422k 



agencies should seek means of avoiding situations like this. 



Parenthetically, it should be made clear that our group is not opposed to 

 filtration. Our position has consistently been that: 



1.) Long range technical and economic benefit studies need to be made in the 

 water resource area. 



2.) Sound decision-making is enhanced if objective evidence is at hand. 



3.) When a comprehensive plan has been completed and estimated costs for 



all needs known, then decisions regarding most beneficial and sound ex- 

 penditures can be made. (In this light the filtration plant has not been 

 demonstrated to be the wisest first step, since interim measures were 

 ava i lable. ) 



Now, at the risk of belaboring a point, we wish to call to the attention of 

 the conference our Exhibits 18 and 19. They relate to the incident just described 

 and in our opinion represent a classic example of the juxtaposition of political, 

 scientific, economic and social factors. 



Taken together, they provide the best evidence we have in our files for the 

 kinds of ills our nation is suffering in the water pollution field. These problems, 

 we can see, do not just happen in other areas of the nation. They happen in the 

 State of Washington - even, of all things, in Whatcom County. We should like to 

 illustrate them by comparing what is happening in our area with what others have 

 said about the problem. 



Take first a statement by Carr (Ref. 5) 



"Even the U. S. Public Health Service got itself involved in a scandal 

 when it was revealed that one of its officials had promised the Massachusetts 

 authorities that federal enforcement would not be initiated. In 1963, Gover- 

 nor Endicott Peabody requested federal help, but the Public Health Service 

 was refused data by the Massachusetts Department of Pub I ic Health , which wou I d 

 not name any polluters." (We assume that this might be true of both indus- 

 trial and governmental polluters - especially governmental. This is espec- 

 ially interesting since the watercourse which interests us most does empty 

 into Bel I Ingham Bay between municipal and industrial waste discharge points.) 



In the light of this statement, consider now Exhibit 18. The picture (a pic- 

 ture of contradiction) shows a health department sanitarian with a county commissioner 

 standing on a garbage dump located within a domestic watershed (in which pulp and 

 paper interests have large holdings). The caption beneath the photo calls attention 

 to the water-dampened ground in the upper right of the picture. (Wet even in the 

 driest summer in the state in years). 



