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versities in our five coastal States, and including the University of 

 Mexico, and many major industries. It is estimated the total cost of 

 this mammoth project will total $150 million, and it holds exciting 

 promise for the future. It is, I might add, the only study focused in its 

 entirety on a single oceanic system adjacent to our coastline, and on the 

 common but vital problems of marine preservation, conservation, and 

 development. This study will utilize the great wealth of talent of these 

 institutions — some 1,400 of our Nation's top scientists. 



We cannot, of course, wait 10 years to begin work in cleaning up — 

 and preventing further degradation of our ocean systems. Some scien- 

 tists even now point out that the Gulf of Mexico is a prime candidate 

 to be another Lake Erie, unless immediate remedial action is taken to 

 protect it from pollution. A great deal of effort is underway, and it is 

 not my intention to fault the effort by our county. State, and Federal 

 agencies concerned with pollution, for they are moving against those 

 who are causing the problem. But I believe that H.R. 285, or legislation 

 similar to it, will give us the long-range answer to this problem and 

 would be an incentive to the States to take the lead in resolving tliis 

 problem. 



Many of you, I know, are familiar with my own home of Houston 

 and Harris County. Although 50 miles inland, we alternate between 

 being second- or third-ranking port in tonnage in the country. To reach 

 the port of Houston, ocean-going vessels traverse the Houston ship 

 channel, a 40- foot-depth channel dredged the length of Buffalo Bayou. 

 This dead body of water has often been termed the most polluted in our 

 country. Along the banks of this great channel stand massive petro- 

 leum and petrochemical complexes, steel mills, and foundries. The 

 waste product of one is often piped into the plant next to it as its raw 

 product. Tliese great industrial complexes have brought dynamic 

 growth and economic prosperity to our area. Tliey also brought major 

 problems of air and water pollution, still miresolved. Much is being 

 done at the local and State level to control emissions, and most of these 

 plants are fully cooperating in a responsible mamier. But the Houston 

 ship channel is the main drainage system for a highly devloped 

 urban area of nearly 2 million people, and it empties into Galveston 

 Bay all of the accumulated wastes from sewage-treatment plants, the 

 industrial cx^mplex, and the unbelievable residential runoff' from our 

 6-, 8-, or 10-inch tropical rainstorms. Adding to this are the spills 

 from oil and chemical tankers, from chemical plants, or from those 

 obtuse industrialists who in spite of warnings from man and nature 

 continue to view any body of water as their own private industrial 

 sewer. 



Unlike the problems of the eastern seaboard, municipalities in Texas 

 have not as yet viewed the Gulf of Mexico as its private garbage dmnp 

 for municipal solid wastes. But I need not tell you here today that it 

 is but a matter of time before this will be viewed as the easiest and 

 cheapest solution to the urban problem of garbage disposal. The cost 

 of land, and the vigorous objections of those neighboring counties to 

 being a dump for nearby city, are forcing city officials to seek this 

 method. Tliis is why action is needed urgently to enact this legislation, 

 to chart, those areas where dumping will not be allowed, and to set 

 jmidelines to control it. 



