174 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



the soft type and foaming on streams from this source will soon be 

 a thing of the past. 



It took ten years of research and development to come up with 

 product ingredients, such as the new LAS, that will wash efficiently 

 and yet be broken down rapidly by bacteria after they go down the 

 drain. 



It should be noted that while detergent residues in waste water 

 can cause foam in concentrations as low as one part per million, they 

 never have been a health hazard. While this one cause of foam will 

 disappear, the serious 90 percent of other pollutants still remains. 

 Because clean water is indispensable for the functioning of the prod- 

 ucts of the soap and detergent industry, it has a continuing interest 

 in clean water programs. 



This, I believe, is a good demonstration of the social responsibility 

 of numbers of corporations working voluntarily toward cleaner water 

 without any expense to the government. 



Dr. ROGER REVELLE. I would like to put four ideas briefly on the 

 table: 



First, as to education. In Europe, the river is the heart of the city. 

 Try to think of Paris without the Seine, Florence without the Arno, 

 or London without the Thames. In the United States, the river is 

 usually looked at as a giant sewer, often politely called a drain, and 

 as a convenient route for high speed highways. We Americans, both 

 children and adults, need to educate ourselves about the wonder and 

 beauty of the rivers that flow through our cities. 



Second, about riverbanks and "air rights." Most respectable 

 rivers curve and meander as they wander through the city. If the 

 highway engineers believed their own statements about using the 

 shortest and straightest route from point to point, they would seldom 

 design a freeway along a riverbank. They must really use these 

 banks, in part because they are nearly level, and in part because they 

 are public lands and hence land acquisition costs are low. With 

 modern earth moving machinery, hills are not a serious problem. 

 With the new ideas about "air rights" for giant buildings over super 

 highways, the problem of land acquisition costs for these highways 

 may well disappear, and with it the justification for routing such 

 highways along riverbanks. On the other hand, exploitation of 

 existing air rights along riverbanks and lakeshores, for example those 

 belonging to railroads, must be very carefully controlled, else the 

 potential beauty and meaning of the river as the heart of the city 



