AIR POLLUTION

How much air pollution is contributed by the burning of wastes? I remember in Los Angeles before they stopped this backyard burning, their smog was tremendous. Quite a bit of that was solved by controlling indiscriminate burning. The health implications of solid waste disposal are obvious through the reports that have already been put out in the Public Health Service.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

I think it is very important that the health factor not be overlooked and that the Public Health Service or the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare be given a strong mandate to go ahead with this solid waste management program in a very strong fashion. We hear so much about research dollars for heart and cancer control but this prospect environmental-caused disease may be more pervasive than some of the others.

We cannot overlook these and I hope the Congress will tell the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare specifically that health is involved and by all means get at it in a major program because the long-term health prospects are very poor unless we do something about it.

FEDERAL POLICY

Senator SPONG. Would you care to comment on any irreversible decisions that are now being made in pollution that may obstruct future progress in environmental quality management?

Mr. ELIASSEN. Gee, what do you mean by "irreversible decisions"? Senator SPONG. Let's modify that to ask whether we started in any wrong directions, in your judgment?

Mr. ELIASSEN. Well, I feel in one case we are penalizing the municipal governments where money is so short and where we are insisting that before we give Federal support to the construction of sewage treatment plants we are insisting on secondary treatment in all cases. We have a project for the territory of Guam where my colleagues are consultants. The people are poor but they had to have a sewerage system. Preliminary treatment was dictated by extensive studies, and the outfall was put 1,000 feet out beyond the reefs in deep water. The only large living things out there are the sharks. The health of the populace was protected at the shore where swimming prevailed. Before getting Federal assistance the Government of Guam had to guarantee to put in unnecessary secondary treatment.

The Federal regulations now say you must "enhance" the quality of receiving waters. Enhance the quality of the practically pure Pacific Ocean? Ridiculous! Enhancement, as strictly interpreted, leads to secondary or tertiary treatment which means much more expense to these communities before you can get any financial help from the Federal Government. It is necessary in many Eastern communities but the need is not universal. This obstructs environmental quality management. It is ridiculous in many other cases because it will retard pollution control activities in New Orleans on the Mississippi, Los Angeles on the Pacific, and so many other cities which practice scientific sewage disposal.

Why should they have to do that? Somebody in the executive branch makes a statement and this is adopted as an irreversible policy. The Congress must check to see that when decisions are made or regulations promulgated, they must be done on a scientific basis rather than on an irrational or emotional basis. I think it is not quite irreversible but I think it has got to be corrected-and soon!

Senator SPONG. Dr. Eliassen, we thank you very much for this very helpful testimony.

Mr. ELIASSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the privilege of being

here.

Senator SPONG. Mr. Russell Train.

Mr. Train, we are very pleased to have you here. We will receive your statement in its entirety and you may testify in part from it as you choose.

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL E. TRAIN, PRESIDENT, THE CONSERVATION FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. TRAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Russell Train, president of the Conservation Foundation. I have submitted to the committee a few revised copies of my statement edited as of last night, and I trust that has been made available to you, sir.

Senator SPONG. Yes, I have the latest statement.

Mr. TRAIN. I would ask that that edited version be made a part of the record.

I appreciate your invitation to discuss with you the increasing importance of waste management in our increasingly crowded and technological society-specifically to comment, first, on Senator Muskie's bill, S. 1646, to authorize a Federal grant program for community solid waste disposal, and second, on some of the research we need in order to develop sound air, water, and solid waste practices.

The Conservation Foundation does not claim special expertise in this field. However, we do have a point of view that may be useful as part of your overall review.

The Conservation Foundation is a nonprofit research, education, and information organization. Our purposes are to advance conservation. Our point of view is ecological.

CONSERVATION

"Conservation" is not an easy term to define. The definition I offer is this: Conservation means the rational use of the earth's resources to achieve the highest quality of living for mankind. Let me comment on that definition.

First, it does not treat conservation as an abstract goal, such as preservation for its own sake, but as a goal directly related to human needs and human welfare.

Second, the definition is directed particularly to the quality of life, building upon but going beyond basic satisfaction of the quanti tative needs of man for food, clothing, and shelter and for a biologically healthy environment.

Third, conservation is seen as a positive, creative "using," susceptible to rational planning and development based upon objective choice.

UNESCO

For this definition of conservation, I am indebted to a report to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, published by UNESCO earlier this year. The report, entitled "Conservation and Rational Use of the Environment," was drafted by Dr. Raymond F. Dasmann, the Conservation Foundation's director of environmental studies, under a contract between UNESCO and the foundation.

I have a copy of that with me, not for the record because it is too long and not all of it relevant to the subject. It may be of interest to your subcommittee.

Senator SPONG. Thank you.

PROBLEM AREAS

Mr. TRAIN. Among the conservation problems related to solid waste management, we see these three in particular:

First, the destruction or contamination by dumping and landfill activities of natural environments which have important values for man and which perform more useful work for man when left essentially undisturbed in their natural condition;

Second, the failure to recycle waste products, resulting in both unnecessary depletion of natural resources and unnecessary disturbance of the environment;

Third, the need to develop a coordinated national policy on environmental pollution which recognizes the interactions of air, water, and solid waste pollution within natural systems, and provides the governmental reorganization or institutional innovation necessary to implement such a policy.

THE ENCROACHMENT PROBLEM

The first of these problems can be called the encroachment problem. Despite increased recycling for reuse, and more widespread use of proper methods of waste management, we will continue to deposit tremendous quantities of waste products on the landscape-particularly around our metropolitan areas-for the foreseeable future.

This form of disposal can and is being used as a productive asset— when, for example, it is used to fill manmade excavations such as some old quarries or gravel pits or the strip mine gullies which are being filled daily by Philadelphia's "garbage express" via the Reading Railroad.

DISPOSAL SITES

But all too often, in the search for dump sites, cities and industries settle on out-of-the-way natural areas which have high values for educational and recreational uses, or have irreplaceable historic or scientific values. More often than not, it seems, municipal or industrial dump sites are located in those low-lying places where the land meets the water-marshes, estuaries, and other wetland and shoreline areas, or in ravines or stream valleys.

These kinds of areas often perform useful functions for man as part of natural processes. They often help regulate flood runoff and perform other vital functions in the water cycle. They also can play essential roles in the production of wildlife and fish.

ESTUARIES

Dumping in estuaries and other wetlands has resulted in major losses of waterfowl production, of migration and wintering habitat, and of spawning and nursery habitat for fish and shellfish. Some dumps along our coastal wetlands and other shorelines contain waste products which leach into adjacent waters, killing aquatic organisms or making them unfit for human consumption. This practice has been identified by the Department of the Interior's office of estuarine studies as one of the greatest destroyers of estuarine values.

SAN FRANCISCO

In the San Francisco metropolitan region, for example, the Association of Bay Area Governments has reported that some 3 million tons of refuse a year are dumped by 83 collection agencies at 77 sites. Of these 77 sites, no fewer than two-thirds are along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, one of the world's great estuaries.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

In the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region, a solid waste disposal study prepared last fall for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and nearby Virginia and Maryland planning commissions, proposed five major landfill sites for future regional requirements. Of the five, four are in or alongside the Potomac River estuary.

NEW YORK CITY

And New York City last year learned how enforcement of the city's new air pollution control ordinance threatened-through a kind of environmental chain reaction-to destroy a beautiful wetland area in the Split Rock section of Pelham Bay, alongside an outlying city park. The incident illustrates the interactions among the three principal forms of environmental pollution.

When New York's air pollution control ordinance went into effect, many apartment house owners balked at installing new control devices in their incinerators. Instead, they said, they would put their trash in garbage cans and the city's sanitation trucks could haul it away. City sanitation officials objected; they said they were running out of waste disposal sites. The additional trash from the apartment houses, they said, meant they would have to dump it at Pelham Bay, and thereby destroy an estuarine area.

Conservationists pointed out that the estuary was a nursery and sanctuary for wildlife and fish-and one of the last reaches of unspoiled shoreline in the region. Turning it into a dump would not only destroy this irreplacable resource, they said, but also could pollute Long Island Sound.

So, one spring evening last year, New York City planning, park and sanitation officials, met with Mayor John Lindsay on the spot to see for themselves what was at stake. The gratifying result was a decision that Split Rock should be saved as a natural area. The mayor told the sanitation department to find another site for its garbage

dump, and decided that Pelham Bay would be the site of a nature center for school children.

I am sure that those involved in the chain reaction at Pelham Bay must have wished that the conflict had been settled in advance and in a more orderly way.

HIGHWAYS ENCROACHMENT

The solid waste encroachment problem is similar in some respects to the highway encroachment problem, with which this committee is familiar.

In recent years we have seen an increasing number of confrontations between highways and parks and wildlife areas. Some of these controversies have torn communities apart. As a result, 2 years ago the Congress enunciated-in the Department of Transportation Acta policy that special effort should be made to preserve public park and recreation lands, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, historic sites, and "the natural beauty of the countryside."

To implement this policy, section 4(f) of the act prohibits the Secretary of Transportation from granting financial assistance to any proposed Federal-aid transportation project that would encroach upon a public park, recreation area, wildlife or waterfowl refuge or historic site unless there is no "feasible and prudent alternative."

I might comment parenthetically it looks like there is going to be another confrontation on this between the Senate and the House in the very near future.

COORDINATION

We suggest first that any Federal aid for solid waste management projects and programs be contingent upon (a) State and local government use of criteria and procedures for landfill and incinerator sites and other activities that give full consideration to environmental resources and values, including fish and wildlife, recreation, historic, scientific, and esthetic values, and (b) involvement of State and local public officials with responsibilities for those environmental resources and for comprehensive planning in waste management decisions at the earliest practicable stage of planning.

FEDERAL ASSISTANCE

The Cabinet officer responsible for administration of any Federal assistance for State and local waste programs should be required to withhold assistance from any such program which requires the use of, or which would damage, any public park, recreation area, fish and wildlife area, or historic site unless (1) there is no feasible alternative and (2) the program or project includes all possible planning and modification to minimize harm to these resources.

Procedures along these lines should help assure that wherever feasible any landfills, incineration projects, and other waste management operations would be limited to appropriate sites and not encroach upon lands or water which have higher values for other uses.

It is particularly important that coordination begin at the beginning of the planning process. Often it is too late as a practical matter, to make coordination procedures serve their purpose if they