and international machinery for adequate monitoring of environmental parameters, including effects on the ecosystem. The committee recognizes that the environments of open spaces as well as those of cities are endangered. In the countryside, the effects of material flows on human health are likely to be less than on the deterioration of natural habitat, degradation of the landscape, clouding of the atmosphere, and litter. As cities sprawl outward, linked by an increasingly complex network of interstate highways, prime agricultural land is preempted, reducing agricultural productivity in greater proportion than is indicated by the relative shift in land use. As a consequence of the shift in land use, use of fertilizer and other op-the-farm materials is increased without a corresponding increase in output. Within the cities, especially the megalopoles, the cumulative, often synergistic environmental impacts of materials use from automobiles, trucks, buses, power plants, factories, and heavy construction threaten human life, obliterate vegetation, and destroy many of the amenities of urban living. The aggregation of effects in concentrated areas provoke the environmental question asked by President Nixon in his State of the Union message of 1970: "In the next 10 years we shall increase our wealth by 50 percent. The profound question is does this mean we will be 50 percent richer in a real sense, 50 percent better off, 50 percent happier? Or does it mean that in the year 1980 the President standing in this place will look back on a decade in which 70 percent of our people lived in metropolitan areas choked by traffic, suffocated by smog, poisoned by water, deafened by noise and terrorized by crime?" Environmental damage not only affects the physical-biological realm but creates serious socio-economic problems as well. There is evidence that those who are poor suffer more from environmental degradation than those who are rich. Loss of environmental quality, therefore, accentuates the inequality of income distribution and aggravates the problems of poverty in the countryside as well as in the urban ghetto. The conclusion that a materials policy can give due regard to the environment is based upon findings taken from succeeding chapters, supplemented by appreciation of the tradition of adaptability revealed by our nation's history. While we have not yet explored the full range of adjustments of which we are capable, we know that our economic system possesses flexibility and unused capacity: For many materials there are substitutes in each of their uses; Certain major materials such as lumber, coal, and petroleum, are available from various sources, exploitation of which imposes a range of stresses from relatively little to relatively great; The assortment of goods and services for consumption can be changed by prudent cuts in, or shifts from, consumption of environmentally degrading goods and services to others that are less damaging; Domestic as well as international economic impacts of environmental protective policies can be borne by adjustments in exchange rates, fiscal policies, monetary policies, trade patterns, and consumer preferences. Present and new technologies, if properly applied and fully exploited, will go far toward relieving present environmental stress. Institutions and instruments of social control, such as taxes, prohibitions, licenses, etc., are available to implement remedial actions. These factors permit the hope that given the attention and priority urged by the committee there is time to adopt suitable practices that are now available, and to develop others not now known before further serious shortages of materials and irreversible degradation of the environment occur. The presence of favorable factors does not diminish but enhances the urgency for timely action. Yet, unfortunately there are reasons to believe that we have underestimated the need for prompt action. Many environmental hazards are only dimly visible at this time. There is still a great deal we do not know about the interaction among materials uses, the environment, the ecosystem, and man. Biologically and geologically, as measured against the yardstick of natural processes, man has become a force to be reckoned with, not merely locally but regionally and in some cases globally. This already unprecedented absolute impact may be doubling as rapidly as every fifteen to twenty years, justifying cause for concern: corrective action may come too slowly to avert much graver environmental degradation than has already occurred. At least three factors are operating to make it possible, even likely, that some environmental disruption will be experienced as sudden catastrophe rather than as a slowly moving and predictably growing shadow. One is the long time lag that often intervenes between an environmental insult and the appearance of harm-e.g., carcinogens and mutagens. The second factor is the irreversibility of some kinds of damage-e.g., the loss of genetic variability. The third is the apparent existence of environmental thresholds in some processes, wherein a small increment of some input to the environment generates a disproportionate response e.g., triggering of climatic change by natural processes. Many foreseeable problems cannot now be solved by available technology. Even if we control 99.5% of some pollutants, the remaining one-half of one ercent, because of large absolute amounts projected by the year 2000, can create environmental problems for which a workable remedy has not yet emerged from the laboratory. Another example is the difficulty of removing very small particles from flue gas. Most people are not aware of the dangers to local, national and world wellbeing created by environmental stresses. Most people, moreover, are unaware of the kinds of choices available to them in conducting their affairs so that environmental stress is minimized. Unless the perception of environmental action is sharpened and acceptance of remedial action is increased, we may suffer unwanted irreversible environmental damage. A materials policy that gives due regard to the environment will manifest itself in a number of ways: Explicit attention will be given to environmental management at every stage of the materials throughput, thus changing many decisions and actions from what they have been in the absence of such attention. A growing portion of materials and other resources will be dedicated to improving the environment. The assignment of resources to protect and improve the nation's great natural and cultural inheritance will measurably improve the quality of life for its citizens. The careful restoration of the countryside or urban areas, the provision of adequate housing, of educational and recreational facilities, and different modes of transportation could alter the nation's bill of goods in a most constructive way. Some environmental problems, especially those dispersed over wide areas, can be solved only by curtailing or eliminating the use of certain materials. For some materials or commodities an evaluation of net benefits yielded by their use is sufficiently inconclusive to suggest the need for further investigation. We know enough about other materials, however, to recognize that we should reduce or eliminate their use as quickly as possible. When environmental effects are taken fully into account, practices now taken for granted are likely to be reexamined. There is clear evidence that certain practices related to product novelty, obsolescence and packaging, impose environmental burdens excessive relative to the marginal benefits they yield. The use of energy in housing, production and transportation must be assessed against environmental and other costs. The automobile with all of its contributions to American society must be examined from an environmental perspective and its advantages weighed against those of modern economical mass transit systems. All resources of private as well as public sectors will be mobilized to accomplish the education required to effect the changed view of materials use that is needed. To hold that every decision, public, or private, regarding materials usage must be made in light of its environmental impact implies, first, a common sensitivity to the quality of the environment; second, general recognition that the quality of the environment is closely related to man's well-being; and, third, common acceptance of the ethical rule that protection of the environment must constrain materials usage. As valuation of environmental quality sharpens and spreads, the desired mix of goods and services will change. Those who themselves put a high value on environmental quality believe that the taste for clean air, a sparkling stream, and an undisturbed hillside sharpens rather than dulls with exposure. Since the supply of natural amenities has been diminishing, the pressure of demand on remaining supply presumably will increase, not only because of population growth but also because of increased perception, justifying intensified policies today to protect natural assets of the future. The remainder of this chapter is based on and summarizes succeeding chapters; a description of the damages attributable to material flows; remedies and institutions; major recommendations; international considerations, and necessary research. О 1st Session (94-13) VISITOR PROTECTION SERVICES AT CORPS OF ENGINEERS LAKES A REPORT TO THE CONGRESS FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY (As Authorized and Directed by Section 75 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-251) JULY 1975 RARY Printed for the use of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation 56-070 O APR 13 1976 OFFICE U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING FC J WASHINGTON: 1975 DERKELLY JIM WRIGHT, Texas ROBERT E. JONES, Alabama, Chairman HAROLD T. JOHNSON, California RAY ROBERTS, Texas JAMES J. HOWARD, New Jersey JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana GERRY E. STUDDS, Massachusetts BO GINN, Georgia DALE MILFORD, Texas NORMAN Y. MINETA, California KENNETH L. HOLLAND, South Carolina ALLAN T. HOWE, Utah ELLIOTT H. LEVITAS, Georgia JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota JEROME A. AMBRO, New York HENRY J. NOWAK, New York ROBERT W. EDGAR, Pennsylvania WILLIAM H. HARSHA, Ohio JAMES C. CLEVELAND, New Hampshire JOHN PAUL HAMMERSCHMIDT, Arkansas BUD SHUSTER, Pennsylvania WILLIAM F. WALSH, New York THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi JAMES D. ABDNOR, South Dakota GENE TAYLOR, Missouri BARRY M. GOLDWATER, JR., California GARY A. MYERS, Pennsylvania Professional Staff RICHARD J. SULLIVAN, Chief Counsel DAVID A. HEYMSFELD, Assistant Counsel (Aviation) DAVID L. MAHAN, Assistant Counsel (Aviation) JOHN F. FRYER, Assistant Counsel (Transportation Regulation) CLIFTON W. ENFIELD, Minority Counsel |