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THE PURE DRINKING WATER MCT

HON. HOWARD W. ROBISON

‘oF NEW YORE
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Thursday, February 18, 1971

Mr. ROBISON of New York. Mr.
Speaker, after extensive discussions
with Leonard Dworsky, director of
the Water Resources and Marine
Sciences Center at Cornell University, .
in my congressional district, a Dill
entitled the “Pure Drinking Water
Act” was drafted and Jast September,
introduced as H.R. 19422 in the 91st
Congress. The purpose of this legisla-
tion—as developed jointly by Dr. Dwor-
sky and myselfi—was to improve both
the quantity and the quality of the drink-
ing water provided to this Nation’s citi-
zens. Its need was based, among other
factors, on the result of a survey con-
ducted by the Federal Bureau of Water
Hygiene of some 1,000 drinking water
systems throughout the country which
indicated that, of the systems analyzed,
41 percent were delivering water of in-
ferior or potentially dangerous quality
and that, additionally, 79 percent of the
systems had not been inspected by State
or county authorities in the past year,
and that, for 50 percent of the systems,
the operators could not remember when,
if ever, such an inspection had been
made. . -

At the time of introducing H.R. 19422,
I was careful to point out that no public
crisis presently existed, and that there
was no need for individual concern—as
the study in question also forewarned
against—but I attempted to make the
point that, as 4 nation, we had become
altogether too complacent about the
quality of one thing we took for granted
when we partook of the same several
times every day: The drinking water
that flows from the tap in our home,
office, factory, OF public place. To end
that complacency, and to avoid the de-
yelopment of anything resembling a pub-
lic health crisis, MY bill provided, amens
_ other things, for the vesting in the Ad-

ministrator of the new Environmental
Protection Agency of authority to develop
national drinking water standards, as
well as new and badly needed authority
to conduct and encourage research to
improve methods and procedures of iden-
tifying, measuring, and removing poten-
tially toxic materials heretofore present

HRAST
1093 ( Reyun
~~ te,”

February 19, 1971

in our drinking water, along with train-
ing programs for upgrading the capabil-
ities of the personnel of State and local
inspection agencies, the personnel of the
actual operators of the water systems,
and, finally, to. improve the detection,
purification, and delivery mechanisms of
all water systems needing such assist-
ance.

Subsequently, to my pleasure and en-
couragement, I was joined in this effort
by my able and influential colleague, the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. RoceErs)
who introduced a substantially compa-
rable bill in the last Congress. Neither
such proposal reached the hearing stage,
but I am extremely hopeful that either
my now-modified proposal as introduced
in this Congress—H.R. 437—or Mr.
Rocers’ version thereof, will not only
reach that stage but will also realize
enactment into law.this year, for I truly
believe that action in this area of en-
vironmental concern is urgently needed.

Support therefor, along with a general
discussion of the background of the prob-
lem in hand, is now indicated by the
following copy of remarks as recently
delivered by Eric F. Johnson, executive
director of the American Water Works
Association, before the Soap and Deter-
gent Association in New York City, and
the same is well worth the consideration
of all my colleagues:

WaTER—THE ForGorren DETERGENT
(By Eric F. Johnson)

Water, we, in the water utility field, like
to point out, is a detergent. In fact, we are
inclined to say, it is the best detergent, and
one without which your products would not
do very much. “Duz,” one of your members
ence said, “does everything.” “Duz,” we
pointed out, “does nothing without water.”
And that should qualify us to talk to you.

The idea that we are both in the detergent
business, of course, immediately makes one
wonder why we are so different. The differ-
ence is obvious. You market your detergents.
We seem reluctantly to make our available
for as close to nothing as possible. Our soft
sell is so soft that almost no one has ever
felt it. And the remarkable accomplishment
of almost always providing all the water the
public needs when and where it needs it, safe
and palatable, goes unnoticed—is taken for
granted.

Mention public water supply these days,
and the public says, as it does for your
@aetergents, too: “Oh, yes, pollution.” But
pollution, or its control, is not what we are
talking about. We are talking about more
than $50 billion worth of facilities that col-
lect, purify, and distribute water to 175,000,-
000 people in the United States through 30,-
000 different water systems. We are talking
about the delivery of more than 26 billion
gallons, almost 110,000,000 tons of a vital
necessity every day to the homes, and com-
mercial establishments, and industries that
need it. And what seems incredivie is that
almost no one realizes that this biggest of
all industries, in terms of product, even
exists.

The major blame for this public unaware-
ness of public water supply is ours. Histori-
cally, the industry has been its own worst
enemy. It has preached reduction in use of
its product, it has bragged about its low
rates, it has resisted improvements in its
quality of service. In good part, this un-
businesslike approach has stemmed from the
fact that 75 percent or more of water utili-
ties are politically controlled, and political
control is normally concerned more with the

a ~ woo ere ee ile

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions

shortsighted view of keeping rates down than
with offering improved service, But even a
major portion of the privately or investor
owned utilities are small and concerned more
with doing what has to be done rather than
providing maximum service. Nevertheless,
this is the industry that has, with the co-
operation of state and federal regulatory
agencies, developed the best public water
supply service in the world.

The part of the state regulatory agencies
in this effort has been-to provide surveillance
and technical assistance that has been par-
ticularly important because of the multi-
plicity of small, ill-manned systems. The part
of the federal agencies has been tp set mini-
mum standards and to provide assistance in
research and training to the overall effort to
supply safe water to the public,

And the team has done its work so well
that it has now faded almost oblivion.

Not just the public, but its elected repre-
sentatives are almost completely unaware
of the public water supply industry. As re-
cently as 1966 there was a unified water sup-
ply and water pollution control program in
the Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare. Then, by Reorganization Plan No. 2
of the Johnson administration, the water
pollution control program was transferred to
tue Department of the Interior, leaving be-
hind a minuscule water supply operation in
a $50 billion HEW. Every year since the
change, the water supply operation has had
its budget reduced, until in FY 1971 the Ad-
ministration had cut it back to $2,344,000,
compared by then with a billion dollar water
pollution control operation. It was at this
point that AWWA began to get deeply in-
volved in the process of protest, partly be-
cause its partners in the team that had de-
veloped safe water service were being wiped
out and partly because those who sought to
restore their effectiveness chose to do so by
misrepresenting the facts to suggest a crisis
that did not and does not exist.

In the past year or two, AWWA has been
devoting a major part of its public informa-
tion efforts to point out the imbalance be-
tween federal attention to water for fish and
water for people, not with the idea of de-
emphasizing the water polltuion control ef-
fort, but with the hope of giving the com-

munity water supply program the support ity

deserves.

In so saying, let us emphasize first that
the water utility industry is not looking for
the kind of money that is now being pumped
into the water pollution control effort. It does
not need nor want construction grants to
build facilities. It believes that it can take
care of itself in these matters through its
revenues from rates. And it feels that the
unasked for grants that have been made
available to it by a confused Congress have
done more to hinder than to help the cause
of better water service.

Where the water utility industry is asking
for help is in research and training. It is in
these areas of preparation for future prob-
lems that an industry consisting principally
of very small unit operations has difficulty
in takiing care of itself. Basic research is not
the forte of the six-employee utility, nor is
the development of the basic technology of
the field. Neither is the kind of training that
is and will continue to be necessary to bring
and keep personnel up to the levels of skill
required to handle the increasingly sophisti-
cated technology. In these respects federal
participation is required, both through direct
research and training activities and through
grants to public and private institutions that
must be enlisted in the effort if it is to be
successful.

At the present time, we feel, the industry is
capable of taking care of the known prob-
Jems of water supply safety, but because of

 

coat ote : we a
of Remarks . - E919
the hiatus in federal support over the past
few years, the margin of safety has been sig-
nificantly reduced. And we fear that in ten
years, unless a program commensurate with
the importance of the problem, is mounted,
there will be a crisis in public water supply—
a‘crisis that will call for a costly and ineffi-
cient crash program that will victimize the
public both in health and in wealth.

The restoration of some kind of proper pri-
ority for water for people is now in the hands
of the new:Environmental Protection Agency,
and AWWA expresses its concern to Admin-

S.

istrator William Ruckelshaus even before he .

had been confirmed in his post, asking for a
separate and identifiable unit in his orga-
nization which would deal with water for
people and a budget for that organization
big enough to do the job. In the first orga-
nization of EPA, the water supply program
is indeed separate, if not equal. It has been
established as a division under the water
quality—that is, water pollution control—
office, but at least it still does have identity
and perhaps with some legislative support in
the 92nd Congress it can achieve parity with
pesticides, solid wastes, air pollution, radio-
logical health, and even water pollution in
EPA.

In the past month AWWA has met with
Acting Commissioner David Dominick of
EPA’s Water Quality Office and with Dr.
Edward David, Science Advisor to President
Nixon in the effort to bring some awareness
in the administration to its neglected $50
billion asset. Association representatives have
met with Congressman Paul Rogers of Flor-
ida who is introducing a bill that will beef
up the federal funding of water supply re-
search and training and give assistance to
the states in their water supply surveillance
efforts. So there is some hope that the situ-
ation will improve. But the water supply in-

dustry will not really gain its proper status :

until the public understands what it is, what
it does, and what it can do. And this, we rec-
ognize is going to take the kind of public
information approach that your end of the
detergent business can mount, but that ours
has been unable to, principally because mu-
nicipal ownership and political control make
the expenditure of funds for public infor-
mation always difficult and often impossible.

The situation, then, is this: .

Over the first 60 years of the century, the
water utility industry, working with the co-
operation of the state health departments
and the US Public Health Servite, developed
the best public water supply service in the
world,

In 1966, with the transfer of the water pol-
lution control program from the Department
of Health,-Education, and Welfare to the
Department of the Intertor, most of the

_ trained personnel and most of the money for
research and training that had constituted
the Public Health Service contribution to the
water supply effort was diverted into water
poliution control, leaving in HEW only a
minimal water supply program that has been
reduced year by year. . ne

The decimation of the federal part of the
water supply team was paralleled in the state
health departments, and, for lack of research
and training assistance, in the state uni-
versities as well. . - . :

Water utilities are still doing the job of
providing safe water to the public, but, be-
cause the research and training necessary to
keep the technology and the technologists up
‘to date has been lacking, the margin of safety
has been greatly reduced. . ’ -

To restore the water supply effort to its

proper level, the Environmental Health Ad-—

ministration of the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare, motivated by the
Bureau of the Budget, tried to scare the pub-
lic into the belief that a crisis exists through
wy A EL ee i A

E920 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks

a deceptive report on the current status of
public water supplies,

Concerned that the scare technique could
drive a frightened public into drinking from
unsafe sources, AWWA tried to accomplish
the same end through educating the legis-
lators involved in providing the funds for
the Bureau of Water Hygiene, the HEW
agency that works with water utilities, and
was able, no doubt with an assist from the
fear instilled, to get a small addition to the
Bureau's budget that reversed the trend.

Now the Environmental Protection Agency
has a chance to give community water supply

_the status that it deserves in the total en-

vironmental effort and has, as a first step,
maintained its separate identity, although it
has kept it in a role subsidiary to water pol-
lution control.

The funds proposed for water supply re-
Search and training, and for assistance to
state surveillance efforts, in the bills to be
reintroduced into the 92nd -Congress by Con-
gressman Robison of New York and Con-
gressman Rogers of Florida promise to give
to the water supply effort the kind of sup-
port required to establish its proper status,
without burdening the industry with the
problem of construction grants.

At the same time, AWWA is mounting an
action program hoping to get water utilities
involved in the burgeoning interest in the
environmental effort to point out not only
their accomplishmetns but the things that
they can do, using present technology, to im-
prove water service.

The basic element, though, is public un-!
derstanding and in this, certainly, your in-‘
dustry can be helpful. And you can be, too.’
Join AWWA! ;

‘
i

 

February 19, 1971