345 



Unifonn control on a nationwide basis ; 



Require industry to pay for the treatment of its own wastes; 

 Require industry to pay for research in the treatment of indus- 

 trial wastes, rather than to make this a Government charge; 

 Recognize all social costs of pollution, and not merely the public 

 health hazard ; and 



Develop a strong program of Federal regulation."^ 

 Several representatives of State and local governments supported 

 S. 418. In particular, Arthur D. Weston, chief sanitary engineer for 

 the ^Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and also represent- 

 ing the Conference of State Sanitary Engineers, presented the Senate 

 subcommittee with the results of a detailed survey of existing regula- 

 tory measures of the States in water pollution abatement. Of these 

 data he observed : 



* * ♦ the most recent data indicate that, in 10 States, stream-pollution con- 

 trol is vested in the State health department only ; in 11 States, control is vested 

 in an agency which is separate from the State health department but closely 

 allied to it, with technical service probably being furnished by the State health 

 department and a member of the State health department serving on this 

 separate agency ; in 17 States, the State health department is charged with cer- 

 tain duties relating to stream-pollution control but there are also other State 

 agencies involved to some extent ; in four States, there is a water-pollution con- 

 trol board or similar agency, which is separate from the State health department 

 and which handles all water-pollution control activities; in six States there ap- 

 pears to be as yet no State agency which has been charged with pollution- 

 abatement control.^ 



Various spokesmen for municipalities gave graphic descriptions of 

 the unclean waters from which they obtained their domestic supplies. 

 Typical were the comments of W. R. Kellogg, city manager of Cin- 

 cinna-ti, Ohio : 



The Ohio river, which carries away the human wastes from 18 million people 

 * * * is the only source of water supply for the city of Cincinnati * * *. The quality 

 of the raw water supply has progressively deteriorated * * * the situation was 

 so intolerable that * * * the city * * * about in 1938 had to completely renovate 

 its water-filtration plant * * *. Since then * * * the situation has become pro- 

 gressively worse * * * due to new industrial wastes * * *. The only common- 

 sense thing to do is to eliminate the burden on our water-treatment plants.^ 



A number of Members of Congress, including the sponsors, took 

 the stand to testify for the water pollution control bill. In particular, 

 Senator Barkley, made a strong statement on the need for Federal 

 action. It was, he insisted, '"* * * in harmony with the theory that Con- 

 gress not only has the right under the Constitution to control and 

 regulate commerce among the States, but it has a right to regulate the 

 instrumentalities of commerce, including rivers and railroads." 



* * * There is a Federal obligation [he went on], and no city, no industry, can 

 do anything that would in any way affect the navigability of our rivers without 

 the consent of the Federal Government. [Similarly], the pollution of a stream 

 by any method, either by sewage or by wastage from manufacturing plants, is 

 not necessarily a local matter. It does affect the local people, but it affects people 

 [downstream] hundreds of miles from the point where the pollution has taken 

 place. Therefore, it is in the interest of the national health that the Federal 

 Government recognize its obligations and cooperate with every agency that is 

 interested in the elimination of this danger to life and to health.^' 



-3 Ibid., DP- 91, 96, 184. 

 21 Ibid., p. 274. 



^ House hearings, 1947, op. clt., pp. 9f>-97. 



^Senate hearings, 1947. op. cit., p. 339. Similar statements were made by Senator Taft, 

 ibid., pp. 17-18, and by Representative Spence, House hearings, 1947, op. "cit., pp. 11-12. 



