229 



being considered by the subcommittee. I urge favorable committee 

 action on this legislation. 



Mr. DixGELL. Thank you Gerry, we are vei-y grateful for your 

 thoughts. 



The gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Hon. Lawrence G. Williams, 

 will be our next witness. 



STATEMENT OF HOIT. LAWRENCE Or. WILLIAMS, A EEPRESEKTA- 

 TIVE IE CONGEESS ESOM THE STATE OF PEHHSYLVANIA 



Mr. Williams. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am 

 here this morning to testify in behalf of H.R. 4723, introduced by Mr. 

 Garmatz, and H.R. 5050, which was introduced by Mr. Charles Sand- 

 man of I^ew Jersey for himself and for a number of other memberSy 

 including myself. 



I believe that it is long past the time when we must stringently con- 

 trol the discharge of waste into our oceans in territorial and interna- 

 tional waters. We know that there are methods in which to dispose 

 of waste that will not contaminate our oceans or other bodies of water. 

 These methods may be somewhat more expensive but this increased 

 cost is a small price to pay to avoid pollution of our oceans. 



I can remember as a young teenager seeing- parts of Lake Erie posted 

 for "no swimming" due to pollution. This pollution was ignored and 

 during the 91st Congress, I heard a number of Members refer to Lake 

 Erie as being "dead." Of course, back in the 1920's, everyone thought 

 that Lake Erie could take everj^thing that was put into it. This, of 

 course, was a complete fallacy. During the interveniiig years, raw 

 sanitar}^ sewage and industrial wastes were dumped into Lake Erie un- 

 til, today. Lake Erie has almost no marine life worthj^ of mention and 

 the lake is entirely polluted. 



Even during the 91st Congress when Members were deploring the 

 sad condition of Lake Erie and called it "dead," raw sewage and in- 

 dustrial waste continued to flow into Lake Erie. 



Privately, I asked some of these same Members how long it had 

 taken the States abutting Lake Erie to kill it and why they were sur- 

 prised that the Lake "died." 



Precisely the same thing can happen in our oceans. In many caseSy 

 raw sanitary sewage sludge from sanitary sewage treatment plants is 

 being taken by barge down our rivers and dumped into our oceans. 

 I have heard some comments to the effect that this has no detrimental 

 effect on our oceans. This is just plain nonsense. 



If the solids from sanitary sewage have no effect on marine life^ 

 why has it killed all of the fish that used to be in our rivers on which 

 metropolitan areas are located ? Why has the shad disappeared from 

 the Delaware River ? 



Further, what sense does it make to build sanitary sewage treatment 

 plants costing millions of dollars in order to remove the solids from 

 the sanitary sewage and then dump these same solids in the form of 

 sludge back into the ocean ? 



We must make certain that all sanitary sewage is processed by 

 sewage treatment plants that contain primary, secondary and tertiary 

 f acilites. This type of plant provides a 90-94 percent efficiency in treat- 



