144 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



national goal and it clearly is can our goal for the Nation's waters 

 be less? 



I suggest to the conference that the concept of stream renewal, 

 used in the same sense as urban renewal, should constitute a major 

 goal for the Nation. 



Stream renewal should be a challenging concept to our water and 

 land managers both public and private and to those responsible 

 for programs involving open space, recreation, industrial parks, solid 

 waste disposal, and flood plain and other land zoning programs. 

 Stream renewal can provide the central strategic view sought this 

 morning by Luther Gulick around which the agencies and the public 

 can develop and coordinate many separate programs. It could 

 form a major guideline for any new council that might be established. 



2. The concept of stream renewal, however, centers on the control 

 of pollution to insure that water is usable and reusable and to support 

 the highest development of lands adjoining waterfronts. 



Today we can clean up only part of the pollution of our rivers, 

 lakes, and bays at costs presently accepted and using technology pres- 

 ently available. I suggest the early use of known and accepted 

 waste treatment technology, normally at secondary levels of treat- 

 ment. I further suggest that the use of this norm of treatment no 

 longer be debated but rather that such treatment be an accepted 

 axiom everywhere under conditions which I will describe, if we 

 are to have any hope at all of modestly controlling pollution during 

 the coming decade. 



The significant advances that have been made in the past decade 

 under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 lie in two 

 areas; municipal sewage treatment plant construction and the en- 

 forcement of pollution abatement on interstate waters. The first 

 was due in large measure to a major policy shift which provided for 

 the Federal Government to share in the cost of financing sewage 

 treatment works. The second was due to the strengthening of the 

 Federal role in enforcement without diminishing the possible role 

 of the States or interstate agencies. 



For ten years the trend has continued in this direction, with a dou- 

 bling and a proposed tripling and quadrupling of the original $50 

 million participation by the Federal Government in construction aid. 

 Concurrently, amendments in 1961 and in current legislation affirm 

 the continuous desire of the Congress to strengthen the Federal en- 

 forcement role. 



