428 



try you are alloAvino- deposit of chemicals iiiicler water qilality stand- 

 ards. These are toxic substances. Yon would nevei- allow that uMer 

 the water quality standards bill. You are allo^ving niercury to .^o into 

 water. You have reduced it significantly, and I applaud you, but you 

 are still allowing mercury to go in water. You are allowing cadmium 

 waste to go into water by fixing the amount which may go. But under 

 dumping provisions you would probably ban totally the deposit of 

 those substances into the waters. 



What I am asking you is, aren't we going to treat the fellow who 

 runs it in, through outfall or through the kind of device Mr. Anderson 

 is alluding to, differently than we treat the fellow who would casually 

 barge it out and dump it ? 



Mr. EucKELSHAus. To the extent that the discharge now of any sub- 

 stance labeled "toxic" would not violate water quality standards as 

 they are presently established, they are permitted to continue to dis- 

 charge them. 



Mr. DiNGELL. If he is dumping in a big waterway, the Mississippi 

 River or Detroit River or Hudson River that has a large flow, that 

 is going into an outflow like the Atlantic that has a heav^^ stream flow, 

 the probability is he is going to be able to put an aAvful lot in terms 

 of waste and volume of a particular waste which he would not be able 

 to do were he in a situation where he would try to barge it out or 

 put it in by conveyor belt ? 



Mr. Rttckelshatjs. That again depeTids in part on whether the ef- 

 fluent standard which we have attempted to get Congress to adopt in 

 tlie bill that we have presently submitted, whether we could set effluent 

 standards to limit very carefully how many of these substances go into 

 water as opposed to setting water quality standards in dealing with 

 similar capacity of the waters that receive them. 



If we get this additional authority, I think we can obviate much of 

 tlie problem you are discussing. That does not m.ean there may not 

 be some minimal amount of discharge to be permitted of a substance 

 that may normally be called toxic, even under effluent standards, which 

 could not be dumped. But the problem of dumping, it seems to me, is 

 concentration of that material into a certain area where there is no 

 flow going through or no way of dispering it into the waterway. 



Mr. DiNGELL. My question was not critical of you. I am trespassing 

 on my good friend's time, but I wanted us to have a clear understand- 

 ing of the anomaly we have here. I hope that you will consider this 

 particular problem. I want to mention I was probably the first fellow 

 around here to come up with the idea of effluent standards on water, 

 and I support your endeavor in that particular direction. 



Thank you, Mr. Anderson. 



Mr. RiTCKELSHATTS. I might say, ]\Ir. Chairman, I did not mention 

 this problem before, but if somebody were prohibited from dumping 

 a particular substance by any prohibition that we issue and they 

 simply put a pipe on and dumped it through the pipe, it seems to me 

 this would be a clear violation of the spirit of this statute, if not in 

 substance. 



Mr. DiNGELL. I understand the violation of the spirit, but I would 

 like you to carefully address yourself to a violation of the substance 

 so we can understand whether or not we aren't setting up an anomaly 



