PROCEEDINGS
Fourth Session
October 4, 1968
Cleveland, Ohio
CONFERENCE
Pollution of Lake Erie and its Tributaries-
Indiana, Michigan, New York,Ohio, Pennsylvania
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR • FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ADMINISTRATION
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CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
POLLUTION OF LAKE ERIE
AND ITS TRIBUTARIES
FOURTH SESSION
CLEVELAND, OHIO
OCTOBER 4, 1966
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CONTENTS
PAGE
Opening Statement - Murray Stein 4
Loring F. Oeming 16
Perry Miller 17
H. W. Poston 17
George L. Harlow 27
Dr. E. W. Arnold 31
George H. Eagle 32
Richard F. Boardman 64
Hon. Charles A. Vanik 72
Dwight Metzler 76
Leo J. Hetling 34
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Fourth Session of the Conference in the Matter
of Pollution of Lake Erie and Its Tributaries (Indiana-
Michigan-New York-Ohio-Pennsylvania), held at the Pick
Carter Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio, on October 4, 196#, at
9:30 a.m.
PRESIDING:
Mr. Murray Stein, Assistant Commissioner
for Enforcement, Federal Water Pollution
Control Administration, Department of the
Interior, Washington, D.C.
CONFEREES:
Loring F. Oeraing, Executive Secretary,
Michigan Water Resources Commission,
Lansing Michigan
Perry E. Miller, Assistant Director,
Division of Sanitary Engineering, Bureau
of Environmental Sanitation, Indiana
Stream Pollution Control Board,
Indianapolis/ Indiana
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CONFEREES (Continued):
H. W. Boston, Regional Director, Great
Lakes Region, Federal Water Pollution
Control Administration, Department of
the Interior, Chicago, Illinois
Dwight F. Metzler, Deputy Commissioner,
New York State Department of Health,
Division of Pure Waters, Albany, New York
Richard M. Boardman, Director, Division of
Water Quality, Pennsylvania Department of
Health, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Dr. E. W. Arnold, Director, Ohio Department
of Health, Columbus, Ohio
George H. Eagle, Chief Engineer, Ohio
Department of Health, Columbus, Ohio
PARTICIPANTS:
George L. Harlow, Director, Cleveland
Program Office, Federal Water Pollution
Control Administration, Cleveland, Ohio
Dr. Leo J. Hetling, Director, Research,
Environmental Health Services, New York
Department of Health, Albany, New York
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PARTICIPANTS (Continued):
Hon. Charles A. Vanik, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, D.C.,
Ohio 21st Congressional District
ATTENDEES:
Donald Alexander, Citizen, Cleveland, Ohio
L. F. Birkel, Republic Steel Corporation,
Cleveland, Ohio
Robert C. Black, Soap and Detergent Association,
New York City
Thomas Braidech, Biologist, Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration, Cleveland, Ohio
S. D. Bresler, City of Lima, Lima, Ohio
D. Callahan, Construction Grants, OBR, Federal
Water Pollution Control Administration, Cincinnati, Ohio
Lament W. Curtis, Project Engineer, Havens and
Emerson, Cleveland, Ohio
Seba H. Estill, Izaak Walton League, Cleveland,
Ohio
George B. Garrett, Engineer, Ohio Department of
Health, Columbus, Ohio
Joseph B. Gaghen, Dow Chemical Company, Cleveland,
Ohio
Carolyn A. Gazdik, Citizen, Cleveland, Ohio
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3a
ATTENDEES (Continued):
W. E. Gerdel, Commissioner, Division of Water
Pollution Control, City of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
James L. Greener, II, District Sanitary Engineer,
Ohio Department of Health, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Frank Hall, Great Lakes Region, FWPCA, Chicago,
Illinois
G. A. Hall, Engineer-Secretary, Ohio Water
Pollution Control Board, Ohio Department of Health,
Columbus, Ohio
Richard D. Hall, Diamond Shamrock Corporation,
Cleveland, Ohio
Charles Hina, Chemist, City of Cleveland,
Cleveland, Ohio
Bob Howick, Reporter, Channel 61-TV, Cleveland,
Ohio
Thomas J. Jacobs, Editorial Correspondent,
McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio
John Kinney, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Betty Klaric, Reporter, The Cleveland Press,
Cleveland, Ohio
Conrad 0. Kleveno, Biologist, Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration, Cleveland, Ohio
Gary Kotch, Channel 61-TV, Cleveland, Ohio
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3b
ATTENDEES (Continued):
James McDonald, Great Lakes Region, Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration, Chicago, Illinois
Erwin J. Odeal, Sanitary Engineer, Ohio Department
of Health, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Laurence B. O'Leary, Director, Detroit Program
Office, Federal Water Pollution Control Administration,
Grosse lie, Michigan
Edward A. Kramer, Sanitary Engineer, FWPCA,
Cleveland, Ohio
Dr. Paul Olynyk, Associate Professor, Cleveland
State University, Cleveland, Ohio
Rheta Pierre, Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration, Washington, D.C.
Chris Potos, Chief of Laboratories, Cleveland
Program Office, Federal Water Pollution Control Adminis-
tration, Cleveland, Ohio
Glenn D. Pratt, Great Lakes Region, Federal
Water Pollution Control Administration, Chicago, Illinois
Bob Quinlan, Channel 61-TV, Cleveland, Ohio
John E. Richards, Ohio Department of Health,
Engineer-in-Charge, Columbus, Ohio
L. E. Rigby, Engineer, F. G. Browne and
Associates, Marion, Ohio
Art Robinson, Ohio Department of Health, Columbus,
Ohio
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3c
ATTENDEES (Continued):
Ray Roth, Chief Civil Engineer, Water Pollution
Center, City of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
Agnes Rupp, Citizen, Cleveland, Ohio
K. K. Saigal, Project Engineer, Dalton-Dalton
Associates, Cleveland, Ohio
James P. Schaefer, Biologist, City of Cleveland,
Cleveland, Ohio
Gerald Siegmyer, President, Trustees, Holiday
Lakes, Willard, Ohio; Parma, Ohio
Alfred C. Smith, Chemist, Federal Water Pollution
Control Administration, Cleveland, Ohio
George V. Voinovich, State Representative,
Fifty-Third Ohio House District, Cleveland, Ohio
Adel Wagner, Citizen, Lakewood, Ohio
William Warnement, Engineer, Standard Oil
Company, Cleveland, Ohio
George H. Watkins, Executive Director, Lake
Erie Watershed Conservation Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio
P. J. Weaver, Soap and Detergent Association,
Cincinnati, Ohio
John Wilson, Chief, Data Processing, Federal
Water Pollution Control Administration, Cleveland, Ohio
John J. Wirts, Chemical Engineer, Easterly
Pollution Control Center, Cleveland, Ohio
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Opening Statement - Mr. Stein
PROCEEDINGS
OPENING STATEMENT
BY
MURRAY STEIN
MR. STEIN: The conference is open.
The Fourth Session of the conference in the matter
of pollution of the interstate waters of Lake Erie is being
held under the provisions of the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act.
The parties to this conference are the Michigan
Water Resources Commission, Indiana Stream Pollution Control
Board) Ohio Department of Health, Pennsylvania Department of
Health, New York State Department of Health and the United
States Department of the Interior. Participation in this
conference will be open to representatives of their agencies,
their invitees and such persons as inform me they wish to
pre s ent st at ement s.
The Michigan Water Resources Commission is being
represented by Mr. Loring Oeming. The Indiana Stream
Pollution Control Board is being represented by Mr. Perry
Miller. The Ohio Department of Health is being represented
by Dr. Emraett Arnold and Mr. George Eaglej the Pennsylvania
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Opening Statement - Mr. Stein
Department of Health by Mr. Richard Boardman; the New York
State Department of Health by Mr. Dwight Metsler. The
Federal conferee is Mr* H. W. Poston; and my name is Murray
Stein. I am from headquarters of the Department of the
Interior, the representative of Secretary Udall.
The conferees from the five Lake Erie States have
met several times since 1965 when the area-wide program was
initiated to clean up the lake. More than three years ago,
the conferees unanimously recommended maximum removal of
phosphates from inputs to the lake as a major step in
controlling Lake Erie's condition of accelerated eutrophi-
cation. This recommendation although not expressed in
terms of specific quantification was history-making.
Since this was the first time, in August 1965,
in the history of Federal-State abatement efforts that
such a recommendation was offered, it recognized the
importance of continuing refinement of pollution control
programs to meet pollution problems and the realization
that a forwardlooking large-scale approach to Lake Erie
was urgently needed.
This problem of nutrients is cropping up in many
of the areas in the country. We had to meet this problem
in Lake Michigan and just now at least I have been working
on a Potomac report where the control of nutrients again
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Opening Statement - Mr. Stein
is a key problem.
On Lake Erie this was identified or given expres-
sion by the States and the Federal Government for the first
time on a large scale. I think that on Lake Erie we
possibly have not, as we have in Lake Michigan, come to the
point where we are agreed on numbers and what has to be done1
We have had a Technical Committee, several tech-
nical meetings, information sessions, have attempted to
bring the nationally-known experts on eutrophication to
the conference, and we have had the benefit of a series
of well thought out questions developed by Ohio, and at a
previous technical meeting, we attempted to answer those
questions and had a discussion on them.
I would hope that today at the fourth full
session of the Lake Erie Pollution Abatement Conference
that we can resolve this issue of phosphate removal or
nutrient control and come up with some specific require-
ments. This is the hope for this meeting and we will
discuss this here. But as I indicated to the conferees, we
are open to other suggestions as to what to take up at the
conference and 1 am in receipt of a letter from Mr. Oeming
of Michigan who suggests that we have a discussion, too,
of the control of pollution from boats in Lake Erie. I
think since the phosphate or the nutrient control question
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Opening Statement - Mr. Stein
is going to be the major question, we might take up this
boat question first, If any of the other conferees —
after I call on Mr. Oeming and we conclude the boat ques-
tion — feel that they want to discuss any other problems
before we get into the nutrient control question, let me
know and we will make time available for them before we get
to the nutrient question, I hope.
Now, we are making a verbatim transcript of the
conference, and copies of the summary and the transcript
will be made available to the agencies represented here.
Anyone who wants a copy should get in touch with his
appropriate State agency. Anyone other than the conferees
who makes a statement at the conference will please come
to the lectern, announce his name and affiliation before
he makes his statement for the purposes of the record*
We will call on all the conferees for statements
and have a discussion and then attempt to come to conclusions
as we usually do.
Mr. Oeming, do you want to raise that boat
question?
MR. OMNG: Chairman Stein and fellow conferees,
I have reference to paragraph number three in Secretary
Udall's summary of the Progress Evaluation Meeting held
in Cleveland on June 4* This went to all of the conferees.
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Loring F. Oeraing
I think it was received by us in Michigan on September 12,
1963, and it reads that: "A five-State committee shall be
formed to report to the conferees sixty days from issuance
of this progress meeting summary on recommendations for
uniform regulations to control wastes from watercraft.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration shall
provide clerical staff and an advisor. The committee shall
be chaired by a State committee member."
I bring this to your attention here for the
purpose of having consideration given by the conferees on
what is — what action is to be taken at least by the
conferees here on this conclusion and recommendation which
we previously agreed to. So far as I know, or perhaps
this is the time to set up the committee, Mr. Chairman and
members of the conference, to get to work on this because
time is beginning to run.
If we use September 10 for the date of the
issuance of the summary, we have sixty days to come up
with a report to the conferees, which would make it
December 10 — somewhere around there.
MR. STEIN: As I heard that, I think that is a
good suggestion. It says one of the States will provide a
chairman, is that correct?
MR. OEMING: It says the committee shall be
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Loring F. Oeming
chaired by a State committee member.
MR. STEIN: You know if we read that and try not
too technically to give it its meaning, I think they mean
one of the State people is to be chairman.
Does Michigan want to assume the chairmanship?
MR. OEMING: Not necessarily, but it would if
its arm was twisted.
MR. METZLER: Twist its arm!
MR. STEIN: I sense a consensus here that if
Michigan will assume the chairmanship of that committee,
Mr. Poston will provide the technical assistance, as it
says — the clerical assistance — is that correct?
MR. POSTON: I will if that is requested.
MR. STEIN: All right, well, it is requested.
Now, do you want to name your conferees, your
technical committee now or not?
MR. OEMING: I would like to have your views on
that, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps it would be more appropriate
if you appointed the members or canvassed the rest of the
conferees for membership and let it go at that.
MR. STEIN: Are we ready to do that now?
MR. OEMING: I am happy to.
MR. STEIN: Who would you name as your chairman?
MR. OEMING: Who would I name?
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Loring F. Oeming
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: I thought you told me I was chairman.
MR. STEIN: Surely. I didn't know if you wanted
to be chairman or someone on your staff.
MR. OEMING: Do I have to tell you that now?
MR. STEIN: No.
MR. OEMING: I will assume the responsibility for
providing a chairman.
MR. STEIN: Providing a chairman?
MR. OEMING: Yes.
MR. STEIN: Before we leave here, let's put it
this way: If Mr. Poston will make arrangements — and the
other conferees — with Mr. Oeming for possibly the first
organizational meeting of this group, we will provide or
make arrangements for the meeting room and the clerical
staff. Also, either give Mr. Oeming the names of your
members of the committee before you leave here or give
Mr. Oeming the names of the committee by next week at
the latest.
MR. OEMING: That is fine.
MR. STEIN: All right.
MR. OEMING: That is fine.
MR. STEIN: Now, may I make a suggestion on this?
When Mr. Poston names the Federal clerical staff or our
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Murray Stein
member here, I would think it may be wise, if we are going
to do the paper work, to ask for copies of names of the
members of the committee to be given to Mr. Boston's office
as well as Mr. Oeming so the notices can be sent out and we
can get started.
Is that agreeable?
MR. OEMING: Agreeable.
MR. STEIN: All right. Thank you very much.
MR. METZLER: May I ask a question, Mr. Chairman?
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. METZLER: How does this relate — let's go
off the record for a minute.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. STEIN: If there is agreement, we hope that
this can be solved in a meeting or two. However, we did
discover in Lake Michigan that it was important for the
Lake Michigan States to get together and iron this out.
Now, again, I am talking on the basis of experience on this.
When we thought we had agreement among the States and we
got down to the specifics, we found there weren't any
differences really in philosophy. There were certainly
great differences in the specifics and we did come up with
specifics. That is why I would like to point out one thing,
and I have had this experience many, many times, that
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Murray Stein
when you talk generally about something, such as I remember
when we prepared the Suggested State Water Pollution Control
Act we never could get any response. When we first prepared
that Suggested Act and sent it out and got out specific
language, we got over a thousand letters of criticism.
Now, this is what has happened with our boat
requirement in Lake Michigan. As long as we were talking
generally, everyone was happy. When we got specific in
the Lake Michigan Conference, I have never seen a more
crowded or acrimonious conference session on any issue —
on any issue — than we had then and there really was no
difference from the States.
Now, I do think that if you come up with this
requirement, I think this has the value of also getting
the views of the people put in, so you will know where
you stand, including the staff. If we are in agreement,
I am ready to go after one meeting, and I hope we are in
agreement on this.
Yes, Mr. Miller.
MR. MILLER: Perry Miller, Indiana.
Mr. Chairman, Indiana has some doubts about
participating in this committee since we do not border on
Lake Erie, and then also that we participated in the
agreement that was reached on Lake Michigan, and as the
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Perry Miller
result of the Lake Michigan work and the agreement of the
States there, we have proposed amendments to our law in
Indiana so that we will be in compliance with the agreements
reached on Lake Michigan, so for this reason, we have some
question about participating in this committee on Lake Erie.
MR. STEIN: I think you have a point in that you
don't directly abut the lake. But may I suggest this?
Perhaps, you can find your way clear to do this. Since
you people have been through this and have the problems,
if you could sit in at least at the first meeting with
them and indicate what your experience has been because
Indiana has been through this and has met the various
issues, I think it may be helpful.
MR. MILLER: I might say on that, Murray, that
we did it with one meeting in Lake Michigan.
MR. STEIN: Right, and I hope we can do it the
same way.
MR. METZLER: At least two of the States around
this table have already committed themselves irrevocably
to this, so that whatever a committee is going to do is
going to be kind of academic. I think maybe — it seems
to me that the decision has been pretty well passed, and
so I wondered whether this committee could really serve a
useful purpose.
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Murray Stein
It seems to me the conferees, at this point, if
they had a document in front of them which summarized what
Indiana, Michigan and New York already are committed to do,
we might be able to agree on it without a lot of extra
committee activity.
MR. STEIN: I think this very well may take one
meeting, and I think since we do have that recommendation,
let's see if we can possibly invest in just one meeting.
Are there any other items to be taken up before
we get to the nutrient problem?
If not, before we go into it, let me indicate
the historical status as I have seen it.
The Lake Erie Conference in 1965 was the first
one really to recognize the phosphate or the control of the
nutrient problem in a massive Federal-State action such as
we have had here. They have come up with a policy on
this that this was really a historical occasion, since
it broke through — I don't think there has been a major
pollution control case since that has not taken up this
problem.
I do think that in a place like Lake Michigan we
have come up with numbers and come up with a specific
program. We still do not have that in Lake Erie* I would
suspect that the nutrient problem is acute in as many, many
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Murray Stein
places as at Lake Erie, possibly no place more than Lake
Erie, and certainly this is the largest expanse of fresh
water that is used as a water supply where we have the
problem, and I would hope that this meeting could come to
grips with the problem.
We have had various meetings on this. I think
we are at the stage now — I think one of the conferees
said this -- we have to fish or cut bait. The time for
decision, I think, is here, because possibly any more
meetings or more conferences after this will just result
in people staying with stated positions and modifying them
very slightly.
I think this is a very crucial issue at this
time, and in the judgment of most people here, eutrophi-
cation is the major problem in the pollution control program
of Lake Erie. The control of nutrients seems to be the
most significant way of getting at that, and I think it is
fair to say that we are dealing with the key problem in
controlling pollution of Lake Erie, and I don't know if we
are going for the jugular or not, but I think this is
where the crunch comes in.
Mr. Oeming, may we call on you? Do you want to
start with a statement on this or not? Do you have a
statement?
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Loring F. Oeming
STATEMENT OF LORING F. OEMING,
EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, MICHIGAN
WATER RESOURCES COMMISSION
MR. OEMING: I don't have any statement, Mr.
Chairman. I think I expressed —
MR. STEIN: Do you want this in the record?
(Indicating)
MR. OEMING: No, not necessarily. I expressed
the program of Michigan — described it at the last meeting
of the conferees, where requirements have been established
and time schedule has been established for the removal of
phosphorous compounds from the discharges to Lake Erie, and
we are on that program on the way. That is all I have to say.
MR. STEIN: Well, for the purpose of the record,
do you want to state what percentage of phosphates you are
going for?
MR. OEMING: We are requiring go percent removal
of phosphates that reach the treatment facility in the raw.
The raw phosphate content — #0 percent removal.
MR. STEIN: And the time schedule is consistent
with the time schedule established by the conferees?
MR. OEMING: Yes, it is.
MR. STEIN: And you are on schedule?
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Perry Miller
MR. OEMING: Yes, sir, everything is on schedule.
MR. STEIN: Yes, Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF PERRY MILLER,
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DIVISION
OF SANITARY ENGINEERING,
INDIANA STATE BOARD OF HEALTH,
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
MR* MILLERi Mr. Chairman, Indiana, as you know,
is a party to the Lake Michigan agreement of #0 percent
removal of phosphates, and we believe that the same should
apply in the Lake Erie Basin as an BO percent removal of
the significant amounts of phosphate from Indiana, and I
could say that our treatment schedules are,,on the time table
that has been established.
MR. STEIN: All right.
Mr. Poston*
STATEMENT OF H. W. POSTON, CONFEREE AND
ACTING REGIONAL DIRECTOR, GREAT LAKES
REGION, FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL
ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
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IB
H. W. Poston
MR. POSTON: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think you
have been very eloquent in laying out this problem of
phosphates, but I would like to repeat some of the things
that you have said here and the way I feel about phosphate
removal.
First off, I think it is very commendable, in
some cases, in the progress that has been made towards
trying to meet the requirements of this conference, and
particularly the major works that are going on in the
Detroit area, which admittedly is one of the big concen-
trations of population, big concentrations of waste, and
they are making progress, and, as Mr. Oeraing has just
indicated, they are on schedule.
I am not quite so optimistic in some other areas,
but, as you indicated, I think that eutrophication in Lake
Erie is our big problem and we have recognized this
repeatedly at our meetings. We have appointed a technical
committee to study this problem. We have called for and
heard experts, and they have indicated that this is our
problem, and that there are adequate ways and ample means
by which this problem can be eliminated.
I think, in the case of Detroit, they have already
set up experimental works and are proceeding on getting
a design.
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H. W. Poston
I also would remind you that as time goes on and
as we get into the pollution problem more and more, we are
continually upgrading our environment and by doing this,
at the same time, we ask for increased waste treatment
from our municipalities and from our industries, and I
think that we, as the conferees, should move ahead with our
job, as we see it, and I have a proposal, as a statement of
policy, which I might read as a start-off here.
As a statement of policy, the conferees would like
to see all of the phosphorus removed from municipal and
industrial sources and reduced to the lowest extent possible
from all other sources such as agricultural and urban runoff,
Phosphorus reduction is vital to arresting the over-enrich-
ment of Lake Erie. Most of the phosphorus reaching the
lake originates in municipal wastes and is reasonably
controllable through today*s technology. Established pro-
cesses can achieve at least 60 percent reduction of phos-
phorus on a day-to-day basis. Higher levels of removal
can be achieved through controlled operation and other
techniques that can be applied today. Agricultural and
urban runoff is relatively uncontrollable at this time,
and the industrial contribution of phosphorus is small.
Therefore, the conferees recommend that municipalities and
industries reduce phosphates in waste by a minimum of
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Murray Stein
SO percent by 1971 and an average of 90 percent by 1973.
Earlier completion dates now in effect shall prevail. Any
exceptions will be considered by the conferees on a case-
by-case basis.
MR. STEIN: Are there any comments or questions?
If not, I would like to take this opportunity
for myself to make a statement and this is possibly started
or prompted by the Michigan press release, Mr. Oeraing.
MR. OEMING: I am sorry. I was trying to catch
up on what —
MR. STEIN: I know. I just really read your
press release and am prompted to make a statement based
on that.
At least from my experience in this, and I have
been in this, I think, from the beginning with Michigan,
we have had full cooperation from Michigan in the cleanup
of pollution. The record is very clear. We were asked
in — that is the Federal Government was asked to come in
on an enforcement action on the Detroit River long before
we had the Lake Erie Enforcement Conference, and this was
done voluntarily by the Governor. Once we had that request
under the Federal law, we had to come in. So, Michigan
actually invited us in and started this whole operation.
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Murray Stein
Secondly, I would say that as far as I can see
that in the complicated municipal, industrial Detroit area,
which is as complicated as any in the country, we have been
moving forward with an abatement problem or control of the
water pollution problem as fast as the art will permit us,
as fast as you can reasonably expect to operate under our
present form of government and the laws that we have —
Federal, State and local.
We have had many differences, not with the State,
but possibly with the cities and the industries involved.
But once these have been ironed out — and I think in the
Detroit area they have all been ironed out — once they have
been ironed out, we have had full cooperation from the
municipalities and industries.
In any event, we never had any problem with data
or getting the information out. Particularly, I think I
would like to commend the attitude and the position of
Detroit. There were many honest differences of opinion
between Detroit and Michigan and the Federal Government,
and again Michigan and the Federal Government have worked
together on this.
But once Detroit embarked on its program, they have
moved ahead expeditiously. They have fully cooperated and
they have done everything possible to attempt to clean up
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Murray Stein
pollution within the time schedule indicated. As a matter
of fact, as Mr. Poston points out, additional requirements
come to the fore. When we first started this program on
the Detroit River alone, we werenft really thinking in terms
of phosphate removal. This was an added starter, and when
the added starter came on, Detroit took that on and folded
it into its program, I would say that — and this isn't
in derogation to any other of the State programs here — but
I would say that as far as the Michigan program is concerned
and the waters covered by this action that we have had
full cooperation and steady progress toward abatement.
I would like that point made at least from our point of view
or our experience.
MR. OEMING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN; May we call on Ohio, please?
MR. METZLER: Mr. Chairman, is it possible to
question Mr. Poston here? Is it appropriate?
MR. STEIN: Yes, yes, right now.
MR. METZLER: Well, I was interested — he sug-
gested 80 percent phosphate removal by 1971» and 90 percent
by 1973, and I wonder if he would tell me what is required
in the way of additional facilities to get from the BO to
the 90 percent so I can see why it takes two years to do
this.
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Murray Stein
MR. POSTON: Well, I think that -- it is my
understanding that to go from SO to 90 percent in the
chemical treatment, it requires simply additional chemicals
and that the additional chemicals will accomplish maybe up
to 95 percent.
MR. METZLER: So, actually, then the only benefit
that you would get from delaying moving to the higher degree
for two years would be you would save the cost of some
chemicals for a couple of years. That was the way it looked
to me and I don't see how we could get in that kind of a
position.
MR. STEIN: Let me try to answer this. I have
asked those questions over and over again, Mr. Metzler.
Here is the way I understand this: The scientists
tell us that if you are going to provide a chemical floccu-
lation or precipitation method of removal and you ask for
SO percent, if you use the proper amount of chemicals ani
you do this right, you can't help getting 90; you would
get 90. However, when they are very closely questioned,
as administrators in a new field — and this is a new
field — the question that I asked was if you were put
in charge of a plant right now, could you guarantee,
given all of the chemicals and all of the facilities
in the world, that you were going to produce
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Murray Stein
90 percent reduction every day of the week? And I don't
mean that on an experimental plant, where we load the place
with technicians and Ph.D.s and research assistants and
people going in white coats, but on a real practical day-
to-day basis, could you remove 90 percent every day? They
get a little hesitant.
The notion here, as I see this, is because this
is a new field whether it is reasonable to ask for SO
percent now, given the varying areas of operation. Maybe
we should ask for it. I would hope that what the scientists
can do in their pilot plants for the special operations
can be achieved in normal operation in the plants as
quickly as it can. But I am not quite sure it can be
done now.
Let me give you one analogy on this now and
that is this: We have heard for years that a properly
operated activated sludge plant can give you 90 percent
B.O.D. removal or a properly operated trickling filter
can give you 6*5. This is fine. How many of them really
get up to that and how many donft? Now, the answer is:
With chemicals, it is a lot easier to achieve these precise
results.
Again, in trying to be fair about this and as
administrators in a new field, I don't know whether we
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Dwight Metzler
can expect to achieve that kind of treatment without that
kind of effort, and I think this is the thing you have to
look at.
MR. METZLER: I have two additional questions,
if I might ask them. The first is: Does this assume, then,
that we will have secondary treatment in all of these
sources by 1971?
MR. POSTON: I would say yes.
MR. OEMING: May I comment on that?
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: Not necessarily.
If you are aiming at phosphate removal, you can
remove 30 percent phosphate removal without secondary
treatment*
MR. POSTON: Well, I would say that there is a
requirement by the conference that there will be secondary
treatment.
MR. STEIN: Here let me —
MR. POSTON: I don't think this wipes this out.
MR. OEMING: That is a different question.
MR. STEIN: That is a different question.
Again, as I see this, we have been through this
many, many times, and Mr. Metzler is asking the appropriate
question.
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Dwight Metzler
You may get a community that is a very small one,
and the question is whether you are really going to get
secondary treatment within the deadline. If you don!t,
this may be something that in the small communities the
States and we may have to take up on an individual basis.
I do think that this 90 and 95 percent treatment
that the scientists or technical people keep talking about
assumes secondary treatment. I think if you would get a
small community that for some reason could not make this
that what Mr. Oeming says that you still could get BO percent
reduction in the phosphate removal without possibly that.
All right? Is this a --
MR. OEMING: I am with you.
MR. STEIN: All right.
MR. METZLER: I didn't want an extended discussion.
It was merely to aid my own understanding of the problem.
I have one other question, and I think it perhaps
is of some importance to us. It seems to me perhaps a year
and a half ago or perhaps longer, the Technical Advisory
Committee to the conferees arrived at certain concentrations
of phosphate loading in Lake Erie itself. As I recall, this
was .015 mg/1 for the central part of the lake and .025
for the western end of the lake. My question is: Do these
percentages that Mr. Poston has recommended — will they
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27
George L. Harlow
give us this kind of loading on the lake?
MR, STEIN: Mr. Poston.
MR. POSTON: It is my belief that if we obtain
90 percent removal of phosphates, that we will get down
to this level of phosphate, and I would like to confirm
that with Mr. Harlow.
Is this not right, George? Isnft this our cal-
culation on this matter?
MR. HARLOW: Yes, but again, it is a very
complicated picture, Dwight, to try to relate with a waste
input in regard to phosphorus especially what resulting
concentration you are going to get in the lake. That is
because phosphorus is such a dynamic element. Sometimes it
is soluble; sometimes it is total and you find both. Also
we do not know the input into the lake from the sediments.
There is some speculation that if we were to
remove all of the phosphorus from municipal inputs there
would be places in the lake from, say, agricultural
contributions where this level might be exceeded, but
there is no real sure way to predict. We have calculated
and I admit —- I think we discussed this at the last
meeting how we did calculate it at the technical session
we had in August — how to meet this level that was proposed
by the Nutrient Committee, and we came up with a level of
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Murray Stein
92 percent average basin-wide for the year. I will admit
that you will not meet that criteria all of the time, and
we still don't know what the input from the sediments are.
Does that answer your question?
MR. STEIN: Let me again — because we answered
this before, and as Mr. Metzler points out, this is a key
question. When this came up, if we are talking in
terms of the total control, and we have a very, very,
very difficult problem here, we do not put all the wastes
in Lake Erie on our side of the border. If you are talking
in terms of meeting particular levels in the lake, you have
to think in terms of what the Canadians are putting in,
too.
They made certain assumptions on that 92 percent.
Say 10 percent for the Canadians. As we pointed out, this
is a little presumptious in doing these figures, without
consulting the Canadians. I thank the Canadians for their
forbearance on this because I suspect if we ever got their
expression of opinion, they would make Mr. Oeming's press
release or the Michigan press release sound like a love
letter. I think this is well taken. We just can't sit here
with the four American States and the Federal Government
here and talk in these terms. I don't know that we are not
a long way coming to this.
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Murray Stein
Now, the best way we can get at that, it seems
to me, is to come up with some kind of reduction of phos-
phates. If we could come up with a percentage, fine, and
that is what we are looking for.
lasted this question of the experts again and
again, and here is what they have told me, and maybe you
can confirm it: For every pound of phosphates we are
going to keep out, we are really going to slow up that
eutrophication process to keep it out.
In other words, it is not a lost operation or
it won*t do absolutely any good. There is a direct relation-
ship with the pound of phosphates you put into that. Now,
again, the notion is, and we are talking in terms of such
vast amounts, if you are talking about an SO or 90 percent
reduction — the notion is that if this is accomplished,
we will see a material improvement in the lake.
Are both these things correct?
MR. HARLOW: This is true. That is what Fritz
Bartsch brought up at the last technical session.
MR. STEIN: That this was the basis of the
judgment. All right.
MR. POSTON: I would just emphasize that this is
a problem that has been — eutrophication or aging of the
lake is a problem that has been creeping up on us, and it
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Loring F. Oeming
is here. We see the evidence. It isn't getting any better.
I flew across the lake this summer a month or thereabouts
ago and saw blooms in the central basin of the lake which,
to my understanding, these hadn't been there before. I
hadn't observed them before, and these were extensive in
their coverage, and I would just emphasize that you are
not going to lick this eutrophication problem with token
efforts. It has got to be a giant effort that, if you go
after it, you have just got to do everything you possibly
can, and this is the only way you are going to make inroads
into this problem which is admittedly a big one.
MR. STEIN: Are there any other questions or
comments?
MR. OEMING: Well, yes, Mr. Chairman. I think
Mr. Metzler has opened a good question here about this achiev*
ing 90 percent by 1973. I don't know whether we got to the
issue or not, but if you will recall, gentlemen, when Dr.
Stephan was on the stand at the last meeting, I think all
of us questioned him pretty deeply on his ability to fore-
cast, at the present time, that you could achieve 90 percent
on a routine basis. If I interpret — and I think I do —
it correctly — because I listened very carefully to what he
said about this 90 percent or 92 percent business — if I
interpret that correctly, I don't believe there is any
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31
loring F. Oeraing
assurance here — there is sufficient assurance for these
conferees to adopt anything above BO percent at this time
on a routine basis, with any date on it at this point in
time.
I would further confirm this, Mr. Chairman, by
the work that has been done in Michigan on small plants
and on pilot plant work, and this pilot plant work is the
size of a fairly good-sized community in which 60 percent
removal is being achieved and sometimes over that. But
extreme difficulty is being experienced in getting it up
above BO percent on a routine basis, and I don't think that
any of us can afford to get our necks in a noose here on
something that we cannot foresee at this time technologically
or in the best opinion of the best Federal expert I know of
in this business, Dr. Stephan.
MR. STEIN: Are there any other comments on that?
Dr. Arnold.
DR. ARNOLD: We are ready to make a statement.
MR. STEIN: Yes, if you would go ahead.
Before you start, I have questioned Dr. Stephan
and the staff not only here but in the office repeatedly
on that and I can't take issue with you on that.
MR. OEMING: Okay.
MR. STEIN: Dr. Arnold.
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George H. Eagle
DR. ARNOLD: Ohio does have a statement to make
and this statement will be made by Mr. George Eagle on
behalf of the Ohio Water Pollution Control Board.
Mr* Eagle.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE H. EAGLE,
CHIEF ENGINEER, OHIO DEPARTMENT
OF HEALTH, COLUMBUS, OHIO
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Chairman, conferees, ladies and
gentlemen, my name is George H. Eagle. I am Chief Engineer
of the Ohio Department of Health. The Division of Engineer-
ing serves as the technical staff of the Ohio Water Pollution
Control Board. On behalf of the Board, I wish to submit
this report in its entirety for the record.
I believe I distributed copies and gave one to
the stenographer.
According to a letter received from the Chairman
of this conference, Mr. Stein, under date of September 10,
196S, this meeting was called for the purpose of working
out, if possible, a Federal-State agreement on nutrient
limitations for discharges to the Lake Erie system. I
submit we already have such an agreement in the form of
the "Report of the Lake Erie Enforcement Conference
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33
George H. Eagle
Technical Committee" which was approved by the conferees
on June 1, 196?. You will recall that the Technical
Committee did considerable investigation and spent con-
siderable time in developing the recommendations and
conclusions in this report* In brief, they recommended
total phosphate as P and inorganic nitrogen as N limits
of 0.025 and 0.3 mg/l» respectively, in the western basin
and along the south shoreline of Lake Erie, and limits of
0.015 og/1 total P and 0.3 mg/1 inorganic N in the central
and eastern basins. These were just discussed here a few
minutes ago.
This, then, is to report Ohio's progress in
meeting the objectives set forth in the Technical
Committee's recommendations. I already reported this in
a general way at the June 4th meeting. Now it appears a
more detailed report is desired.
First, a few general remarks.
The State of Ohio has been a recognized leader
in the field of treatment of municipal and industrial
wastes for many years. Of the approximate 4*0 million
people who live in the Ohio portion of the Lake Erie
drainage basin, about 30 percent or 3.2 million people
reside in areas served by public sewers* In turn, some
BO percent of the wastes collected by these public sewers
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34
George H. Eagle
is provided at least secondary treatment. As has been
previously reported to the conferees, the Ohio Water
Pollution Control Board has an established policy of
requiring at least secondary treatment of all organic wastes
and comparable treatment for industrial wastes. Consequently,
facilities are either now being constructed or plans are
being drawn to expand plants providing lesser treatment to
secondary or higher type treatment. Likewise, the few
communities presently not providing any treatment, which
is less than one percent of total, are being required to
provide adequate secondary type plants.
The Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Water
Pollution Control Board has required all public wastewater
treatment plants to chlorinate the plant effluents on a
year around basis for protection of public water supplies
and recreation waters. For plants along Lake Erie, this
requirement is being met almost 100 percent at this time.
Other problems such as combined sewer overflows,
separation of storm and sanitary sewers where feasible,
elimination of stormwaters and land drainage from sanitary
sewers, by-passing, spillages, etc., are being solved.
And, believe me, in many communities, these are quite
formidable problems. Their solution is costing a lot of
money. Ohio believes, however, these matters to be of
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George H, Eagle
primary importance to adequate wastewater treatment for
protection of the receiving waters.
Now, as to phosphate removal plans and programs.
Under date of March 28, 1963, the Division of
Engineering, Ohio Department of Health, advised municipal
officials, consulting engineers and others that plans
submitted for approval for municipal waste treatment plants
must incorporate facilities for phosphate reduction. A
copy of this memorandum is attached (Exhibit A).
Attached is a table (Exhibit B) of sixteen
municipalities in the Lake Erie Basin that have facilities
for phosphate removal in operation or under design.
Fifteen of the sixteen plants are under orders to be
completed and in operation by the end of 1970. The
remaining one, Cleveland Westerly, is scheduled to be
completed by 1972.
I would like to turn to that table, which is the
last page of this report and just make a few brief comments
on it.
We note that we have these sixteen municipalities
listed here, ranging all of the way in size from a minimum
of 1.5 M.G.D. up to 120 M.G.D.; that one of them, the
Cleveland Easterly, is in operation. Admittedly this was
not particularly designed for phosphate removal but is, at
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35a
Oeorge H. Eagle
this time, taking up better than 50 percent of the phosphates
with polymers type treatment.
The other installations which are under design
and study have been estimated to remove in the neighborhood
of — most of them — around 90 percent of the total
phosphates. A few of them are lower. You will notice a
couple of them there at #0 percent — Lake County, Toledo,
and Akron, where it is only 50 percent at this time. This
doesn't mean that it can't be advanced in the future. But
I point this out to show that these proposals are under
consideration or are, in effect, in progress at this time.
MR. STEIN: Mr. Eagle, I think this is a key
question. Do you mind?
MR. EAGLE: No, I don't mind.
MR. STEIN: This is just for information.
MR. EAGLE: Yes, sir.
MR. STEIN: I think I can recognize the Cleveland
Easterly plant that is in operation, and you have been
using polymers and only getting 50 percent.
Do you have a prognosis of how much that might
be increased to or do you intend to increase it?
MR. EAGLE: I have some comments in this report
later on this matter.
MR. STEIN: All right. And if you have them on
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36
George H. Eagle
this other one that I raise, and that is with the Akron
plant with the 50 percent removal, expected completion
date 1970 — why is that being —
MR. EAGLE: Here again, this matter is still
under study. But with this Zimpro process which has been
designed, we have detail plans designed for this, and this
will remove, they estimate, around 50 percent of the
phosphates. But this was not basically designed for
phosphate removal.
MR. STEIN: I understand that.
I just raised this as a question. Your total
listing looks really excellent where it lists #0 and 90
percent reduction. And I can understand where you have a
plant presently in operation, such as Cleveland Easterly
plant. I think you might Want to give a little explanation
about a plant that is not expected to be completed until
1970 and is still so much lower than the others.
MR. EAGLE: Well, that is because these are
specifically designed for phosphate removal.
MR. STEIN: Well, the question here, since this
is still away in 1970, whether features in the Akron plant
can't be folded in, where it isn't timely to possibly
bring that up to the other level.
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37
George H. Eagle
MR. POSTON: Mr. Chairman, I think this really
emphasizes the difference between 50 and 90 percent — the
reason that we need to come to some agreement on what we
mean by maximizing phosphate removal.
In this case, it appears that 50 percent or 90
percent would be maximizing.
MR. EAGLE: Well, as far as Ohio is concerned, we
are talking about total loadings, and this table shows this
reduction in total loading to the extent that 16.7 thousand
gallcns or pounds, at this time -- and that either it is
in operation or under design — and that is the primary
purpose of this table, in addition to listing the places
that are actively working on this problem.
If I may go on, please.
MR. STEIN: Yes, please.
MR. EAGLE: The Technical Committee Report
attributes to Ohio municipal and industrial sources about
40,000 Ibs./day of the total estimated 152,000 Ibs./day
total phospate (P) discharged to Lake Erie. In order to
meet the recommended objectives of 0.025 mg/1 and 0.015
mg/1 of phosphates (P) in various parts of the lake, an
overall reduction — and Mr. Harlow just mentioned this —
of more than 92 percent in municipal and industrial
contributions will be required according to the data in
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33
George H. Eagle
the report. Due to heavier contributions and lesser
quantities of water in the western basin, higher reductions
will be necessary to meet the 0.025 mg/1 phosphate (P) level
objective in this western basin.
From the table again (Exhibit B) you will note
that some type of phosphate removal facility is proposed for
445 M.G.D. of the approximately 600 M.G.D. of domestic
wastes discharged to Lake Erie and the Ohio tributaries.
These proposed facilities when completed and placed in
operation are expected to remove some 16,700 Ibs./day of
the total phosphates (P). In addition, the existing
secondary treatment plants are estimated to be removing
about 20 percent of the total phosphates (P) or about 2,000
Ibs./day making a total of 16,700 Ibs./day removal by
existing and presently proposed installations. This
represents about 47 percent of Ohio*s total estimated
contribution from municipal and industrial sources.
Plans for several more municipal wastewater
treatment facilities are under preparation. These plans
will include phosphate removal facilities and will reduce
phosphate contributions when completed by another ten to
fifteen percent.
With regard to existing installations, I would
like to include in this report a few excerpts from the
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George H. Eagle
recent Cleveland Master Plan Report prepared by Havens
and Emerson, consulting engineers.
"We recommend that Cleveland undertake immediately
an interim program aimed at improving nutrient removals by
utilizing existing facilities, and at the same time conducting
a substantial pilot plant program at Easterly and Southerly
to determine the optimum ultimate method to be employed for
nutrient removal. The specific items recommended for
immediate action are:
nl. Take steps to increase air supply to the
activated sludge systems at Easterly and Southerly and
incorporate such capacity into the design at Westerly.
W2, Alter the existing final settling tank
collectors to provide rapid sludge removal.
"3* Commence chemical precipitation treatment
of supernatant liquor at Southerly using facilities provided
in the remodeled secondary digesters, for reduction of
phosphorus from this source. Based upon initial results,
expand chemical feed facilities to treat all of the recycle
liquors.
"4f Commence pilot plant operation at Easterly
for phosphorus removal using the combined biological-chemical
process proposed by Earth. Various coagulants might be
used, but primary efforts should be centered around use of
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40
George H. Eagle
alum with lime, or sodium aluminate. If this process is
successful, expand its use to full plant scale and under-
take the same program at Southerly.
"5. Immediately undertake design, construction
and operation of a 3 mgd pilot plant arranged with flexi-
bility to demonstrate the feasibility and cost of other
processes for both phosphorus and nitrogen removal.
"6. Undertake controlled tests on the existing
full scale plants to determine optimum mixed liquor solids
concentration for nutrient removal.*
I cite this proposed program as typical of the
approaches to nutrient removal being considered by many
of the municipalities in Ohio.
Mr. Stein, does this perhaps answer your
questions in part?
MR. POSTON: When did this Havens and Emerson
report come out, Mr. Eagle?
MR. EAGLE: You will recall it was presented
here for the first time, I believe, at the June 4 meeting.
This is the $211 million proposed program for the city of
Cleveland.
MR. POSTON: Then, the next question I would
have is: Has anything been done towards going ahead and
providing pilot plant work for determination of the best
phosphate removal?
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George H. Eagle
MR. EAGLE: I believe this is contingent or
partially contingent on approval of the $100 million bond
issue that is being submitted to the voters here in November
and this is part of the package, part of the $100 million
package.
MR. POSTON; There is some contrast here between
this kind of action and the action that we see in Detroit,
the action we see in the Buffalo area, where phosphate
removal plans are rapidly moving ahead and decisions are
in the process —
MR. EAGLE: Wait a minute, Mr. Poston.
Plans are moving ahead for new secondary facility
at Westerly, including phosphate removal. We are not going
to wait. I donft think Havens and Emerson meant to wait
for a study of this pilot plant for several years before
they proceed with construction. They think they are going
to try to build sufficient flexibility into their new and
improved facilities so that they can use various combina-
tions, and so on. I think this is the push.
MR. STEIN: I think, as you read this, Mr. Eagle,
we are really very close together on this. I don!t see
much difference, do you?
MR. EAGLE: Well, I don't know what you mean by
that.
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George H. Eagle
MR. STEIN: Well, what I mean by that is plant-
by-plant you are getting up to 80 or 90 percent. If we
are talking about a few plants, we can take these plants
up one at a time, but as long as you keep pushing them up
to dO and 90 percent I don't see much difference between
you and Mr. Poston.
Go on.
MR. EAGLE: Well, we will talk about that later.
MR. STEIN: All right.
MR. EAGLE: You will recall at the June 4 meeting,
I asked for sufficient time to investigate and consult with
public officials and engineers on the possibilities of
developing specific programs for phosphate removal in the
entire Lake Erie Basin, at existing as well as new or
improved secondary wastewater treatment facilities. We
have not been able to do this for the more than 50 major
facilities in the basin. Not to take anything away from
the other States at all, but in Ohio we are talking about
considerably more installations than we are in the other
States. There are relatively few separate installations
in the other States, and in Ohio there are some 50 major
facilities and way over 100 total facilities. Now, of
course, you know that four months time is just not enough
to get into all of the details*
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George H. Eagle
I — meaning we here — have appointed an ad
hoc Advisory Committee on Algae Control in Lake Erie. This
committee is composed of representatives of municipalities)
industries, consulting engineers, State aad Federal
officials, as well as knowledgeable technical people. The
committee was charged with: (1) assembling all pertinent
information with respect to algae control in Lake Erie and
its tributaries; and, (2) after due deliberation, to
recommend to the Ohio Department of Health programs for
adequate algae control. This committee has met twice and
posed many questions most of which have not been satisfac-
torily answered.
The following subcommittees have been appointed:
(1) Research and Demonstration — To develop
recommendations for a demonstration project for determining
effect of wastewater treatment plant effluents on algal
growths in Lake Erie waters, to be worked out in somewhat
controlled conditions.
(2) Surveillance — To recommend adequate sur-
veillance programs in Lake Erie.
(3) Agricultural Drainage — To recommend
programs that can be implemented and promoted by Federal,
State and local agencies to reduce nutrients from this
source.
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George H. Eagle
(4) Treatment Facilities — To assemble all
information available with respect to means and methods
presently available for phosphate removal.
This committee and staff propose to hold seminars
for municipal officials and consulting engineers to advise
them of the alternatives in removal of phosphate, the costs
involved and the probable results, following which the
respective municipalities will be required to submit their
plans and programs for phosphate removal to the department
for approval.
Now, you can recognize that this is primarily
directed toward existing installations where certain
improvements and modifications of their existing facilities
need to be made for phosphate removal.
The Advisory Committee developed a series of
questions with respect to algae control in Lake Erie.
These questions were submitted to the FWPCA and were
answered mostly from an academic standpoint at a meeting
of the conferees in Cleveland on July 26, 1963.
The answers left many questions in the minds of
the members of the Advisory Committee and the staff. Some
of these are:
(1) There appears to be no factual data avail-
able as to the levels of nutrients (phosphorus and
nitrogen) required for snigifcant algal blooms.
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George H. Eagle
(2) There is no factual information available
as to what may be the triggering agent for algal blooms.
(3) There is incomplete data available as to
physical factors which may or may not contribute to algal
blooms or their control.
(4) Why has not a continuing monitoring program
been established in Lake Erie to show the relationship
between nutrient levels and algal blooms?
(5) What programs are proposed for reduction
of runoff of nutrients from agricultural lands?
The committee, the Water Pollution Control Board
and the staff have many, many more questions, but are
willing — I want to emphasize this — to proceed to do
everything reasonably possible to remove phosphates from
wastewaters on the assumption that it raay do some good in
Lake Erie. An additional benefit, of course, will be
better overall wastewater treatment.
Ohio will continue to pursue the program for
phosphate removal in accordance with the objectives
recommended by the Technical Committee and accepted by
these conferees. You may be assured that the objectives
set forth by the Technical Committee will be.met by Ohio
by no later than 1972, if at all possible to do so,
Within the next six months, we should be able to make a
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George H. Eagle
complete report on the phosphate removal programs to be
undertaken by all the major contributors in the Lake Erie
Basin.
In conclusion, we — speaking for the Board —
would like to recommend the following to the conferees for
their consideration. These recommendations, hopefully,
will supply some of the answers to the many questions
concerning the control of nuisance algae in Lake Erie.
1. Provide detailed and continuous monitoring
in areas where blooms do and do not occur to determine
whether a triggering agent (nutrients or some other of
the many possible causes) can be defined.
2. Maintain a flow pattern survey to trace
influence of the shore and tributary discharges to determine
th?dr relationship to areas of bloom and no-bloom.
3. Provide a control area in the receiving lake
at two or more sites of municipal plant discharges so as
to determine whether and under what conditions the blooms
appear after various types of treatment.
4. Where shore algae conditions develop, provide
demonstration projects which would permit appraisal of
deep water dispersal of effluent discharges. We think this
may have a lot of promise.
In a few weeks, it should be possible for Ohiofs
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George H. Eagle
Advisory Committee to spell out in more detail these
suggested recommendations. Also, the committee hopes in
the near future to have specific recommendations on
reduction of runoff of nutrients from agricultural lands,
Thank you very much.
(The exhibits referred to in Mr. Eagle*s
report follow:)
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48
EXHIBIT A
TO: City Officials, Consulting Engineers and Other Interested Persons
FROM: George H. Eagle, Chief Engineer, Ohio Department of Health
SUBJECT: Removal of Phosphates from Waste Waters
At the August 3-12, 19^5, conference on pollution of Lake Erie, it
was agreed upon by bordering States and Federal Water Pollution Control
Authorities that municipal wastes be given secondary treatment and that
"secondary treatment plants be so designed and operated as to maximize the
removal of phosphates" in the Lake Erie Drainage Basin. Further, the water
quality standard adopted by the Ohio Water Pollution Control Board for
other basins throughout the state require supplemental treatment of waste-
waters to the fullest extent consistent with current research and tech-
nological advances where necessary to reduce algae growths.
Subsequent to these requirements and agreements, municipalities
were ordered by the Ohio Water Pollution Control Board to prepare general
plans of wastewater treatment facilities for compliance. Most of the major
municipalities complied with this order by employing consulting engineers
to prepare general plans of the necessary improvements.
It soon became evident that very little was known about treatment
for phosphates removal by either the consulting engineers or the state and
federal agencies. As a result, general plans of wastewater treatment
facilities submitted for approval and approved by this department prac-
tically ignored the matter of phosphate removal other than to state
phosphate treatment facilities were being deferred until more was known
about the matter.
Information furnished by the Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration indicates there is a method by which phosphates can be re-
moved at a low capital cost. This method involves the addition of sodium
aluminate to the aeration tanks. It is reported the phosphate precipitates
formed by the addition of sodium aluminate will not go back into solution
or interfere with the disposal of sludge. It is also reported that the
addition of this chemical will improve suspended solids removal in the
final settling tanks and thus also improve the BOD removal efficiency of
the plant. Other methods involving high capital costs have also been
demonstrated to function satisfactorily.
It is recognized that the sodium aluminate phosphate removal
process involves a high operation cost and it is hoped some other less
expensive process will be developed before long. We cannot, however, con-
tinue to ignore the phosphate problem with the hope that some better
process will develop at some future date. Future plans, both general and
detail, of treatment plant improvements submitted to this department for
approval will have to make some provision for phosphate treatment. At the
present time, we do not know of any treatment process involving less
capital cost than the sodium aluminate process.
March 28, 1968
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49
EXHIBIT B
MUNICIPAL FACILITIES PLANNED, UNDER CONSTRUCTION OR IN OPERATION
FOR PHOSPHATE REDUCTION
Design
Treatment Plans Flow
Municipality
Type Detail
General M.G.D.
Expected
Phosphate
Removal (P)
Expected
Completion
Date
% Ibs. Per Day
Akron
Ashtabula
Bedford
Bedford Heights
Cleveland Easterly
Cleveland Westerly
Conneaut
Defiance
Euclid
Lake County
North Olmsted
Port Clinton
Lorain •
Rocky River
San dusky
Toledo
** +
Chemical +
Chemical
Chemical
Polymers -
Chemical
Chemical
Chemical +
Chemical
Chemical
Chemical
Chemical +
Chemical +
«**
Chemical
Chemical
87.5
12.0
+ 3.2
+ 3.6
120.0
+ 1*0.0
+ 2.93
U.O
+ 22.0
U.O
+ 6.0
1.5
15.0
+ 9.33
+ 12. U
+ 102.0
50
90
90
90
50
90
90
90
90
80
90
90
90
90
90
80
2,380
586
156
176
3,260
1,955
1U3
196
1,075
173
293
73
73U
U56
606
U.UUO
1970
1970
1969
1969
In operation
1972
1970
1969
1970
1969
1969
1969
1970
1969
1970
1969
M.G.D.
16,702
* Estimated removal based on 20 ppm phosphates as P in raw sewage.
** High pressure wet oxidation (Zimpro process) for waste activated sludge.
*** Activated carbon filter secondary treatment facilities.
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50
George H. Eagle
MR. STEIN: Thank you, Mr. Eagle.
Before we throw this open for questioning, I
have got one — I think one clarifying operation here.
You have a proposal for monitoring and flow
surveys and material of that kind. I take it since you
are going to get more detail that you don't have a cost
analysis of this.
MR. EAGLE: No.
MR. STEIN: No. Now, this is the question: Do
you expect the Federal Government or the State to do it?
If you expect the Federal people to do it, it would be
very helpful if I could get at least a ball park estimate
of the cost to see if I could afford it out of the
enforcement funds or if we have to go somewhere else.
MR. EAGLE: Well, I think Mr. Harlow should be
able to give you some ball park figures in this area.
MR. STEIN: May I make Just one suggestion?
This is just for clarification. At least I have no quarrel,
and I would like- to hear from the conferees on an action
in this direction, but you say it should be possible for
Ohio's Advisory Committee to spell out in more detail
these suggested recommendations. If this is going to
be a joint Federal-State project, or if the other States
are going to participate and we are going to have to get
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George H. Eagle
some money up, it might not be too early to bring the
other people in to work up the details. As you know,
with this, Mr. Eagle, the key point in getting any of
these programs off the ground is the appropriate way --
we are going to check them and see where we are going
to get the money. I think unless we get the States folded
in as early as possible with the Federal Government, we
may be in for some kind of delays on this.
MR, EAGLE: Well, these, of course, will still
be recommendations, and you might be interested to know
that the FWPCA is represented on our Advisory Committee.
MR. STEIN: But we have a question here with
the other States, too. You see you have provided a
control area in the receiving lake of two or more sites.
Those are in Ohio, I assume.
MR. EAGLE: Not necessarily.
MR. STEIN: You see, these are the points, and
I think if we were to put in Federal money we would have
to consider the views of the other States and where they
wanted the survey to take place if we were to get any
chance of doing this. So, my suggestion is: You may
want to consider as soon as possible to broaden your rep-
resentation if you are going to come up with a proposal.
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52
George H. Eagle
MR. EAGLE: Well, I don't think this is my
prerogative, is it, to do this? I think it is up to you
as the chairman of the conferees* If you want a joint
committee in these areas, then I think that is up to you.
MR. STEIN: 111 right, fine.
Are there any questions or comments on Mr.
Eagle's report?
MR. METZLER: Well, probably this is not neces-
sary, but it certainly is nice for those of us that are
downlake to hear the kind of progress that both he and
Larry Oeming are reporting for their two States. This
is the most exciting thing that has happened lately.
MR. STEIN: Yes.
Go ahead, Mr. Poston.
MR. POSTON: I have some mixed emotions about
this, I feel that I know that Mr. Eagle asked for
time at the June conference, and I probably at least in
part am responsible for setting this date of the fourth
of October here for this meeting^ But it was my understanding
at the June meeting that within three to four months we
would be ready to come to some agreement on the phosphate
level removal, and I note in Mr. Eagle's report that he
wants six more months, when he should be able to make a
complete report on the phosphate removal programs*
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53
George H. Eagle
Since this conference was started in 1965, it
seems kind of a remote —
MR. EAGLE: Just a minute, Mr. Poston.
MR. POSTON: -- date here.
MR. EAGLE: The first time I heard anything
mentioned about mandatory removal of phosphates was at the
June 4 meeting. The Technical Committee report set up
objectives which Ohio pursued, first, on the basis of
new installations, and I reported on this. At the June
4 meeting, we very briefly discussed at a very late hour
in the afternoon the possibility, or took under consideration
the matter of setting up specific requirements for all
waste discharges, all municipal waste discharges, primar-
ily municipal, and this is the first time that I ever
heard these conferees discuss this matter of mandatory
removal of phosphates for all installations. So, I don't
think it is unreasonable to ask for a few months time to
try to work out plans for the some-over-100 municipal
installations in the State of Ohio.
MR. POSTON: It is my recollection that our
chairman here claimed that the Lake Erie Enforcement Con-
ference set a landmark when they set maximized phosphate
removal as one of the recommendations, and I feel that
maximizing — when we ask for maximizing phosphate removal
it certainly means that we do more than go home and forget
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54
George H. Eagle
about it.
MR. EAGLE: Well, are you inferring that we went
home and forgot about it?
MR. POSTON: Well, you said this was the first
time you heard about it.
MR. EAGLE: Mandatory, mandatory, mandatory for
all installations.
Following the conference, we immediately sent
out a directive and had numerous meetings with our
consulting engineers and municipal officials, and so on,
in providing for phosphate facilities in new or improved
waste treatment facilities where it would be possible to
build it in at this time.
Now, it comes up on June 4 that we must go back
to the existing facilities, many of which we have, and
incorporate phosphate removal to the best of our ability
in existing facilities.
As I say, this is the first I heard this
discussed by these conferees was on June 4 that we must
apply this to all facilities including existing ones.
MR. STEIN: Well, I hope — let's try
Mr* Eagle, to see how close we can get together. I think
we are very close here, and this is not a — I wouldn't
like to emphasize differences, and I do think that the
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55
George H. Eagle
program you have outlined is designed to meet what the
conferees were looking for. I think it is fair to say
that the whole problem of certainty in phosphate removal
has been clarified within the past few years.
MR. EAGLE: I think you will glean from this
report that Ohio feels that the proper approach is on
loads. I donTt know — you talk about 30 percent, 90
percent — are you talking about #0 percent or 90 percent
of what? In the final analysis we are interested in loads
to the lake, nutrient loads to the lake, and I think that
this is the proper approach.
MR. STEIN: Do you have a comment on that, Mr.
Poston?
MR. POSTON: Well, I am interested in loads to
the lake, and I think Mr. Poole, at the last meeting,
brought out that he had some small communities of 200 or
300 people, and they had just put in a plant, and he hesi-
tated to go back to them and tell them that they had to
start and rebuild this plant.
But I think in the suggestion that I made, or
a statement to the conferees, I said any exceptions will
be considered by the conferees on a case-by-case basis,
and I think this could be handled in such a manner.
MR. EAGLE: On that basis, I have got about 50
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56
George H. Eagle
exceptions I would like to present to you right now.
MR. STEIN: That might be all right. But I do
think, Mr. Eagle, that the only thing we are dealing with
in these percentages, isn't it, is an administrative tool
to attempt to get at ths problem. I think we are down
to the issue where when we deal with plant by plant we are
beginning to resolve this problem.
I have one general comment on the statement you
have here, Mr. Eagle, and I really in a sense can sympathize
with that, that is the questions of the committee. For
example, on page 5, you say your committee has met twice
and posed many questions presumably to themselves most of
which have not been satisfactorily answered. Then, after
the meeting we had on July 26, you said the answers left
many questions in the minds of the members of the Advisory
Committee and the staff and you go into those.
Now, the experience that I think any agency has
with committees of this type — and God bless them, I
don't want to derogate them in any way — but just to
emphasize the point, when you get a bunch of researchers
or professors working on a problem, I have never seen
them come up where one of the major conclusions wasn't
that further research is necessary. There are some
questions that have to be answered. If we didn't have
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57
George H, Eagle
that kind of pressure from the researchers, of course, we
would not refine our thinking and get this done. But I
think, Mr. Eagle, in dealing with any of these problems*
whether you are dealing with administration or you are
dealing with an industry, there comes a time when you have
to stop sharpening your criteria and go into production.
Now, in the industrial meetings I have had,
whether it is in automobile, or steel, or paper mill,
they have exactly the same problem with their staff. There
comes a time when you figure that you have refined the
problem enough, asked the questions enough, have the
answers and you are going ahead with the solution.
I do think that your approach has hit a balance
on this. I am sure you are going to come up with specifics
on each one*
MR. EAGLE: Well, we feel that these matters
should go forward at the same time. Certainly we want to
know how effective we are being in the removal of these
phosphates, if we are being effective at all, and what
further things may or may not be causing these blooms, But
I do point out that we are willing to go ahead and do
everything possible for the reduction of phosphate loads
and contributions to Lake Erie waters and we are proceed-
ing, we think, very reasonably well in this regard.
-------
George H. Eagle
MR. STEIN: Could I ask one last clarifying
question? What difference is there that you see in what
you talked about in the reduction of loads and a percentage
reduction of phosphates? Aren't they about the same thing,
or is there a difference between them?
MR. EAGLE: Well, I think you can certainly
reduce the loads considerably by taking a good reduction,
all of the reduction that you can reasonably get in the
large installations. I presume this will come up for
discussion later, but the problem comes up where these
smaller installations -- say under a couple million gallons
a day — how much can they afford to do? How can they
afford to operate them? Where do they get the technical
personnel? How can they afford to get the technical
personnel? We have these questions constantly in all of
these endeavors*
I think you reach a point here where it may not
be very practical to try to take #0 or 90 percent, or
whatever, across the board for everyone.
MR. STEIN: Right. Well, I am very sympathetic
with that approach, particularly with the small communities*
Let me check with Mr. Boston because I have heard
this from Indiana and other States, and we recognize that
this is a real problem.
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59
George H. Eagle
The question that we are going to have here is:
if you go for 80 or 90 percent — or what kind of percent
that you have — with any reasonably sized installation,
the recognition is that you are going to have small
installations, that we are going to have to meet on a
case-by-case basis. Is this the way you look at the
problem or is there a rule on this SO or 90 percent-
reduction that we apply all across the board?
MR. POSTON: Well, I certainly have, thought about
this for quite a time, and I have searched for some figure
or number of people where you would start requiring BO
percent, and I find it very difficult, and I think that
this should be the prerogative of the State agency con-
cerned.
However, I think that their method of doing this
should be available to the conferees. It should have some-
what uniformity across the line.
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Stein, I would just like to
recite again that this report — this technical committee
report, in which a number of people spent a lot of hours
— very able people — and came up with a very extensive
set of conclusions and recommendations and objectives, we
subscribe to these, and as I pointed out in my report we
will do everything we can to meet these objectives in the
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60
George H. Eagle
way of limits as set up in this report.
Now, why do we have to come up with a whole new
set of percentages or figures, or so on, made up somewhat
off of the top of our heads, and not stick with what is
contained in this report as the objectives of these
conferees? This I donft understand.
MR, STEIN: Are there any comments on that?
If there are none —
MR. POSTON: I think that you would find that
the technical committee report would require over 30
percent phosphate removal.
MR. EAGLE: Sure, I think it was around 92
theoretically are the calaculations. We have no quarrel
with them. We are talking about loads now. We are not
talking about individual treatment plants.
MR. STEIN: Here is a question that I have, and
I think we face this constantly, Mr. Eagle, and I think I
can attempt to try to answer you.
The technical committee report was a technical
committee report. It did not translate itself into terms
of treatment requirements for all plants. Now, in order
to get Federal assistance, we are going to be faced with
these problems, and probably your State legislators are
going to have the same problem, whether they meet the
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61
George H. Eagle
comprehensive program and whether they meet the requirements
of the standards or the enforcement operation.
Now, the question we have, as I see it: Unless
we come up, as we have in other areas, and talk about
percentages of removal or treatment, as we talk of primary
and secondary treatment —
MR. EAGLE: Where did we do that?
MR. STEOft Where did we do it? We talked in
terms of secondary treatment for all of the municipal
wastes.
MR. EAGLE: But you didn't put a percentage figure
on it.
MR. STEIN: Because the percentage figure is
fairly well known. The question in dealing with phosphate
treatment is we don't have a descriptive term to indicate
that. You can run all the way from 25 to 92 or 95
percent removal. The attempt is to get precisions so we
know where we are standing. This does not mean that when
you have some small communities where you are not going
to make that, that we don't take these communities up on
a case-by-case basis.
Now, we haven't heard from Pennsylvania yet
but as I understand it there are three States here at
least that have proceeded with this 80 percent program in
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62
George H. Eagle
their program, and while they may have a problem with a
couple of small communities in one or two of the States,
this is a reasonable way of working this, and something
that the Federal people can understand, the State people
can understand, the people who are watching the program
can understand on making a judgment of what we do in each
individual plant.
The other kind of arrangement is one in which you
say you have an objective that you are going to do the best
you can in each plant. This may vary in each plant and
there may be differences as there always are between experts
and people at different levels of government. Perhaps,
when we come up with a requirement at each plant, the public
which is watching us all will not have as accurate a yard-
stick to judge us by to see whether or not we are meeting
this phosphate removal that is going to do the job.
I think if we talk in terms of an £0 percent
removal and you are not going to get an 60 percent removal
immediately, the red flag goes up and we have to have a
pretty good explanation of why we are not doing it in that
case. If you do^t have that, you are dealing in a never-
never-land and you are arguing each case individually.
After awhile the public may lose us, and if they lose
us, we are going to come up with a lot more stringent
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63
George H. Eagle
requirements.
MR. EAGLE: Yes, but we are getting back to the
point of dictating treatment requirements without relation-
ship to the water quality of the receiving waters. The
technical committees set up a criteria for phosphates and
nitrogen in the receiving waters of Lake Erie. I think
that what we have got to focus on is meeting — is trying
to meet these criteria, and however we can best do that,
then, is the proper way to proceed.
MR. STEIN: Right.
Mr. Eagle, I don't want this to be construed
as engaging with you, but I thought that this $0 or 90
percent was directly related to this meeting the water
quality criteria, that is why they came up with it.
MR. EAGLE: That has not been spelled out for
me, that it is related. Thank you.
MR. STEIN: All right.
Mr. Boardman.
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64
Richard Boardman
STATEMENT OF RICHARD BOARDMAN,
DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF WATER QUALITY,
PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
MR. BOARDMAN: My name is Richard Boardman and
I am Director of the Division of Water Quality of the
Pennsylvania Department of Health. I am representing the
Department of Health today.
At its September IS, 1963, meeting, the Pennsyl-
vania Sanitary Water Board directed the Department of Health
staff to inform the city of Erie that at least SO percent
phosphorus removal was required. This action was taken to
prevent the joint city of Erie-Hammermill Paper Company
project from being held up by the question of phosphorus
removal. The value of SO percent removal was used because
it seemed to be the consensus of the majority of conferees
at the August 196S meeting that this should be the minimum
value that should be established.
In addition to the Erie-Hammermill project, numer-
ous public sewerage projects are under way in the Lake Erie
Basin as a result of Pennsylvania's "Sewerage Facilities
Act" and this vital planning could be delayed because of
the uncertainty over phosphorus removal. Since no further
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65
Richard Boardman
delays can be tolerated, those doing the planning are
being told that at least #0 percent phosphorus removal is
required.
It is recognized that &0 percent phosphorus
removal may not meet the water quality goals of the
Technical Advisory Committee on the basis of straight
dilution, but 30 percent seems to be the next logical step
to take based on previous statements by the conferees.
It is believed that these levels of reduction will help
to stop the high rate of eutrophication in the lake.
Additional work should be done to work out a long-term
solution.
We believe that a model is needed for the lake
in order to guide future plans for further waste load
reduction. The model should include the physical, chemical
and biological factors of assimilation and the economic
factors of load reduction.
Work on this model should begin as soon as
possible, and should be accompanied by a sampling program
designed to supplement existing data needed for inputs
to the model. We believe the conferees should ask that
work begin on development of such a model immediately.
Efforts should be a cooperative one similar to the effort
that was carried out in the Delaware Estuary.
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66
Richard Boardman
Meanwhile, positive steps should be taken to
achieve improved phosphorus removals at discharges,
removals that will reduce the total discharged load* The
goals should be set in such a manner that the requirements
will not outstrip technology but will push the technology
to provide better processes. An orderly reduction in total
phosphorus load can be achieved in this way while working
toward the goal of meeting the water quality criteria.
In addition to this program, steps should be
taken to understand the mechanisms of rural and urban
runoff contributions and methods for reducing this load
should be studied and demonstrated.
For the future, in addition to the mathematical
model, and with results of such a model, consideration
will have to be given to allocating phosphorus loads to
meet the criteria, and if we were to allocate the phosphorus
loads, divide the input to, say, input from Lake Huron,
input from sewage, input from urban land runoff, input from
rural land runoff and input from industry we believe that
the phosphorus load should be distributed among the States
in the following manner:
1. Input from Lake Huron — not distributed.
2.. Input from sewage, urban land runoff, and
industry — by basin population.
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67
Richard Boardman
3. Input from rural land — by basin drainage
area.
These allocations should be made on a pounds per
day rather than a percentage reduction basis. In this
manner, the total discharged load of phosphorus will not
increase as population grows. Improved phosphorus reduction
will be required as our population grows.
MR. STEIN: Thank you, Mr. Boardman, for your
c ont r ibut i on.
Are there any comments?
I think you have some action programs there.
There is no objection to them, but it will have to take
some push to get into effect.
Now, the first one, if we are talking in terms
of a model, the question naturally comes up: Are we going
to be able to do that with the American side; are we going
to have to get the Canadians involved in this model or not;
and then we have the other points brought up by Mr. Eagle
on monitoring flow pattern, control area and deep water
dispersal.
All these matters, it seems to me, are going to
require exploration and probably by the Federal Government
of availability of funds and resources to do it.
MR. BOAREMAN: Absolutely.
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Richard Boardman
MR. STEIN: Okay.
MR. BOARDMAN: I think I pointed out that an
effort similar to the Delaware Estuary undertaking could
be used where the primary effort, in the sense of the
model-building, was undertaken by Public Health Service
and then Federal Water Pollution Control Administration.
But the States and those involved served on a Technical
Committee and provided inputs into the model, and in this
manner, I think, an excellent model was developed on the
Delaware Estuary, and we hope the same thing can be done
for the Lake Erie plantj and I think it probably would
help to answer a number of the questions that were raised
as to what should we do in the future.
MR. OEMIHG: I would like to pursue this point
with Mr. Boardman.
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: I think what you are saying to me
at least is that we start with 30 percent now and the need
for how much further you go ought to be predicated on some
study such as you are talking about. Is this what you are
boiling this down to?
MR. BOAREMAN: Well, the go percent is very
similar to the way Pennsylvania, quite a few years ago,
attacked its entire water pollution program. It set the
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69
Richard Boardman
minimum percent removal levels for organic wastes and now
we are setting a lot more requirements in terms of pounds
per day of wastes that may be discharged. It is a first
cut method. We believe that #0 percent removal isn't
enough based just on things that have gone on before and
inputs from the Technical Committee. We believe that the
90-or-more percent removal probably will be required, but
the mathematical model could be used possibly to solve
this problem of how should the little ones be treated, how
should the big ones be treated, where can we spend the
money and get the best results for the least amount of
money, rather than just saying: let's have a flat 9#
percent reduction or something like this.
MR. STEIN: You know, this reminds me of — we
have heard these things before — it is like a Broadway
show. Everyone has a good idea for the Broadway musical
but you have to have the book and the music before you
can go.
Now, I would suggest that we need a specific
proposal from the technical people both on what we are going
to do on the model and with at least an estimate of the
cost. This should include an indication of whether it
would be necessary to coordinate with the Canadians and
also what we are going to have to do on monitoring flow
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70
Murray Stein
patterns in control areas and for study of deep water
dispersal. Then, if we can endorse it we will go ahead.
Now, we have got two ways of doing this: either
set up another group, or, perhaps, Mr. Oeming, if you
would care to expand the committee that you are going to
set up on this boat pollution to come up with a proposal
to look into these proposals, you are to have a committee
established next week.
I suggest you get into boat pollution first,
but these people have this job, either to appoint successors
to that committee to take up this job, or else the succes-
sors can be the people on this committee, if you didn't
want to change it to get into this problem. In other words,
this is going to take a little longer. You may be able to
clean up that boat business in one meeting maybe but —
MR. EAGLfi: Mr. Stein, I would like to interject
here, we are talking about two vastly different things, and
as far as Ohio is concerned, I had in mind having our
recreation people on this boat committee, the people who
are responsible for the licensing, and if we are going to
discuss the phosphate problem with the same committee then
we have got an entirely different type of people.
ME. STEIN: No, let me clarify this. I was just
doing this for the purpose of organization. Instead of
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71
Murray Stein
setting up two committees, if we would let Mr. Oeming
have the boat meeting first and let this committee go on
and when we come to the phosphates and the model program,
you will have successors. This will be someone different
in Ohio, but it may be the same one in some of the States.
What I was suggesting was, since we had this one committee
going, and the Federal people were to provide the clerics}.
staff and Mr. Oeming the chairmanship, maybe we could just
continue this and after the boat session is done, with
different people let this go ahead rather than establish
two different committees.
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Oeming has already formulated
his policy in Michigan with regard to phosphate removal
so I don't know how he would be in a very good position to
negotiate some other criteria.
MR. STEIN: Well, I tell you this: How would
you like to take the second committee?
MR. EAGLE: Fine.
MR. STEIN: AH right, you have got it, George,
and you get together with — now, this will include the
model question, too, okay?
MR. EAGLE: Sure.
MR. STEIN: All right, fine.
Ohio is getting better and better day by day.
They will have to come here more often.
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72
Hon. Charles A. Vanik
MR. EAGLE: You are just catching up with us,
that is all.
MR. STEIN: I notice in the hall a loyal supporter
and friend of water pollution, and one of our board of
directors, and the man we report to back in Washington,
Congressman Vanik. Do you want to come up or say something
at this conference?
THE HONORABLE CHARLES A. VANIK,
U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
MR. VANIK: Just one little contribution.
MR. STEIN: Sure.
MR. VANIK: Should I get up here?
MR. STEIN: Surely.
MR. VANIK: First of all, I want to say that
I am, of course, thrilled that this conference is going
on and carrying on this important work, because we have
made progress. There is no question about it. Of course,
I am delighted that the Federal Government itself is, I
think, making the biggest contribution of all, not only
in providing the Federal conferences and the constant
study and the research that is provided through our
offices, but I think the Federal Government has met the
criticism that I first directed here for the first time
in the Great Lakes area on the dredging problem in the
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Honorable Charles A. Vanik
Great Lakes and the dumping of the dredged materials into
the open lake.
From all I can see, the Corps of Engineers are
moving with great dispatch and with commendable speed in
providing the diking, in providing the containment area
for this material, and it was finally acknowledged that
this material did contribute to the pollution. That took
us about a year and a half, I think, didn't it, gentlemen?
But after we got over that hurdle, I am just thrilled that
the Corps of Engineers is moving to take care of this
problem not only in Cleveland but on all of the other
Great Lake cities.
With respect to the legislative prospects for
next year, I have some very grave concerns about the law,
because as I sit and from where I sit in Washington and I
look at problems of great magnitude, I just don't feel that
all of our Federal resources ought to be provided for incen-
tive programs for small communities around the State to
eliminate their cesspool problems and to get sewers built.
This is fine. This is important. This is desirable. But
I am concerned about Lake Erie. I am concerned about the
capital problem, the major problem, and outside of the Federal
Government's decision to dump dredged materials into the diked
areas, I cannot see any constructive bold step to meet this
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Honorable,Charles A. vanik
problem, and I feel that we have got to have a massive
program on the lake. Whatever you have said about it is
true, and I take it to be scientifically established that
the lake is dying, and I think we are just sitting at a
wake watching it die. I cannot see that we are making
any great strides or a stride commensurate with the problem
to try to solve it, and I am particularly concerned about
two things:
First of all, I feel, Mr. Stein, that in the
new law, and when we convene in Washington in January —
whoever convenes — that we must have a massive program
for the really grave problems. I think the interstate
problem of the Great Lakes is going to take some separate
funding, separate and apart from the matching program that
is provided under the Water Pollution Control Act.
For example, in Ohio right now, there is a pro-
posal on the $759 million bond issue which the Governor
proposes, $120 million that is allocated for water
pollution control, and the purpose of this money, as it
is stated right in the announcement on it, is to encourage
local governments to participate in the program of
pollution and to provide a State share to match the local
share to get the Federal money.
Now, that $120 million so far as I can see is
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Honorable Charles A. Vanik
not going to help the grave Lake Erie problem. There is
not a dollar going to be provided for the massive study,
for the research, for the analysis. We donft know really
how to approach the problem in a massive way without having
some concrete studies. There is nothing in that $120 million
with which Ohio is expecting to get a great reservoir of
Federal money. There is nothing there that is substantially
going to meet the problem. That, in my judgment, is most
important to over half of the people of the State. Over
half of the population of the State lives in this water-
shed, and half of the population of the State is critically
involved with Lake Erie, It seems to me that we ought
to get some certainty that under the Federal program there
is going to be massive approaches to problems that are
multi-State, problems that are interstate, problems that
are general and affect the whole welfare of the United
States, as the Great Lakes problem does.
Secondly, I certainly hope that the Governor
and the water pollution authorities of Ohio will tell
us, give us some commitment, that of this $120 million
bond issue which I would like to support, that of this
money, there is going to be some certainty that Lake Erie
is going to get the benefit of some of this spending, and
that the taxpayers of Ohio are contributing to, so that
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Honorable Charles A. vanik
we can feel that we are making some headway, some progress
on the real grave problem that affects all of us here
more than any other and that is the Lake Erie problem,
and I certainly hope that we can, out of this conference,
get two things: 1) some sort of commitment that the Federal
Government is going to make some kind of a massive immediate
approach to the grave interstate problem of the Great Lakes
and their pollution; and, 2) that the State authorities
will give us some encouraging hope that of the $120 millicn
that is going to be raised in the Statewide bond issue
that a good part of this money or at least half of it
will find its way to the really grave Lake Erie problem.
Now, that is all I have.
MR. STEIN: Well, thank you very much.
I hope we will both be back in Washington:
you to keep us honest and me to be kept honest.
We should go on to New York now.
MR. POSTON: Well, you indicated that Mr. Eagle
was going to be chairman of a committee. What is the
purpose of this committee?
MR. STEIN: The committee will report to the
conferees on the feasibility of our having, one, a
construction of a model and a model analysis for Lake
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Murray Stein
Erie, and whether and how we are to do this with Canadian
participation, or whether we will have to construct a
model of the whole lake including the Canadian side and
a reasonable method for this to be done.
He will also come up with a proposal and indicate
how much money it is going to cost and the proposal for
a monitoring of the areas where blooms occur, the question
of a flow pattern, trace the influence to shore of tribu-
tary discharges, control area in the receiving lake and
demonstration projects.
I think the Federal people can, if Mr. Eagle
wishes, provide the clerical service for this, and we
would ask all conferees, State and Federal to put people
on this committee.
MR. POSTON: That means there would be a member
from each conferee's State.
MR. STEIN: Yes, each State and the Feds would
have one member.
MR. EAGLE: Are we talking about any specific
time limits?
MR. POSTON: When would this report be due?
MR. STEIN: Well, here is the point: I don't
know what the extent of your problem is here.
MR. EAGLE: It is pretty extensive. I can tell
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Murray Stein
you that*
MR. STEIN: In preparing the report, if you are
going to take longer than six months, you should tell the
conferees.
MR. EAGLE: Well, six months is very reasonable
I would say.
MR. STEIN: Yes. Tou know you can get these
preliminary reports, but if we are going to deal with
specifics on a model and a question of flow patterns and
monitoring, we had better be pretty well set before we take
that up, it seems to me. But I think we should think in
terms of six months, but you may need longer. I am not
sure you will.
May we call on New York now?
MR. BOARDMAN: Mr. Chairman, Pennsylvania
appreciates that action.
MR. STEIN: Thank you.
MR. METZLER: Thank you, Mr. Stein.
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Dwight Metzler
STATEMENT OF DWIGHT METZLER, DEPUTY
COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT
OF HEALTH, DIVISION OF PURE WATERS
MR. METZLER: Fellow conferees, yesterday was
a good day. I got the morning paper and it said that the
plan to save Lake Erie had been completed. I hope that
those who are attending here today get a more balanced
view. This is based, of course, on the Lake Erie Report,
which has a great deal of strength in the enumeration of
sources, and I think for the first time puts this together
in a package that you can see.
I was disappointed, as I am sure my Federal and
State conferees were, at the lack of specifics as far as
the interaction between the pollution which is occurring
which should be abated and the effect which its abatement
might have.
The New York State Department of Health has spent
considerable time in the past few months reviewing the
proceedings of previous sessions and examining the massive
amount of technical data on nutrients and eutrophication
produced over the past few years. We have consulted many
experts from the States, the universities and the Federal
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Dwight Metzler
Government. We have maintained a dialogue with experts
from other nations both visiting their facilities and
inviting them here to consult with us. Most recently,
the advice of the New York State Department of Health
Commissioner's Advisory Committee on Algae and Related
Problems was sought and received. I would like, at this
time, to read the statement prepared by this committee of
outstanding scientists, in response to a question that I
asked — a very simple question: Will phosphate removal
retard eutrophication in Lake Erie?
The Committee recommends — and this is a state-
ment of the committee — that phosphate removal be practiced
at all wastewater treatment facilities in the Lake Erie
Drainage Basin. Such facilities should be designed and
operated so that no effluent will be discharged with a total
phosphorus content exceeding 0.5 rag/1 as phosphorus.*
Then, the footnote to this says: *This is
equivalent to about 60 to 90 percent removal of the
phosphorous content of domestic sewage. It is felt that
an effluent standard should be utilized rather than percent
removals in order to avoid misunderstandings. Both
chemical precipitation and the Thomas-Barth activated
sludge process are capable of achieving these results at
cost ranging from one cent to five cents per 1000 gallons
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Dwight Metzler
over the cost of conventional secondary waste treatment.
(End of footnote)
This effluent quality is to be achieved by a
bona fide treatment process and not by effluent dilution.
But then I want you to note carefully this next sentence:
"It should not be expected that this step alone will cause
dramatic improvements in the quality of the lake. However,
it is felt that this preliminary step is required to avoid
possible future undesirable ecological changes in the lake.
It should also be realized that this recommendation repre-
sents the minimum requirement which can be realistically
justified at this time. As our understanding of the ecology
of the lake increases and as more economical and efficient
waste treatment processes are developed, it should be
expected that more stringent restrictions not only on
phosphorus but on other constituents of wastewater will be
required if an acceptable water quality is to be achieved."
Ending the statement of the committee.
Diversity of opinion on this subject was
demonstrated in that this statement was not approved
unanimously by the committee. Some members indicate that
there is, as yet, insufficient knowledge to take the
recommended action. After a thorough review of the
problem, the State of New York recommends for approval
at this session the following two positive approaches to
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Dwight Metzler
the problem:
First, it is apparent that we must act decisively
even though there is yet a great uncertainty regarding
the cause and effect relationships between the lake's
water quality and waste treatment facilities* There is
no doubt that all effluents discharging into this basin
must be upgraded to a high level of secondary treatment.
We have previously submitted a detailed timetable for
accomplishing the basic requirements.
Because of the uncertainty regarding the link
between the phosphorus content in waste treatment plant
effluents and the lake's water quality, we cannot at this
time, recommend phosphorus removal at all plants in the
basin. However, because the lag between the time a
decision for action is reached and its fulfillment is
especially great for large facilities, we suggest that
all cities with a population greater than 15,000 be
required to design into their treatment plants facilities
capable of removing phosphorus. These designs should be
such that the effluent will have a phosphorus concentra-
tion of less than 0.5 rag/1. Such facilities should be
completed by 1973. It should not be expected that this
action alone will cause a dramatic change in the quality
of the lake. More properly, the premises behind this
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Dwight Metzler
requirement are:
1. The long-range goal of any water quality
agency is the complete elimination of changes in water
quality due to waste discharges. Since phosphorus is a
constituent found in a greater concentration in sewage
than in natural waters, it should be removed to the extent
that it is technicologically possible and economically
practical. It is presently technically and economically
possible to remove phosphorus at large plants to the
concentration recommended.
2. There is the possibility that phosphorus
removal will retard the aging of the lake. However, future
studies may show that this is not the cause and some other
material must be removed. Waste treatment facilities are
basically a series of concrete tanks regardless of the
unit processes involved. If, in coming years, new
information indicates that some material other than
phosphorus is the primary cause of eutrophication, plants
should be modified to remove that element without increased
major expenses, or at least without loss of the capital
expense already made.
3. All present processes for phosphorus removal
also increase the B.O.D. and suspended solids removal
efficiency of the waste treatment facilities over that
which is normal for secondary treatment.
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Dwight Metzler
4. By concentrating our efforts on large plants,
we can get a substantial reduction in the total number of
pounds of phosphorus being discharged into the lake. If
this causes an improvement in the lake's quality, we can
then work on the smaller plants.
Our second recommendation involves further
study. These recommendations also have been made by some
of the other conferees. Obviously , such further study is
required. The problem is what type of study. Or perhaps,
more precisely, how can the present expenditures for
studies of the lake be channeled in such a way to yield
the maximum results. What we propose is a systematic
study of presently available ecological, chemical, biolog-
ical and engineering information. This study is in line
with what has been proposed by Pennsylvania at previous
sessions and again, I believe, today.
The purpose of this study would be to put the
information in such a form that decision-makers can make
rational decisions on the need for and value of nutrient
removal facilities for wastes discharging into the basin.
This study will also have the secondary purpose of
determining what gaps exist in our knowledge in making
such decision-making more precise. Such a study will
require the advice and help, not only of the conferees
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Leo J. Hetling
at this session, but also a considerable amount of assistance
from the universities and governmental agencies presently
having a knowledge of the lake. The advice of agencies, such
as the Bureaus of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Commercial
Fisheries, and Outdoor Recreation would be required. We
recommend that this conference consider ways of adminis-
tering and financing such a study project.
So that you might know that this is not just some
quickly drawn together idea but rather is a matter of con-
sidered deliberate study, I have asked Dr. Hetling, who
heads up the research activities for the New York State
Health Department in the area of environment, to give you
a brief outline of what such a study might entail.
Dr. Hetling.
LEO J. HETLING, DIRECTOR,
RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
SERVICES, NEW YORK DEPARTMENT
OF HEALTH, ALBANY, NEW YORK
DR. HETLING: I think previous discussion has
indicated that Mr. Stein would like to tie down the type
of study we are talking about in more detail. What we
propose is a study which will provide information to
decision-makers so that rational decisions on the need
for and value of nutrient removal facilities for wastes
discharging into the basin can be made. The problem is
how does one go about this?
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Leo J. Hetling
One mentions systems analyses and most people
turn off their ears. I think possibly a short outline of
what we are talking about would help. We are talking
about a systematic study of presently available ecological
and engineering information which will be made* No new
laboratory or field studies will be implemented. The
ideal end result of the study will be to produce the
curve shown by Figure 1.
We don't have a blackboard, but what we are
talking about is a curve. On one side, one axis would
tell the ecological condition of the lake ranging from
perfect up through acceptable, possibly the present
condition, highly undesirable and up to catastrophic.
On the other axis is what investment would be required in
waste treatment plants to achieve those conditions.
If such a curve were available, one could
say if we wanted acceptable conditions of the lake one
could go across and find out what it will cost per year
to achieve acceptable conditions., If one decided that
was too much money, that our international situation or
other problems preempted the funds and these funds were
not available, one could then use the curve the other way
and say that such an investment will cause such a
condition in the lake.
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Leo J. Hetling
Now, such an ideal curve cannot be realistically
produced. Our knowledge of the real world is full of
uncertainties. What can be achieved, however, is Figure 2.
This is similar to Figure 1 but has probability statements
attached, to account for the uncertainties due to the
randomness in nature, ignorance of nature, changing
technology and a changing economy.
With this new probability type of curve, the
decision-maker having decided that he wanted to be 90 percent
sure of having an acceptable condition would see that an
investment of y dollars per capita per year would be required.
He would also be able to state that with this investment
there is a small chance (less than 10 percent) that perfect
conditions would result. On the other hand, if for economic
reasons it happened that only x dollars per capita per year
could be spent, it could be said that it is 90 percent prob-
able that conditions will not get worse than highly undesir-
able and a 50 percent cJhance that present conditions will
be maintained. There is even a slight chance (less than
10 percent) that acceptable conditions will be achieved.
In order to produce Figure 2, it would first be
necessary to construct the curves in Figure 3- The curves
shown in Figure 3 would not be easily gotten. An objective
review of all the literature available would be necessary,
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Leo J. Hetling
followed by many subjective engineering, ecological and
economic judgments. The opinions and ideas of many experts
would be required. Since much of the data would be
subjective many difficult points will have to be resolved
by discussion and consensus.
Methematical techniques although complex do
exist for constructing the curves and combining them to
form Figure 2. Although for simplicity in explanations
the data is presented as final curves, a computer model
of the material would be desirable. With this computer
model, the sensitivity of the system to various assumptions
could be computed and the need for and value of further
research in the assumed area could be determined. Such
a computer model would also make it possible to include
various new scientific and technological knowledge about
the system as they become available. As such knowledge
became available, the spread of the probability curves
on Figure 2 would lessen and more definite statements will
become possible.
It is estimated that the study of this sort
would take about two and a half years and cost approximately
$200,000. There are various groups in the country that I
think are capable of carrying out such a study.
The success of the study would depend on the
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Leo J. Hetling
ability to obtain a key staff of two or three people not
only trained in the newer methods of using system analysis
but who have enough knowledge of biology, ecology and
engineering economics to interpret and utilize the
information provided by specialists in these fields.
Equally important would be the willingness of experts in
various areas to provide their time and knowledge to the
project. The essence of the project is actually a
systematic ordering of available knowledge.
(Figures 1, 2 and 3 referred to by Dr.
Hetling follow:}
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Dwight Metzler
MR. STEIN: Thank you.
Are there any comments or questions?
I wonder if the committee could take this up,
too.
DR. HETLING: Sure.
MR. STEIN: Of course, I think you are pretty much
ready to go on this, and we have given the committee about
six months. Now, this will not preclude, I hope, the
committee, if they come up with any recommendations that
they feel the conferees can act on or put into effect much
earlier to come up with these recommendations to the
conferees.
MR. EAGLE: Certainly.
MR. STEIN: Because that may be an endeavor that
you may be able to endorse.
MR. EAGLE: I think some of these we can do
relatively soon.
MR. STEIN: So, I think this would help.
Thank you very much, Doctor.
MR. METZLER: I would like to — stop me if I
am wrong — now, there is one thing. We have been talking
about some committee activities, but there is a difference,
I think between a systems analysis approach such as you
have heard and anything that I have heard about committee
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Dwight Metzler
activities. I don't think we can do this with any com-
mittees that are set up or by the conferees sitting around
this table here. I think that our reaction to this is
either that we think it is a good idea and the States and
the Federal Government will jointly fund it, or that we
don't think it is necessary and we will pass it over.
MR. STEIN: Well, again, now, do you think we
are able to make this judgment now on this?
MR. METZLER: Oh, I see. My answer is that I
have looked at this enough so that I am convinced and we
have heard this — this didn't originate in New York.
The only thing I claim for New York is that we have
presented the first proposal that you can follow so that you
can get a clearer picture of what is in mind and we put a
dollar cost on it. I think, as a conferee, I am ready to
consider this and to make a recommendation and to say that
New York would perhaps be able to participate financially
and —
MR. STEIN: Well, again, Mr. Metzler, I don't
argue with this. The question, I think, is why I suggested
it be referred to the committee, 1), there may be some
details on this that the technical staff might want to
look at; and 2), I think possibly New York and maybe
Washington has a little different position on funds.
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Dwight Metzler
Well, you have looked at this. In other words, I might be
able to say, yes, we will do this, and we are going to get
$20,000, $50,000 or $100,000 out of the budget. We went
through an alewife program. We know how difficult it is
for a State to even raise $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000
when it is not appropriated.
I think we have two aspects here: 1) if we are
going to do it; and, 2) what kind of financing. I think
it might be better to refer it, so they could look at this,
to see if it is worthwhile their putting in the money and
then coming to us with a proposal if it should be done
and who is to pay for it.
MR. METZLER: It seems to me that this question
that you have raised is one of the principal reasons we
ought to be here today. I would hope we might shortcut
the committee, but that is just the point of view of one
conferee.
MR. STEIN: Again, sir, in talking about the
alewife program, the easiest and goodness knows this
wasn't easy — I must have been out to Chicago 20 times
getting the details of the program worked out — but the
easiest thing was working out the details. The hardest
thing was getting the funding. Poor Michigan had to go
back to the legislature — the State Legislature — to do
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Dwight Metzler
that. That is why I say —
MR. METZLER: Well, poor New York would have to,
too.
MR. OEMING: Mr. Chairman, I have great respect
for Mr. Metzler1s recommendations and viewpoints on this,
but I think I am of the opinion that we ought to start at
least with this committee review of this under Mr. Eagle's
leadership and knowing how you feel about this I think
that your feelings and your position can well be factored
into this without embarrassing or causing any difficulty
with your presentation here. That is my feeling.
MR. STEIN: Is that agreeable?
MR. MILLER: Certainly.
MR. BOSTON: Well, I think I got a little side-
tracked here when we started to talk about a study now,
and I really thought we were talking about phosphate
removal, and I would like to ask Dwight — he had some
recommendations about phosphate removal here, and it kind
of looked to me like his requirement would be for towns
of 15,000 and above that we would have removals down to
0.5 rag/1 of phosphate which really would amount to 90
percent removal or thereabouts.
MR. METZLER: I don't want to talk about
percentages. We have learned in water pollution control
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Dwight Metzler
a long time ago that such generalized things as secondary
treatment #5 percent removal, etc., doesn't mean a thing.
I have learned this about 20 years younger. We tried to
put this kind of requirement on an oil refinery in terms
of the amount of oil they could put in the Missouri River,
and they just bought four times as many pumps as they had
before. They put the same pounds in, but they pumped four
times as much water to do it.
What we are interested in — and George Eagle
highlighted it very well — is controlling the number of
pounds going into the lake. If phosphorus has any effect
on eutrophication in the lake or the growth of algae in
the lake, we want to control it, and the way to do that
is to put on an effluent standard and then meet it.
I am in the hands, as a matter of fact, of some
of the most distinguished biologists — at least in North
America — on this point, and I am not certainly as an
engineer going to run counter to that.
MR. STEIN: Are there any other comments on this?
MR. OEMING: Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: I wish Mr. Metzler could enlighten
us a little bit more here on the actual experience -- how
extensive it is — your experiences are with this process
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Dwight Metzler
that you are relying upon to get you 0.5 effluent concen-
tration. How extensive is that?
MR» METZLER: Actually, it is my understanding
that the use of the Thoraas-Barth process anyway, once you
put in enough lime to make it go, it goes all of the way,
and I think that this may be true of some of the other
chemical processes. At least this is the advice that I
have, Larry.
MR. OEMING: Has it been in operation in cities
the size of Albany or — I know better than to ask that
question but — Buffalo, Mew York, or any of the plants of
this size?
MR. METZLER: To the best of my knowledge — and
I will ask Dr. Hetling to veto me or supplement this if
this is incorrect — my visit with Thomas anyway was on
the basis of his experience using it in Switzerland. I
don't know of any American cities where this is being
used.
MR. OEMING: I think this is what concerns me,
Dwight, about that particular figure, in that the program
that we are following, first of all, is to evaluate the
raw load to our facilities. We are finding the phosphorus
content running all over the map. There is no explanation
for this, but it is actually happening, and then where we
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Loring F. Oeming
are applying iron and the — you know what I mean — what
am I trying to say? — iron and something else —
MR. STEIN: Lime.
MR. OEMING: — and so on, we are not getting very
consistent results. We are getting #0 percent removal and
#2, or #5, and down as low as 75, but from the standpoint
of effluent quality, it is very inconsistent, and I am a
little uneasy about being able with the literature and the
technology as it is now to affix a figure at 0.5• I would
much prefer to set a poundage limit, poundage on the
effluent.
Say we are talking about so many pounds of
phosphorus coming from X-number of communities, and then
working back and saying, well, this happens to be 80
percent, which is what we did in Michigan. We have set
poundage limits on each one of the contributors to the
Detroit River, and it happened to come out at 80 percent.
Now, I am talking the same language you are
except I am talking about a fixed figure, and if you use
only the concentration as the community grows you are going
to increase the poundage, aren*t you? That is 0.5 parts
per million a day, and so on, and so many gallons of
waste will be less pounds than it will be ten years from
now with more people.
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Dwight Metzler
MR. METZLER: Actually, we have a fundamental
difference here, Larry. I am under the impression there
are at least two processes that will remove this down
consistently to about a half a part per million, or half
a milligram per liter.
MR. OEMIHG: I haven't anything in our
experience —
MR. METZLER: If I am incorrect in this, then,
that is the wrong figure to use. I do think that the
limitation — once we go to the expense of doing this,
it seems to me we ought to take out what we know how to
take out and we ought to do it for the sources of pollution
that count. I am distressed at the idea that we would try
to do this for a community — somebody mentioned — of
200 or 300. I would be as hesitant to do this for a
community of 2000 or 3000 because I think you can put the
facilities there but I doubt very much if they will ever
be operated. The point is that it doesn't really reduce
the poundage that much.
It would be better to say to Detroit, or Buffalo
or Cleveland, to kick up your efficiency a tenth of one
percent, than it is to say to forty little Ohio communities:
put in waste treatment or phosphate removal facilities.
MR. OEMING: I don't disagree with that concept.
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Dwight Metzler
I only have reservations about putting all our eggs in
this concentration basket only, and I think —
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN: Just a moment, Mr. Eagle.
MR. OEMING: I think that, at least from where
I sit and with our experience in Michigan with operating
these facilities under very controlled conditions — now,
we would not feel very assured that we could say, well,
we are always going to get 0.5 parts per million of
phosphorus even with best control.
MR. STEIN: Mr. Eagle.
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Metzler, would you have any
objection to carrying this a step further and relating
this to loads, setting this as a policy — suggested
policy or objective, if you will, of limiting this to
places larger than 15,000, and an objective of reducing
it down to 0.5 milligrams per liter and then relating —
and in addition we set a load limit on each State or
area of a State, if you will, and then this would be
related to this load limit.
MR. METZLER: I think, Mr. Eagle, your approach
on load limits is absolutely the one that needs to be
followed, and I was merely interpreting that, moving from
the load limit back to an effluent concentration. I think
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Dwight Metzler
I agree with both you and Mr. Oeming on the point that you
have to do it on the point of load limit, and I thought
that the load limits were essentially specified in the Lake
Erie Enforcement Technical Committee Report of June 1,
1967.
MR. EAGLE: That is what I thought, too.
MR. METZLER: So I agree with that, and if the
technology has not been developed to the place where we can
use a half part per million as the target, then perhaps
we should set a different goal.
MR. EAGLE: I think this would be fine as a
suggestion for policy.
MR. METZLER: All right.
MR. EAGLE: Or objective, or what-have-you, but
the load limit would be the fixed figure.
MR. METZLER: The load limit would be the thing.
After all, it is reduction of the total load that we are
after.
MR. OEMING: Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: I wonder if we are not getting at
the crux of this question now, and I would like to propose
something here along this line. To overcome this question
of how far you are going to apply this phosphate removal
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Dwight Metzler
and all these matters if an approach isn't appropriate here,
somewhat along the lines of the Lake Michigan Conference,
where we, at that point, agreed on a certain percent
removal, but we asked each of the States and the Federal
Government to come in with a report of the communities
within six months; list the municipalities and industries
and the Federal Government discharging to Lake Erie, the
amount of nutrients, and their views on what they are
prepared to do, what they consider as significant loadings
and what they are prepared to do to reduce these loadings.
Does this get at this? Is this a kind of a
cut-down-the-middle approach here?
MR. STEIN: I think so, and if we could do that,
we may get around first base.
Dwight, we have in effect done something like
that in the Hudson in dealing with a complicated compliance
operation like this where you literally have loads of cities
and industries. What we all have to come down to is a
specific list, such as you have, that we look at this thing
to see if it is reasonable and within the framework of
where we are going.
Let me try to clarify a few points here: One,
I don't want to take issue with anyone on this, but I do
think that we all prefer the pounds per day if we can do
it. This is the level we are thinking of. This is not
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Murray Stein
related necessarily to population increases or other
things.
Now, with all due respect, Dwight, to the notion
of the 0.5 mg/1 and the BO percent, it appears to me that
they both may have the same defect, because you used it
here that it had to be a bona fide operation. Presumably
you could use the four-pump device to get down on this, or
as your population increased, or your production increased,
you could have a 0.5 mg/1.
Now, the reason that we got to this SO percent
is that, as Larry said, in a rough way, we worked it back
from a pound per day operation — this was an administra-
tive device to get him to check this out. I would not
doubt that if you use that 0.5 mg/1 you could have an
administrative device to do the same thing, which might
be more stringent than his. In other words, &0 percent
is probably a little less. But until we get to what, I
think, Mr. Boardman was talking about, an allocation
system, or Mr. Eagle — an allocation system among the
States, and then an allocation perhaps on the basis of
areas within the States, and to get this reasonably set
out, what we are going to have big cities and small
cities do, we are not really going to get to the phosphate
oroblem.
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Murray Stein
For the people here — and I would agree with Mr.
Metzler — one of the points he puts out is this: Even
if we do this, this just might handle the phosphate
problem, but it is not necessarily going to wave a magic
wand and clean those blooms up in the lake all by itself.
But what we are talking about here is we are faced with
all these problems. We do have a problem where we are
going to begin constructing and finish works by 1971-1972.
Now, in order to fold in the phosphate removal,
I think in your statement, Mr. Metzler, you indicated
that a certain minimum — we should fold this in for
phosphate removal of a certain minimum amount of phosphate
removal now recognizing the limitations that we are going
to get if we get the phosphate removal, recognizing the
imperfections we have in the technique.
Now, as far as I can see, and check me if I am
wrong — and I am not talking in terras of the cutoff now,
in the specific community or not — but does it really
make much difference if you attempt to get 0.5 mg/1 or
SO percent as your technique now? I don't know that we
can get that. Does it? I mean we are all —
MR. OEMING: We are talking about poundage to
the lake. This is what I am talking about.
MR. STEEN: Right. Now, in other words, I think
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Murray Stein
if you use the technique and you really could get 0.5 rag/1
as the basis of the New York program, you would beat —
any plant that did that would beat Pennsylvania's, New
York's or Indiana's SO percent. So, there is really no
disagreement, and until we get a lot sharper, on the basis
of this committee, on the basis of the pounds, then maybe
this might be the best we can do.
MR. OBMING: I would like to comment a little
further on Mr. Metzler's 15,000 population. Perhaps this
would be suitable for his State. I think that it would be
a mistake to set a population figure here. That is,
Michigan might want to go down to 5000. In fact, I know
we are — maybe less than that, depending upon the
circumstances — and the kind of contribution we are making,
but it seems to me that the States ought to make up their
minds what they are going to do.
MR. STEIN: Let me ask you a question, Larry.
On a pound per day reduction — and I am just
talking in terras of pounds per day — what kind of
reduction did you get, an 80 percent reduction in pounds
per day?
MR. OEMING: That is what it came out at, taking
the poundage you were going to reduce to meet certain
levels in the Detroit River.
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Murray Stein
MR. STEIN: Well, let me try this. Again, this
is, as I say, a technique of getting the idea.
Let us suppose, taking these points, that we
talk in terms of a reduction now of £0 percent in terms
of the poundage, knowing how difficult that is, with your
operation* Let us suppose that we, over the next, let's
say, six months — but we may be able to do this more
rapidly — get a list of your program for all your cities
going into Lake Erie. In terms of the list perhaps, or
with the variance you want to use, that Mr. Eagle used
here, let us suppose that given the variance you have,
5000 or 50,000 or 15,000 population, or the allowances for
small or large communities, or whether you are going to
use BO percent or a percentage or pounds per day, or 0.5
mg/1, that we get these lists from the various programs
with the notion that we are going to come up with a program
that is going to get — however you translate that with
the imperfections — into an SO percent reduction in the
total loading from your State areas as your contribution.
Now, what do you think of something of that
nature, and that may meet all of the States1 requirements.
MR. METZLER: Let me point out that incidentally
New York shouldn't take probably too prominent a role in
this. We are going to take 100 percent out of Buffalo.
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Dwight Metzler
We are just going to take all of the Buffalo sewage out of
Lake Erie, so we are going to take out 100 percent of
Buffalo, and I don't want Detroit to increase their
poundage by the amount between 80 and 100. (Laughter)
Specifically, you have quite a difference between
what I am suggesting here for Detroit and what Larry is
talking about, the difference — I don't know what Detroit's
wastes are running, but I looked at some rather complex
New York sewage the other day that was running about 20
parts per million of phosphates. Now, there is a lot of
difference in 4 parts per million in the effluent and
0.5 parts per million in the effluent.
While I am not convinced that phosphorus is the
whole answer, if you move to take out all but a half part
per million in the Detroit wastes, you are going to get
a higher level of overall pollutant removal, and it is
not Just phosphorus that is causing the trouble in Lake
Erie, you are going to have a generally upgraded level of
treatment in the big cities, and this is what is going to
make the difference on Lake Erie.
MR. STEIN: There is no objection here, Dwight.
Let me go through this again. I agree with what
you said. The key point here is that we are going to have
a — we should get a certain amount of the loading out of
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Murray Stein
the lake and a certain amount of pounds out.
What you are saying: We have two techniques in
doing this now. Since we are not really precise and
haven*t got this worked out with the loadings,— and hope-
fully we will and be able to move the same way — we are
always in better shape if we can talk in terms of pounds
of B.O.D. a day from a certain source. Admittedly we are
not ready to do that.
What I am trying to get at is: Mr. Oeraing
indicates that he is for this interim period where he is
roughly trying to get at 80 percent reduction in pounds
per day. He is not sure he can use 0.5 mg/1 as a
technique.
Now, he would have no objection to New York State
using it as a technique.
What I am suggesting is that, using the various
techniques that the States want to use — and this will
include Ohio — within six months, we hare another meeting
and we come up with the list of community-by-community and
industry-by-industry indicating what you have donej we
evaluate that list and see if that can get at the object
of removing 80 percent in pounds a day. Now, if there
are any glaring examples of slippages from this, or you
are not accomplishing it, then we will all see it, and
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Murray Stein
also we will have the advantage of trying to work toward,
at that time, a refinement in terms of pound loadings and
allocations based on the States and in the areas within
the State.
Now, I say that real fast, but I have been in
these State allocations before. This is a very difficult
thing to work out.
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
You recall that I asked precisely for that in my statement
for six months time to complete our list in Ohio on what
we think we can reasonably do and how many pounds we are
going to reduce it.
MR. STEIN: This has one added factor, and that
is that BO percent operation.
MR. EAGLE: Eighty percent I have no qualms or
any objection to using this as an objective but in some
cases we can do better than BO percent.
MR. STEIN: Oh, surely.
Well, I am trying to — again — let me get
off the record here a moment.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. STEIN: Let's go back on the record, if we
may.
I think it is very evident here, from what we
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have had from all four States that we are all moving toward
handling the phosphate program. I think we are all very
close together on this. We are dealing with a very new
field of endeavor and it is difficult sometimes to get
this worked out.
Now, what we are trying to say here is: I am
not suggesting that any one State approach, at this stage,
is better than the other, or the Federal approach is better
than the other. I do think that we have the approaches
of the four States here and the Federal Government which
are very compatible, and I am trying to work out a method
where given this kind of framework we can go forward with
these programs together in a compatible way and come up
with this.
Now, this is what we did in Lake Michigan; this
is what we are going to do here. I think we can't have
successful Federal and State regulations in the process
we are going to go through, until we come to a field where
we are all so certain of it we can agree. In certain areas
of pollution control we have a lot more agreement because
we have more knowledge than we have here, and I do think
we have a compatible program.
Mr. Poston.
MR. POSTON: I would like to, I guess, ask — and
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Lor-ing F. Oeming
I have a strong feeling that this six months time period
here should not in any way extend final completion dates
for the construction of the waste treatment works, which
was 1971.
MR. STEIN: No, this is just a report on progress
that we are moving toward on this. 1 don't think that was
implied at all.
MR. OEMING: Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. OEMING: May I once again get back to what I
think you are talking about, and that is: I would commend
to the conferees' consideration a great deal of at least
the concept that was in recommendations 1 and 3 of the
Lake Michigan conference, and this, in effect, said that
waste treatment is to be provided by municipalities to
achieve a minimum or at least SO percent reduction of total
phosphorus, and that within six months each water pollution
agency should list the municipalities and industries dis-
charging nutrients or phosphorus to the Lake Erie Basin,
and that this list be presented to the conferees for their
review and consideration. It seems to me that is where
we are.
MR. STEIN: May I have this?
MR, OEMING: I have changed that to nutrients
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Murray Stein
in there, because we are aiming at nutrients. The under-
lined portions are what I read from.
MR. STEIN: May I — in order to modify it here
for these people, you listen to this, because there is
going to be a change, Larry, Can we say that waste treat-
ment is to be provided by sources in the four States to
achieve an #0 percent reduction of the total phosphorus
loading. Then, within six months each State water
pollution control agency shall list the municipalities
and industries discharging nutrients into the Lake Erie
Basin; the United States Department of Interior will
provide a comparable list of Federal installations. Each
source so listed will indicate whether it discharges
nutrients having a deleterious effect on Lake Erie water
quality, detailed action for treatment of all wastes. All
such wastes shall be developed. The list shall be pre-
sented to the conferees for the review and consideration
of pollution. And that is about it.
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Chairman, I still don't see
where SO percent relates to the Technical Committee's
report, and I thought we had accepted the Technical
Committee's report as the criteria for the water quality
in Lake Erie.
Now, why don't we relate it to the water quality
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George H. Eagle
in Lake Erie rather than the BO percent. This is our
objective, isn't it?
MR. STEIN: Well, as I understood this, sir, this
was worked back.
MR. EAGLE: In one case. In the case of Detroit.
This doesn't apply throughout the basin. Of course, when
he only takes out 80 percent, he doesn't leave any room
for the rest of us either.
MR. STEIN: I talk in terms of 80 percent as
the total loading.
MR. EAGLE: Well, the Technical Committee report
figures out about 92 percent. So I don't know where we
get this BO percent really.
MR. STEIN: I said at least 80 percent.
MR. EAGLE: What is so sacred about BO percent?
MR. STEIN: I thought we came back to that again
in the — there is nothing sacred about BO percent except
in the existence of current technology and the art on day-
to-day routine operation. We are not asking more.
MR. EAGLE: I think some of ours can do better
than 80 percent, and we are stuck with an BO percent
figure when we set this up on a policy statement.
MR. STEIN: I am not sure you are stuck with it.
I see a couple of 80s and 50s in your figures here.
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George H. Eagle
MR. EAGLE: Well, sure. The program isn't
finalized either.
MR. STEIN: I know, but this program is not
finalized. The issue, again, as I understand it — if I
am wrong on these technical facts I wish someone would
let me know — the technical facts are these, as I under-
stand it: that if you get the phosphate removal process
running right, you should have no difficulty at least
theoretically, when we get more experience, of removing
90 percent or more. But to date, it has not been demon-
strated that in the routine operation of a plant we are
able to achieve it, and as administrators, if we ask for
something which cannot be achieved, we may be sending the
program back.
No one is objecting to 90 percent, If it were
demonstrated that you could get 90 percent routinely, I am
sure all of the conferees here would be asking for it.
MR. METZLER: Well, I am not sure. I think
perhaps part of our difficulty here is in whether we are
setting a standard that we absolutely will require if we
permit wastes to continue to be discharged, or whether
we are setting a target. It seems to me that — I am quite
able to support the 0.5 part per million figure. I
wouldn't have submitted it if I hadn't been.
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Murray Stein
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. METZLER: I admit that you are pushing
technology on this, but we haven't gotten to the moon
yet and we are not stopping, and it seems to me that —
well, if we would soften the language a little and say
this is our goal that we would be in a stronger position
to adopt something more stringent, of the order of a half
part or if you don't like that maybe a part per million.
MR. STEIN: Well, again, we are talking in terms
of an action program here, Dwight. What I am trying to
do — and I ask Ohio to listen to this, too — the point
is, George, I am trying to get a compatible program that
you can go along with, as well as these other States, and
we have gotten this far enough over — the point is: If
we are all going to insist on every element in the program,
in our own State program, and not take all four, we are
not going to get anywhere. The point is: what I am saying
is what Mr. Oeming says, as a minimum, or you could say
at least #0 percent.
Now, if you get the half part per million or
half milligram per liter, you are going to do that or
better on the basis of a total loading, Mr. Eagle. If
you get a listing of all your communities -- with the
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Murray Stein
exception of a very few here — in light of what you have
on that listing, if you follow these with the 50 or 100,
and again making allowances for the small ones, if you
follow that pattern, I think you are going to get this,
and we are all talking about the same thing.
If we are going to talk in terms of the doubts
we have dealing with the five-State program, we are not
going to be able to come up with a statement. I am trying
to have us come up with a list where we will all be in the
ball park and be able to evaluate that list on the reduction
showing that within the terms of the art, we really have
folded in a substantial phosphate reduction for this next
go-around on waste treatment plants. This is all we are
trying to do, and this is why I used that figure of SO
percent of the total loadings. That is not for each plant.
And you get your list up and see how close we have come
to it.
MR. EAGLE: Well, see if I understand you now.
We would take this list that I have here and complete
it for the remaining 35, 34 municipalities — the major
municipalities in the basin, which we have a total of about
50.
MR. STEIN: And any industries it would apply
to, if any, right.
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George H. Eagle
MR. EAGLE: And our objective would be to get
at least a minimum of &0 percent.
MR. STEIN: Eighty percent reduction of the total
loading.
MR. EAGLE: But the controlling figure, then,
would be the total number of pounds removed.
MR. STEIN: Tes, sir.
MR. EAGLE: This would be the controlling figure,
right?
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. EAGLE: And, as I understand it now, this
figure should be in the neighborhood of — what is it? —
40,000 pounds?
VOICE: (Inaudible)
MR. STEIN: Let's not have any voices from the
audience. I am sorry.
MR. EAGLE: He is my advisor.
MR. STEIN: Okay, but I didn't want it on the
record. He can talk, but let him identify himself.
MR. EAGLE: Well, in other words, we are supposed
to move a substantial portion of this 40,000 pounds that
has been assigned to Ohio.
MR. STEIN: I don't know that any —
MR. EAGLE: That is what it figures out in the
Technical Committee report.
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George H. Eagle
MR. STEIN; On what basis did they make the
assignment? On the basis of what you are putting out now?
MR. EAGLE: No, this is what the loading is
now, and it has to be reduced by approximately 92 percent,
the total loading, in order to meet the water quality
criteria of 0.15 and 0.25» respectively, in various parts
of the lake, or .01.
What we are interested in are these total pounds
to be removed, right?
MR. STEIN: Yes. In other words, we are going
to ask for a listing to show, and we will consider this
later — a listing to show what you intend to do in each
of your municipalities. The notion is that we will have —
evaluate this on the basis that each State will renove
at least BO percent of the total poundage of phosphates
they are putting in the lake now.
MR. EAGLE: All right.
MR. STUN: All right?
And I think we can all meet that —
MR. EAGLE; I hope this is --
MR. STEIN: If this is not high enough, George,
we are going to take this up the next time and evaluate,
but I think until we — and I think Larry and you, and —
MR. EAGLE: Can you say something about it at
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Murray Stein
this time, or something like this — SO percent at this timet
MR. STEIN: Well, we can indicate that this will
be a first step.
Now, again, let me indicate this to you: This,
to my mind, when we are dealing with a big problem, has
always been the pattern you have to go in pollution control.
For example, when we had the problem on the Hudson, until
we got the lists of all of the communities, we really
could not determine exactly what you were doing until we
got it place by place, and what we have found — I don!t
want anyone to have any illusions here — that as we go
along with the program, there is a tendency to tighten
up and not loosen up, because we are getting, or at least
I think the States and we are asking for higher percentages
as we go along. But for the first go-around, let's look
at this by city-by-city, industry-by-industry, and you
will be able to evaluate the other States' programs. I
think the public will be able to evaluate it and we will
have the program well underway without missing the
deadline, of course.
MR. OEMING: Mr. Chairman.
MR. STEIN: Yes, sir.
MR. OEMING: May I suggest that — I think you
have dictated something here in the way of a conclusion or
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Murray Stein
recommendation that might be typed up and placed before
the conferees in order to have more productive discussion
about what we are talking about here. Would it be
appropriate —
MR. EAGLE: Mr. Chairman, I question whether we
need a statement or policies at this time. We are going
to come back and report progress in six months, and we are
going to do the very best we can.
MR. STEIN: Well, George, we know you are going
to do the best you can, but I think you should know the
ground rules on what the judgment is going to be made on,
when we are going to evaluate this thing.
The issue here, when you come back in six
months, is not that you are going to do the best you
can, because you always do the best you can.
MR. EAGLE: No, you don*t.
MR. STEIN: I was tempted when Dwight made that
suggestion before, knowing him for a quarter of a century,
anything he suggests that costs less than a quarter of
a million dollars I am for, and this only costs $200,000,
so I know it is good.
But the point is: I think we all have to move
ahead compatibly with this, and with the recognition that
all of us are going to look at each other's programs. I
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Murray Stein
think the 30 percent operation on the total loading is
the kind of minimum requirement that the conferees are
going to look at. If a State will come in and say the
best they can do only caused a reduction maybe of 50
percent of the total loadings, and that is from municipal
and industrial sources, I think we should be forewarned
that there may be some eyebrows raised.
MR. EAGLE: Well, I think we have all been
sufficiently forewarned in this regard here today. It
is in the record. I don't know why we need a resolution
to this effect. That is what I am talking about.
MR. STEIN: Let me again get at it this way:
You are going to have several problems here. The problem
that you are going to have is that we want to get the
phosphate issue resolved at this conference so we can
foreclose this and move ahead just to progress meetings,
and I think the Secretary of the Interior is under an
obligation to make a recommendation. I would like to have
it from you people so we can ask him to do it.
The second point you are going to have in
this issue is that in the next six months, or from now
on, you are going to — all five States are going to be
putting in applications for Federal construction grants.
There is no question whether we do anything today or we
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Loring F. Oeming
don't do anything today. The question of phosphate removal
is going to be raised with each one of those projects. I
would think that if we had a statement from the conferees
here, this would immeasurably facilitate the travail you
will have in moving this ahead.
MR. EAGLE: Then we are stuck with #0 percent
removal for that little Podunk town.
MR. STEIN: I did not say that.
MR. EAGLE: But that is the way it is going to
be interpreted by the construction grant people. They
will interpret it that way if we don't make some
qualification.
MR. STEINi I don't read it this way. If you
say the record is clear, it is clear. But I think Mr.
Oeming proposed we put this in writing so we will be
abundantly clear.
MR. OEMING: Maybe I misinterpreted what this
meeting was about, but I thought this was to attempt to
resolve this question and come up with a statement that
was agreeable to the conferees that would be submitted
to the Secretary. This is an open question yet, isn't it,
for the Secretary? If I am wrong, then we might as well
go home, because we are all through discussing. Aren't
we under an obligation, as conferees, to report to the
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Murray Stein
Secretary on this meeting?
MR. STEIN: What?
MR. OEMING: Aren't we under an obligation?
MR. STEIN: I think you are under an obligation
to support it, but I think the Secretary is under an
obligation to make a recommendation and the point is: if
you don't make one, he is going to make one. If you do
make one and you make one unanimously the experience has
shown that he has always adopted that.
Now, this is the choice you have. I think the
likelihood of a rigid requirement for all towns, Mr. Eagle,
is more likely to come if the conferees don't come to a
conclusion than if they do.
MR. EAGLE: You are saying now at least SO
percent of total load.
MR. STEIN: Yes, sir.
MR. EAGLE: Of the total load.
MR. STEIN: Yes, right.
MR. EAGLE: Then, it comes down to an individual
project and how do you judge on this individual project
how much removal this individual project needs?
MR. STEIN: Well, this is the judgment of the
State agency.
MR. EAGLE: Let's put that in there then. This
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Murray Stein
is to be in the judgment of the State agency whether a
little village does or does not need phosphate removal.
MR. STEIN: That is right. Of course, this is
implicit —
MR. EAGLE: But we have problems with construction
grants people, too.
MR. STEIN: This is what Mr. Oeming suggested,
that we reduce this to writing.
MR. EAGLE: All right. If you make this
abundantly clear in the resolution.
MR. STEIN: Surely. This is the point ~ because
you are going to have this anyway.
Now, do you people have time to stay here?
MR. OEMING: Well, yes. Can't you get your
secretary to type this up — what you said on the record
here?
MR. STEIN: Oh, surely. We will be dlighted to
do that.
MR. METZLER: Let's see if we can't try to
dictate this now.
MR. STEIN: Surely.
MR. METZLER: I suggest everybody have one
crack at it. You tried. It sounded pretty good. Let me
try.
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Dwight Metzler
I would like to see this preceded with a statement
that our goal is maximum removal of phosphates from the
large sources of pollution contributary to Lake Erie, and
that we are agreed that each State will submit a plan for
reducing #0 percent of its total phosphate load — not less
than SO percent —
MR. EAGLE: That is a good amendment.
MR. METZLER: — not less than 80 percent of its
total phosphate load in whatever you think is a reasonable
time. Six months has been suggested.
It seems to me a simple two-sentence statement
like that would do the job.
MR. STEIN: Well, I don't know that it gives
him his protection.
MR. METZLER: Oh, and if those bloody construction
grants people don't quit holding up projects, we are going
to start calling our Congressmen. How is that?
MR. STEIN: Well, you do in any event.
Again — and I think this is essential — I
think if you could buy this, can we say: "The conferees
previously adopted the policy of maximum phosphate removal
from municipal and industrial waste sources to protect the
water quality of Lake Erie. At the present time, it is
believed that the States can best move this program forward
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by providing a minimum of an BO percent reduction of
phosphorus — and #0 percent reduction of total phosphorus
loadings from their respective States. A list of projects
indicating phosphate removal to accomplish this shall be
prepared by each State and submitted to the conferees within
six months. Variance of individual sources, particularly
small sources, shall be within the discretion of each
State agency as long as the total phosphorus reduction is
met."
MR. METZLER: Murray, you could clean that last
sentence up by just saying: "The decision as to phosphorus
removal at the small sources is a responsibility of the
State so long as the total loading is met."
MR. STEIN: Right. That is perfectly fine.
Right. Okay?
MR. EAGLE: Sounds all right to me.
MR. STEIN: Now, in addition to that we have —
I don*t know that we have to go over this — two other
conclusions: "One, that a Technical Committee under the
chairmanship of Mr. Oeming to consider pollution from
boats will be established* The Department of the Interior
will supply such clerical and technical assistance as may
be required. The conferees will notify Mr. Oeming and the
clerical staff of its appointments to the committee not
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later than next Friday, the eleventh. The committee will
meet as soon as possible and report to the conferees as to
whether they have a recommendation on controlling of
pollution from boats, or whether they have a proposal
for further meetings of the committee."
MR. EAGLE: Question.
MR. STEIN: Tes.
MR. EAGLE: I would like to ask you and Mr.
Oeming whether this will be primarily directed at proposed
regulation with regard to pleasure craft, or would you
envision it as a technical committee or as an administra-
tive committee?
MR. STEIN: Administrative. Isn't that right?
MR. OEMING: Yes.
MR. EAGLE: So the people that deal with this
administratively should be the ones on this committee.
For instance, our Chief of Watercraft in the State would
be the one that would be on this, I think.
MR. STEIN: I think the big issue, just to put
it bluntly, is to whether you are going to have holding
tanks or macerator chlorinators or a device of that kind
and how you are going to provide it.
MR. EAGLE: In that case maybe you need technical
and administrative people both.
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Is there any objection to having more than
one person?
MR. STEIN: No. What we want to avoid -- and
I think we avoided it here — is the situation that we
have on the Mississippi, where they have one regulation
on one side and one on the other side, and a guy with his
raaoerator chlorinator goes over on the other side and
flushes his boat and then he gets caught by a warden and
fined fifty bucks, and this is the kind of very awkward
situation we get into.
Now, the other is that a technical committee
will be established with Mr. George Eagle of Ohio as
chairman. On request, the Department of Interior will
provide clerical and technical assistance. Members of
this committee — can you get that in, Mr. Eagle, by the
eleventh, too? — will be given to Mr. Eagle by next
Friday, the eleventh, these being Federal and State
members.
This committee shall, within six months or
sooner, if possible, report to the conferees specific
programs including staffing and financing of developing
a model for Lake Erie, the monitoring flow patterns,
control areas and deep water dispersal, as related to the
nutrient problem in Lake Erie, and a program which might
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lead to allocations on a pound-per-day basis among the
five States of nutrient discharges to Lake Erie.
Okay?
Yes, what else?
MR. BOARDMAN: May I go back to the first
conclusion?
MR. STEIN: Yes.
MR. BOARDMAN: Whenever you set a percentage
removal you have to have some base from which to work and
what year base are we going to be talking about as far as
base loads? Are we talking about 1968, 1972, or just what
year base?
MR. STEIN: You mean that #0 percent?
MR. BOARDMAN: Yes.
MR. STEIN: Well, that was purposely left that
way.
Well, if you want to, we can get a base if you
are going to deal with a figure certain. The point is:
I donft think we should delude ourselves that we are
being tremendously precise with this SO percent. I think
what is meant is 80 percent of the current loadings on the
total basis for this program, as you move ahead.
Now, my notion, unless we give you that kind
of flexibility, you are going to be folded into some
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figure. It should be recognized that the SO percent is
just a minimum that we are thinking of in order to make
a judgment of a program and to get this forward. I do
not think we should be thinking in terms of a real
technical operation.
Now, the reason I say that is I think your model
— we are not going to be able to come up with really
meaningful figures on these bases except these guesses
that the Technical Committee had, and they are as good
as any, without the model, the monitoring, the flow
patterns, the control areas, and so forth. Any kind
of precision we get here, we may run into what George was
worried about, that we may lock ourselves into a policy
or a program without knowing too much about what you are
doing.
MR. EAGLE: That is for sure. We don't know what
the problem is; we haven't determined the problem yet.
MR. BOARBMAN: The reason I raised the que stion
is sort of the same theory George expressed that if somehow
these numbers would become the State allocations, if there
were any chance for that, I would at least want the same
base being used.
MR. STEIN: They wouldn't. I suggest you use,
as best you can, BO percent of the current figures, and
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as far as I know, there isn't any better guess than a
Technical Committee. If you can come up with a better
one, fine.
MR. METZLER: Well, what the representative from
Pennsylvania is pointing out here is that if this should
become the base for an allocation, the dirtiest people
are going to be rewarded by having a highest base. It is
just like planting more cotton the year before they estab-
lished the base for cotton, and I certainly would want to
be sure we weren't going to do that.
MR. STEIN: Certainly not, and this is what I
said. The most difficult thing is an allocation operation.
Sometimes we have to do this.
We have had cases, as you probably know, where,
for example, with certain industries, we couldn't get any
figures on their waste loading. People have made a state -
ment — at least technical people and maybe you people
in the States have done it — based on production figures,
and then the industry got all excited and said, no, we
are doing much better than that, and they told us what
we wanted to know in the first place.
We also have one operation with allocation when
we worked this out — and I think this is a matter of public
record — this is the Red River of the North between
Minnesota and North Dakota, we were battling on the pounds
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per day, and this was organic loadings, and there was no
difference. Finally we — maybe arbitrarily — took the
population and we split the river allocation federally
among the two States. Well, the howls reached all of the
way to Washington and back and they said this wasn't any-
thing appropriate for the Federal Government to do, that
this was a State prerogative, and we said, "This is fine."
Then the States got together and made their own
split and allocations and they came up with the same total
pounds per day, because we knew more about that. Any more
than that would have polluted the river, and we have a
program moving ahead.
Now, I am not suggesting — this is going to be
the most difficult thing that we are ever going to be
able to work — a pound allocation here. All I am saying
is that this committee should look into this. I generally
would say that I would approach any definitive notion on
allocation among the States on waste loading into a
watercourse with extreme care. If we can lick this without
that, this may be fine.
But, again, to you fellows here: Do not think
that we are forming any basis for allocation because that
is the most touchy area you can get into in the water
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program, as you well know.
MR. BOARDMAN: We have had quite a bit of
experience with allocating waste loads in the Delaware
Estuary, too, so I know what the problem is.
MR. STEIN: And if you have been reading the
papers and reading about Arizona and California, they have
had some problems in allocation, too.
MR. METZLER: Since 1920.
MR. POSTON: I would like to go back to this
same recommendation or conclusion that you have drawn
here and ask a question with regards to the terminal date
for construction of these waste treatment facilities that
would remove phosphate. This would still reman as —
MR. STEIN; That hasn't been changed.
MR. POSTON: — 1971.
MR. STEIN: What we are dealing with here is
a compliance report.
Now, if we get these lists — we always have
this question — you know, someone asks me about these
conclusions of the conference, and they say, MHow firm are
they?" And they are just firm until the next negotiations,
and this doesn't mean that sometimes we don't negotiate
and we go to court or go on, but if the lists come in
and we see that we don't have any realistic figures, the
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conferees are going to review that next time. Now, this
isn't unusual. I think we are going to be faced with that
problem in your home base of Chicago at the end of this
year.
MB. POSTON: Well, I think this could be made
very advantageously as an addition to this.
MR. STEIN: That what?
MR. POSTON: That the terminal date for construc-
tion of these phosphate removal facilities will remain
as 1971.
MR. STEIN: I have no objection to that.
Is that all right? Okay.
Any other comments or questions?
MR. METZLER: I think the record ought to have
been cut before Poston got on it with that last comment
of his.
Two years ago, I got bloodied up on my way to
report to work in New York from this conference pointing
out the unrealistic time dates that had been set, and I
am not going to do it again. Detroit isn't going to have
any treatment works built by 1971.
MR. OEMING: How do you know? Do you want to
bet? .
MR. STEIN: Wait a minute. Do you fellows want
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this on the record?
MR. METZLER: I thought we struck the record
just before Wally made his statement.
MR. STEIN: Let's go off the record.
MR. POSTON: We didn't.
MR. STEIN: Let's go off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. STEIN: Are there any other questions?
Does anyone else want to say something?
MR. OEMING: I don't want to say anything.
MR. STEIN: If not, then I want to thank you
for coming.
By the way, I really do think we have accomplished
a lot here, and what we, I think have done: We are on our
way and gotten over the hump of the most vexing problem
in the Lake Erie cleanup situation. This, without a
doubt, has been our most difficult problem here. I think
we are on our way. I do think that we have a realistic
time schedule, and I think what we are doing is everything
that the state of the art can ask for at the present time.
I think also — and I don't want to end on this
last pessimistic note — but I think Mr. Metzler's point
should be well taken. What we do in phosphate removal
and what we are doing with primary or secondary treatment
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isn't going to be a guarantee that we are going to have
a clean lake without anything more. If we do, I will be
very much surprised. This is a beginning. We ask you to
be realistic in looking for the results of what we are
going to do. We are going to keep looking at this lake
very, very carefully, and I do believe that if we are going
to preserve Lake Erie as a great freshwater resource, it
is going to take continuing effort, and applying continuing
knowledge, and spending a lot more money as facts come
forward.
But I do think we have taken a significant first
step and with this phosphate removal I think we will be
taking the first great giant step for our time.
Thank you very much. We stand adjourned.
(Whereupon, at 1:00 p.m., the conference was
adjourned.)
U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE • 1963 O - 328-294
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