183 
is the cost of the damage to the shell beds? It is very difficult to 
say. It is certainly advantageous for the one who dumps to dump in 
the most economical way, but we have to consider the conse- 
quences to others. The community is the unit that we have to talk 
about. 
I remember when I was testifying to the California senate, I was 
recommending several years ago something that is still true. 
Today, the toxic materials are allowed to accumulate and to mix 
into two different areas, the sludge that we are dumping and also 
the large purifying plants that we think it is necessary to build to 
purify the water that we drink or that we send for agriculture. 
In our opinion, it is too late at this point. We have to watch care- 
fully the origin of each toxic product, where it is produced, and 
that is the place where it should be eliminated from the water 
system. The cost of such a multiplicity of small purification plants 
would be far less than the cost of the huge purification plants and 
the precautions or the alternatives to ocean dumping. 
That cost, instead of being borne only by the industry which gen- 
erates them, should be divided in three: One part only to the indus- 
try, one part to the local community, and one part to the Federal 
Government. The damage done by pollution or by bad care of the 
environment is costing the community a tremendous amount of 
money. In 1978, the Federal Government made a study on the 
economy of the Clean Air Act. This act had cost the Nation in 1978 
something like $14 or $16 billion, but it had proven to benefit $2 or 
$3 billion more to the Nation. The same thing happens in the sea. 
When we are talking about an economic way of disposal, that is 
not the problem. The problem is to know if in the long run it is an 
economic solution; and if it is not possible, by joining forces with 
the economic experts, the environmental experts, and the technolo- 
gists and scientists, to see if there are not new ways of disposing of 
these toxic products and ways to recycle them and make them eco- 
nomic. This is the real problem. We are addressing ourselves most 
of the time to the wrong problem, a false problem. The real prob- 
lem is that we have waste of our civilization that we do not know 
what to do with today. But with every day going by, we know 
better how to recycle and how to take advantage of our wastes. 
Pollution control must indisputably be sought first and foremost 
in the economic sphere. But what can we do? I can assure that, 
with the present swing in public opinion, which overwhelmingly 
supports the maintenance of environmental quality, it will soon be 
profitable for producers to recycle most of the waste we consider 
useless today. 
The final suggestion regarding ocean dumping is without doubt 
the most significant. It concerns a general call to consider alter- 
nate dump sites and to see the oceans, as some witnesses to this 
body have said, as part of a total environment. 
I most wholeheartedly agree that alternative methods of dispos- 
ing of wastes must be explored. Similarly, I join with those who ur- 
gently emphasize the dangers of other waste disposal methods that 
endanger life, such as landfills that pollute ground waters. There 
are today available techniques to make sure that such infiltrations 
do not take place. I leave it to the representatives of organizations 
