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Show least $36 million is paid for its removal. If packaged and sold instead of being dumped or burned, this sludge would gross nearly $400 mil- lion a year, net a profit to the cities, and return a valuable fertilizer to the soil. Some farmers are aware of the value of sludge and are using more of it every year. Their number is increasing. Actual tests of sludge as a fertilizer have dem- onstrated that heavy applications can make nearly worthless farmland produce normal crops in two or three years. Sludge usually contains all elements needed for plant growth, and also consists of about 40 percent humus. The organic nitrogen content varies from 1*4 to 6 percent depending on the sludge and processing. This compares favorably with the 4 percent of organic nitrogen in cow manure. Sewage effluent can also be profitably re- covered but only two or three cities have taken advantage of this. Baltimore, Md., has con- tracted to furnish 100 million gallons daily to Bethlehem Steel Co. as cooling water, an out- standing example of such re-use. In broadest perspective, pollution abatement and cleansing our Nation's waters is a battle against waste-the waste of water, of sludge and sewage effluent, of valuable organic material and minerals in industrial process, and of valuable topsoil from, farm and grazing land. Health considerations, of course, must outweigh all others in the effort to reduce this waste. Even though the opportunities for profit- able recovery may stimulate construction of treat- ment plants, the national welfare must be governed by a higher motive than that of profit. Need for Action Grave as it now is, the pollution problem is bound to deepen as population and industry grow. This need not be. The losses and injuries we now sustain are "by no means irretrievable if we act now. The sharpest issue that arose during debate on the present act was whether to give the Federal enforcement agency authority, where pollution in one State affects another State, to compel abatement of such pollution without the consent of the State in which such pollution arises, or to authorize such enforcement only with the consent of the latter State. The decision of Congress was to require such State consent. The Senate committee, reporting the bill, indi- cated clearly, however, that if this approach to enforcement failed, Congress would reconsider the question of direct Federal action without consent. There is a growing feeling among the States and industry favoring improvement of the pol- lution situation. In response to this feeling the Public Health Service is taking the lead in bringing about consideration by all concerned of a model State water pollution control law, which it is hoped will improve State enforcement. The Commission has examined the whole sit- uation and agrees with the Senate committee that, if the 1948 act fails to produce progress in pollu- tion abatement which will achieve the objective of clean rivers within a reasonable period of years, steps toward direct Federal enforcement will be required. The value of a clean river includes in some part an ageless heritage of quiet and natural beauty, a priceless possession that we must pass on to succeeding generations uncorrupted or re- stored. We all know this feeling. In all of us there is an inborn urge to seek the edge of the water, even if only to walk along it, or to drive in a car where we can see it and be in some measure rested and renewed. The attraction of water is universal, and so is an instinctive sense of offense when a beautiful body of water is dese- crated and despoiled. Polluted streams, littered with trash and banked with refuse heaps that smell to heaven, blight not only the water itself and the valley, but blight our own joy and con- fidence in living. These waters that we have our- selves befouled make us turn our backs in shame. It is not enough to build costly artificial means of recreation. Concrete swimming pools pumped full of chlorinated water are not enough. True, the streams and ponds, the pools and lakes, the great rivers and the oceansides of America can probably not be returned in their entirety to their original natural beauty. But by 194 |
