, of course, I for one, for instance, introduced, with the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota, the initial Water Pollution Control Act a number of years ago. It has been my objective to try to assist in any way I could to make sure it is strengthened in the future, related to accomplishing the objective; but at the same time, encourage the States and not discourage them to participate in the program, because I think most of the evidence we have before us clearly indicates that if in fact the State do not carry their fair share of the burden, that this program will not succeed.

Do you generally agree with that?

Secretary UDALL. I think there is no question but that the States must play a major role.

If I may say so, I think one of the most exciting things, just to strike a bipartisan note, that I have seen in recent weeks, is the plan that Governor Rockefeller is presenting in the State of New York. This is something I think every member of this committee, if you have not read it, ought to get hold of and look at, because I think this is a very bold approach to the problem, talking about really cleaning the rivers up now and paying later. I like this as an idea. I think this is a good example of State action. The States must act, there is no question about it.

Mr. CRAMER. Of course, in 1961 we passed substantial amendments to the Water Polution Control Act. The Federal enforcement measures against pollution were substantially broadened and strengthened at that time.

The question that occurs to me is now that strengthened authority of the Federal Government, in conjunction with the States, is just getting underway under the present administrative setup, what disturbs me and did last year in considering this matter, particularly in view of the lack of enthusiastic support by the administration for the