United States Office of
Environmental Protection Planning and Management
Agency Program Evaluation Division
v°/EPA National
Accomplishments
in Pollution
Control: 1970-1980
Some Case Histories
December, 1980
Prepared by:
The Office of Planning and Evaluation
in cooperation with
The Regional Offices
The Office of Public Awareness, and
The Audio Visual Support Branch
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A MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR
"National Accomplishments in Pollution Control:
1970-1980" is a collection of case histories that
describe successful efforts across the Nation over the
last ten years to clean up or prevent further
deterioration of the environment. We could not cite all
of the cases where citizens, industries, and State,
local, and federal agencies have worked either individ-
ually or in concert to make improvements in the
environment. What we have tried to do in this report is
to present case histories which are emblematic of the
national effort and indicative of the kinds of things
which vision, commitment and teamwork can
accomplish.
Although "National Accomplishments" focuses on
examples of what has been done over the past decade
to improve environmental quality, the report also
emphasizes that many challenges still face us. It is
critical that all those concerned about meeting those
challenges work even harder in the new decade, and
that they strengthen their efforts to identify and
implement new, more effective means of controlling
and preventing pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency will work to
encourage an effective partnership of all of the
individuals (industry, unions, citizens, government)
concerned about improving the environment, and will
also continue to seek innovative measures in pollution
control.
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Table of Contents
ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
TOWARD CLEANER WATER
THE CLEAN WATER ACT
PROTECTING RIVERS, STREAMS, AND LAKES
TWO CITIZEN TRIUMPHS
The Buffalo River: One Man's Victory 9
The Willamette River: Revitalized by Citizens'
Concerns 10
THE RIVERS OF THE NORTHEAST
The Penobscot River: Return of the Salmon 13
The Winooski River: Clear Again 14
The Pemigewasset River: A Trout Stream Again . 14
The Contoocook River: Safe for Recreation 14
The Nashua River: A Good Start 14
The Connecticut River: Salmon are Caught
Again 14
The Naugatuck and Housatonic Rivers: Sharing
Cleanup Benefits 15
The Willimantic River: The Trout Return 15
The Mohawk River: A Substantial Comeback 15
The Hudson River: A More Complex Problem 16
The Upper Susquehanna River: Healthy Again ... 17
WATERS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC STATES
The Hackensack River: Breeding Ground for
Waterfowl 19
The Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers and
Raritan Bay: Open for Shellfish Harvesting
Again 20
The Smyrna, St. Jones, and Mispillion Rivers
and Silver Lake: A Regional Treatment
System Works 21
Gwynns Falls: No Longer A Problem 21
RIVERS OF THE SOUTH
The French Broad River: Signs of Success 23
Ellerbee Creek and the Neuse River: Improved
Operation of a Treatment Plant 23
The Lower Savannah River: Significant
Improvement 24
The Chattahoochee River: On the Road To
Recovery 24
Sope Creek: The Palisades Protected 24
Rottenwood and Nickajack Creeks: No
Danger Now 25
The Flint River: Progress Through Improved
Treatment Plant Operation 25
Bogue Lusa Creek and the Pearl River: A
Remarkable Recovery 25
The Neches River: Saved for Recreation 26
THE GREAT LAKES BASIN
THE GREAT LAKES
Lake Erie: Aging More Slowly 29
Lake Ontario: Tangible Improvements 30
Lake Michigan: Signs of Progress 31
Lake Huron: A Noticeable Improvement 31
Lake Superior: A New Concern 31
THE BEACHES
Sterling State Park: In Use Again 33
Chicago's North Shore: A Successful
Diversion 33
A NEW THREAT—TOXICS
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE ERIE
The Cuyahoga River: Significantly Improved 33
The Detroit River and the River Rouge: A
Major Success 34
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE ONTARIO
The Black River: New Treatment Systems 35
The Genesee River: Discharges Controlled 35
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE MICHIGAN
The Grand River: Continued Improvement 35
The Kalamazoo River: Challenges Still Ahead .... 36
The Fox River and Green Bay: Major
Discharge Reductions 36
The Indiana Harbor Canal: Improvement Still
Needed 35
The Calumet River: Improved 35
NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI
The Wisconsin River: Coordinated
Enforcement Worked 37
The Maunesha River: Improvements and
Problems 37
WATERS OF THE HEARTLAND
Wilson's Creek: Safety With a Bonus 39
Grove and Center Creeks: Marked Reduction
in Pollutants 39
The North Canadian River: Improved by
Wastewater Recycling 40
Gold Run and Whitewood Creeks: After
the Gold Rush 40
The South Platte River: An Innovative Penalty
Agreement 41
WATERWAYS MADE BY PEOPLE
The Sac River and Stockton Lake, Missouri:
An Unusual Dissolved Oxygen Problem 43
The Houston Ship Channel:
A Reawakening 44
Dillon Reservoir, Colorado: A Growth
Problem Solved 44
SOME SMALLER LAKES
Lake Annabessacook, Maine: A Unique
Approach to Pollution Control 47
Rangeley Lake and Haley Pond, Maine: A
Quickly Identified Problem 48
Lake Quinsigamond, Massachusetts:
Controlling Urban Runoff 49
Mississinewa Reservoir, Long Lake, and Hog
Back Lake, Indiana: Controlling Algae 49
Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota: Diverting
Treated Sewage Effluents 49
Lake Taneycomo, Missouri: An Environmentally
Sound Solution 50
Lake Utah, Utah: Joint Action to Reduce the
Pollution Burden 50
RESTORING OUR BAYS, HARBORS, AND
ESTUARIES
Charleston Harbor: Restored 53
Escambia Bay, East Bay, Pensacola Bay, and
Santa Rosa Sound: A Remarkable Recovery.... 54
Perdido Bay and Eleven-Mile Creek: A Revival ... 55
Kodiak Harbor and Gibson Cove: Substantially
Reduced Discharges 55
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PROTECTING COASTAL WATERS
TOWARD CLEANER AIR
THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST
The New York Bight: Successful Reductions of
Sludge 59
The Delaware and Maryland Coasts: An End to
Ocean Dumping 60
THE GULF OF MEXICO: CURTAILING TOXICS
DISPOSAL
MINIMIZING NONPOINT SOURCE POLLUTION
The Monongahela River and Dents Run:
Pollution From the Mines 63
Black Creek: Controlling Pollution from
Agriculture 65
The Colorado River: A Salinity Problem 66
PROMOTING SAFE DRINKING WATER
PROTECTING GROUNDWATER
Hobbs, New Mexico: Conserving Groundwater
The O'Neill Reservoir, Nebraska: Applying
Best Management Practices
.. 69
PROTECTING AGAINST TOXICS
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Stopping Carbon
Tetrachloride 70
Huron, South Dakota: A Chlormation Problem 70
Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Lead Danger Reduced 70
CORRECTING OTHER PROBLEMS
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma: Protecting Drinking
Water 70
Elmo, Texas: Safe Water Again 71
Neskowm, Oregon: Enforcing Drinking Water
Safety 71
APPLYING ALTERNATIVE AND INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGY
THE GREAT LAKES REGION
Crystal Lake, Green Lake, the Steuben Lakes,
and Others: Savings with a New Approach .... 73
Muskegon County, Michigan: Land Application of
Wastewater 74
FLORIDA
St. Petersburg: Using Effluent for Irrigation 74
Largo: Drying and Selling Sludge 75
Pearl Bayou and St. Andrews Bay: Zero
Discharge to Protect Coastal Resources 75
Choctawatchee Bay and Santa Rosa Sound:
Spray Irrigation Allows for Coastal Recreation
and Shellfish Harvesting 75
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
Micronesia: New Sewer Systems
75
A CONTINUING SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS
Florida: The Citrus Industry 77
The Snake River: Reducing the Impact of Cattle
Feedlots 77
The Boise and Snake Rivers: Potato Processing 77
Hawaii: The Sugar Mills 79
THE CLEAN AIR ACT
The Health and Economic Benefits of Air
Pollution Control 83
PROGRESS TOWARD ATTAINING AIR QUALITY
STANDARDS
SO2 AND PARTICULATES—TWIN PROBLEMS
AREAS WHERE AIR QUALITY STANDARDS ARE
NOW BEING MET
New England: Early Success in SO2 and
Paniculate Control 85
The Midwest: Another Example of Compliance ... 85
The West: Planning for Continued Control 86
AREAS WHERE THE CLEANUP IS CONTINUING
New York City 86
Philadelphia 86
Birmingham 87
Detroit 87
Gary 87
Chicago 87
CONTROLLING STATIONARY SOURCES
POWER PLANTS
Nashville, Tennessee: A Facility for Resource
Recovery 89
The Tennessee River Valley: Civil Actions Bring
Improvements 89
Alma, Wisconsin: Reducing S02 and
Particulates 90
LaCygne, Kansas: Using Limestone Slurry
Scrubbers 90
Kansas City, Missouri: Planned Control
Systems 90
Colstrip, Montana: Preventing Significant
Deterioration 90
STEEL MILLS
Fontana, California: Enforcement Actions
Have Worked 90
Steel Mills Elsewhere 91
COPPER SMELTERS
Magna, Utah: Using a New Process 91
ALLOWING FOR GROWTH
New Stanton, Pennsylvania: Encouraging New
Industry 93
Detroit, Michigan: Offsets Allow a Lime Kiln 93
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Shreveport,
Louisiana: New General Motors Plants 93
CONTROLLING MOBILE SOURCES
EMISSIONS STANDARDS
VAPOR RECOVERY
The District of Columbia 95
Texas 95
Colorado 95
California 95
PROMOTING INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE OF
MOTOR VEHICLES
Portland, Oregon 96
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REDUCING VEHICLE USAGE
Arlington, Virginia 97
California 97
Portland, Oregon 97
PRESERVING NATURAL SYSTEMS
PRESERVING THE WETLANDS
Puerto Rico: Protecting the Mangrove Forests 101
St. Charles Parish, Louisiana: Redesigning a
Highway to Save Valuable Wetlands 102
Puget Sound: Eliminating a Poorly Sighted
Landfill 102
PROTECTING FISH AND WILDLIFE
The Middle Arkansas River: Saving a Fishery 102
Coleto Creek, Texas: Protecting a Natural Habitat 103
Diablo Canyon, California: Protecting Marine Life .. 103
Yellowstone National Park: Protecting Our
National Heritage 103
SAVING RARE AND THREATENED BIRDS
The Osprey 104
The Peregrine Falcon 104
The Bald Eagle 104
The Brown Pelican 104
CONTROLLING PESTS WHILE PROTECTING THE
ENVIRONMENT
Puerto Rico: Controlling Schistosomiasis 105
The Pacific Northwest: Controlling Tussock
Moths Safely 105
PROTECTING THE LAND
EFFECTVELY CONTROLLING SOLID WASTE
IMPROVING LAND DISPOSAL PRACTICES
Wisconsin: Successful Landfills 109
The Midwest: Upgrading Land Disposal
Practices 110
Denver, Colorado: Reducing the Methane
Hazard 110
SLUDGE—A NEW WORRY
Lake County, Illinois: Sensible Sludge Disposal ..111
RESOURCE RECOVERY—ANOTHER SOLUTION
TO THE SOLID WASTE PROBLEM
SOLID WASTE AS A SOURCE OF ENERGY
North Little Rock, Arkansas: Energy from
Municipal Waste 112
Kansas City, Kansas: Energy from Wood
Waste 112
Denver, Colorado: Saving Energy by
Recycling Paper 112
SOURCE SEPARATION
Rockford, Illinois: Making Money with
Source Separation 112
SALVAGING ABANDONED CARS
Kentucky: Profiting From an Auto Graveyard ... 113
Montana: Underwriting Salvage Operations.... 114
REDUCING WASTE: THE BOTTLE BILLS
Oregon: The First Bottle Bill
115
HAZARDOUS WASTE-A NEWLY RECOGNIZED
THREAT
Love Canal, New York: The Long Term Effects
of Inadequate Hazardous Waste Disposal 117
Atkinson, Illinois: An Example of Proper
Hazardous Waste Disposal 118
Recycling Industrial Waste 118
Coping With a Specialized Hazardous Waste
Problem—HCN 119
Radium Waste in Denver—a Newly Discovered
Problem 119
Helping Correct the Asbestos Problem 119
RESPONDING TO ENVIRONMENTAL
EMERGENCIES
THE PCB PROBLEM
McGirts Creek, Florida: Treating PCB-
Contaminated Wastewater 123
Frontenac, Missouri: Correcting Improper PCB
Storage Practices 123
Kansas City, Missouri: Assisting with Proper
PCB Disposal 123
St. Louis, Missouri: Safety Procedures for
Transformers 124
Newton, Kansas: The Repercussios of PCB
Contamination of Livestock 124
Lafayette, Colorado: Coping with Pure PCBs 125
Billings, Montana: PCB Contamination of Poultry
Feed 125
Los Angeles, California: Minimizing PCB
Discharges 126
The Duamish Waterway, Washington: Undoing
the Effects of a PCB Spill 126
COPING WITH OTHER HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
Clarksburg Pond, New Jersey: Decontaminating
After a Spill 127
The Ramapo River, New Jersey: Keeping a Plant
Operating Without Polluting 127
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Tracing a
Contaminant to Its Source 127
Baltimore, Maryland: Danger from Rocket Fuel 127
The Plains, Virginia: Decontamination Needed
Again 127
Belle, West Virginia: Stopping DMN Discharge 128
Williams Creek, Kentucky: A Quick Response
Protects the Ohio 128
Lowe, Kentucky: A Train Derailment Releases
Toxic Chemicals 128
Marion County, Kentucky: Danger Averted 128
Shepherdsville, Kentucky: The Valley of the
Drums 128
Harrodsburg, Kentucky: A Detective Story 129
Chattanooga, Tennessee: The Aftermath of a
Bankruptcy 129
Memphis, Tennessee: Response to an
Industrial Fire 129
The Saline River, Kansas: Another Major
Disaster Averted 130
Ogden Bay, Utah. Preventing an Environmental
Disaster 130
Spill Response Cooperatives 131
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INVOLVEMENT OF EPA RESEARCH SCIENTISTS IN
SPILL RESPONSE
North Carolina: PCBs Along the Roadways 131
Dittmer, Missouri: Danger from Rainwater Overflow.. 133
SPILL PREVENTION
DEALING WITH THE NOISE PROBLEM
THE NEW FOCUS IS ON LOCAL ACTION
The Quiet Communities Program 136
The ECHO Program: Each Community Helps Others .. 136
Regional Technical Assistance Centers 136
Dissemination of Public Information 136
COMMUNITY-ORIENTED NOISE REDUCTION
PROPOSALS
Allentown, Pennsylvania 137
Fort Dodge, Iowa 137
Camp Grayling, Michigan 137
IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING
ASSESSING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF
EPA'S ACTIONS
Yarmouth, Massachusetts 140
REVIEWING OTHER FEDERAL ACTIONS
Highways 140
Reservoirs 141
Planning for Roadless Areas in National Forests 141
MINIMIZING THE ADVERSE EFFECTS OF ENERGY
DEVELOPMENT
EPA's Energy Policy Statement for the Rocky Mountain
Prairie Region 142
Oil Shale Development in the Rocky Mountain Region
Helping Communities Cope with Energy-Related
Growth 143
SOME FINAL WORDS
THE FUTURE
GLOSSARY AND INDEX
GLOSSARY OF WASTEWATERTREATMENTTERMS
GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX
VI
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About This Publication
How are we progressing in our efforts to achieve a
cleaner, healthier environment? To what extent have we
succeeded in protecting public health and the environ-
ment from the liquid, solid, and gaseous pollutants that
endanger the water, the air, and the land on which we
and all living things depend?
This publication presents examples, using individual
case histories, of what has been achieved over the past
decade in the nationwide effort to reduce the adverse
effects of pollution. It is a brief look at some specific
environmental accomplishments. It is an effort to show
that there is hope for a stressed and threatened environ-
ment—and to show that while science and technology
do not yet have all the answers, workable pollution
controls are available and can make a significant dif-
ference when they are applied.
Some words of caution, however. This publication is
not intended to be a catalog of every pollution control
accomplishment. Nor is it intended to be a comprehen-
sive survey of nationwide progress or trends. It does not
go into much detail on the many serious problems that
still remain. And it does not seek to examine whether the
accomplishments reported here have been achieved as
rapidly as the public had hoped or as our statutes have
required.
On the contrary, the purpose of this publication is
much more modest. It is simply an attempt to present a
glimpse of some of the kinds of environmental
accomplishments that have occurred.
Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) has been directed by Congress to implement a
series of laws enacted over the past decade to protect
public health and the environment, the struggle for a
cleaner, healthier environment did not begin with the
birth of EPA in December 1970. That struggle was being
waged by State and local governments and by EPA's
predecessor agencies in the Federal government long
before EPA was created Furthermore, most of the
improvements since the creation of EPA have been a
triumph not of EPA alone but of a close Federal, State, and
local partnership in conjunction with significant initia-
tives taken by forward-thinking companies, citizen groups
and even individuals.
The case histories in this publication are examples of
how that partnership can work for a better environment.
They were collected from EPA's Regional Offices across
the country and include examples from nearly every
area of pollution control. There are few unqualified suc-
cesses Hard-won gains are always subject to unexpected
setbacks. The unresolved problems are many, and new
ones are constantly being uncovered.
Nevertheless, while much remains to be done, the
accomplishments cited in this publication, both large and
small, offer evidence—and hope— that with time and
continued efforts, much can be done to achieve a cleaner
and more healthful environment.
EPA works in more than half a dozen major areas
associated with pollution of the environment—air,
water, toxic substances, pesticides, solid waste,
radiation, and noise. Often, change for the better can-
not be seen until long after a pollution control effort
has begun. Sometimes, in the case of persistent
pollutants, it cannot be seen until long after the dis-
charge of the problem pollutant has been stopped. Pol-
lution that has been decades in the making is not
cleaned up overnight That is why this document
focuses on progress over the last ten years.
We used three indicators of whether the quality of the
environment has improved or is soon likely to improve:
First, evidence can be observed first hand. There are
fewer human deaths and illnesses linked to pollution.
Fish and animals return to once polluted waters or
terrain. The economic losses decline—fewer farm crops
are damaged and fewer businesses hurt. Or the air is
cleaner, the water visibly cleaner, or there is no longer
an unpleasant odor or an irritating, unnecessary noise.
Second, the concentrations of pollutants actually in
the air or water or on the land have diminished.
Third, the volume of pollutants being released into the
air or discharged into the water or onto the land has
been reduced.
Whenever possible, we have cited conclusive, first-
hand, visible evidence or improvement in this report.
But where such indicators are not readily available, we
have then relied on evidence that fewer pollutants are in
the environment or that fewer are entering it.
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Toward Cleaner Water
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THE CLEAN WATER ACT
Water pollution became a serious and widespread
problem with the tremendous industrial and population
booms of the last hundred years.
The pollution quickly increased and the problem grew
worse in the years following World War II, when use of
man-made chemicals became more widespread and
began to assume tremendous importance in our daily
lives. Industries and cities increasingly used rivers as
dumping grounds for their wastes, and many of the
Nation's streams began to run heavy with pollution. By
the mid-1960's, water pollution had reached intolerable
levels in many areas.
By the mid-1970's, however, a nationwide attack on
the problem was well under way and was beginning to
turn the tide.
In 1972 Congress passed a major amendment to the
Federal Water Pollution Control Act. That Act, which has
since been amended further and is now known as the
Clean Water Act, was tough legislation. It gave EPA broad
responsibility and authority to oversee the cleanup of the
Nation's waters.
Under the Act, EPA is required to issue effluent guide-
lines which are used in setting discharge limitations on
industrial and municipal polluters. The Act established
two "goals" for the Nation—(1) "fishable" and "swim-
mable" waters by 1983, and (2) ultimately, no discharge
at all of pollutants into waterways.
Every point source of industrial or municipal pollution
must have a permit limiting its discharge. The permits,
based on effluent guidelines where they are available,
are issued either by the Federal government—under a
program called the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES)—or by States that have
assumed responsibility for issuing the permits. When
permits are issued, limitations are placed on the amount
of pollution that may legally be discharged.
EPA has now developed effluent guidelines for most
major industries. The States have set water quality
standards, based on water quality criteria, that the
streams and lakes receiving the discharges must meet-
even if that means treatment requirements more
stringent than those called for in the EPA effluent guide-
lines.
To limit pollution from municipal sources, EPA adminis-
ters a multi-billion dollar program of Federal grants to
cities and States for construction of municipal sewage
treatment systems. EPA also attempts to control pollution
from "nonpoint sources," like runoff from agricultural
and silvicultural operations. Nonpoint source polluters may
be required to employ "best management practices" which
reduce the amount and impact of the runoff.
There Are Diverse Problems
When massive water pollution control efforts began
after a century or more of quickening municipal and
industrial water pollution, attention was focused on
two problems: high levels of pathogens (disease-causing
organisms) and low levels of dissolved oxygen.
Pathogens—primarily bacteria and viruses—enter
the Nation's waters largely through municipal sewage.
Fecal coliform bacteria, though benign themselves,
are a widely used indicator of the number of pathogens
present in sewage. Fecal coliform are present in the
excrement of warm-blooded animals. High levels of
fecal coliform are a sign of contamination by sewage
and indicate a high likelihood that disease-causing
organisms from sewage are also present.
Dissolved oxygen (DO) becomes a problem when the
level of oxygen drops so low that fish are unable to
breathe. Low DO levels can cause extensive fish kills.
DO levels decline in the face of oxygen-demanding
pollutants carried in municipal sewage or industrial
wastewater—especially those from pulp and paper mills
and from the food processing industry—with high bio-
chemical oxygen demand (BOD) or chemical oxygen
demand (COD).
By the late 1970's a third kind of water pollution that
required intensive action—toxics—had been identified.
Toxics are pollutants that have received significant
attention only in the last decade. They result primarily
from industrial activity and generally fall into two
broad categories: metals and toxic organics. Toxic
metals include cadmium and mercury, both of which
have devastating health impacts at relatively low
concentrations. Toxic organics are primarily
petroleum-derived synthetics and include some of the
most deadly substances known to man.
EPA has now begun to mount programs to deal with
the growing threat of toxic pollutants. In most areas of
the country, most streams have never been monitored
for toxics Therefore, there may be many streams with
significant toxics problems of which we are not yet
aware. Uncertainty about toxic levels must therefore
be a standing caveat to all the water quality case
histories that follow. Nevertheless, with the strong
efforts now being made both to monitor and to control
toxic pollutants, significant reductions in toxics levels
should occur.
There Has Been Progress
Many rivers, lakes, bays, and estuaries are still
heavily polluted. But where the States and cities have
acted—in most cases with substantial assistance from
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—less waste
is being dumped and the waters are cleaner In some
cases the changes are dramatic—water bodies recently
thought to be dying are now seeing new life.
The extent to which significant improvement has
already occurred is heartening. Because of continuing
control efforts, further improvement is assured. For
many rivers, streams, and lakes, higher water quality
depends only on the completion of projects now under
way. For others, where pollution problems are more
difficult to control, work is well under way to develop
effective methods for addressing these more intractable
problems.
Meanwhile, there are clear signs that as treatment
plants are built, as industries continue to comply with
discharge requirements and as best management
practices are developed and applied, water quality will
improve. The case histories that follow document some
of those signs from rivers and streams all over the
country, some famous, some little known, but all of them
bearing witness that we can continue to have cleaner
water if we work at it.
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Protecting
Rivers,
Streams,
and Lakes
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The Buffalo River
The Willamette River
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Two Citizen Triumphs
Often an environmental victory is a tribute to the
actions of private citizens acting either as individuals or
as members of a concerned community. In the earliest of
these cases such people were not able to employ the
sanctions of legal authority; they had to rely instead on a
tireless resolve and a will to right an environmental
wrong. If not for them, the work might not have been
done, or if done, certainly not done as quickly as it was.
Two examples shine through in the history of recent
river cleanup efforts. One concerns an eastern river, the
Buffalo. It was once polluted to the extreme, but is now
well on the way to a new life and stands as a testimonal to
the persistence of one man and a responsive State
agency. The other deals with a big western river, the
Willamette, and is a tribute to organized citizen action. In
both cases, pollution control efforts begun earlier were
brought much closer to completion with the increased
authority of the 1972 Amendments to the Clean Water
Act.
The Buffalo River: One Man's Victory
Until the 1700's, the Buffalo River was but a narrow,
shallow stream emptying into the Niagara. It was a
stream small enough that it could be worked with,
shaped, contoured, and controlled.
In 1818, it was dredged deeper upstream and its flow
was redirected. A century later it was straightened,
widened, and dredged still further upstream. With the
constant widening and deepening, it ran progressively
slower.
This shaping and reshaping continued into the
1960's, until, during the summer months, there was
little or no discharge from the river at all. Indeed, it
sometimes flowed upstream as water backed into it from
Lake Erie.
In 1953, the New York State Water Pollution Control
Board held a public hearing to classify all New York State
streams. They were to be put in categories from Class
AA (drinking water pure) to Class D (fit only for agricul-
tural and industrial uses). Industry spokesmen argued
at the hearing that a classification between C and D was
appropriate for the Buffalo River, and that Class C was
unattainable. What they preferred was a classification
that would permit industry to continue to discharge into
the Buffalo's surface waters with minimum treatment.
In the audience at that hearing sat a retired Buffalo
jeweler and realtor named Stanley P. Spisiak. He was
not new to the conservation struggle. For 20 years he
had been waging a one-man campaign against
defilement of Lake Erie and its tributaries. At the end of
the public hearings he demanded a second hearing in 60
days to permit a careful weighing of industry's evidence.
It was granted.
Spisiak came to the second hearing armed with
support from hundreds of people and organizations, data
from the U.S. Public Health Service, which then had
responsibility within the Federal government for water
pollution control activities, and the backing of the
Canadian government
When the hearing was over, the Niagara River and
certain upper reaches of its tributary, the Buffalo, had
been assigned a Class A rating. That meant that from
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then on the water quality of the Buffalo had to be
drastically improved
A two-decade long struggle against pollution of the
river followed. In 1965, the city of Buffalo issued bonds
to finance the multi-million dollar Buffalo River
Improvement Project. The cost was to be amortized by
the five major industries on the river over a 20-year
span.
In 1965, each industry along the river was told by the
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, an EPA
predecessor agency, to submit wastewater abatement
plans with a target date of 1970 for achievement of
planned pollution controls. Primary responsibility for
locating the sources of pollution on the river and finding
the best ways to treat it fell to Eugene F. Seebald, then
Regional Director of the New York State Department of
Health for the Buffalo area and now Director of the
State's Division of Water, New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation In 1966, he surveyed the
river by helicopter and boat and traced the discharges
Seebald organized a joint task force of Federal, State,
county, and city representatives for cooperative
surveillance of the river—one of the first of its kind in the
country. The task force met biweekly until it had
adequate knowledge of the nature of the pollution, its
sources, and its effect on the river. Then, armed with a
carrot and a stick—tax incentives to industries that would
agree to build their own treatment plants and legal
authority to compel pollution abatement if necessary—
the Buffalo region launched an all-out campaign to clean
up the river
Conditions slowly began to change—which was
remarkable considering the degree and duration of the
pollution. In 1968, the river was an environmental
disaster. A study found no oxygen and little life through-
out most of its length. The river was so polluted by
steel, chemical, petrochemical, and coke plants around
Buffalo that its ink-black, oil-fouled surface broke into
flames on four separate occasions. It was poisoned by oil
spills, phenols, iron, and unoxidized steel wastes, and by
nutrients from municipal wastes. By 1970, dissolved
oxygen was beginning to return, and pollution-tolerant
organisms were reappearing Two years later, dissolved
oxygen could be measured in the river at every depth, and
a fish—a sheepshead—was caught m the Buffalo River
for the first time in 30 years. That catch made the front
pages and editorial pages of newspapers throughout
the Niagara peninsula and western New York.
The river is still polluted. Although upstream reaches
are Class A or B, it is still Class D within the Buffalo city
limits. Municipal sewage is still a major problem, and
remaining problems of toxic substances, although subject
to intensive control efforts, have not yet been eliminated.
But the Buffalo is no longer the oil-covered, methane-
belching, stagnant, and flammable cesspool it was in
1970
The waters of the Buffalo River have now changed from
black to brownish-green in color and are growing
cleaner. A new waterfront city has emerged at the
mouth of the river, at Buffalo Harbor. A new marina sits
at the river's entrance, and a hotel is proposed for the
immediate shoreline. A new waterfront complex,
including a tree-lined walkway and a fishing area, is now
in place.
After 10 years of water pollution control work under
New York State's Pure Waters Program, the river has
gone from a "bad" rating (below 50) in 1968 to its
current "medium" rating in the 65 to 70 range (based on
a 0 to 100 scale).
As Stanley Spisiak said: "There are substantial
numbers offish in the Buffalo River now for the first time
in 75 years, even as far as the Harlem Road Bridge. Why,
you can see men from Republic Steel and National
Aniline on their lunch hour fishing for carp near the
South Park Bridge."
Stanley Spisiak is now a recognized environmental
hero. Newspapers have paid him editorial tribute and EPA
has honored him with a well-earned special award. His
is a classic case of a single citizen's triumph.
The Willamette River: Revitalized by Citizens' Concern
The Willamette, a giant of a river, the Nation's twelfth
largest in water flow, is a stream of great beauty and of
great importance.
Within its watershed stands much of Oregon's timber
and farmland. Two-thirds of the State's population lives
within its basin, and the basin contributes the same
proportion of the State's industrial output. It is a major
source of domestic and industrial water supply and is the
mainstay of irrigation, navigation, power production,
fishing, fish propagation, and recreation in western
Oregon.
Today the great majority of municipal and industrial
wastewater sources on the Willamette are meeting
Federal and State environmental requirements for
conventional pollutants. The river is alive with migratory
salmon, native trout, and other game fish It is used for
every form of water recreation—fishing, swimming,
boating, and canoeing.
It was not always so. In the early 1920's, the Oregon
State Board of Health found the Portland harbor area
of the lower Willamette severely polluted. All industries
and municipalities on the river were then dumping their
untreated wastes into the water.
In 1927, the Portland City Club called the Willamette
"ugly and filthy." Construction workers refused to work
along its banks. A study conducted at that time by the
Oregon Agriculture College—now Oregon State
University—showed that levels of dissolved oxygen in
the river were dropping below 0 5 parts per million at
Portland, where the Willamette joins the Columbia. Five
parts per million—ten times the level measured—is the
minimum level needed for fish to survive in the river.
As late as 1 967 the Izaak Walton League was
describing the lower Willamette as a "stinking slimy
mess, a menace to public health, aesthetically offensive
and a biological cesspool." Sulfite waste liquors toxic
to fish were entering the water from paper mills and were
lowering oxygen concentrations dangerously close to
levels so low that they are lethal to migrating salmon.
Rafts of sludge up to six feet across, buoyed by gases of
decomposition, flecked the river upstream from Portland
Harbor. Downstream from Willamette Falls, stringy
bacterial slime attached to floating wood fibers fouled
the river.
Oregonians, however, tried to fight the pollution.
In the late 1920's, the Portland City Club surveyed the
city's residents and found that 48 percent of them
favored anti-pollution legislation for the river.
It took a decade, however, before this concern could be
translated into action In 1938, after the State legislature
failed to act, the Oregon electorate passed, by a 3 to 1
vote, a referendum creating a State Sanitary Authority
and a comprehensive water quality control law. Within
nine years the first municipal sewage treatment plant
was on line on the Willamette. In the next decade all cities
in the valley built primary treatment plants.
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By 1969 all of the plants had been upgraded and
pollution from domestic sewage wastes had been
reduced by 85 percent. The river, however, was still
dirty. The main polluters now remaining were the pulp
and paper mills.
Cleanup of the Willamette became a major issue in the
1966 gubernatorial campaign. Both candidates were
pledged to it. The man who won, Tom McCall, later
personally chaired the eight-month-long water quality
standard-setting sessions of the Oregon Sanitary
Authority. In that brief period the Authority set standards
not only for the Willamette, but also for all the other
interstate and intrastate waters in Oregon, standards
that were to be among the first in the country to win
Federal approval under the 1965 Federal Water Quality
Act.
In 1967, the Oregon legislature, supported by the
electorate, completely rewrote and streamlined the
State's water quality laws, and in 1969 the legislature
strengthened them further. By the time major Clean
Water Amendments were passed in 1972, Oregon was
already closing in on the target set five years before for a
revitalized Willamette.
Since 1973 the State has used the new authority of
the 1972 Amendments to the Clean Water Act to issue
permits limiting the discharges from all industrial and
municipal facilities dumping into the river. The State's
permit program to improve the Willamette River water
quality has been assisted by the release of water from
upstream Corps of Engineers storage projects to
overcome dissolved oxygen depletion during summer
low flow periods.
There are no more sludge rafts, nor are there high
bacteria levels in the Willamette Every "unsafe for
swimming" sign has disappeared. Even in Portland
Harbor, dissolved oxygen levels have risen above the 5
parts per million minimum needed for fish to thrive.
By 1974, record salmon runs were coursing up the
river. Crayfish no longer crawled out on the banks to die.
Bass had reappeared in large numbers. Catfish, perch,
sturgeon, and crappies were abundant
Since 1974, the cities of Salem, Corvallis, and
Portland have received major EPA construction grants to
build and upgrade secondary waste treatment facilities.*
Upon completion, these facilities will result in even
greater improvement in water quality of the Willamette.
Water quality of the Willamette and its tributaries has
also been enhanced by controls on nonpoint sources of
pollution. Those engaged in forestry are implementing
best management practices to reduce silvicultural
runoff. New stormwater management programs have
been introduced by Eugene-Springfield, Salem, and
Portland, the three major urban centers on the
Willamette. Communities in the Willamette Valley are
giving special attention to septic tank wastes and to
other onsite disposal practices
In addition, Oregonians have launched a remarkable
new program, the Willamette Greenway, aimed at
protecting scenic values in rural areas while enhancing
the aesthetics of the river banks in urban areas. It will
provide access to a chain of parks, campsites, scenic
trails, drives, and marinas along the 250-mile, tree-lined
portion of the river from Eugene to Portland. The Green-
way will enable the public to explore, fish, water ski, boat,
picnic, and camp in a pastoral setting over a nine-county
area. One existing State park has already been expanded,
and five new ones created, along the Greenway.
*For a definition of "secondary treatment" see the
Glossary on p 149.
Wastewater treatment beyond the secondary level
may eventually be necessary for every city and industry
in the fast-growing Willamette valley. But if the recent
past is any indication, Oregonians will demand and get
whatever is needed to keep their river clean.
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Connecticut River
Winooski River
Mohawk River
Penobscot River
Upper Susquehanna River
Hudson River
H'Oosatonic River
New Hampshire
Pemkjewasset River
Contoocook River
Nashua River
Connecticut River
Willimantic River
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Naugatuck River
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Rivers of the Northeast
A region that has struggled with the problems of
pathogens and low dissolved oxygen (DO) levels longer
perhaps than any other is the heavily industrialized and
densely populated Northeast. For more than two
centuries people have built their cities and industries on
the banks of the rivers of the Nation's northeastern tier
The towns and cities contributed their municipal
wastewaters to the load, and pollution, indicated by high
fecal coliform and low DO readings, steadily increased.
In the 1960's and the 1970's, major efforts were
made—largely by the States in the region—to repair
the environmental damage.
The stories of pollution reduction on many of those
New England rivers are now cause for satisfaction
Several of these stories follow
The Penobscot River: Return of the Salmon
New England's rivers once teemed with Atlantic
salmon, powerful silvery fish who would return to their
freshwater birthplace after two or three years of feeding
and maturing in the ocean. Then came the Industrial
Revolution, population growth, pollution, dams that
blocked the return of the salmon to their upstream
spawning grounds, fluctuating water temperatures and
levels, and over-fishing.
One New England waterway that once abounded with
Atlantic salmon is the Penobscot River in Maine. Some
15,000 salmon were taken from the Penobscot in 1827.
Then came the growth of the pulp and paper industry—
and pollution. Between 1873 and 1890, salmon catches
dropped to an average of 12,000 a year. In 1947, the
commercial salmon catch on the Penobscot was only 40.
In 1970 only one salmon was taken from the Penobscot
Over-fishing, pollution from pulp mills and other
industries, and sewage discharges all contributed to
what seemed to be the end of the Atlantic salmon in the
Penobscot.
This sad story of the destruction of a salmon fishery
and of a river has more recently become a story of hope,
the Atlantic salmon have now returned to the Penobscot.
In 1978, 343 salmon were caught there. On a summer
day when the salmon are running upstream, you can
catch salmon up to 30 inches long in the Kenduskeag
Stream, a tributary of the Penobscot, from a bridge
in downtown Bangor, Maine, surrounded by office
buildings It is not unusual to see blue-jeaned boys and
business-suited office workers catching 12 to 20-pound
salmon.
The turnabout in the Penobscot is the result of public
and private actions begun in the late 1960's A salmon
stocking program was begun, river obstructions were
cleared, fishways were built, and industrial and
municipal pollution—the major reason for the decline of
the salmon population—was attacked
In 1970, the seven pulp and paper mills on the 90-mile
stretch of the Penobscot from Millinocket to the Atlantic
Ocean were among the 10 major water polluters in the
region. They have now made major investments in water
pollution abatement systems All major communities on
the Penobscot now have sewage treatment systems, and
all the systems are expected to meet secondary treatment
requirements by 1983 Almost all of the 379-mile-long
Penobscot is expected to be suitable for fishing and
swimming by then.
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No one can say that Atlantic salmon will ultimately
return to the Penobscot River in the great numbers
found there before the Industrial Revolution, but the
efforts to date are reason for considerable satisfaction.
These efforts have resulted in demonstrably cleaner
water, and in the return of salmon in considerable
numbers.
The Winooski River: Clear Again
For years the granite and gravel industries dumped
indiscriminately into the Steven Branch of the Winooski
River in Vermont. As a result, it was degraded by fine
granite powder that gave it a thick, milky appearance. In
addition, the granite powder caused gill scour in fish
and smothered their spawning beds. Abrasives,
including silicon carbide, carborundum, tin oxide,
aluminum oxide, and steel shot from wire saws and
polishers also flowed untreated into the water, with
devastating effect.
In 1971, EPA awarded Vermont a small grant to
develop an economical method to treat the problem and
the sludge residue born of it. The State developed a
lagoon settling method using a ferric chloride solution.
The industry was given until August 1 973 to install
controls. Today all industries on the Stevens Branch are
recycling their liquid wastes and have completely
eliminated their wastewater discharges into the
Winooski River.
The stream, which at one time was classified over
parts of its length as fit only for industrial use, is now
suitable for swimming and other water contact sports.
The Pemigewasset River: A Trout Stream Again
Several New England rivers that were fine trout
streams became casualties of the massive pollution of
the twentieth century. The Pemigewasset in New
Hampshire was one such casualty until a cleanup
campaign restored to the river its former reputation
as a prime trout stream.
In the mid-1960's, the Pemigewasset had declined
to the lowly status of a stream fit only to transport
sewage and industrial wastes. The value of the river for
recreation and as a water supply was lost. The once
beautiful stream, which ran through the heart of a prime
New Hampshire vacation area, was discolored and ugly.
With the passage of the Clean Water Act Amendments
in 1972, pollution control efforts of earlier years were
intensified One paper mill adopted a closed loop
wastewater system with zero discharge; another closed
down. Newer industries with sophisticated pollution
controls have replaced some older plants. Five towns on
the river have installed secondary wastewater treatment.
Today more than 55 miles of the Pemigewasset have
been reclaimed from nuisance status. Obnoxious fumes,
odors, and color are gone The river, remarkably, has
been raised to a condition fit for every kind of recreation
including trout fishing.
The Contoocook River: Safe for Recreation
Another New Hampshire river, the Contoocook, was
faring little better than the Pemigewasset. By the mid-
1960's it still had adequate dissolved oxygen levels,
despite three paper mills on its banks, and it was
reasonably free of urban and agricultural runoff. But
it had extremely high bacteria counts and was virtually
a condemned river
Major industrial dischargers on the Contoocook River
have either had to improve their existing pollution
controls or install treatment for the first time. Three
paper mills now have the treatment required by their
NPDES permits. Both the tannery and the fiber plant are
tied into a municipal treatment facility. Only four small
communities on the river are left without treatment, and
they have municipal plants on the drawing board.
Local residents now are using the river for swimming
and boating. Some of the most challenging stretches of
white water in all New England can now be used
without fear of pollution.
The Nashua River: A Good Start
Dyes from paper companies once turned the Nashua
River murky orange and mustard yellow On a hot
summer day, the river's stench could be smelled for
miles. Now the 12-mile long river, running from
Massachusetts into New Hampshire, is on the road to
recovery, thanks largely to the work of the Nashua
River Watershed Association. Two advanced waste
treatment plants in Fitchburg keep harmful levels
of pollutants out of the Nashua's waters. The dyes are
gone, dead fish no longer float on the water belly up,
and riverfront property—once considered almost
worthless because of the river's foul condition—is
rising in value. Formerly a severe health threat, the
river was cleaned up enough by 1976 to make possible
annual canoe races Forty-five miles of riverfront
have been set aside as parks and wildlife preserves.
Some portions of the river are still in poor condition,
though. It is estimated that it will be another decade
before the entire river is brought up to fishable and
swimmable quality. But a good start has been made.
The Connecticut River: Salmon Are Caught Again
In the Connecticut River, salmon were so numerous
that, as one chronicler wrote in 1783, "no finite being
can number them." But the construction of dams too high
for the salmon to leap soon decimated the Connecticut's
salmon count. In 1819, one observer noted that salmon
had scarcely been seen in the river for 20 years. The last
known catch of salmon in the Connecticut in the
nineteenth century was recorded in 1874.
In May of 1977, though, a 15-year-old boy pulled an
eight-pound, 29-inch fish from the Connecticut. It was
an Atlantic salmon, the first caught in the Connecticut or
its tributaries in over one hundred years. The 1977 catch
was only the beginning. More salmon were caught or
seen in the Connecticut in the following weeks In 1978,
some 89 salmon were taken from the Connecticut
Several public and private efforts, initiated in the late
1960's, contributed to this return of Atlantic salmon to
the Connecticut River. Federal funds were given to
communities along the river in Massachusetts and
Connecticut to help them build sewage treatment
systems. Industries were required to clean up their
discharges Fish ladders were installed at two dams too
high for the fish to leap. Utilities using the river's waters
began regulating water levels and temperature to create
a more hospitable environment for the salmon.
In 1968, with all the fish ladders in place, a salmon
restocking program began. Some 200,000 young salmon
were placed in the river over the next few years, but
none returned because of continued pollution problems
In subsequent years, however, increasing pollution
controls began to take effect. It was finally the stringent
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requirements of the 1972 amendments to the Clean
Water Act that led to the current return of salmon to the
river
The Naugatuck and Housatonic Rivers: Sharing
Cleanup Benefits
Two Connecticut rivers, the Naugatuck and the Lower
Housatonic into which it empties, shared polluted lives
for decades. Now they are sharing the benefits of a major
cleanup.
For years the Naugatuck was one of the most severely
polluted rivers in New England. Historically it has had
poor quality throughout most of its length. It was long a
dumping ground for untreated municipal sewage and
industrial wastes
Connecticut residents can remember when no fish, or
even insect larvae, could survive on certain reaches
of the river. Along the 28 miles before the Naugatuck
emptied into the Housatonic, seven cities and 57
industries, among them metal forming and electroplating
firms, were poisoning the water with raw sewage and
heavy metals.
By 1950, the Naugatuck was so degraded by untreated
industrial and municipal wastes from the towns and
industries along its banks that State water quality
experts called it Connecticut's most polluted stream.
From its starting point at the confluence of the Upper
Housatonic with the Naugatuck at Derby, the 13-mile-
long Lower Housatonic River was also degraded, not
only by industrial and municipal wastes from the
manufacturers and communities along its length, but by
wastes flowing in from the Naugatuck River as well.
In 1967, Connecticut's Clean Water Program
established water quality standards for all of its waters.
The program required that the Naugatuck and Lower
Housatonic Rivers be upgraded to fishable-swimmable
status.
The State ordered the industries on both rivers to
install pollution controls, including pretreatment
facilities for plants discharging into municipal sewer
systems. All industrial dischargers on these rivers also
installed pollution controls.
In addition, between 1966 and 1974 EPA and its
predecessor agency, the Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration (FWPCA), awarded grants to eight
communities on the Naugatuck and to four communities
on the Lower Housatonic to upgrade their treatment
facilities to secondary treatment All treatment plants on
both rivers have been on line since mid-1976 They are
designed to remove 85 percent of oxygen-demanding
wastes and suspended solids
As a result, the amounts of heavy metals and organic
wastes going into the Naugatuck have decreased
dramatically. Fish and aquatic life—including
smallmouth bass, bluegills, bullheads, killifish, yellow
perch, and eels—have reappeared
By 1977, the Naugatuck from Torrmgton to Thomaston
was rated fishable and swimmable From Torrington to
Derby, where the Naugatuck meets the Housatonic, the
river was rated suitable for recreational boating and as a
fish and wildlife habitat Of the 35 river miles that have
been assessed recently, 20 met fishable-swimmable
standards. The State anticipates that if all municipal
treatment plants on the Naugatuck can be upgraded on
schedule to advanced treatment, the Naugatuck will
achieve full fishable-swimmable status by 1984
The Lower Housatonic had improved to the extent that
it was suitable for boating and as a fish and wildlife
habitat except at Derby and Shelton, where heavy rainfall
causes municipal sewer overflows. The State has ordered
these two communities to solve those problems.
Bluefish now swim from Long Island Sound as
far up as Derby. The oyster industry, wiped out by
a storm in 1951, and kept out for years thereafter by
pervasive pollution, has returned to its pre-1951 levels
and is improving. Blueshell crabs have made a
phenomenal comeback too.
Now, though, a new pollution problem has appeared.
Pollution control officials have found that the Upper
Housatonic is polluted with toxic polychlormated
biphenyls (PCBs) and have closed it to fishing They fear
that the Lower Housatonic is also suffering from a
pervasive PCB problem This discovery has prompted
State officials in Connecticut to begin preliminary
studies of PCB concentrations in the river's sediments,
fish, and in local fishermen
The Willimantic River: The Trout Return
In 1963 the Connecticut fish and game agency
stopped stocking the Willimantic River with trout
because the pollution was killing them too fast. That
powerful and graceful river, which flows through the
thinly populated northeastern portion of the State, had
become a dumping ground for upstream textile mills and
for the toxic wastes of the metal-plating industry
Soapsuds began to boil on the river downstream of its
waterfalls, sludgy residues clogged the bottom, and
unpleasant odors fouled the air. There were devastating
fish kills in the river
In the early 1970's, 32 industries were issued permits
and started cleaning up their discharges. One municipal
sewage treatment plant was upgraded and another was
replaced. In 1973, the State of Connecticut seeded the
river with 1,700 trout. The next year it was stocked with
4,000 more. And the stocking has been successful—not
a single fish kill has been reported. Indeed, all 27 major
stream miles tested are now found to meet fishable-
swimmable standards
The Mohawk River: A Substantial Comeback
In 1963, the Mohawk River at Schenectady was so
polluted with bacteria that the city health department
posted "no swimming" signs along its banks. Cayadutta
Creek, below the industrialized Johnstown-Gloversville
area, was devoid of aquatic life There were major fish
kills, mainly below Utica. Chemicals in the water tainted
the flesh of the few fish left in the river. At Herkimer, the
river foamed with detergents.
And no wonder. As the New York State Department of
Health reported, 18 communities on or near the Mohawk
River had either "inadequate" or "extremely inadequate"
municipal waste treatment systems Indeed, 12 of the
18 had no treatment systems at all. In addition, tannanes,
paper mills, food processors, chemical plants, and metal-
working firms either discharged their wastes into the
river untreated or sent them to outdated municipal plants
that could not treat them properly. Thermal discharges
from power plants added to the river's poor condition.
The State had begun efforts to improve the river under
the provisions of the State's Water Pollution Control
Act of 1949. The Department of Health had divided
the State into 60 drainage basins, determined water
quality in each basin, identified pollution sources,
classified each state waterway according to its best
uses, and established water quality standards to protect
these uses
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Municipalities and industries along the river were
required to construct treatment facilities.
In 1962, the legislature enacted an incentive program
which reimbursed one-third of a community's annual
cost to operate and maintain a treatment plant, if the
community could show that the plant had been
maintained at top efficiency. The legislature also enacted
a comprehensive assessment program. Under this
program, the State paid the total cost of community
studies to determine the extent of pollution in a given
area and to develop a pollution abatement plan.
In 1965, the voters overwhelmingly approved the
State's landmark Pure Water Bond Act, which provided
$1 billion in aid to construct municipal treatment
facilities. This Act guaranteed prefinancing of up to
55 percent of the Federal share of construction costs.
The local community paid at least 15 percent of the
remaining construction costs.
Industry started cleaning up when the Department of
Health's Division of Pure Waters ordered manufacturers
along the Mohawk to construct and install industrial
pollution controls.
Between 1966 and 1977, first the Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration and then EPA awarded
construction grants to 24 communities and two counties
to help them build secondary and tertiary waste
treatment systems. By 1974, more than 75 percent of
industrial waste discharges were being treated. Most
of the municipal systems were in operation by 1977.
The remaining systems are expected to be operating
by the early 1980's.
These efforts to clean up the Mohawk began paying
dividends in the early 1970's. Large- and smallmouth
bass, walleyes, northern pike, sunfish, bluegills, black
crappies, and yellow perch thrived in the Mohawk
once again. By 1976, rainbow and brown trout, two of
the most pollution-sensitive fish, were back. And by
1977, three-quarters of the river was swimmable and
fishable.
Problems remain, however. At Utica, delays in tying a
major interceptor sewer to the city's treatment system
have resulted in raw sewage discharges into the river.
In the Gloversville-Johnston industrial area, tannery
wastes are overloading the city's tentiary treatment
plant. Pollution from urban runoff, agriculture,
construction, and other nonpoint sources also poses
problems.
But those problems are being worked on, and the State
is confident that the entire Mohawk will be swimmable
and fishable soon.
The Hudson River: A More Complex Problem
By the mid-1940's the deterioration of the waters of
the strong, deep, fast-flowing Hudson River marked the
end of a way of life.
Nowhere was this more strikingly true than in the 13
miles of the Lower Hudson's shoreline in Bergen County
In the early decades of this century, swimming in that
reach of the Hudson, with its beaches and overhanging
cliffs, was the height of fashion. The beaches were lined
with stone bath houses, fancy restaurants, dancing halls
and diving boards. Life guards kept watch over those
swimming in its waters. In the summer of 1935 alone,
more than 300,000 bathers, many riding ferries upriver
from New York City, came to the cliffside beaches along
that portion of the Hudson.
Then came World War II—and with it industrial
development and industrial wastes. By the time the war
was over, the beaches were unsafe for swimming and
were closed. They haven't opened since.
When the bathers stopped coming, the ferries stopped
running. Since the pollution had driven away the fish,
the fishermen left, too. Oil gradually colored the sands of
the beaches, and the old stone bathhouses were
abandoned and vandalized. In the 1960's the river along
the waterfront became so polluted that some officials no
longer even bothered to monitor its pollution levels.
Wastewater treatment, though, supported by New York
State's Pure Waters Campaign, also started coming to
the towns along the Hudson in the 1960's. Some 160
sewage treatment plants have now been built, or soon
will be, along the river and its tributaries. Progress in
ridding the Hudson of the more conventional forms of
pollution has been remarkable, thanks to these
wastewater treatment efforts and the Pure Waters
Campaign that made them possible.
Now, however, the Hudson has been dealt a new and
even more serious blow. PCBs, a nearly indestructible
and highly toxic group of industrial compounds, have
been discovered in the flesh of many fish in the river.
An estimated 500,000 pounds of PCBs lie menacingly on
the bottom of the river in the 50-mile reach between
Hudson Falls on the Lower Hudson and Albany to the
North. That is the biggest known concentration of PCBs in
the environment anywhere in the U.S., and is possibly the
biggest concentration in the world.
The PCBs came in large part from the big General
Electric Company installation below Hudson Falls This
pollution is such a threat that all fishing, which had been
on the rise in the otherwise much cleaner Hudson, was
banned in February 1976 This was the first time fishing
on the Hudson had ever been forbidden.
Stringent action was taken. General Electric (GE) no
longer uses PCBs, and hence no significant quantity is
presently discharged. Furthermore, the initial phase of a
joint GE-New York State effort to rid the river bottom of
PCBs has been completed. Additional action is now being
considered, but the cost is enormous The State has
estimated that dredging—which would probably remove
less than half the PCBs contaminating the sediment
in the Hudson's river bed—would cost several billion
dollars.
Recognition of the PCB problem came just as fish were
beginning to flourish on the Hudson again Crabs were
returning to the Bergen County shoreline. Fishermen
were catching shad that no longer tasted of oil. Bluefish
had returned. And there was even talk—unthinkable for
30 years—of swimming again off the beaches under the
overhanging cliffs The presence of PCBs has delayed
these plans, but the State and EPA are continuing to
seek a feasible way to rid the river of this threat.
The Hudson is also still contaminated in some reaches
by conventional pollutants. More than 180 million
gallons of poorly treated and often toxic sewage still
flush into the water near the Statue of Liberty whenever
it rams. And each day New York City still dumps 200
million gallons of untreated sewage into the river.
However, New York is implementing an abatement
strategy to correct this. When completed, the North River
project will be one of the largest sewage treatment
complexes ever built. It should reduce sharply the
massive amount of pollution now discharged into the
lower Hudson
The State's Pure Waters program has brought
progress along much of the rest of the river. New
treatment systems on the upper Hudson have helped
to improve water quality from Hudson Falls to the
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Albany Pool. Once an effective means is developed to
deal with the now intractable PCB problem, the complete
restoration of the Hudson will be within our grasp.
Upper Susquehanna River: Healthy Again
That portion of the Susquehanna between
Binghamton and Smithboro, New York, is also gradually
recovering from a long period of decline. This recovery is
due principally to the municipal construction grants
program. Its renewed life is an example of public
attention and effort, followed by the construction of
municipal wastewater treatment plants, and finally,
visible evidence that the river is improving in quality
The Binghamton-Johnson City treatment plant was
finished in 1975. EPA funded almost half its cost.
Another facility at Endicott went on line in 1973.
Monitoring stations all along that reach of the
Susquehanna now report cleaner water. The station at
Vestal reports oxygen depletion cut by half and
bacterial contamination reduced many times over—
from a total fecal coliform count of 8,000 to a count of
200 per 100 milliliters of the river's water. Even the
Smithboro station farthest downstream from the new
municipal treatment plant, reports marked decreases
in coliform bacteria counts. The Owego monitoring
station reports a drop in total suspended solids.
Fish, such as walleyes, smallmouth bass, and
muskellunge are back. This portion of the Susquehanna,
once mired in pollution, is again taking on the
characteristics of a healthy river.
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Shrewsbury River.
•Hackensack River
Raritan Bay
Navesink River
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Waters of the Mid-Atlantic States
The waters in the highly industrialized areas of the
Northeast have been heavily affected by pollution, but
severe pollution has plagued much of the rest of the
Nation as well Some examples of cleanup efforts
elsewhere in the United States, beginning with the
Mid-Atlantic States, follow
The Hackensack River: Breeding Ground for Waterfowl
In the last ten years, two important urban river systems
in New Jersey—the Hackensack and the Navesink/
Shrewsbury systems—have experienced observable
improvements in water quality
The Hackensack River rises at Haverstraw, New York,
flows south into northern New Jersey's heavily indus-
trialized and residentially developed Bergen and Hudson
Counties, and finally empties into tidal Newark Bay
where its waters mingle with those of the Hudson,
Passaic, Raritan and East Rivers before merging with the
Atlantic Ocean
Before entering Newark Bay at a point directly across
from Manhattan Island, the Hackensack River flows for
14 miles through New Jersey's Hackensack Meadow-
lands, a 9,600-acre tidal and freshwater marshland
that is one of the most significant estuary and wetland
complexes on the Atlantic coast.
By the mid-20th century, the Hackensack River and its
meadowlands suffered from nearly every environmental
problem to be found in a major urban setting
For well over 50 years, the 22-mile-long tidal portion
of the Hackensack constituted a swampy, mosquito-
infested jungle, where rusting auto bodies, demolition
rubble, industrial oil slicks, and cattails merged in a
stinking union.
Trash collectors dumped a mountain of municipal
refuse from 144 communities in five New Jersey
counties on 2,000 acres of tidal wetlands. Rain soaked
through the huge mounds of garbage, becoming
contaminated with toxic substances in the process. The
contaminated rainwater then seeped into the river. The
Hackensack received heavy metals and organic
pollutants from the wastes dumped by oil and chemical
companies, coke plants, and printing ink manufacturers.
As many as 13 overtaxed sewage treatment plants
discharged inadequately treated municipal wastes—in
some cases, raw sewage—into the river basin. There
were numerous oil spills and oil slicks from oil storage
facilities, from illegal dumping, and from spillage from
river barges. Fish were killed by industrial chemicals, or
driven out by the growth of oxygen demanding algae fed
by the nutrients in inadequately treated municipal
wastes. Finally, the generating plants of two electric
utilities contributed their thermal discharges to the
Hackensack River, raising its temperature and further
reducing the dissolved oxygen levels needed to support
the formerly diverse aquatic and marine life in the
estuary.
In response to this environmental disaster, the New
Jersey legislature in December 1968 created the
Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission to
promote environmental cleanup and industrial,
recreational, and residential development. In 1971, the
Commission began a massive effort to clean up the
Hackensack and its tidal meadowlands by reducing
industrial and municipal pollution, first by diking and
eventually eliminating landfills, and by preventing
any new waste discharges from entering the Hackensack
19
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estuary. The Commission tracked the results of these
efforts by monitoring water quality throughout the
estuary.
The Commission limited the types and amounts
of wastes that could be discharged from an outfall,
culvert, or any other point source of pollution in
the river or its estuary It specified what could or
could not be disposed of in landfills, and also required that
landfills be diked so that toxic pollutants would no longer
filter into the estuary.
The Commission and the State of New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) then
pooled resources in a combined effort to curtail municipal
pollution. EPA also committed itself strongly to
regional water pollution control programs in the
Hackensack basin. In July 1973, the Bergen County
Sewer Authority received an EPA construction grant to
expand its Little Ferry secondary treatment plant on the
Hackensack from 50 million gallons a day (MGD) of
industrial and municipal discharges to 62.5 MGD
capacity In 1975, EPA issued a new grant to further
expand the Little Ferry plant to treat 75 MGD of
industrial and municipal wastes by November 1981, and
to serve 575,000 people. In 1977 EPA awarded the town
of Secaucus a grant to construct an interceptor sewer to
serve that portion of Secaucus without sewers
What has happened as a result of the comprehensive
campaign to restore the Hackensack? At the beginning of
the effort in 1971 the Hackensack Meadowlands
Development Commission had issued a gloomy report
which called the Hackensack estuary "a highly disturbed
and truncated ecosystem," where "only a skeleton crew
remains of this marsh-estuary's former population of
producers and consumers."
But by 1976, after massive efforts to control pollution,
a second Commission report stated:
This urban river, after such a long and convincing
assault, is reviving. Dissolved oxygen levels have
risen over the past five years, allowing aquatic and
marine life to reappear in substantial numbers in
this former environmental wasteland. Ribbed
mussels, introduced experimentally in 1973,
survived for 18 months. Blueshell crabs have
returned in abundance, wildfowl, shore and wading
bird utilization is on the increase, and stripers,
alewife herring and blueblack herring were netted
during seining inventories in 1974 and 1975. The
Hackensack river is coming back.
Since 1971, there have been far fewer fish kills in the
Hackensack estuary. The number and extent of oil slicks
have also decreased as have the amounts of toxic
pollutants discharged into the estuary. Inventories
conducted in the mid-1970's in the lower estuary
showed significant increases in the types and abundance
of fish present, indicating that the estuary's food produc-
tion and consumption web was in a far healthier state
than it had been in 1971.
Also since 1971, more than 270 species of birds
have been sighted in the Hackensack Meadowlands.
In 1975, two breeding pairs of marshhawks—an
endangered species in New Jersey—were also sighted
in the Hackensack estuary Among the species of birds
now known to use these wetlands, nesting species of
particular importance are the gadwall, ruddy duck, and
marshhawk. Overwintering species include the rough-
legged hawk and the pintail and black duck.
Today the Hackensack River and its tidal meadowlands
are a living and productive part of the Atlantic breeding
grounds for waterfowl—quite a change for a once
highly-degraded river swampland whose stench
reminded turnpike motorists of an aromatic blend of
garbage mixed with oil fumes and dead fish.
There is still work to be done. Sewage, treated or
not, continues to be a troublesome source of pollution
in the Hackensack River. Seven waste treatment plants
ring the Hackensack estuary, collectively discharging
115 MGD into these waters. Some plants are under
court orders to improve their waste treatment, while
others are seeking State and Federal funds to expand
their level of treatment, to expand their collector
systems to unsewered areas, or to upgrade their
design capacities in order to cope with current levels
of municipal and industrial wastes. In addition, thermal
pollution from power plant cooling water is not yet
under control.
Another serious pollution problem was discovered by
EPA in 1977 when sediments from Berry Creek, which
flows into the Hackensack River, yielded from 32 to 245
parts per million of mercury. Soil with one part per million
is considered contaminated. Investigations revealed that
a mercury processing plant, demolished in 1974, had
routinely dumped its waste into a water-filled ditch near
Berry Creek for over thirty-five years. Concern for toxic
levels of mercury in the air and water surrounding the old
dump site is considerable. EPA has funded a meeting of
international experts who will help determine how the
mercury can best be contained or removed. The State of
New Jersey has brought the offending company to court
and has recommended that it seal the site by blacktopping
it, and dredge the bottom of Berry Creek. New Jersey has
also begun to investigate whether there will be any local
health effects as a result of the mercury in the area. It is
also on the watch for any mercury that may accumulate in
the aquatic and marine life that has begun to return to the
meadowlands now that dissolved oxygen levels are
rising.
Despite these remaining problems, the remarkable
accomplishments to date along the Hackensack and in
the Meadowlands provide evidence that it's possible to
succeed against the worst pollution imaginable—when
there is the will to do so.
The Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers and Raritan Bay:
Open for Shellfish Harvesting Again
A sister system of the Hackensack, the Navesink and
Shrewsbury Rivers, which had also once been rich and
clean but had become heavily polluted, is now also
making a comeback
In the late 1950's, commercial clammers in Raritan
Bay, the estuary into which these two rivers empty,
could still provide a good day's catch. The waters were
rich in shellfish: the hardshell and softshell crabs and
oysters found there were perhaps the finest in New
Jersey. At the same time, people swam without concern
in all reaches of the two rivers.
In 1961, though, there was an outbreak of hepatitis
caused by contaminated clams taken from Raritan Bay.
The swimming and shellfish harvesting abruptly
stopped.
The pollution that caused this outbreak had been
building up for years, intensified by the residues of
waste from the flow of millions of gallons of untreated
sewage into the Hudson-Raritan estuarine system. Over
the years, people and industry had moved into the two
river valleys and gradually turned much of the area's
20
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farmland into suburban domains. The drainage basins
of the Shrewsbury and Navesink were beset by over-
flows from malfunctioning household septic tanks, by
runoff from new shopping centers, and by inadequately
treated wastewater from antiquated and overloaded
treatment plants.
In response to these problems, three major projects were
built with EPA's help—a 15-mile outfall line and two
treatment plants.
Today more than five million gallons of effluent that
once emptied into the rivers each day no longer do so.
The rivers and the estuary have not regained their
high water quality, but they are significantly improved. In
the early 1970's all the waters were closed to shellfish
harvesting, but as of 1976 two-thirds of Rantan Bay's
25,250 acres and nearly all of the waters of the Navesink
and Shrewsbury Rivers were open on a restricted basis
to some forms of shellfish harvesting.
The Smyrna, St. Jones and Mispillion Rivers and
Silver Lake: A Regional Treatment System
Over the years, poorly treated municipal sewage and
industrial wastes had polluted many rivers and streams
in Kent County, Delaware. By 1966, County officials
decided the time had come to stop the deterioration of
their waterways. With the help of the State of
Delaware and EPA, they devised a regional sewage
treatment system that would take the place of several
small, inadequate facilities.
The system, funded in part by an EPA grant, included
a 10-million-gallon a day secondary treatment plant near
Frederica and force mains and pump stations to serve
the densely populated corridor extending from Smyrna to
Milford.
The first segments of the new system, which went
into operation m 1973, eliminated several overloaded
primary treatment plants as well as an inadequate
secondary treatment plant that had served several
cities and towns, a chemical company and the Dover
Air Force Base.
The new regional system produced a dramatic
improvement in the water quality of the Smyrna, St.
Jones and Mispillion Rivers. Dissolved oxygen levels
went up. Bacteria counts went down. The flow of
nutrients into streams and rivers decreased, slowing
the aging process of eutrophication of Silver Lake, which
is of major recreational importance to the city of Dover.
Still more improvements are expected when new
additions to the system are completed. Two inadequate
secondary treatment plants and one hydraulically
overloaded facility will be replaced. When completed, the
regional system will provide adequate wastewater
treatment in Kent County and, among other benefits, will
help prevent the degradation of an extensive tidal marsh
area on the lower Smyrna River that supports a variety of
marine and freshwater species.
The solution was obvious—an additional interceptor
was needed to carry the excess flow to Baltimore's
Patapsco treatment plant. After five years of
construction, the project was completed.
The result was an almost instantaneous improvement
in the water quality of Gwynns Falls.
Gwynns Falls: No Longer a Problem
For almost 10 years, residents of Baltimore, Maryland
suffered with a daily overflow of some 5 million gallons
of raw sewage into a stream known as Gwynns Falls.
The cause of the problem was an interceptor serving
eastern sections of Baltimore. It emptied about 32
million gallons of sewage a day into a second inter-
ceptor that could handle only 27 million gallons a day
Thus, there was a daily overflow of about 5 million
gallons at the junction of the two interceptors.
21
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French Broad River.
Flint River-
EllerbeeCreek-
Neches River-n
Sope Creek
Nickajack Creek
Rottenwood Creek
— Neuse River
Pearl River |
Bogue Lusaj
Creek
Chattahoochee River
Lower Savannah Ru'ver
22
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Rivers of the South
The French Broad River: Signs of Success
In the 1950's, in the mountains of western North
Carolina, the French Broad River was being polluted by
an unchecked flow of wastes from a variety of sources,
including two major industrial plants and a city.
The Olin Corporation, American Enka Company, and
the city of Asheville had dumped suspended solids,
heavy metals and raw sewage into the river until
the dissolved oxygen along its entire reach from Pisgah
Forest to Asheville had, on occasion, dropped almost to
zero.
Together, these three sources, by the early 1970's,
were dumping an average of 55,000 pounds of BOD,
62,000 pounds of suspended solids, and large quantities
of metal precipitates and salts into the river every day.
Many portions of the stream reeked with foul odors and
ran black under a cover of foam. There was little life left
in its waters.
EPA, together with the State of North Carolina,
developed effluent limitations and compliance schedules
to diminish the flow of wastes from the three major
polluters. By September 1974, all three had been issued
NPDES permits to control their waste discharges. In
addition, EPA gave American Enka Company a
demonstration grant to help build an innovative
treatment facility to curb the zinc content of its effluent.
The companies were receptive. They took the actions
called for by the State and EPA and were soon in
compliance with their permit requirements. The Olin
Corporation completed a biological treatment plant in
March 1976. American Enka Company is upgrading its
present wastewater treatment plant and has changed
production processes to reduce the levels of heavy metal
in its discharge.
The city is now essentially in compliance with its
permit, but its treatment plant overflows occasionally.
That problem is expected to be solved by 1983 as a result
of planned modifications to the sewage treatment plant.
The steps that have been taken are already reflected
in the condition of the river. The odors and the foam are
gone and the water's natural color is returning. Dissolved
oxygen levels have reached 60 to 70 percent of saturation
and fish have started to reappear.
Ellerbee Creek and the Neuse River: A Critical
Improvement in the Operation of a Treatment Plant
Durham, North Carolina built its six-million-gallon-a-
day Northside wastewater treatment plant on Ellerbee
Creek, which flows into the Neuse River, in 1934. The
plant provided secondary treatment 40 years before that
level of treatment was made mandatory by the Federal
Clean Water Amendments of 1972. Its capacity was
expanded to nine-million-gallons-a-day in 1954 to
keep pace with the city's growth. The plant now treats
wastewater from homes, businesses, and industries.
In 1977, problems developed at the plant. Its dis-
charges started to contain more organic contaminants
than its permit allowed. The activated sludge system was
not working properly, and, in addition, bacteria-laden
sludge periodically flowed out with treated wastewater.
The problem was compounded by "infiltration," that is,
large amounts of rainwater leaking into the old sewer
23
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lines that caused excessively high flows into the plant
during rams.
Plant operators made several attempts to modify the
activated sludge process to correct the problems, but
nothing seemed to work. Then, in 1978, an EPA technical
assistance team recommended adjustments in the
process that brought the Northside plant into compliance
with its permit within one month.
The plant's improved performance has reduced the
amount of organic contaminants flowing into Ellerbee
Creek by some 100 tons a year. With the drop in those
oxygen-consuming organics, dissolved oxygen levels in
the creek have increased about 30 percent Durham is
now focusing on making further improvements in the
water quality of Ellerbee Creek by correcting the
infiltration problem.
The Lower Savannah River: A Significant Improvement
The Savannah River runs for 310 miles through the
heart of the South on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. It is
one of the main interstate waterways of the Southeast,
forming the boundary between Georgia and South
Carolina.
In the early 1960's, citizens invoked the provisions of
the old Federal Water Pollution Control Act to request an
interstate conference on the Savannah. Many of them
complained that the river's heavily urbanized and
industrialized lower 22 miles had become a threat to the
health of residents in the area. In 1963, an EPA
predecessor agency within the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare convened a conference with the
water pollution control agencies of Georgia and South
Carolina. That conference recommended that HEW study
the river's pollution problems.
HEW's study confirmed the citizens' complaints. Only
one-fifth of all the sewage from a population of 146,000
people on the 22-mile reach received even primary
treatment. The other four-fifths of the sewage ran
untreated directly into the river. Industries on the lower
Savannah discharged wastes, cooling water, and
chemical wastes equivalent in impact to the raw sewage
of an estimated 1,000,000 people. Consequently, the
dissolved oxygen content of the lower reach of the river
was low Game fish and commercial fish had become
scarce, and 11,000 acres of coastal waters in the
Savannah area were closed to shellfish harvesting. All
the symptoms of an imperiled river were present.
As they had done on many rivers, the existing Federal
agencies, and later the EPA, joined with the States to
attack the problem. Making use of persuasion together
with the limited enforcement authority then available to
them, they saw to it that adequate wastewater treatment
facilities were built and put into operation.
Discharges of oxygen-demanding wastes from point
sources in the river dropped 90 percent. By 1975, all
major dischargers of organic wastes into the lower
Savannah were in compliance with their effluent
limitations. It was the first time on record that no
dissolved oxygen violations were reported at the Fort
Jackson, South Carolina, monitoring site. Aquatic life
was quickening on the river reach and fish were
swimming where they had not been seen in many years.
The Chattahoochee River: On the Road to Recovery
The Chattahoochee River from Atlanta to below
Columbus, Georgia, was in poor condition in 1971.
Raw and inadequately treated sewage and wastewater
from 26 communities and nine industrial plants flowed
into the river. Red worms in sludge beds below Atlanta
gave shallow, heavily polluted areas a red tinge most
of the time. Some 100 miles of the river below Atlanta
were heavily polluted with bacteria.. For at least 40
miles, the river was considered "dead" because the
high levels of oxygen-robbing wastes in the water made
it difficult or impossible for fish to survive.
Today, the Chattahoochee is on the road to recovery,
thanks to the efforts of the State, communities,
industries, and EPA grants for municipal wastewater
treatment systems. Old municipal treatment systems
have been modernized and new ones built. Industries
have improved their waste treatment. The number of
water quality standard violations has dropped. There is
more dissolved oxygen in the water, and fecal coliform
bacteria levels dropped 82 percent in four years.
Some problems remain, however. Some reaches still
have too little dissolved oxygen and too much bacterial
contamination. Some lakes at dams along the river
contain excessive nutrients. Runoff from urban areas
and construction and agricultural activities also cause
problems. But while there is still work to be done, the
river shows clear indications of improvement. The poet
Sidney Lanier, who glorified the river in his "Song of the
Chattahoochee" in 1877, would once again be proud of
his river.
Sope Creek: The Palisades Protected
Sope Creek flows past the city of Marietta in Cobb
County, then meets the Chattahoochee River about ten
miles north of the heart of the city of Atlanta.
A booming population and skyrocketing urban land
development in Cobb County between 1950 and 1970
placed a heavy strain on outdated and overloaded waste
treatment facilities. By 1973, Sope Creek was heavily
polluted by raw human waste and inadequately treated
municipal discharges from five package treatment plants
and overload from the 2.5 MGD Gresham Road
treatment plant in Marietta.
As a result, the creek stank, the sportfish population
was replaced by bloodworms, the rock shoals over which
the creek splashed on its downward course were coated
with algae, and bacterial counts were so high that water
contact sports were prohibited.
A 1969 Cobb County study recommended that a 10
MGD secondary treatment plant be built on the
Chattahoochee River below the Atlanta water intake,
and that an interceptor sewer system be built to carry all
municipal waste discharges from Cobb County east of
Marietta to this plant. The study also recommended
shutting down the package plants and the Gresham
Road facility.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration
accepted Cobb County's recommendations and awarded
the county a grant to begin constructing interceptor
sewers and waste treatment facilities.
Because of concern over the impact of the project on
the unique natural cliffs and wooded areas along the
project route, EPA in 1970 undertook an environmental
review of the project in accordance with the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The study identified
serious environmental consequences that would result
from blasting rock formations and clearing trees near the
river's edge to construct the interceptor. In April 1971,
EPA distributed its draft Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) on the project. Working with the affected counties
and with other interested local, State and Federal
24
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parties, EPA developed recommendations for mitigating
the adverse environmental impacts of the interceptor
construction.
The final EIS and a later supplement to it recom-
mended that the project design be modified to tunnel
the sewer line through a natural stepped area known
as "the Palisades." Tunneling through the Sope Creek
Gorge was also recommended to preserve both its
natural aesthetic value and historic mill ruins, which
would be destroyed by trenched sewers. The EIS further
recommended that a buffer zone be required between
the construction right-of-way and the riverbank, and
that special precautions be adopted to preserve or
restore environmentally sensitive areas.
These recommendations were incorporated into the
project plans and by October, 1975, the 12-mile-long
Sope Creek interceptor system linked Marietta and the
Chattahoochee River, and the inadequate package plants
and Gresham Road facility had been phased out
A striking change for the better was evident almost
immediately to local residents. Bloodworms dis-
appeared, the odors were gone, and algae no longer
coated the creek bed. As a result, swimmers and
picnickers returned to Sope Creek's banks and waters
Fishermen now catch bluegills, bream, and largemouth
bass, in the creek and several score of rainbow, brown,
and brook trout—species highly sensitive to water
pollution—have also been caught far up into Sope Creek's
headwaters.
Thanks to the EIS process, these benefits were
achieved in such a manner that many of the extra-
ordinary natural and aesthetic attributes of the area
remained intact.
Nickajack and Rottenwood Creeks: No Danger Now
The U.S. Air Force Plant #6 operated by Lockheed-
Georgia Company and Dobbins Air Force Base were
discharging domestic sewage and industrial wastes into
Nickajack Creek, a tributary to the Chattahoochee River.
Nonpoint sources of pollution as well as storm water
drainage discharged into Rottenwood Creek and entered
the Chattahoochee River just above Atlanta's drinking
water intake.
In 1966 an interstate Enforcement Conference was
held Out of the conference came the recommendation
that secondary treatment or its equivalent was necessary
for all wastewater discharges on the Chattahoochee.
Air Force Plan #6, with its industrial discharge, and
Dobbins Air Force Base were required to meet limitations
more stringent than those of secondary treatment. Meet-
ing the discharge criteria established by EPA and the
State required tertiary treatment.*
The industrial treatment system was completed and
put into operation in 1972. For the tertiary phase, the
existing domestic wastewater treatment plant was
upgraded by adding activated sludge treatment. Before
blending the domestic sewage and treated industrial
waste streams, activated carbon and coagulation were
applied at the effluent mixing tank. Then, after using
rapid gravity type dual media filters and chlorination, the
effluent was discharged to Nickajack Creek. This system
was completed in May 1976.
In 1978 this facility was named the best industrial
wastewater treatment plant in Georgia. The treatment
system is so effective at meeting the effluent criteria that
the effluent produced approaches the quality of drinking
water. The reuse of this water for industrial purposes
is currently being studied.
In late 1978 a system of seven lagoons was completed.
These lagoons were designed to intercept fuel and
chemical spills and to provide a means of collecting
oil and grease from runways, ramps, and aircraft parking
areas. These materials were previously discharged
through drainage-ways into Rottenwood Creek. Through
the completion of this system, the drinking water supply
for the City of Atlanta has been safeguarded from
petroleum-based pollutants entering Rottenwood Creek
from these Federal installations.
The Flint River: Progress Through Improved Treatment
Plant Operation
Officials of Albany, Georgia, were perplexed. Their
new wastewater treatment plant—designed to treat
domestic sewage and industrial wastes from paper
processing, candy production, slaughter houses and
agricultural chemical producers—didn't work correctly.
During the first year of operation, in 1975, discharges
from the new treatment plant consistently violated
permit limits. The discharges were polluting the Flint
River, and the plant's operators were disillusioned. It
seemed that effluent limits would never be met.
In April 1976, in cooperation with local officials and
the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, an EPA
technical assistance team spent a week studying the
plant's problems and then made several recommenda-
tions. The suggestions were implemented and within a
short time plant operations began to improve. Removal
of oxygen-demanding pollutants (BOD) went from 80
percent in April 1976 to 98 percent in August 1976.
Removal of total suspended solids went from 23 percent
in April 1976 to 93 percent in August 1976.
Those improvements added up to the removal of 2.5
tons of BOD and 9 tons of solids from the wastewater
each day before its discharge into the Flint River.
The Albany plant has been selected each year since
1976 as the best operated plant in Georgia by the State
Environmental Protection Division and the Georgia
Wastewater Operators Association. For the last three
years, the plant has continually produced higher quality
effluent than is required by its permit
The problems initially encountered by the City of
Albany are not unique. EPA has now firmly established
that a large percentage of municipal treatment plants
are operating at well below their potential removal
capacity. For this reason, EPA is now designing a
strategy to provide strong incentives for municipalities
to operate their treatment plants in compliance with
permit requirements and to make increased use of private
sector expertise in the operation and maintenance of
treatment plants.
Bogue Lusa Creek and the Pearl River: A Remarkable
Recovery
For years Bogue Lusa Creek, a tributary of the Pearl
River, was heavily polluted by the Crown-Zellerbach
paper mill's chemical and wood fiber discharges, and by
undiluted, untreated sewage from the city of Bogalusa,
Louisiana. Extensive fish kills occurred, sport fish
disappeared, sludge worms appeared in great numbers,
and the Pearl River's water quality was seriously
degraded for some 25 to 30 miles downstream from the
confluence of Bogue Lusa Creek.
*For a definition of tertiary treatment, see the Glossary,
p. 149.
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In 1964, the Crown Zellerbach Company installed a
primary treatment plant. The mill's BOD load, which had
averaged 76,000 pounds a day, dropped to 54,000
pounds a day. The mill also installed a system to add
oxygen to the water during periods of critically low flow
in the summer and fall.
In 1972, the company installed a secondary treatment
plant. This plant provides approximately 85 percent
removal for some 25 to 35 million gallons a day of
industrial discharges. The mill's outfall was relocated
so that the treated effluent is no longer discharged
into Bogue Lusa Creek; instead, it is discharged directly
into the much larger Pearl River after passing through
a diffuser.
Today, the mill releases a maximum of 20,000 pounds
a day of BOD—a far cry from the average 76,000 pounds a
day BOD load it discharged until 1964.
Additional progress in cleaning up the Pearl was made
when municipal treatment was provided to handle
wastewater from the City of Bogalusa. In 1962, bacterial
pollution of the river from the city's raw sewage reached
levels over 150 times higher than that considered safe
for water contact sports, and over 30 times the accepted
maximum for general recreational use. A proposed $2.3
million bond issue to finance primary and secondary
treatment facilities was soundly defeated in 1967.
By 1968, bacterial counts in the Pearl were unchanged,
and about 60 percent of the city's raw sewage continued
to flow into Bogue Lusa Creek
In 1972, voters approved the bond issue. EPA gave the
city a construction grant to ensure that the funds
necessary to finance the treatment facilities were
available. The Agency provided additional funds in 1974
to provide an extended system for collection and
secondary treatment of all of the city's sewage.
On line since 1975, Bogalusa's secondary treatment
plant, which serves a population of 34,000, provides
85 percent BOD removal for 6 million gallons a day of
municipal sewage.
The waters of the creek and the river have been
restored to a level close to their former high quality.
Large stinking masses of partially decomposed wastes
no longer float down the creek and the river. Fecal
coliform discharges from the municipal plants are
well within permit limitations. Since the paper mill's
effluent stopped polluting the creek and the river, the
Pearl River's water quality has shown tremendous
improvement for 20 to 30 miles downstream. Bogue Lusa
Creek, which until recently was totally devoid of any
aquatic life, now supports a sizeable population of
fish including catfish, bream and crappies. The Pearl
now supports, in its tidal portions, speckled trout (sea
trout) as well.
The Neches River: Saved for Recreation
In 1968, the Neches River, in the Beaumont-Port
Arthur-Orange area of Texas, was burdened with a
pollution load equivalent to that generated by a city of
a million people. Some 234,000 pounds of BOD
pollutants were discharged into the river daily, consisting
primarily of wastes from the many industrial plants in the
area, and some inadequately treated municipal sewage.
The cleanup began in the early 1970's. The Texas
Water Quality Board ordered all industries on the tidal
portion of the Neches to upgrade their treatment
systems substantially It called for at least secondary
treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater.
Many industrial plants along the lower Neches installed
secondary facilities, including systems to neutralize
acidic wastes and separators to remove oil from their
discharge water. Communities joined in the cleanup too.
Between 1970 and 1975, EPA awarded a series of
construction grants to help communities along the lower
Neches build secondary treatment systems. All of these
systems were on line by 1977.
Between 1968 and 1974, the BOD load in the Neches
dropped 65 percent—from 234,000 pounds per day, to
77,000 pounds per day. The BOD load is expected to
decrease to 19,000 pounds per day by the early 1980's,
for a total decrease of over 92 percent from 1968 levels.
Levels of suspended solids and bacteria also decreased
substantially.
As a result, fish and aquatic life not seen in the river
for years reappeared. Shrimp began moving up the
Neches in quantities large enough to be an actual
nuisance—on several occasions they plugged up
industrial water intakes. Commercial crabbers started
to work the river for profit and bass came back as well,
to the joy of local anglers who had been convinced a few
short years ago that the Neches was a dead stream.
Sportsmen fishing along Sabine Lake also reported a
marked improvement in their catches. In 1976, to
everyone's surprise, a fisherman caught a tarpon—the
first tarpon caught in the lake in over 30 years.
The Neches tidal area is designated for the propagation
of fish and wildlife and non-contact recreation. Although
water quality standards have been violated for the past
five years, the water is still much improved. Standards
applicable to this portion of the Neches are attained
50 to 70 percent of the year. Residents of the area are
once again able to enjoy the amenities of outdoor living
along the Neches, since much of the tidal area today is
clean enough for boating, fishing, and camping most
of the year And, for those who like peace and quiet.
Port Neches City Park some six miles up from the river's
mouth affords a scenic retreat for picnicking and
relaxation
The U S. Corps of Engineers has proposed that the
temporary salt water barriers located 37 miles above the
mouth of the Neches be phased out, and that a
permanent barrier be constructed downstream at a point
23 miles above the mouth This proposal has been
approved by a Congressional committee If carried
out, it would result in reclamation of the river as a
freshwater habitat.
26
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27
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Grand River
Kalamazoo River
Green Bay
Fox River
Calumet River
Black River
jenesee River
Cuyahoga River
Detroit River
Sterling State Park
River Rouge
Indiana Harbor Canal
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The Great Lakes Basin
The five Great Lakes are the world's largest reservoirs
of fresh water—95,000 square miles containing 6
quadrillion gallons of water. The lakes were a major
setting for the American Industrial Revolution. For more
than a century the wastes poured in: raw and in-
adequately treated sewage and runoff from the cities;
chemicals including sulfates, chlorides, phenols, and
ammonia from industry; oil and heavy metals from both
industry and shipping; and pesticides, herbicides, and
chemical fertilizers from agriculture.
There is a limit to the amount of untreated effluent
that even as vast a reservoir of water as the Great Lakes
can absorb. Lake Erie became overloaded with nutrients,
largely from municipal wastes and rural runoff, but also
from industrial wastes and urban runoff. Its waters
became clogged with decaying plants that used up the
oxygen necessary to support other aquatic life, and
the lake began to age prematurely.
Parts of Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario also became
heavily polluted, Lake Huron and Lake Superior less so.
In localized areas of the hardest hit lakes, bacteria
counts reached unsafe levels. Low dissolved oxygen
levels jeopardized the survival of many native species
of fish.
Many beaches on Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and Lake
Ontario were closed. Many fish died.
In 1972, the United States and Canada—the two
nations that share the Great Lakes—signed the Great
Lakes Water Quality Agreement to formalize their joint
long-term attack on the sources of pollution. Updated in
1978, the Agreement and the control programs of both
nations view the Great Lakes as an ecosystem of inter-
acting components—water, land, air, and living
organisms. The Agreement seeks to protect this complex
system by dealing more effectively with pollution from all
sources—direct discharges into the lakes, agricultural
and other runoff from nonpoint sources, and air
pollution.
In the most severely polluted lakes—Erie, Ontario, and
Michigan—serious problems still exist. Even today, some
fish pulled from the lakes and their tributaries are still not
considered safe to eat because of the high levels of
contamination from industrial, agricultural, and
municipal discharges. Though the States, backed by
the Federal Government, have pressed their part of the
cleanup effort in the last few years, most of the job
still lies ahead. Nevertheless, there are some signs
of progress. A 1978 EPA survey of people who live and
work along the lakes showed that nearly all of them
noted visual improvements in the lakes. Shoreline
property values are increasing rapidly, the lakes'
recreation industries—sport fishing, boating, and
vacation resorts—are booming, and some beaches long
closed to swimmers have been reopened.
Lake Erie: Aging More Slowly
A decade ago, Lake Erie, a 20,000 year-old inland
sea, was held up as one of the most tragic cases of
pollution in the Nation.
From the beginning, Erie has been the shallowest of
the Great Lakes. It was also furthest along in the natural
process of eutrophication. In this process a young, pure
body of water ages, taking on sediment, nutrient and
organic matter, and growing shallower and more
29
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enriched until it becomes first a marsh or swamp, then
a meadowy grassland, and finally a forested woodland.
In the early 1800's human activities began accelerat-
ing this natural process in Lake Erie, until by the middle
of this century, the lake had aged alarmingly. The early
farmers stripped away the natural protective cover
from the rich farmlands. Lake Erie's tributaries started
carrying sediment to the lake which then piled up in its
already shallow western basin. Then industry followed
agriculture along the banks of the lake's main
tributaries—the Detroit, the Maumee and the Cuyahoga.
With industry came the booming big cities—Detroit,
Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo—bursting along its shore-
line. Industry and increased populations brought
nutrients—primarily nitrates and phosphates—that
hurried the lake's aging process.
The nitrate and phosphate pollution fed the algal
blooms causing large blankets of green slime on parts
of the lake. As the aigae spread, it consumed the
oxygen needed to keep other forms of aquatic life
alive. Large portions of the bottom water in the lake's
central basin were without oxygen in the summer
months. Many beaches on the shores of the States
that ring Lake Erie—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and New York—were closed because of high bacteria
counts from sewage discharges, or were not used
because of objectionable algal slime.
The deteriorating condition of the lakes made State
agencies and private citizens concerned even before EPA
was foimed. Gradually this concern of the middle and
late 1960's began to be translated into action. Then in
the 1970's came EPA, the joint Canada-U S. campaign
against pollution in all the lakes, and the tough new
amendments to the Federal Clean Water Act. A major
effort was launched jointly by the affected States,
EPA, Canada, industry, and private citizens.
High-phosphate detergents were banned or limited in
three of the five States draining into Lake Erie—Michigan,
Indiana, and New York Inthetwo-yearspanfrom 1972 to
1973, treatment of wastewater to deal with phosphates
was improved and the phosphorus load dumped into
Lake Erie was reduced by about 46 million pounds.
DDT use was curtailed, industrial pollution was reduced,
and municipal sewage systems were improved.
Then came the first signs that conditions in the open
waters of Lake Erie were improving—or at least not
worsening. Airline pilots noticed that the sheets of
shimmering green algae were receding. Clear water
game fish planted in the lake survived when, a few
years before, they would have died. Some beaches that
had been closed for more than a decade were reopened.
The maximum area without oxygen in the central basin
of Lake Erie is difficult to measure and is highly dependent
upon meteorological conditions during the year.
However, a high measurement of 65 percent in 1966
and a low of 6 percent in 1975 indicates an improving
trend toward less widespread and less severe oxygen
depletion.
This does not mean that Lake Erie is no longer
"aging " The natural process still goes on, and people
are still contributing to the lake's aging in instances
where established discharge requirements are violated
and where municipal phosphorus loadings could be
lessened significantly by statewide phosphorus-control
legislation in Ohio. But many of the heavy discharges
of nutrients that were hurrying the process have been
reduced
Lake Ontario: Tangible Improvements
A massive cleanup effort has also been launched
along the shores of Lake Ontario, the most eastern of the
Great Lakes, and, next to Lake Erie, the most polluted.
EPA construction grants have provided hundreds of
millions of dollars to help build treatment systems in
communities whose wastes used to pollute Lake
Ontario. Today the sewage generated by over 95 percent
of the population on the U.S. side of the lake is treated
before being discharged into the lake or its tributaries.
Most of the systems provide secondary or tertiary
treatment. This has significantly reduced the load of
nutrients and oxygen-demanding wastes pouring into
the lake.
Another part of the cleanup effort has been the ban
on phosphates in detergents in Canada and New York
State. Phosphate levels have decreased substantially—
and more quickly than computer models had predicted.
Because it is downstream from the other four Great
Lakes, Lake Ontario will eventually benefit from the
reduction in phosphate levels in the other lakes.
30
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In addition, the discharge limits in permits required
by the Federal Clean Water Act have compelled
industries as well as communities discharging into
Lake Ontario to improve their treatment systems.
The combination of improved sewage and industrial
wastewater treatment and the phosphate bans have
produced tangible results:
• Ten years ago, Lake Ontario was m a state of accel-
erated eutrophication because of human activities.
Over the last three years there has been substantial
reduction in total phosphorus in the lake, which may
indicate a reversal in the eutrophication process.
• Ten years ago, the lakefront beaches of Monroe
County and the City of Rochester, New York, were
closed to swimming because of high bacteria levels
measured in storm water runoff and combined sewer
overflows. They were fouled with blue-green algae
that had bloomed in the lake and then washed
ashore and rotted. Commercial fishing was on the
decline. Today there is less algae and the fish are
beginning to come back. Rochester's beach
reopened for the first time in a decade in 1976 and
both beaches were open for swimming 98 percent of
the time in the summer of 1978.
• Over the years, some businesses catering to tourists
at Ontario's beaches were forced to close because of
the pollution. Today there is talk of redeveloping some
recreation areas.
Although the once severely polluted lake is still far
from pristine, substantial progress has been made
through on-going cleanup efforts and more is anticipated
as new and improved municipal and industrial treatment
systems are installed and as the other Great Lakes
upstream continue to improve in quality.
Lake Michigan: Signs of Progress
At its southern tip, Lake Michigan has neither the
great depth nor the strong currents necessary to absorb
and dilute the wastes flowing into it from the heavily
populated and highly industrialized greater Chicago
area, including Hammond and Gary, Indiana. As a result,
Lake Michigan presents very difficult problems to those
seeking improvement in water quality. The accomplish-
ments to date have been modest at best.
At the same time, the difficulty presented by Lake
Michigan has led to some innovative solutions. For
example, because the lake's slow flushing time makes it
a cul-de-sac for pollution, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship
Canal has been used to divert much of the Chicago
area's wastewater into the Illinois River/Mississippi
River system which, when required treatment and
combined sewer overflow controls are in place, will be
better able to absorb it than is Lake Michigan.
To determine how Lake Michigan has responded to the
remedial programs designed to stop or reverse the
severe degradation that was clearly apparent in the
1960's, EPA conducted an intensive study of the lake in
1976 and 1977 and compared the results with a 1963
survey. The official report has not yet been completed,
but some findings have been announced. The study
showed that the lake degenerated considerably between
1963 and 1970, and that the degeneration was even
worse by 1976. In particular, levels of chlorides and
sodium in the open lake had risen, raising the possibility
that algae may become more prevelent. However, while
it is too early to say that a.cleansing trend has started,
1977 sampling indicated some improvements over
1976. The cleanup programs, including better sewage
and industrial wastewater treatment, State and
municipal bans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and
Indiana on high phosphate detergents, and the diversion
of municipal wastes from the lake to the Mississippi
River system seem to be helping. In particular:
• There has been substantial improvement in water
quality along the shore at the southern tip of the lake.
The trophic status of Lake Michigan improved
dramatically between 1976 and 1977. Improved
conditions persisted through 1979. These improved
conditions appear to be associated with three
unusually cold winters that occurred during 1977,
1978, and 1979. Phosphorus-loading reduction
since 1974 may also be a factor. The permanence of
this improvement will be tested after the unusually
mild winter of 1979-80.
• DDT levels in Lake Michigan fish have dropped 90
percent since 1969, as a result of EPA's 1972 DDT
ban and natural removal processes.
• While it is still inconclusive, there is some evidence
that the 1971 voluntary restrictions on the sale of
PCBs, which are both highly toxic and highly
persistent, have resulted in lower levels of that
dangerous chemical in aquatic life. A recent study
found decreases in PCB levels in Lake Michigan coho
salmon for the first time since monitoring began five
years before. (PCB levels remain high enough, how-
ever, that fish from the lake still cannot be sold
commercially.)
• Bacteria levels have been reduced enough that, in
recent years, several beaches that had long been
closed have been reopened for swimming
In summary, there are signs of progress on Lake
Michigan.
Lake Huron: A Noticeable Improvement
Lake Huron has faced serious problems in the
Sagmaw Bay area. Bay City, Michigan, the Saginaw
River, and its tributaries suffered from heavy industrial
pollution, nutrient loading and toxics including dioxin,
PCB, and PBB contamination from the local chemical
industry The identification and control of the sources of
the toxic pollutants is still ongoing. However, due to the
pollution controls already in place, nutrient loading has
been reduced greatly, and Saginaw Bay has shown
substantial improvement in appearance. The improve-
ment has been both measurable and observable; local
residents have remarked favorably on the changes they
have seen. An EPA study is being undertaken during
1980 to document the effects of this reduced loading.
Lake Superior: A New Concern
Lake Superior is the largest and deepest of the Great
Lakes, and because of the relatively small population in
its drainage basin, it is the least affected by man. How-
ever, even Lake Superior has been plagued with
worrisome pollution problems. The most well-known of
these problems is that of asbestos-like particles found in
the tailings from taconite mining. These particles have
gotten into drinking water in the western arm of the lake
31
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and have caused communities that once drew drinking
water with no treatment to turn to bottled water or to
install filtration plants, which previously were not
required on Lake Superior. EPA and the State of
Minnesota were able to get the Reserve Mining
Company, the source of this pollution, to agree to stop
dumping taconite tailings into the lake and to dispose of
them in a landfill instead. As a result, discharges of
taconite tailings into Lake Superior ceased m 1980.
PCBs have also been found in Lake Superior's waters
and fish. They have been found in the fish of a virtually
inaccessible lake on Isle Royale, a National Park on the
western arm of Lake Superior. The levels measured
there were still below 2 parts per million; this discovery
was disturbing since any detectable PCBs in such
samples is cause for concern. To bring the problem
under control, EPA and the University of Minnesota are
conducting special studies at research stations in
Lake Superior aboard EPA's research vessels.
THE BEACHES
The beaches along the Great Lakes were once enjoyed
by millions. But with pollution, primarily from human
sewage and industrial wastes, many beaches were
closed.
A forest of signs proclaimed the grim news: "Unsafe
for Swimming," "No Swimming Allowed," "Danger—
Polluted Water."
Lake Erie and portions of Lake Michigan suffered
most, their waters fed by raw or poorly treated sewage
from the largest metropolitan areas in the Great Lakes
Basin and by industrial discharges from hundreds of
factories.
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Two other problems also affected the beaches: algal
blooms and alewife die-offs. In response to the algal
problem, many Great Lakes states have banned high
phosphate detergents and installed phosphorus removal
at treatment plants. These actions have lowered the
growth rate of cladophera—dense algae that first
proliferate in phosphorus-rich waters and then wash
up on the shore and rot, giving off a terrible stench.
In 1967, the fish population of the lakes was
dominated by alewives. In that year these fish suffered a
massive die-off and washed up on beaches to rot. Today
the alewife population is still very large, but it is kept
under control by introduced sport fish, such as the coho
salmon, that feed on them.
A few Great Lakes beaches still remain closed today.
But with more communities and industries coming into
compliance with wastewater treatment requirements,
bacteria levels have dropped. As a result, a number of
Great Lakes beaches have reopened in recent years and
more seem to be on the road to recovery. Two good
examples are the beach at Michigan's Sterling State
Park, on Lake Erie, and the beaches along Chicago's
North Shore, which are large public beach areas at the
southern end of Lake Michigan.
Sterling State Park: In Use Again
The beach at Sterling State Park, just north of Monroe
between Detroit and Toledo, reopened for swimming in
1978 for the first time since 1961. It had been closed by
the Michigan Department of Natural Resources because
the State Department of Public Health had measured
high levels of bacteria there.
In the spring of 1978, the Monroe County Health
Department's Division of Environmental Health
completed an extensive water sampling study at Sterling
State Park. It found that the waters "are now safe for
public swimming." Industries and communities in the
area had cleaned up their discharges well enough to
allow the public once again to use a valuable public
recreation area.
Chicago's North Shore: A Successful Diversion
On Chicago's North Shore, public and private beaches
of some of the area's most exclusive suburbs had to
close routinely after heavy storms, when overflows from
the sewage system spilled out.
In the summer of 1978, for the first time in more years
than anyone had counted, beach-goers did not have to
await an "all clear" after heavy downpours. The reason:
no sewage overflows. The North Shore Sanitary District
of Lake County, Illinois, had completed the diversion of
its outfall from Lake Michigan to a tributary of the
Mississippi. With the facilities now planned to handle
hea>sy-weather flows, the Mississippi Basin as well will
soon be spared any ill effects from sewage overflows
during and after storms.
A NEW THREAT-TOXICS
The early joint efforts of the Great Lakes States, the
Government of Canada, and EPA centered on the
pollution that everybody thought constituted the central
problem—raw wastes from industry and raw sewage
from the cities.
But recently a new and perhaps more ominous
threat—toxic chemicals—has been identified. High
levels of PCBs have been found in fish in Lake Ontario,
Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan. Mercury contamination
of fish is a problem in the western basin of Lake Erie.
PCBs, a mercury, and high concentrations of asbestos
fibers have been found in Lake Superior. Arsenic has
appeared and DDT, while not the problem it once was,
still persists. Even Mirex, an insecticide once used in the
southern United States to kill fire ants, has been found in
fish and bottom sediments in Lake Ontario.
Some scientists now suggest that a significant portion
of pollution in the Great Lakes may not come directly from
sources on the shore, but from the atmosphere. Particles
of phosphorus, heavy metals, pesticides, and toxic
industrial compounds from industrial processes and
incinerators escape into the air and are then washed out
of the air into the lakes by the rain and snow, or simply
settle onto the surface of the lakes as dust particles.
Prevailing winds may carry some pesticides, such as
toxaphene, to the lakes from the states immediately south
of them.
Regardless of how they reach the Great Lakes, toxics
have become a pressing environmental challenge that
must be met. The toxics problem there takes its place
beside the still unresolved nutrient problem as one of the
two most severe forms of pollution yet to be dealt with
adequately.
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE ERIE
The Cuyahoga River: Significantly Improved
No river in the United States has a more notorious
national reputation than the Cuyahoga, which flows
through Akron and Cleveland on its way to Lake Erie.
The Cuyahoga River, called "crooked waters" by the
early Indians, was fed by pollution from the steel and
chemical industries along its banks and by raw or
inadequately treated municipal wastes. By the 1960's, it
was running muddy brown in color. Into it, from the
industrial canyon along the last five miles of its course,
poured 155 tons a day of chemical, oil, iron, and acid
wastes. Gas from decaying organic material fermenting
along its bottom rose and bust into bubbles on its surface.
It had a bacteria count—particularly after a heavy
rainfall—matching that of raw sewage. It became known
nationwide as the oil-slicked river that was so polluted
that it had caught fire and burned.
The Cuyahoga has attracted considerable EPA
attention and assistance. Since the beginning of the
1970's, EPA has issued grants for approximately 17
municipal sewage treatment projects in the Cuyahoga
Basin.
The visible oil that made the Cuyahoga a fire hazard
has nearly disappeared. In 1967, a reporter from the
Chicago Tribune dunked his hand into the river and
pulled it out coated with oil. In the mid-1970's he dipped
it in again and it came out oil-free. BOD, cyanide, and
phenol levels are also down. A report by the Cleveland
Utilities Department also reports that phosphorus
levels are half of what they were and that nitrogen levels
have also dropped substantially.
But dissolved oxygen levels, a prime measure of the
health of a river are still low, and some debris and
sewage still float on its surface. As new sewage
33
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treatment systems are completed at Akron and
Cleveland Southerly, there should be more improvement
in the Cuyahoga. However, the lower Cuyahoga, even
with the municipal and industrial treatment programs
scheduled for completion, will still have difficulty
supporting anything but the most pollution-tolerant
forms of aquatic life. This may be in part due to the
river's stagnant estuarine nature and in part due to the
tons of contaminated sediment blanketing the river
bottom.
The Detroit River and the River Rouge: A Major
Success
The main Erie tributary—the Detroit River— is being
acclaimed nationally as a major, if still incomplete,
cleanup success.
The fast-running, 30-mile long river, which ties Lake
St. Clair and the upper Great Lakes to Lake Erie, runs
past the City of Detroit. From the day the great French
explorer Cadillac founded the city in 1701 until the Civil
War, the Detroit River was admired as perhaps the most
beautiful and pure in the Midwest. It sported the most
delicate of freshwater fish—trout, whitefish, muskel-
lunge, smallmouth bass, perch, sturgeon, and the little
emerald shiner, a bait fish highly susceptible to
pollution.
After the Civil War, though, in the tumult of the
Industrial Revolution, the river became a vessel for the
wastes of the industries and the cities that burgeoned on
its banks. An appalling tide of effluents—sewage,
chemicals, waste oils, acids, garbage, trash, and sludge
from paper plants—poured into the river.
By the late 1940's, the pollution had reached its
zenith. Thirty-five thousand gallons of oil were being
dumped into its water every day. A quarter-inch thick
coating of oil covered its shoreline. Grease balls eight
and ten inches across washed up on its banks. Tons of
phosphorus were washed down the river into Lake Erie.
In the winter of 1948, in a dramatic episode that
illustrated the extent of the river's deterioration, 20,000
ducks diving into openings in the ice came up soaked with
oil and died Massive duck kills, with as many as
40,000 ducks dying each year, continued into the
1960's.
At the same time, the Detroit's most industrialized
tributary, the River Rouge, flowed orange from the
thousands of gallons of pickling liquor, a steel processing
acid, that were dumped into it. But its surface was so
coated with oil that the orange color showed only
34
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momentarily in the wake of passing boats. A Michigan
biologist once drew a bucketful of water from the Rouge
only to find, an hour and a half later, that acids had eaten
away the bucket's bottom.
In the early 1960's, the Lake Erie Cleanup Committee,
an active and vocal citizens' group, began to press hard
for a full-scale cleanup of the river.
In 1962, an EPA predecessor agency convened the
first joint Federal-State conference on the Detroit River.
Out of that conference came effluent limitations for the
river's major industries and municipalities. In 1969, the
City of Detroit began building major additions to its
enormous wastewater treatment plant. More than half
the cost was paid by construction grants from EPA. The 60
industries on the Detroit waterfront also invested heavily
in new equipment to treat or recycle wastewater.
All of these actions had a significant effect on the
river, as Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young demonstrated
in 1975. He led a fishing expedition out on the river and
dropped his line into water that was once again blue-
green in color. Fishermen looking down could see the
boat's propeller four feet below; they could remember
when they could not see four inches.
Today the oil that was dumped for so long into the river
is nearly gone. The 35,000 gallons a day in the 1940's
was reduced to 3,600 gallons by the 1960's, and to 650
gallons in 1976. Chloride and phosphorus discharges
have been cut in half since 1966. Some treatment plants
are achieving the International Joint Commission's
phosphorus limit of 1 milligram per liter.
There have been no major duck kills since 1968. Even
the River Rouge, which ran orange and black with
pickling liquor and oil only a decade ago, is flowing
green again, and the egrets are returning to its banks.
Nevertheless, at least two serious problems remain.
Inadequately treated sewage from the City of Detroit still
contaminates the river, contributing over 30 percent of
Lake Erie's phosphorus load. In addition, toxic pollutants
from past dischargers and other sources are cause for
continuing concern because of significant contamination
of herring gulls and aquatic life.
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE ONTARIO
The Black River: New Treatment Systems
Ten years ago, the Black River near Watertown, New
York, received untreated wastes from numerous paper
mills. The result was ugly sludge beds that gave off an
offensive odor and also robbed the water of oxygen
Many of those plants have since closed. Those that
remain have installed treatment systems in accordance
with Federal and State permit requirements.
Conditions have improved considerably in the Black
River, and, as a result, in Lake Ontario as well. Because
the river is clean enough now for the State to stock it with
salmon, a major salmon run is expected up to Watertown,
the location of the first stream barrier, in 1982.
The Genessee River: Discharges Controlled
Ten years ago, the Genesse River, a major tributary in
the Rochester area, contained toxic metals, organics,
sewage and other oxygen-depleting wastes. These
wastes resulted from a combination of overflow from
municipal combined sewer and industrial discharges.
Today, a county-wide collection system is routed to four
major secondary treatment sites. With this substantial
control of the offending discharges and reduction of
waste flows, the fish are coming back to the Genesee
and algae no longer rots on the beaches, which were
closed to swimmers for ten years.
Pollution from the City of Rochester's combined sewer
overflows and from urban and upstream runoff remain a
major problem, though. The beaches require surveil-
lance and are closed for short periods following heavy
rains. The water quality of the Black River and Lake
Ontario will improve if, as has been proposed, 22 miles
of tunnels are constructed to temporarily store and
provide the capability to treat runoff from large storms.
TRIBUTARIES OF LAKE MICHIGAN
Three large rivers and two smaller ones that empty
into Lake Michigan stand as successes or partial
successes in water pollution control.
The Grand River: Continued Improvement
Despite vigorous cleanup efforts by State and local
agencies and several citizen groups, Michigan's Grand
River was still heavily polluted in the mid 1960's.
Untreated sewage poured into the river at Ionia, and
Grand Rapids had only primary treatment for its wastes.
In addition, tannery wastes and spills from the metal-
plating industries in Grand Rapids fouled the river's
waters. As a result of this poor treatment, the Grand
ran brownish-green in color. It gave off a strong, dis-
agreeable odor and had serious dissolved oxygen
problems for 21 miles downstream of the Grand
Rapids-Wyoming-Grandville municipal-industrial
complex. These problems were the cause of several
tragic incidents.
In August 1968, thousands of minnows and carp
were killed by cyanide that entered the river through
storm drains In October 1967, another kill wiped out
2,000 salmon—a substantial part of the season's run.
In the summer of 1968, the newly created Grand River
Watershed Council joined the Michigan Water
Resources Commission to address the crisis on the river.
These two groups developed plans to upgrade waste-
water treatment to secondary levels basin-wide. Grand
Rapids adopted an ordinance to control the discharges of
its industries, including its more than 40 metal-plating
companies.
In 1974 primary sewage treatment plants at Spring
Lake and Grand Haven were replaced by a large complex
providing secondary treatment. Grandville had its
secondary system on line by 1973. By that same year,
although bottom sediments remained heavily polluted
with metals, industry had decreased its discharges of
metals by 90 percent since a 1966 sampling.
Once these measures were taken, the fish began to
return. By 1972, the Izaak Walton League was reporting
a successful trout fishing contest, a certain sign that the
Grand no longer ran as polluted as it once did
Fishermen are coming in force to catch the salmon
migrating to spawning grounds upriver. Now, nearly all
wastewater treatment m the area has been upgraded to
at least secondary levels. As a result, the quality of the
water in the Grand River should continue to improve.
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The Kalamazoo River: Challenges Still Ahead
Not so many years ago, observers said the Kalamazoo
River, meandering westerly through southeastern
Michigan, looked like a thick milk shake when seen from
an airplane. It had the reputation of being Michigan's
filthiest stream. In the 1940's, one of the largest fish kills
on record hit the river. During the summers of 1950 and
1951, there was no measurable dissolved oxygen in the
water over a reach of the river 10 miles long that began
10 miles below the City of Kalamazoo.
By 1951, an attack that had been mounted by the
Michigan Water Resources Commission on the pollution
in the Kalamazoo River started to show results. A
primary treatment plant was built near the City of
Kalamazoo. A 1956 survey called for still further
reductions in the waste loads being dumped into the
river, and paper mills were ordered to cut back their
oxygen-consuming discharges. In 1963, the State, the
city, five paper companies, and a pharmaceutical
company joined in a program of water pollution control.
A high rate activated sludge plant that treated both
industrial and municipal wastes was built in 1967.
By the time EPA entered the picture in the early
1970's, the oxygen-consuming wastes discharged into
the river at Kalamazoo had been cut by 75 percent.
All the way from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo the water
began to run clearer—clean enough and with enough
oxygen to support game fish.
However, Michigan officials discovered in 1971 that
sediments and fish in the Kalamazoo River were
contaminated with PCBs. Coping with that problem and
obtaining the advanced wastewater treatment now
required for Kalamazoo and Battle Creek are the
challenges ahead for the State and EPA.
There is another problem as well. The Southcentral
Michigan Planning Council (SMPC) has identified urban
stormwater, and in particular stormwater from the cities
of Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and Portage, as a significant
contributor of oxygen-demanding wastes to the
Kalamazoo River. Those cities will have to implement
stormwater control measures to reduce nutrient loading
and increase the assimilative capacity of the stream, and
Kalamazoo will have to construct advanced wastewater
treatment facilities.
The City of Kalamazoo has initiated its own
stormwater sampling program in an effort to define the
extent of the problem. The SMPC, with the City of
Portage, is also planning to deal with stormwater control
in Portage.
The Fox River and Green Bay: Major Discharge
Reductions
Ten years ago, the Fox River in Wisconsin was probably
one of the most polluted in the country. Until recently, fish
kills occurred annually due to wastes from municipalities
and from the largest concentrations of paper mills in the
United States. At times, dissolved oxygen would be
totally absent for distances of up to 20 miles. Then came
a cleanup campaign by local governments and by the
pulp and paper industry. As a result, fish and wildlife are
gradually beginning to reappear in areas where they have
not been seen for years.
All but a few towns along the Fox had new waste-
water treatment plants on line in 1979, replacing
obsolete plants that had contributed to the river's
pollution. But some of the most dramatic improvements
came in the reduction of the amounts of suspended
solids and oxygen-demanding wastes (BOD) put into the
river by the 15 pulp and paper plants along its banks.
In the early 1960's, some 460,000 pounds of BOD
were discharged into the Fox each day. That amount was
cut in half by the mid-1970's and by 1979 was cut to
34,000 pounds a day—more than a 90 percent reduction
since 1962. In order to establish the final limits for dis-
chargers on the Fox, a wasteload allocation must be
completed so that the Water Quality Standard will be
attained during critical low-flow conditions. To attain this
Standard it may be necessary for some dischargers to
lower their present effluent levels to the Fox River.
The impact of the discharge reductions to date has
been appreciable. With the resurgence of sport fish
populations, sport fishing is increasing, and more people
are using the lower Fox for boating, water-skiing, and
swimming.
Furthermore, a cleaner Fox River means a cleaner
Lake Michigan where it flows into the lake at Green Bay.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fish
management staff reports improvements that include
increased numbers of fish and improved species ratios
with a higher percentage of game fish such as perch and
walleye. Also, pollutant-sensitive species such as trout,
salmon and burbot are beginning to reappear. As more
industries and municipalities begin to meet treatment
requirements, even more dramatic improvements are
expected.
Major problems remain, however. Both the Fox River
and Green Bay have high levels of PCBs. The Fox River
has been identified as a major contributor of PCBs and
chlorinated organics to the Lake Michigan Basin.
The Indiana Harbor Canal: Improvement Still Needed
The Indiana Harbor Canal carries wastes from the
heavily industrialized cities of Gary, Hammond, East
Chicago, and Whiting into Lake Michigan. It is made up
almost exclusively of industrial and municipal wastes
and is the most significant contributor of discharge to
southern Lake Michigan. In the early 1970's a boat could
not navigate the canal without its hull becoming
blackened with oil, and a hand dangled in the water
would emerge covered with a black film. Lake Michigan
waters surrounding the mouth of the canal were
constantly discolored by iron-red discharges from the
nearby steel mills.
Now oil is found occasionally in isolated parts of the
Canal, and the iron-red sheen from steel mills' discharge
is no longer visible at the mouth of the Canal.
The steel mills and oil refineries have been reasonably
well cleaned up, but several of the municipalities—
specifically Gary, East Chicago, and Whiting—still have
major problems, and the Canal, though considerably
improved, still violates water quality standards by a
substantial margin.
The Calumet River: Improved
Ten years ago the Calumet River in the Chicago area
was little better than an oily open sewer where industry
dumped its wastes. It was considered the dirtiest of the
nine or ten important streams in Cook County. Pressed
hard by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the
industries discharging into it—including four steel
mills—made major investments to clean up. This has
resulted in an improved waterway for the State.
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NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES OF THE MISSISSIPPI
The stories below recount the cleanup of two Northern
rivers that are tributaries not of the Great Lakes but of the
Mississippi
The Wisconsin River: Where Coordinated Enforcement
Worked
The Wisconsin River's condition in the late 1960's was
considered very grave. It was overburdened with sus-
pended solids and BOD wastes from municipal and
industrial discharges. The most critical industrial
dischargers were pulp and paper mills.
In 1976, the Justice Department and EPA instituted a
coordinated and highly successful enforcement effort
against pulp mills on this river and several others in
Wisconsin. The condition of the Wisconsin River began
to improve as BOD discharges dropped to 100,000
pounds a day in 1976 and 50,000 pounds a day in early
1979. BOD discharges will continue to drop to between
30,000 and 40,000 pounds a day in 1980. According to
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, when
that happens the river will be "m pretty good shape" and
will show few signs of the severe pollution of earlier
years.
One potential problem remains. Water quality models
indicate that protection of water quality during critical
low flows in the Wausau area may require that
discharges be cut to between 4,000 and 5,000 pounds a
day. While that conclusion has not been tested by
observations during an actual low flow period, the State
is studying the situation carefully
The Maunesha River: Improvements and Problems
The Maunesha River near Waterloo was heavily
polluted in the mid-1960's by wastes from a sauerkraut
and pickle cannery, a cheese factory, a slaughter house,
and from the town itself. Four miles of the river were
without life of any kind. To improve this situation, a
treatment plant was built to handle wastes from all the
dischargers.
Now a balanced community of aquatic organisms,
including pollution-intolerant organisms, once more
lives in the river. Some problems remain, however. High
bacteria counts have been found below the treatment
plant's outfall, and high levels of inorganic nitrogen—
most likely from agricultural runoff or decaying marsh
vegetation—have been detected upstream from the
treatment plant.
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Gold Run Creek
Whitewood Creek
South Platte River
North Canadian River
Wilson's Creek
Grove Creek
Center Creek
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Waters of the Heartland
Wilson's Creek: Safety with a Bonus
Wilson's Creek flows through Battlefield National
Park, a popular recreation area near Springfield,
Missouri. In recent decades inadequately treated
wastewater from Springfield, Missouri's sewage
treatment plant had made the creek too polluted to
support aquatic life. The water ran dark brown and gave
off a horrible odor.
With the help of an EPA grant, Springfield built an
advanced waste treatment system. The new plant, which
uses the most modern technology, including ozone
disinfection, went into operation in 1978.
Within months there was an amazing change at the
park, according to astonished National Park Service
staffers who were there before and after the treatment
system was installed. Wilson's Creek now runs clear for
catfish and carp. Turtles, muskrat and other wildlife not
seen there before now come to the creek's banks. During
the fall and winter of 1978-79, wild ducks used the creek
for the first time anyone could remember. The water is
now safe for all to enjoy
And there is a bonus. Sludge from Springfield's treat-
ment plant is spread on a farmer's nearby pastureland,
where beef cattle graze. Before using the sludge in this
way, the city tested it for heavy metals and found it safe.
To make sure it stays that way, the city monitors the
sludge regularly.
Grove Creek and Center Creek: Marked Reductions
in Pollutants
Four miles east of Joplin, Missouri, Grove Creek flows
north into Center Creek, which, in turn, flows east at
Joplm's northern tip. This area is dotted with abandoned
zinc and lead mines.
By 1950, dissolved fluorides, phosphorus, ammonia,
and nitrates discharged from an explosives plant and
from two fertilizer manufacturers on Grove Creek had
seriously degraded both Grove Creek itself and that
portion of Center Creek immediately downstream from
their confluence. Grove Creek became clogged with
algae and sludge deposits. There were fish kills on
Center Creek in 1960 and 1962. In 1965, the Missouri
Department of Conservation found that relatively little
bottom-dwelling life lived in Center Creek for some eight
to ten miles below the point where Grove Creek flows
into it.
In 1968, the State of Missouri established water
quality standards for Grove Creek and Center Creek. The
industries on Grove Creek agreed to meet the standards,
constructed pollution control facilities, and made
process modifications within their plants.
A study conducted by the Missouri Clean Water Com-
mission in 1974 showed a remarkable improvement in
both Grove and Center Creeks. There were marked
reductions in turbidity, total solids, and sulfate content in
Grove Creek. In 1961, the pH level in Grove Creek had
been a highly acidic 3.1; by 1973, the pH level in the
creek had climbed to a virtually neutral 7.5, well within
the acceptable range.
The study also showed remarkable improvement in
Center Creek's water quality below its confluence with
Grove Creek. From 1967 to 1970, fluoride and
phosphorus had been reduced 95 percent and 88
percent respectively, and nitrogen in the form of
ammonia or organic nitrogen was reduced
approximately 60 percent.
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The industrial discharges now meet both State and
Federal permit requirements. Nuisance algae and sludge
deposits no longer foul Grove Creek, and fish kills no
longer plague Center Creek. Fisherman are catching
sunfish and large- and smallmouth bass in far greater
numbers than before—some in areas where none were
found 20 years ago.
To improve water quality in Center Creek even further,
EPA-financed studies looking at how to minimize
seepage from the abandoned mines in the area are now
underway.
The North Canadian River: Improved by Wastewater
Recycling
The wastewater treatment plant for the City of El
Reno, Oklahoma was unable to turn out water clean
enough to prevent pollution of the North Canadian River.
Downstream reservoirs used for recreation and as
Oklahoma City's water supply were threatened. El Reno
considered several alternatives and decided to construct
a simplified waste treatment process and then sell the
partially-treated wastewater for irrigation. A nearby
farmer liked the idea and signed a 20-year contract to
buy the water and use it for irrigation. The city will
receive about $200,000 over the 20 years from the sale
of the irrigation water.
The treatment system the city was able to install under
this arrangement has had many benefits. It was less
expensive than any of the available alternatives. Reuse
of the treated wastewater has helped to relieve
competition between cities and farmers for the basin's
water and to lessen the demand on groundwater
supplies—a precious resource in this arid region. The
nutrients in the wastewater have also reduced the need
for commercial fertilizers, and of course, the downstream
reservoirs and water supplies are no longer being
polluted by El Reno's wastewater.
For all concerned, this was a good solution, both
economically and environmentally.
Gold Run Creek and Whitewood Creek: After the Gold
Rush
The Black Hills of South Dakota is a unique area. The
primeval beauty of its fantastic rock formations made it
the most sacred of all places to the Indian tribes of the
Northern Plains. In addition, it harbors a wide variety
of wild flowers and animals, some of them native only
to the Black Hills. However, the resource that brought
growth to the area was its gold.
When gold was discovered in the streams of the Black
Hills there was a swift influx of miners and a consequent
birth of mining towns. Men and machinery needed to
run milling operations and process the ore trans-
formed the mining communities of Deadwood and
Lead from gold rush towns to industrial centers almost
overnight. But while the gold mining industry brought
prosperity and growth to the Black Hills, it also brought
pollution.
The process that miners used to extract small amounts
of gold from tons of ore used large amounts of water and
toxic chemicals such as mercury, cyanide, and arsenic.
The accumulation of waste material from this process—
the tailings—increased as the scope of mining
operations grew. Miners began to backfill abandoned
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mines with the waste tailings and to dump the remaining
waste into nearby streams. By 1970, Homestake Mine,
the only mine still operating, was dumping nearly 3,000
tons of tailings a day into Gold Run Creek.
In addition to pollution from mining operations,
streams in the Black Hills received pollution from the
burgeoning towns along their banks. As Deadwood and
Lead developed, they encountered the problems of urban
growth, among them sewage disposal. A maze of make-
shift pipes from Lead dumped raw sewage into
convenient streams where it mingled with the mine
wastes from Homestake. The water of Whitewood Creek
ran clear until it joined the polluted water of Gold Run
and became battleship grey. As it flowed through
Deadwood and took on raw sewage from that population,
the creek lost its ability to support any aquatic life for
twenty miles.
The waste from the mines could even be traced to the
larger Belle Fourche, Cheyenne, and Missouri rivers,
into which Whitewood and Gold Run Creeks flow. From
there, in 1971, dangerous amounts of mercury were
found halfway across the State in South Dakota's
Oahe Reservoir and in the bodies of local fishermen.
Each heavy rain compounded the problem when it
washed toxic chemicals into the headwater creeks from
abandoned piles of mine tailings that were as much as six
feet deep.
When the extent of the mercury pollution became
known in 1971, Homestake Mining Company agreed to
stop using mercury in its refining process. In 1975, the
South Dakota Department of Environmental Protection
directed Homestake to solve the mill tailings problem.
The company is now completing development of a new
state-of-the-art technology to safely impound the
tailings and recycle its process water so that it conforms
with effluent standards dictated by the Clean Water Act
EPA is encouraged by Homestake's present
commitment to protecting water quality. Already
Whitewood Creek has improved dramatically. As fresh
water from upstream continues to cleanse the residual
chemicals from the Creek, greater improvement will be
evident.
The local communities agreed to tackle the problem of
raw municipal sewage that was causing a severe
organic overload in both Gold Run and Whitehood
Creeks. They voted by an overwhelming nine-to-one
margin to approve construction of a sewage system and
treatment plant. In July of 1979, the new Lead-
Deadwood facilities began operating.
State agencies, environmental groups, the Homestake
Mining Company, and private citizens worked hard to
see that Gold Run Creek and Whitewood Creek were
given a chance to survive. All are anxiously awaiting the
expected improvement in their creeks' waters.
The South Platte River: An Innovative Penalty
Agreement
When the cities of Littleton and Englewood, Colorado,
started up their new sewage treatment plant, they
quickly decided to shut down the existing plant. Sludge
from the existing plant was transferred to the new plant
before it was fully capable of processing it. As a result,
an excess of sludge developed, causing a sludge
discharge to the South Platte River—in violation of the
plant's permit.
EPA contended that improper procedures were used in
the start-up process and proposed that the cities be
fined. However, in a novel arrangement, EPA agreed to
suspend the fines if the cities made contributions in
equivalent amounts to a nonprofit environmental
project. The agreement was approved by the Federal
District Court in Denver.
In accordance with the agreement, each city
contributed $15,OOOto Littleton/Englewood Recycling,
Inc., a local nonprofit group that recycles newsprint,
cans, glass, and scrap metal. Although it was not a party
to the agreement, the consulting engineering firm that
worked on the treatment plant also offered to contribute
a portion of the funds.
At last report, Littleton-Englewood's "stop gap"
sludge handling process was gradually being
transformed into an acceptable sludge management
system. Sludge is anaerobically digested, treated with
chemicals, vacuum filtered and then landfilled.
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Waterways
Made By
People
Our Nation, in its exuberance to grow, has not only
polluted its natural waters, it has also hewn out new
waterways and polluted them as well. As with all our
waters, we must now clean them up.
The Sac River and Stockton Lake, Missouri: An
Unusual Dissolved Oxygen Problem
Stockton Lake is a 25,000-acre reservoir on the Sac
River, 50 miles northwest of Springfield, Missouri, and
135 miles southeast of Kansas City It was built by the
Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and power
generation.
On July 25, 1 970, only seven months after the
reservoir was built, fish kills were reported in the Sac
/?/Verjust below the reservoir. The water being released
from the new man-made lake was so low in dissolved
oxygen (DO) that it could not sustain the river's population
of pollution-sensitive fish. Low DO was reported again in
August. Along one three-mile segment of the stream
more than 20,000 fish lay dead.
The low DO condition was occurring during that time
of the year when the lake was thermally stratified—that
is, when the lake's waters were separated into a warm
upper layer and colder lower layer with little movement
of water between the two layers Thermal stratification
is a natural process that occurs on a seasonal basis in
many lakes. The organisms living in the depths of Lake
Stockton depleted the oxygen there, and the stratifica-
tion prevented oxygen replenishment from the naturally
more oxygen-rich, surface layers of water.
Unfortunately, the intakes for the water releases
necessary to generate power lay at the levels of the
deeper, oxygen-depleted water. Since, in the summer-
time, virtually all of the water releases are used to
generate power, that meant that all of the water released
in the summer was from the deeper, oxygen-poor layer
of water in the reservoir. In this low DO water the fish
downstream were simply unable to survive.
The Corps temporarily halted fish kills by installing
siphons which discharged high-oxygen-content water
from the surface layer of the reservoir into the river at
the same time that any low DO water was released.
Concerned parties then went to work on a long-term
solution The Federal Bureau of Sport Fisheries and
Wildlife—now known as the U S Fish and Wildlife
Service—the Missouri Water Pollution Control Board, the
Missouri Department of Conservation, and the Federal
Water Quality Administrator (an EPA predecessor
agency) were all consulted.
It was agreed that a skimming weir would be the most
economical and effective solution to the Sac River's DO
problem. A weir is a man-made obstruction put in a
stream to create an artificial cascade. As the water
tumbles over the cascade, oxygen from the air is drawn
in and mixed with it, increasing the concentration of
dissolved oxygen in the water downstream.
Completed in 1973, the weir in Stockton Lake now
ensures adequate water quality even when water is
released for power generation during periods of thermal
stratification, and the warm water fishery downstream is
thriving. Since installation of the weir, the oxygen
content of water released during power generation has
been maintained and no further fish kills have been
reported.
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The Houston Ship Channel, Texas: A Reawakening
President Woodrow Wilson went to Houston in 1914
and to the booming accompaniment of cannon
pushed the button that officially opened the Houston
Ship Channel. That turned Houston, until then a small
inland city of 16,000 people, into a port. No one could
have foreseen it then, but Houston was destined to
become the third largest port in the Nation and the
ship channel one of the Nation's filthiest waterways.
Houston itself experienced explosive growth. In fewer
than 20 years from the opening of the Channel,
Houston's population doubled. Then came World War II;
during the 1940's Houston's size nearly doubled again—
from 385,000 to 600,000.
In the early years few worried about pollution in
the channel. Buffalo Bayou, which winds through the
city and forms the channel's upper reaches, was a lazy
little stream notable for its Sunday swimming and canoe
races.
It wasn't until the mid-1960's that people realized the
ship channel had gradually become mired in pollution.
Wastes were being dumped raw into the ship channel.
By 1968 the BOD load dumped into it by the city and the
industrial giants along its banks was 406,000 pounds a
day.
In December 1967, a group gathered at the edge of the
channel in downtown Houston to mourn its death. They
conducted a mock funeral service and issued a death
certificate: death due to strangulation. EPA was later to
call the channel one of the tern most polluted major
waterways in the United States.
Until 1967, the only agency trying to stem the tide was
an understaffed and underfunded Texas Water Pollution
Control Board. It had a stream monitoring program as
well as water quality standards and permit procedures.
But there were no enforcement teeth. In September
1967, though, the Texas Legislature created the Texas
Water Quality Board, adequately funded it, and
authorized it to look after the quality of the water
throughout the State.
The new Water Quality Board quickly began to take
action. By 1970, the BOD being dumped into the channel
had been pared from over 400,000 pounds a day to
300,000. By 1972, the loading had dropped to 125,000
pounds a day.
The first signs of a reawakening of fish life in the
channel began to appear. Shrimp, crabs and other
marine life were found at water intake pipes five miles
below the channel's turning basin. Officials were
delighted. One company, Diamond Shamrock, threw a
party and served shrimp that had been gathered from the
ship channel.
But the victory was difficult to sustain. People were
still flocking into Houston at a rate of 2,000 new
residents a month. And in 1973, the BOD level had
jumped back to 175,000 pounds a day. However, with
full implementation of the Federal Clean Water Act
Amendments of 1972, the problem was once again
brought under control. By 1976, the loading was down
again—to 90,000 pounds a day—and headed toward a
hoped-for 41,000 pounds a day in 1979.
The City of Houston has been a major offender in the
pollution of the Channel. It is the source of 75 percent of
the BOD load dumped into the belabored waterway, and
the Texas Attorney General filed suit against the city for
contaminating Clear Lake. With the help of EPA
construction grants, Houston has now started to expand
and modernize its wastewater treatment facilities in an
effort to correct these problems.
When EPA came on the scene in the early 1970's, it
joined the Texas Water Quajjty Board to put all
dischargers under the strict discharge permits mandated
by the new amendments to the Clean Water Act. Their
combined efforts were successful. Plankton now inhabit
the entire 25-mile course of the channel from Houston to
Galveston Bay. Tarpon have been caught within five
miles of the turning basin, and dolphins appear in the
lower end of the channel. There has been talk of
constructing a $3 million hotel and tourist center on
Brady Island, only two miles from the turning basin,
where the water once ran foul and dirty.
There is, however, a lingering concern about one
aspect of the quality of water in the ship channel.
Because of the large number and the nature of the
industries along its banks, it is feared that there may be
relatively high levels of toxic pollutants in the channel.
The next task before us is to determine the extent of the
toxics problem and then to take the necessary corrective
actions.
Dillon Reservoir, Colorado: A Growth Problem Solved
A coordinated effort by Federal, State, and local
agencies saved Colorado's Dillon Reservoir from
pollution.
When it was built to supply Denver with high quality
water for domestic use, few thought that the reservoir,
high on the Continental Divide, would ever be
threatened by pollution. It lay at 9,000 feet in a rural
watershed that had seen little human traffic since the
gold mining era. The Forest Service owned 80 percent of
the drainage area and the private lands consisted mostly
of old, abandoned mining claims.
Three things happened to change the situation. The
reservoir itself became a major recreation area; the use
rate, measured in visitor days, soared from 43,000 in
1966 to 1,000,000 in 1976, and it is still rising. Major ski
resorts were built in the area. Finally, Interstate 70 was
laid across the Continental Divide, making the reservoir
even more accessible.
Along with the resorts came people and more
construction. In the early 1960's, fewer than 2,000
people inhabited the basin; in 1972 there were 55,000
housing units already built, under construction, or
planned for the watershed. The pace of events outran
the available treatment facilities, and water quality in the
reservoir was suddenly threatened by man-made
pollution from both point and non-point sources.
Colorado officials were worried enough in 1972 to call
a joint State-EPA conference to study the problem and
recommend strategies to deal with it.
It was soon apparent that the threat was real, and a
basin-wide plan calling for advanced wastewater
treatment, including phosphorus removal, was drawn up
and adopted. Two EPA grants were awarded. Four of
the existing ten wastewater facilities in the Dillon
complex were upgraded to provide advanced treatment,
and four others were phased out.
The result is that fewer pollutants are now entering
Dillon Reservoir. Nevertheless, constant vigilance is
needed to protect the reservoir, which remains
susceptible to accelerated eutrophication that could be
spurred by continuing growth in the area.
Meanwhile, public health is no longer threatened;
eutrophication from phosphorus pollution is under
control for the time being; and the reservoir's dissolved
oxygen concentration remains at the level necessary to
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protect the largest natural population of brown trout in
Colorado.
To keep it that way, plans are now underway to deal
with the sludge that is the product of the new advanced
treatment processes. Control measures for nonpoint
runoff are now also under study. EPA grants have been
awarded for both projects.
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Some
Smaller
Lakes
In addition to the Great Lakes, many of the Nation's
smaller lakes have been hit hard by pollution. Here are
some examples of what has been done to restore and
protect many of those lakes.
Lake Annabessacook, Maine: A Unique Approach to
Pollution Control
Before 1972, Lake Annabessacook in Maine was
notoriously polluted. Algal blooms often lasted 70 days a
year, and it was unusual to look into the lake and see
more than three feet beneath its surface
The main sources of trouble at Annabessacook were
easily traced. The lake had been the long-time victim of
wastewater discharges from four major polluters—the
towns of Winthrop and Monmouth, the Carleton Woolen
Mills, and Globe Albany, a wool finishing plant These
four polluters together dumped more than 30,000
pounds of untreated wastes into the lake each year.
Both Winthrop and the Carleton Woolen Mills were
already treating their wastewater. However, Winthrop's
antiquated sewage treatment system was inadequate
and the Carleton Woolen Mills treatment facility was
only marginally efficient. Even worse, Monmouth had no
municipal wastewater plant, and Globe Albany
discharged its wastes entirely untreated.
In 1968, Maine's Department of Environmental
Protection classified Annabessacook as one of the four
most severely polluted lakes in the State Conditions
had deterioriated to the point where action was
essential.
Several possible solutions were investigated for cost
as well as for environmental effectiveness. After much
deliberation, a direction that had initially been
considered unworkable was selected. It called for the
cooperative efforts of the cities of Monmouth, Winthrop,
Manchester, Hallowell, and Augusta. The wastes from
all five cities were to be collected and transported to a
proposed secondary treatment facility in Augusta,
treated, and then discharged into the Kennebec River.
The political, institutional, financial, and legal problems
of negotiating with five communities and their
associated industries at first seemed formidable, but the
plan proved to be the least costly and the most
environmentally sound option, so it was adopted.
In 1971, the Winthrop-to-Augusta portion of the
interceptor was completed. Since then the
improvements in the quality of the Annabessacook's
waters have been striking. Phosphorus levels are down
by 80 percent, nitrate levels by 44 percent. It is now
possible to see nine feet down into the lake instead of
three, and algal blooms last no more than 15 days a year.
Now, the entire Monmouth-to-Withrop-to-augusta
interceptor has been finished and there is every reason
to believe that Annabessacook's restoration is ensured.
Three agencies—the Department of Environmental
Quality, the Southern Kennebec Valley Regional
Planning Commission, and the Cobbossee Watershed
District—are also coordinating further efforts to preserve
the entire watershed. Controls on growth and develop-
ment are expected to ensure Lake Annabessacook's
environmental integrity.
Lake Annabessacook is also benefitting from a 1977
EPA grant to the Cobbossee Watershed District to
control phosphorus runoff from dairy and poultry farms.
The program will address manure storage pratices,
diversion of runoff from barnyards, and installation of
fencing to keep livestock out of streams feeding into the
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lake. This program will benefit not only Lake Annebessa-
cook also Lake Cobbossee and Pleasant Pond, which are
all linked by the Cobbossee-Conte Stream.
Rangeley Lake and Haley Ponds, Maine: A Quickly
Identified Problem
The town of Rangeley, Maine is located on Rangeley
Lake, a 6,000-acre body of water with a maximum depth
of 145 feet. In the mid-1960's, the town began
constructing a secondary treatment plant to solve
problems from failing septic systems in the area. Initial
proposals called for discharging the treated effluent into
Rangeley Lake. However, State water quality experts
strongly recommended that the town's projected new
plant discharge instead into nearby Haley Pond, a 170-
acre, 23-foot deep lake connected to Rangeley Lake by a
1,500-foot brook.
State experts predicted that possible detrimental
effects caused by the plant's effluent would show up
more quickly in smaller Haley Pond, thereby allowing
remedial actions to be taken more promptly. If the dis-
charge went directly to Rangely Lake, degradation from
the plant's effluent might take up to 30 years to become
detectable, and it might take correspondingly longer to
remedy any damage that might occur there.
The plant went on line in late 1970, discharging to
Haley Pond, and a major problem soon surfaced: the
plant could not remove the large phosphorus
concentrations in the area's municipal wastes. Within a
year, large, stinking algal blooms covered the pond,
Haley's waters were murky, and a plume of algae flowed
from Haley Pond into Rangeley Lake.
In 1974, EPA awarded the town of Rangeley a grant to
upgrade its secondary plant to tertiary treatment. On line
in August 1975, the new advanced facility removed 97
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percent of the phosphorus in the local waste discharge.
A year later the massive algal blooms in Haley Pond had
disappeared, and State water quality data showed a
marked improvement in water clarity and dissolved
oxygen levels. Advanced treatment had saved both Haley
Pond and Rangeley Lake.
The Haley Pond experiment proved that eutrophication
can be the ultimate penalty for discharging nutrients into
lakes. It also showed that a polluted lake can be
reclaimed relatively quickly if the problem is caught in
time.
Haley Pond has also had a dramatic impact on
wastewater treatment practices throughout the State.
As soon as the results of phosphorus loading on lake
waters became evident, the State Department of
Environmental Protection made it a policy not to license
wastewater discharges into lakes. The Maine legislature
enacted the policy into law m 1977.
Lake Quinsigamond, Massachusetts: Controlling
Urban Runoff
Located between the densely populated towns of
Worcester and Shrewsbury, Lake Quinsigamond is
bisected by two major, east-west arteries—Routes 9 and
290. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, water quality
sampling revealed severe nonpoint source problems on
the lake. Algal blooms flourished in the summer months,
and bacterial counts were abnormally high, often forcing
swimming area to close. Failing septic tanks,
direct discharges from homes, and contaminated runoff
were the major sources of pollution.
Federal, State, and local authorities faced the
problem head on. Worcester constructed new sewer
lines, eliminating discharges of raw household wastes.
Shrewsbury, Worcester, and the State built catch
basins and storm sewers. Winter salting on Routes 9 and
290 was reduced, and the State and the local
communities shared the cost of applying copper sulfate
to control the remaining algae at the lake's lower end.
The Lake Quinisigamond Commission sponsored spring
and summer street cleanup days.
All of that has helped. Dissolved oxygen levels now
meet standards, and suspended solids, ammonia,
nitrates, phosphorus, and bacterial counts are all within
acceptable levels. Fishing, boating, and swimming are all
on the increase. Nevertheless, the lake is still being
watched carefully. In 1979 EPA awarded a grant to the
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality for
a three-year study of the impact of urban runoff on Lake
Quinsigamond. The study will seek to determine which, if
any, additional control measures are needed to protect
this popular recreational lake.
Mississinewa Reservoir, Long Lake, and Hog Back
Lake, Indiana: Controlling Algae
Many bodies of water have been polluted with algae,
which thrive in water that is rich in both types of plant
nutrients: nitrates and phosphates. Plants need both to
survive. Household detergents containing phosphorus
are a major source of the phosphates. Other sources are
sewage, agricultural runoff, industrial wastewater, and
the natural weathering of phosphorus-laden rock
formations. In areas like the Great Lakes Basin, where
phosphates are the nutrients m shortest supply in
local waters, control of these sources of phosphates
gives the most effective control of algae.
In 1971 the State of Indiana enacted a law limiting the
amount of phosphates in detergents to 8.7 percent by
weight. The legislature reduced the limit to zero in 1972
and increased it again in 1973 to 0.5 percent to allow
for the amount generally introduced inadvertently
in the manufacturing process, even when no phosphates
are intentionally added. Detergent manufacturers
challenged the law in Federal court in Indianapolis, but
the court upheld the phosphate ban.
Since the ban, efficiency studies of treatment plants
show a 55 percent reduction in phosphorus in raw
sewage coming into the plants and a corresponding
decrease in phosphorus in discharges from the plants.
Furthermore, routine monitoring data from 100
stations around the State show that phosphorus
concentrations in waterways have dropped
signifcantly—from an average of 0.8 milligrams a liter
before the ban to 0.3 milligrams a liter. This decrease
has been measured even though many of the monitoring
stations are in large cities and are downstream from
sewage treatment plants. The treated discharges from
the treatment plants contain phosphorus from sources
other than detergents—thus the 0.3 level.
There is also visual proof of the ban's effectiveness:
the algae problem has diminished at many lakes. Before
the ban, some lakes had to be treated with copper sulfate
three or four times a year to control algae. Now they are
trated only once or twice a year, or not at all. For
example, Long Lake, near Angola, Indiana, no longer
needs copper sulfate at all. Wabee Lake, near Syracuse;
Martin Lake, near LeGrange; and Mississinewa
Reservoir, near Marion, now need copper sulfate only
once or twice a year
The reduction in the amount of algae has had a
decided impact on lakes' suitability for recreation. Some
lakes—such as Hog Back Lake, near Angola, and
Mississinewa Reservoir—that were not used for
recreation at all in the recent past are once again being
used for swimming and boating. A recent report on Lake
Michigan has also shown that phosphorus levels in Lake
Michigan along the Indiana shoreline have dropped
sharply.
Another bonus has been that the phosphate ban has
cut expenses at sewage treatment plants because the
plants use fewer chemicals for phosphorus removal.
Because the phosphorus removal process generates
large volumes of sludge, which must then be disposed of,
the ban has also reduced the amount of sludge produced
at treatment plants.
Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota: Diverting Treated
Sewage Effluents
Perhaps none of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes is more
celebrated than Lake Minnetonka. It was the "Shining
Big-Sea Water" of Longfellow's Hiawatha. It was also
a victim of twentieth century urban development.
Minnetonka, 15 miles west of Minneapolis, is the
State's tenth largest lake. It is a series of bays, points,
and islands with 31 interconnecting channels covering
14,310 acres and 110 miles of shoreline. Its waters are
favored by small-craft sailors, and its northern pike,
bluegill, walleye, and largemouth bass attract hundreds
of fishermen each year. Aside from its 60 marinas and
private and public launch sites, the area contains many
picnic areas, parks, golf courses, schools, and resort
hotels.
During early 1960's, however, the lake's quality had
become unacceptable to sportsmen. Green scum and
weeds were abundant. Several fish kills had occurred.
Many species of bottom organisms important in the food
chain—snails among them—had disappeared.
This deterioration occurred because, for several
decades, many lake homes used on-site septic tanks
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for sewage treatment. During high water levels some
tanks overflowed and contaminated the lake. In the
mid-1950's seven of the lake's local municipalities built
secondary treatment plants to deal with this recurring
problem. For the next decade plants dumped their treated
effluent into the lake without apparent ill effect. But by
1963 the abundance of nitrates and phosphates had
begun to cause severe eutrophication. Weeds and algae
grew and consumed the oxygen necessary to support
fish life.
With 12 separate municipalities around the lake, six
along Minnehaha Creek, and nine others in the surround-
ing watershed, no single one on its own would have been
able to clean up and control the pollution. Consequently,
a watershed district of 27 municipalities, four townships,
and two counties was formed. Pollution and flood
problems were studied, and population projections and
hydrological and engineering studies were performed to
help develop an overall water management plan.
The treated sewage effluents, with their algae-
nourishing levels of phosphorus, were diverted to the
Minnesota River in 1971 and 1972—and the amount
of algae in Lake Minnetonka promptly decreased by
50 to 70 percent. Because of its large, steady flow, the
Minnesota River is able to assimilate these nutrients
Meanwhile, the nutrient levels in the lake still are
dropping. Lake Minnetonka is gradually recovering
Lake Taneycomo, Missouri: An Environmentally Sound
Solution
Sewage treatment was a problem in the southwest
Missouri community of Hollister. The community relied
on septic tanks and absorption fields, but many simply
did not work properly. Sewage seeped out of the
ground into ditches and wound up in Lake Taneycomo.
The raw and partially treated sewage was polluting the
lake, was a danger to public health, and was a threat
to the lake's valuable trout fishery
Hollister decided to install a sewer system and pipe
its sewage to the treatment plant in the nearby
community of Branson. But to do this, one sewer line
had to cross Lake Taneycomo.
The Missouri Highway Commission and EPA
explored how best to do this. One alternative was to
run the line along the side of the Highway 65 bridge
across the lake, but this would have forced the closing
of one lane during construction and any subsequent
maintenance, thus creating a traffic bottleneck.
Another possibility was to run the line under Lake
Taneycomo. However, that raised the prospect of
disruption and pollution of the lake and fish kills during
construction and maintenance, and much higher costs.
The third alternative was to suspend the sewer line
under the center of the bridge. This option would not
only protect the lake from environmental disruptions, it
would also be the least costly. It was therefore favored
both by the Community of Hollister, which would have
to pay part of the cost, and by EPA, However, there
was some concern that the sewer might overload the
bridge and that if any repairs of the sewer were ever
needed, bridge traffic might be disrupted.
In late 1978 the Highway Commission decided to
approve the third, most environmentally sound
option—suspending the sewer under the bridge. The
Highway Commission's agreement on this option
means that Hollister's problem will be solved and Lake
Taneycomo will be protected as well
Utah Lake, Utah: Joint Action to Reduce the
Pollution Burden
Provo City had a primary treatment plant that was
discharging inadequately treated effluent into Utah
Lake. For this reason, a major project was undertaken
to increase the plant's capacity and to upgrade it to
provide advanced secondary treatment after passage of
a bond issue by a 2-to-1 vote. Throughout the project,
the city kept the public informed and worked closely
with EPA to facilitate changes and to expedite review
and approval. EPA and the city also worked together to
devise an equitable user-charge system and to
encourage water conservation.
The expanded plant went into operation in the
summer of 1978. It now meets all discharge require-
ments. In fact, the plant's performance surpasses EPA
requirements. Inadequately treated wastewater no
longer flows from the plant to Utah Lake, thereby
substantially reducing the pollution burden on the lake
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Perdido Bay
Eleven Mile Creek
Escambia Bay
Santa Rosa Sound
Pensacola Bay
Choctawatchee Bay
St. Andrews Bay
East Bay
Pearl Bayou
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Restoring Our Bays, Harbors, and Estuaries
Of all waters, perhaps none are as vulnerable to
pollution as those where the land meets the sea—
the Nation's bays, harbors, and estuaries.
They are the home of the most delicate of marine
ecosystems, and many have been ravaged by pollution.
But most of them are now on their way to eventual
recovery. EPA, the States, local governments, and
citizen groups have again and again allied themselves
into a force for cleanup. Their impact on reducing pol-
lution in these important waters has clearly been felt.
Charleston Harbor: Partial Restoration of a National
Landmark
For many years Charleston Harbor, in South
Carolina, suffered from heavy pollution. Before 1970
discharge of raw sewage added 30,000 pounds of BOD
loadings a day to the waters. Fish kills were common.
Boaters, water skiers, and fishermen found conditions
in the harbor steadily deteriorating. Scum and a film of
oil often covered portions of its surface.
Charleston Harbor's water quality problems resulted
from increasing levels of industrial and municipal
wastewater discharge, combined with the effects of a
major diversion project completed upstream in 1942.
In that diversion project, the waters of the Santee
River were captured in a reservoir and discharged into
the Cooper River, which is part of the Charleston
Harbor estuary system. A major purpose of the
diversion was hydroelectric power generation. The
resulting, highly variable flow in the Cooper River
changed the nature of the currents in the harbor,
aggravating the effects of the increasing amounts of
pollution being discharged. By 1966, there was a sharp
increase in crab mortality, and medical authorities
feared that the sludgy dredge spoils from the harbor
were a reservoir of hepatitis virus.
The response to the problem has been two-fold:
increased controls on discharges into the harbor and
the proposed return to the Santee River of the water
previously diverted from it.
At one point, Charleston's raw sewage had been
discharged by outfall pipes running across the tidal
flats. Today the pipes have been closed. Instead
sewage is collected in tunnels deep beneath the city
and the harbor floor, then piped to the Plum Island
Sewage Treatment Plant for primary treatment (settling
and skimming). Sewage from North Charleston and the
U.S. Naval Base is treated at an even larger primary
treatment plant. A secondary treatment facility is
nearly completed that will further improve the water
quality of the Harbor. There are also new facilities at
St. Andrews, at Mt. Pleasant, and at Sullivan's Island.
EPA has made a significant financial contribution to
the cost of building these facilities.
The investment to date has paid off BOD discharges
have been pared by nearly 50 percent—to about 17,000
pounds a day. Eventually they will be cut to about
4,500 pounds a day when the remaining primary
treatment systems are upgraded to provide secondary
treatment.
Fishermen, boaters, and water skiers now find the
water more tolerable; it is free of scum and oil, and less
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murky. Fishing, though still Impaired, is significantly
impoved; flounder, bluefish, jack, and even mackerel,
sea trout, and cobia are being caught in increasing
numoers. Shrimp are also returning to formerly
polluted areas. Shellfish areas closed since 1970 have
been given conditional approval to reopen on a
restricted basis. Substantial additional restoration of
water quality is expected during the 1 980's; this
should make the waters more suitable for recreation,
substantially improve the quality of the fishing, and
allow unrestricted use of the shellfish areas for
harvesting.
Conditions in Charleston Harbor might be worse
today had it not been for some late 19th century
foresight. In 1895-96 the city's sewage commissioners
started planning an innovative system of separate
wastewater and stormwater sewers. The brick
masonry structures they built are still in use today
This foresight saved the old city from the sewer
separation problems now plaguing many of the
Nation's older cities.
However, the ancient sewers are causing another
problem. Old age has set in. The system is leaky, and it
lets in the sea water Because of this infiltration, at
high tide the flow to the treatment plant often is triple
that at low tide. That means the sewer is acting much like
a sieve—at high tide letting in sea water from the highly
salt water-saturated water table. The city now has an EPA
grant to help correct such infiltration-inflow problems.
Meanwhile, most industrial wastewater now receives the
equivalent of secondary treatment or better.
The City of Charleston is under increasing pressure
from the State and EPA to match industry and provide
secondary treatment for its municipal wastewater. The
State is taking enforcement action against the City to
require that the City provide this secondary treatment so
that full, unimpaired use of the harbor for recreation,
fishing and shellfish harvesting will once again be
possible.
Escambia Bay, East Bay, Pensacola Bay and Santa
Rosa Sound: A Remarkable Recovery
Early in this century, the three big bays at
Pensacola, Florida—Escambia Bay, East Bay, and Pensa-
cola Bay—were among the most beautiful and productive
in the country. Shrimp and oysters provided profitable
commercial fishing. Sport fish were plentiful, and
porpoises entertained not only the local residents but
also the thousands of tourists who came to swim in the
clear blue waters.
Then came intensive industrial development. By the
1950's, many industries that dumped millions of
gallons of untreated or poorly treated wastes into the
water had sprung up along the bays. Inadequately
treated effluent from a Pensacola sewage treatment
plant added to the pollution. Sewage from Flomaton,
Brewton, and East Brewton, Alabama, and Century,
Florida, eventually wound up in the bays too.
The waters were no longer clean. Millions of fin fish
died. The porpoises left. The shrimp and oyster
business declined and eventually shut down in
Escambia Bay and East Bay. In Pensacola Bay,
commercial landings of shrimp dropped from 902,000
pounds in 1968 to 236,000 in 1969, 52,000 in 1970,
and 1 7,000 in 1971 In less than 20 years, the shrimp
harvest had dropped to less than two percent of its
former level.
The Escambia River basin was in an advanced state of
eutrophication. It was dying, apparently with no hope
of recovery
The reason for this deterioration was obvious. Over
the years, industrial and municipal dischargers had
loaded the bays with tons of wastes containing large
amounts of BOD, nitrogen, and phosphates. One manu-
facturer discharged acrylonitrile, a chemical that is toxic
to fish. Heated cooling water discharged by a major
manufacturer and a power company raised water
temperatures in the Escambia River by 19.5 degrees and
12.5 degrees, respectively, far higher than the 1.5 degree
summer and 4 degree winter increases established by
law as the maximum allowed.
The volume of pollutants pouring into the 140
square-mile bay system was appalling. A pulp and
paper mill dumped wastes which had an average
biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of 7,420 pounds
per day, or the equivalent of that from a city with a
population of 45,000, into the Escambia River. A nylon
fiber manufacturer ws also pouring out wastes with
10,000 pounds a day of BOD, or the equivalent of
waste generated by a city with a population of 60,000.
A plant that manufactured waste fertilizer, alcohol,
ammonia, and polyvinyl chloride was discharging 5.2
million gallons of wastewater a day. The waste
contained as much nitrogen as 230,000 people would
have produced and as much phosphate as 40,000
people would have produced. Another industry was
discharging 4.5 million gallons a day of industrial and
domestic waste after only primary treatment. The
waste contained BOD equivalent to that of a
population of over 25,000 and nitrogen which would
have been produced by 200,000 people. Municipal
sewage also added phosphates and other pollutants to
the water.
As if all this were not enough, there was another
problem. Escambia Bay, which is fed partly by the
Escambia River, and East Bay are arms of Pensacola
Bay All three bays, and especially Escambia Bay, have
a naturally restricted drainage and only limited
interchange of water with the Gulf of Mexico
Most such areas have two incoming tides each day.
Because of the shape and position of the Gulf of
Mexico, however, the Pensacola system has only one
tide daily. In addition, Escambia Bay is bisected by the
L&N Railroad bridge, which creates an almost solid
barrier across the bay. When the bridge pilings needed
replacing, the railroad just put in new ones and left the
old ones standing, further inhibiting the circulation of
water.
The results of this combination of high discharge
levels and poor water circulation was serious pollution
and loss of marine life. In 1970 there were 41 fish kills
in Escambia Bay and its bayous, and 32 m Pensacola
Bay, its bayous, and the adjoining Santa Rosa Sound.
Millions of fish died. The biggest kill occurred m
Escambia Bay in 1971 when the number of dead fish
had to be measured in miles—one square mile of dead
fish in Mulatto Bayou and a 10-mile stretch of dead
menhaden and game fish along the eastern shore of
the bay
In December 1969, Florida—invoking a provision of
the old Federal Water Pollution Control Act—asked the
Federal government to hold an enforcement
conference on the pollution of the interstate waters of
the Escambia River Basin and the intrastate portions
of those waters within the State of Florida The first of
a series of conferences was held in 1970
Enforcement following the conference was
immediate. Recommendations included minimum
reductions of 94 percent of the BOD, 94 percent of the
nitrogen, and 90 percent of the phosphorus discharged
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into the Escambia River and Bay from all sources, and
the immediate removal of all settleable solids from all
waste discharges into the bay. The conferees also
recommended that the old pilings under the L&N
bridge be removed to eliminate their adverse effects on
the circulation and exchange of water.
The standards set by the State and Federal
governments brought a shower of complaints. The
companies and municipalities involved were going to
have to spend millions of dollars cleaning up the
water, and they considered the deadlines to be too
tight. But the State and Federal governments deemed
that few concessions were appropriate, and few were
made.
Since 1970, most of the industries, spurred in some
cases by citations issued by the Florida Department of
Pollution Control, have drastically reduced their waste
discharges and are working on further reductions.
Assisted by EPA construction grants, the city of
Pensacola is now constructing a major sewage
treatment plant and a series of interceptor sewers. The
plant will provide advanced treatment of wastewater
collected from around the bay
In 1972, at the request of the State, EPA began an
Escambia Bay recovery study to monitor the
enforcement by Florida, Alabama, and the Federal
government of the standards set in 1970 and 1971. In
1975, in a final stage of the formal recovery study, more
than one million striped bass were released in the
Escambia River delta. It appears that more than half
the fish survived and that, of those that did not, more
were eaten by other fish than died because of polluted
water The survival of these fish was convincing
evidence that the quality of the bays' waters had
experienced an extraordinary improvement
As a result of these State, private, and Federal
campaigns, the waters are getting cleaner, the fish kills
are smaller in size and less frequent, and shrimp and
oysters are gradually beginning to come back The
natural system is being restored.
Perdido Bay and Eleven Mile Creek: A Revival
In 1941 the St. Regis Paper Company built a pulp and
paper mill m Cantonment, Escambia County, Florida The
mill's wastes were partially treated and then discharged
into Eleven Mile Creek, which flows about 12 miles
southwest to the upper end of Perdido Bay, along the
Florida and Alabama state line Over the years discharges
into Eleven Mile Creek increased to about 29 million
gallons of partially treated wastes each day.
With those increased discharges came increasing
public concern about what St. Regis was doing to
Perdido Bay. By 1 969 the bay was terribly polluted—
visibly so. The water was discolored, dissolved oxygen
covered parts of the bay, and swimming was impossible
In 1969 the State of Alabama asked the Federal Water
Pollution Control Administration of study the reasons
for the pollution of Perdido Bay. The resulting study
showed that most of the oxygen-demanding pollutants
and the acids causing the foaming came from the St.
Regis plant. Discharges from the mill included 42,500
pounds of BOD wastes, 48,000 pounds of organic carbon,
and 17,000 pounds of total suspended solids each day.
St. Regis Paper Company agreed to clean up its
discharges, and it has done so steadily—with the aid
of an EPA pilot plant grant to help it develop a new
method for treating "black liquor" with activated
carbon. As a result, Perdido Bay has revived. Florida now
classifies its half of the bay and Eleven Mile Creek as
suitable for swimming and for fish and wildlife
preservation. Alabama has also classified its portion of
the bay as suitable for these same uses and for shellfish
harvesting as well.
A 1979 report on west Florida's water pollution
problems sums up the story to date: "Perdido Bay has
fish in greater numbers now, and the pollution-
sensitive clam Rangia cuneata is recolonizing upper
Perdido Bay "
Still more improvements are expected in Eleven Mile
Creek and Perdido Bay. EPA is working to solve a
landfill leachate problem in the Creek, while St. Regis
Paper plans to implement the best available treatment
technology at the mill by 1983
Kodiak Harbor and Gibson Cove: Substantially
Reduced Discharges
Each year, Alaska's seafood industry processes
hundreds of millions of pounds of fish and shellfish for
export. The city of Kodiak and nearby Gibson Cove are
two large centers of this thriving industry.
By 1971, 15 seafood processing plants operated in
Kodiak Harbor and Gibson Cove. In that year these
facilities processed 110 million pounds of fishery
products—shrimp, salmon, crab, scallops, clams,
halibut, and herring. They also discharged an estimated
72 million pounds of untreated solids under the docks
and into the inner waters of Kodiak Harbor and Gibson
Cove.
The accumulated wastes seriously degraded the
harbor's water quality over the years. Dissolved oxygen
levels in 1971 were depressed to levels as low as 1.3
milligrams per liter (the normal range of dissolved
oxygen levels for these waters is 9 to 14 milligrams
per liter), well below the level necessary to support a
healthy biological community. At least 50 acres of
harbor bottom were covered by a black, foul-smelling
sludge. The decomposing sludge gave off toxic and
noxious hydrogen sulfide gas, which surfaced as
bubbles on the harbor waters. In addition, floating
waste solids produced severe aesthetic degradation,
and the transparency of the water was markedly
impaired.
During the warm summer months, particularly in
August, the wind carried the putrid strench from the
mam harbor to Kodiak's residential areas and shopping
centers and to the city's small boat harbor.
Kodiak's citizens had strongly complained about
these conditions as far back as 1967. In 1969 a
Federal study showed that Alaska's water quality
standards for dissolved oxygen were being severely
violated in Kodiak Harbor. The study also noted sludge
buildups on the harbor bottom adjacent to most of the
plants and explicitly pointed out the impact of Kodiak's
industrial waste discharges on the local environment.
Little happened, however, until the discharge permit
system created by the Federal Clean Water Act
Amendments in 1972 went into effect. When this
happened in 1973, EPA issued permits requiring the
fish processors to substantially reduce their solid
waste discharges into Kodiak Harbor and Gibson Cove.
Kodiak's processors installed mesh screens to collect
most of the large solids flowing from plant waste lines.
Meanwhile, a company built a facility in Kodiak to
convert the solid wastes collected from seafood
processing into a dry, packaged protein meal for export
as an animal feed.
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A 1974 EPA study showed a marked reduction in the
amount of sludge and hydrogen sulfide gas in Kodiak
Harbor's sludge deposits. The study showed some
improvement in dissolved oxygen levels, but these
levels were still not sufficient to meet Alaska's water
quality standards for the protection of marine life.
These dissolved oxygen problems were due mainly to
the liquid fraction of the seafood wastes, which have a
high oxygen demand. These wastes were still being
discharged into the near-shore waters in 1974.
In 1975, EPA issued revised permits to bring about
further water quality recovery. Issued to selected
seafood processors, these permits required special
studies and relocation of waste outfalls to sites which
would neither adversely affect water quality nor cause
continued sludge buildup. Alternatively, these
processors would be allowed to discharge wastes
outside of a no-discharge zone specified in the new
permits. When the requirements of the permits are
met, the waters of Kodiak Harbor should once again
meet the State's water quality standards.
Kodiak's seafood processing industry is expected to
continue growing into the 1980's. This growth could
make it necessary to require that oxygen-demanding
liquid wastes be subject to advanced waste treatment.
In the meantime EPA continues to monitor discharges
into Kodiak Harbor
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Protecting
Coastal
Waters
After World War II ocean dumping of sewage sludge
and industrial wastes increased rapidly in the United
States because it was the cheapest way to get rid of
those wastes. In 1949 some 1.7 million tons of sewage
sludge and industrial wastes were dumped into the
oceans off the U.S. coasts. By 1972 the amount was up to
about 9.5 million tons a year.
There was evidence that those wastes, which
included toxic chemicals and disease organisms, were
a threat to marine life and, through the food chain, to
humans. Unfortunately, few people cared about the
dangers of ocean dumping in those days.
The attitude changed, however, after research
confirmed that sewage sludge and industrial wastes
were harming the marine environment by
contaminating shellfish beds and endangering other
species. In 1972 in response to increasing evidence and
concern about the dangers of ocean dumping. Congress
passed the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries
Act—commonly called the Ocean Dumping Act.
The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries
Act required EPA to limit and eventually stop all ocean
disposal of sewage sludge and industrial wastes. EPA's
attention quickly focused on the two most vulnerable
areas in which ocean dumping was taking place' the
Mid-Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.
THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST
The Atlantic Ocean, due to its size and circulation, is
less vulnerable to the effects of polluted discharges
than are more enclosed bodies of water. However, that
part of the Atlantic above or near the East Coast's
continental shelf is quite vulnerable to unrestricted
ocean dumping because of the water's relative
shallowness and because of the pollution generated
along its shore.
In 1972 virtually all of the ocean dumping off the
Mid-Atlantic Coast was concentrated in two areas: the
New York Bight and the waters off the coasts of
Delaware and Maryland.
The New York Bight: A Reduction of Sludge
When the Marine Protection, Research, and
Sanctuaries Act went into effect in 1 973, the New York
Bight, which consists of 11,000 square miles of marine
waters off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, was
the dumping ground for wastes from some 150
industries and for sewage sludge from some 250
treatment plants One sludge dumping area 6 5 miles
square has become a 25 square mile "dead sea " Few
living things are found there. The fish that are found
there suffer from fin rot and black gill disease The
shellfish there are diseased and contain high levels of
toxic chemicals, including PCBs, DDT, and mercury.
Today, only six industrial plants and less than 20
sewage treatment plants are disposing of their wastes in
the Bight. Three of the industrial plants are on strict
compliance schedules to end ocean dumping by mid-
1981. Wastes from the other three plants have a much
less severe impact on the marine environment.
Nevertheless, these three plants are being required to
seek more environmentally acceptable alternatives to
ocean dumping.
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The sewage treatment plants face a statutory
deadline of December 31, 1981, to end their ocean
dumping, and they too are seeking environmentally
acceptable alternatives.
The predominant short-term alternative is to de-water
the sludge and then either bury it in landfills or turn it
into compost. Because of high levels of heavy metals
such as cadmium, as well as some toxic organics in some
of this material, much of this compost can only be used
on ornamental plants in parks and flower gardens—it
cannot be used on food crops. For New York City, unless
a feasible way can be found to remove cadmium from the
sewage sludge, composting can be only a short-term
alternative because of the limited amount of parkland to
accommodate the large quantities of sewage sludge
generated.
For the long term, some municipalities are planning to
destroy the sludge by incineration or pyrolysis. Alter-
natives for industrial plants include disposal, recycling,
or preferably, process changes that reduce the generation
of the wastes that are now being dumped in the ocean.
But regardless of the alternatives that are chosen, the
New York Bight, long a dumping ground for sewage
sludge, industrial wastes, and dredged materials, will no
longer be polluted by ocean dumping.
The Delaware and Maryland Coasts: Alternatives to
Ocean Dumping
By 1974 all but three ocean dumpers had stopped
putting their wastes into the Atlantic Ocean off the
coasts of Delaware and Maryland. The remaining three
were the Cities of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania; and
Camden, New Jersey; and the DuPont Company's plant
in Edge Moor, Delaware.
In the initial action taken to reduce the adverse impact
of this continued ocean dumping, the Philadelphia and
Camden dump sites were moved from a point 12 miles
offshore to one 40 miles out. The DuPont site was
already 35 miles offshore. When monitoring revealed
continuing environmental degradation at the new dump
sites, EPA became firmly committed to end ocean
dumping by 1981 and began working with the three
dumpers to develop alternatives to it. Today, Camden has
ended its ocean dumping, while DuPont and
Philadelphia are due to stop in 1980.
The City of Philadelphia was and remains the largest
ocean dumper in the area. Technical and other problems
made early progress toward ending ocean dumping
slow, but the city has made significant progress.
EPA has required Philadelphia to decrease steadily the
amount of sludge dumped into the Atlantic. In 1979, the
total dumped was about one-third of the amount dumped
in 1974. In 1980 the amount has been further reduced.
Recently, the city signed a consent decree requiring it to
end all ocean dumping by December 31,1980, one year
earlier than the Congressionally mandated deadline.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia has started to develop
alternative disposal methods, especially land application.
That posed a problem at first because the sludge
produced at one of the city's treatment plants contained
high concentrations of cadmium and other heavy metals,
making it unsuitable for land application. Cadmium is
known to be extremely toxic The primary sources of the
cadmium—electroplating plants that discharge their
wastes into the City's sewers—were required to pre-
treat their wastes to remove cadmium. Since then, the
cadmium content in the sludge from the treatment plant
has been reduced by about 75 percent. Today, all the
city's sludge is suitable for some type of land application.
Some of the city's sludge is being composted into an
excellent soil conditioner. Alone or mixed with digested
or stabilized sludge, the compost is being used in a
variety of land application programs.
One such program is strip mine reclamation. From
July 1978 until July 1979, about 20 million pounds of
Philadelphia sludge were applied to abandoned coal
mines in upstate Pennsylvania. In the next 12 months,
about 40 million pounds, or 25 percent of the city's total
sludge output, were to be used for mine reclamation.
Another 15 percent of the city's sludge is being used in
a giveaway program. The sludge is given free to citizens
for use as a soil conditioner. The city will soon begin to
market sludge compost for the same purpose. Should the
program prove successful, the giveaway program may be
discontinued.
Also under study is a system that fuses sludge and
incinerator ash into an aggregate that can be used for
street construction and repairs. The product of this
process is called "Eco-Rock."
As a result of EPA's actions over the last four years,
the amount of ocean bottom degraded by Philadelphia's
dumping has been reduced by four-fifths. Within two
years after dumping ceases, the former dumpsite area
should have recovered sufficiently to be reopened to
commercial shellfish harvesting.
Progress has also been made at DuPont's plant in
Edge Moor, Delaware. In February 1977 DuPont's ocean
dumping was moved out to a site 100 miles offshore. At
the same time, the company began reducing both the
total volume and the concentration of pollutants in the
wastes disposed of there. By the end of 1979, DuPont's
ocean dumping will be cut by more than half, and the
concentration of heavy metal contaminants will be
reduced by about 75 percent. DuPont is scheduled to end
all ocean dumping in May 1980.
The DuPont plant produces titanium dioxide for paint
pigment. Wastes from the production process contain
large amounts of iron chloride and hydrochloric acid. To
reduce those wastes, DuPont was given two options by
EPA: install a waste treatment plat to neutralize them, or
develop a recycling process. DuPont chose to recycle—
and in the process developed ferric chloride, a
chemical used in wastewater treatment plants as a
flocculating agent. In such plants the ferric chloride pulls
small particles in the water into a solid-like mass that
can be removed more easily from the wastewater.
The process for making ferric chloride requires no
additional raw materials except oxygen, and it recycles
materials that would otherwise be waste. At the same
time, it allows DuPont to produce a useful chemical at
less cost and with less energy than would be required by
the normal manufacturing process.
The results of DuPont's innovative efforts are
gratifying Chemicals once viewed as "industrial
wastes" to be dumped into the sea are now helping
communities clean up their polluted water.
THE GULF OF MEXICO: CURTAILMENT OF TOXICS
DISPOSAL
The Gulf of Mexico was considered to be severely
threatened by pollution because, although it ranks fifth
in size among the world's seas, it is closed off from the
world's oceans by the North American continent and a
dense barrier of islands to the south and east. As a
result, it is vulnerable to the wastes, especially toxic
wastes, disposed of in its waters.
By 1973 as much as two million tons of waste a year,
much of it highly toxic, was being disposed of in the Gulf.
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dumping in the Gulf. That firm withdrew its application
to renew its permit in 1978, thus ending all dumping in
the Gulf.
One alternative disposal method that has been used is
incineration at sea. A company that was denied a permit
to dump chlorinated hydrocarbons into the Gulf
contracted with a European incinerator ship, the
Vulcanus, to dispose of the wastes. The ocean
incineration method, which was carefully monitored by
EPA, proved to be effective and environmentally sound,
although expensive.
Due to the patterns of circulation,partially decomposed
wastes from the U.S and Mexico, though disposed of far
offshore, would be deposited onshore.
When the Marine Protection, Research, and
Sancutaries Act went into effect in 1972, much dumping
in the Gulf had stopped, but several companies were still
disposing of their industrial wastes in the Gulf under
"letters of no objection" from the U.S. Corps of Engineers,
which regulated ocean dumping before the 1972 law was
enacted. The wastes included metals and organic
chemicals from petrochemical plants.
EPA received eight applications for permits to dump in
the Gulf as soon as the law went into effect. After
reviewing the applications, the Agency issued temporary
permits authorizing the dumping of some 1.4 million
tons of waste. However, serious questions had been
raised about the impact of continued ocean dumping on
the Gulf's fishing industry due especially to adverse
impacts on the spiny lobster, the snapper, and shrimp.
EPA therefore made the permits conditional. It
required the ocean dumpers to develop alternative
disposal plans, with priority on eliminating the more
toxic substances, such as chlorinated hydrocarbons. EPA
proposed specific alternatives for their consideration:
land incinceration, carbon absorption, landfill disposal
and deep well injection. The result was that in 1974, the
volume of wastes dumped into the Gulf was cut to
950,000 tons, by mid-1975, the total was down to
140,000 tons, and by 1977, only one company was still
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Minimizing
Nonpoint
Source
Pollution
Many activities not usually thought of as polluting our
waters—construction, farming, mining, and forestry—
can, if proper precautions are not taken, set in motion
processes of runoff and erosion that may seriously
degrade the quality of our streams and lakes.
The wastes from these "nonpomt" sources have
added substantially to the pollution of the Nation's
waters. Finding ways to control these sources now
constitutes a major environmental challenge. In some
places the problem has been attacked already with some
success.
The Monongahela River and Dents Run: Pollution from
the Mines
The cleanup of the upper two-thirds of the
Monongahela River is an example of success in cleaning
up pollution from mines. The rugged, scenic Monongahela
begins at the confluence of the West Fork and Tygart
Rivers in West Virginia and flows for 128 miles
northward into Pennsylvania, joining the Allegheny
River at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River. Its coal-rich
basin is one of the most intensively mined regions in the
world.
During the 19th century the Monongahela supported
a profitable fishing industry. Studies in 1886 identified
40 fish species, including the pollution-sensitive walleye
and muskellunge. But by the early 20th century acid
mine drainage—highly acidic runoff from active and
abandoned coal mines—had ravaged the small tributary
streams and polluted the upper reaches of the
Monongahela from Fairmont, West Virginia, to
Charleroi, Pennsylvania. In the lower portion of the river
from Charleroi to Pittsburgh there was the additional
burden of pollution from heavy industrial development.
Consequently, almost all of the fish in the river were
killed.
By 1950 the Monongahela had become an aquatic
wasteland. Acid mine drainage on the upper river
brought low pH levels, severe turbidity, bottom deposits
of chemical precipitates, and high concentrations of iron,
manganese, and sulfate. Not only were fish unable to
survive but boats, dams, and instream facilities-
including bridges—were being attacked by the river's
corrosive waters.
Steel mills and coke plants on the lower river near
Pittsburgh also contributed to the Monongahela's heavy
pollution burden by dumping untreated phenols, oils,
greases, cyanide, organic coal tars, ammonia, and
suspended solids into the water. Conditions were made
worse by the flow of untreated sewage from the
communities that lined the River.
In 1957 the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation
Commission and the University of Louisville conducted a
fish resource study. At a typical monitoring station on
the Mongahela, 50 miles downstream from the West
Virginia state line, only two small bluegill sunfish were
found. The pH levels at the station were extremely low-
in other words, the water was highly acidic—and the
river was pale chartreuse in color.
The major turning point in the campaign to save the
Monongahela came on December 17 and 18, 1963,
when conferees met in Pittsburgh to discuss the
pollution of the river and its tributaries. They agreed that
the major problem was acid drainage from active and
abandoned mines. (Indeed, mine drainage is the
principal cause of acidic conditions nationwide.) Once it
was agreed that the mines were responsible for the
acidity problems along the Monongahela, all of the
mines were inventoried. In 1965, the active coal mines
were required to treat their discharges to make them
alkaline rather than acidic and thus compensate for the
prevalent acidity. Discharges were also to contain no
more than 7 milligrams per liter of iron. Pennsylvania
and West Virginia stepped up enforcement activity, and
State funds were earmarked for research and develop-
ment.
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A long and persistent campaign to clean up the mines
and the discharges from local industries and
municipalities began to pay off, and conditions improved.
Water quality monitoring records from the late 1960's
and early 1970's showed increasingly higher pH levels,
and thus less acidity in the river's upper reaches.
Pollution-sensitive fish returned—among them
largemouth bass, catfish, and emerald shiners.
The steel industry appealed the deadline and the
effluent limitations in its permits, and a round of
negotiations followed. In September 1976, EPA reached
an agreement with U.S. Steel, the largest industrial
discharger on the lower Monongahela, on final
discharge limitations for 72 of 87 outfalls. Control of the
remaining outfalls was to be accomplished, under a
phased compliance schedule, by November 30,1981.
Actions were also taken to control the municipal
discharges on the river. Since 1970 EPA has awarded
grants to 17 Pennsylvania communities to assist in the
construction of secondary wastewater treatment
facilities, including a large grant to the Allegheny County
Sanitary Authority for the secondary treatment plant
serving Pittsburgh. On line since 1973, it serves 1.25
million people from McKeesport to Pittsburgh and treats
200 million gallons of municipal and industrial waste-
water daily. Additional EPA planning grants have been
awarded to study industrial discharges, groundwater
contamination, and sewer problems.
The lower reaches of the river, while vastly improved,
still have far to go. Discharges from the heavy industry
and the active and abandoned mines between Charleroi
and Pittsburgh continue to result in violations of water
quality standards. But the lower portion of the river is
improving; carp and bullheads have returned. EPA and
the States have issued permits to the majority of point-
source dischargers.
Dents Run flows into the Monongahela near
Morgantown, West Virginia. A demonstration project on
the Dents Run watershed has shown how pollution can
be controlled at both active and abandoned mines.
Smoldering gob piles have been reshaped, covered
with fertile soil, and replanted. Hydrated lime treatment
plants have eliminated much of the acid mine drainage
and the bright orange color in the water. The pH in the
14.6-square-mile watershed has risen from an average
of 3 (highly acidic) to 6 (slightly acidic). And local
residents have reported minnows in the upper portion of
the watershed.
As a joint demonstration project by EPA, the West
Virginia Department of Natural Resources, and the
Consolidation Coal Company, the Dents Run project has
worked well. It has reclaimed over 400 acres of strip-
mined land and minimized the acid mine drainage
problem from the reclaimed land.
The cumulative impact on the Monongahela of such
efforts as those on Dents Run has been remarkable. But
the cleanup of Dents Run highlights the fact that the
Monongahela's revival has been a team effort. The West
Virginia Department of Natural Resources, the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources,
the region's mining industry, and EPA worked together
with success—particularly on the river's upper reaches.
Today there are bass tournaments on the West Virginia
portion of the Monongahela Muskellunge frequent the
river's lower reaches, and hikers and boaters are again a
common sight on its banks on warm summer days.
Considered a "dead" river for 70 years, the
Monongahela now has new life.
Black Creek: Controlling Pollution from Agriculture
Since 1972 the Allen County Soil and Water Conser-
vation District, with assistance from the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service, Purdue
University, and the University of Illinois, has been
investigating non-point source pollution in a 12,000-
acre subwatershed of the Maumee Basin in Allen
County, Indiana. Funded by a grant from EPA and known
as the Black Creek Project, it was the first detailed look at
the contributions of agriculture to the degradation of
water quality.
The study was a research and demonstration project
aimed first at understanding the impact of agriculture on
water quality in the basin of the Maumee River, which
drains into Lake Erie, and second at implementing
appropriate measures to minimize any adverse effects
discovered.
The project was designed to show whether traditional
soil and water conservation programs have a significantly
beneficial impact on water quality, and whether
voluntary programs, encouraged by incentive payments,
produce land use practices effective in improving water
quality.
After five years of effort, investigators were able to
draw some tentative conclusions concerning the impact
of agriculture and land use on the Black Creek environ-
ment. The project showed that nitrate loadings typical of
agricultural watersheds are not high enough to threaten
drinking water standards if conventional controls on
nitrate use are applied, but that phosphate
concentrations were high enough to threaten the water
quality goals for Lake Erie. As expected, significantly
greater sediment loadings were produced during high
runoff periods.
The conventional methods for controlling nitrates
include careful scheduling of fertilizer application and
reducing the amount of nitrogen in the fertilizer used.
The study showed that the nitrate levels detected in
Black Creek do not justify other, more stringent control
measures.
Although phosphate levels were high enough to be of
concern, the study indicated that significant reduction of
phosphate levels can be achieved through control of
sediment.
Simulated rainfall tests demonstrated that raindrop
impact is of prime importance in the detachment of soil
particles, which in turn results in erosion and high
sediment in the stream. Farming techniques which
maximize surface residue, thereby providing better soil
cover and subsequent protection from the erosive effects
of rainfall, were found to be the most important practices
in preventing erosion.
Other practices found to prevent sediment from
reaching the waterway included establishing vegetative
borders around fields, constructing terrace systems to
shorten slopes, and constructing sediment basins.
These pollution-minimizing practices have been
formalized as "best management practices," and have
been applied widely throughout the Black Creek basin.
The investigators developed a computer model called
ANSWERS to simulate sediment production and
transport. It helps identify areas within small watersheds
that have a proportionally greater impact on water
quality. The model is useful for water quality
management planners who need to identify those areas
within a basin where control of erosion is most critical to
success of the areawide plan.
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The Black Creek project has been accepted by the
public. It has led to the use of best management
practices throughout the Black Creek basin and has
provided a data base that gives us a better under-
standing of the factors contributing to non-point
pollution from agriculture and the best methods for
keeping such pollution to a minimum.
The Colorado River: A Salinity Problem
Concern for water in the Colorado River Basin focuses
on quantity—the supply available—and quality,
particularly salinity. These two concerns are, in part,
interrelated. The situation in the Basin is a classic
example of extreme competition for a very limited
resource—water. Although the headwaters of the
Colorado River are in the mountains of Wyoming and
Colorado, most of the basin consists of semi-arid and
arid regions in Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona,
California, and Mexico. The availability of water is often
a limiting factor, both for human activities and for
natural processes. Consequently, decisions regarding
the quantity and quality of the basin's waters are viewed
by many parties with great interest, concern, and
emotion.
The combination of a basically arid climate, the
geology of the region, and water-consuming human
activity have created a serious salinity problem in the
basin. Salinity is, in fact, the most serious basin-wide
water quality problem on the Colorado River. The most
significant natural contributions result from weathering,
decomposition, and erosion of rock formations and soils
in the basin. Among man's activities, irrigation is the
primary contributor to Colorado River salinity. Other
actions, such as grazing, water impoundment in
reservoirs, the resultant evaporation, and the
"exporting" of the river's waters also increase the
salinity.
Salinity gradually increases as the river flows down-
stream. Consequently, the most severe impacts occur in
California, Arizona, and Mexico. The lower basin
States—together with Mexico—have therefore been
bearing the brunt of the salinity in the form of lower crop
yields and additional costs for public drinking water
supplies. The most recent study indicates that in
California and Arizona, the total damages attributable to
Colorado River salinity are about $84 million a year. At
the same time, Mexico has expressed grave concerns
about the salts in the Colorado River water delivered to
Mexico. In fact, the President of Mexico attributed
Mexico's unwillingness to compensate for damages
caused by the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico
to the salinity in the water delivered to Mexico.
In response to increasing concern over salinity, the
seven states in the Colorado Basin joined with EPA and
the Department of the Interior to agree in December,
1973 on a new salinity control policy. The policy provided
the following:
• Salinity levels in the lower portion of the river would
be maintained at or below 1972 concentrations, as
previously agreed to by the States and the Federal
Government.
• Salinity control would be treated as a basin-wide
effort.
• Numerical criteria for specified points on the river
were to be set by October 18,1975.
• The States involved were to develop salinity control
plans.
During late 1975 and early 1976, the seven States
adopted water quality standards for salinity in the basin,
working through the ad hoc Colorado River Basin
Salinity Control Forum. EPA approved these standards in
November 1976. In the meantime, the 1974 Colorado
River Salinity Control Act provided for future funding and
technical assistance to help control salinity. The Act also
authorized programs to implement the agreed-upon
salinity control policy and to improve the quality of the
water reaching Mexico.
Progress in controlling salinity has been achieved in
the midst of considerable frustration and controversy. The
Environmental Defense Fund filed suit in District Court
in 1977 alleging that the standards implementation
plans did not contain sufficient provisions for adequate
control of salinity. Counter-motions for summary
judgements were filed during 1979. In October, 1979
the court ruled in behalf of the Federal defendants. In
early December, 1979, the Environmental Defense Fund
filed an appeal.
There has been some success at reducing salinity
through improvements in on-farm irrigation practices.
Considerable improvements have been accomplished in
the Welton-Mohawk area and are beginning in the
Grand Valley area. Funding to assist in the imple-
mentation of improved on-farm irrigation practices was
recently approved by Congress. Other efforts include the
continuing implementation of the NPDES permit policy
on the control of salinity in urban and industrial
discharges.
The Colorado River Salinity Control Forum recently
completed the triennial review of Colorado River water
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quality standards for salinity. Individual States in the
basin are now in the process of adopting the Forum's
recommended standards revision package. The revised
implementation plan identifies a greater role for
areawide water quality management (208 programs),
cites opportunities to improve on-farm irrigation
practices, and calls for the development of State salinity
strategies by the individual basin States.
Salinity problems in the Colorado River are particularly
complicated. Involved are natural climatic and geologic
processes, a variety of land and water use activities,
complex State and interstate water allocation systems,
and international concerns. An additional factor looms
on the horizon. The upper Colorado River Basin is very
rich in energy resources—oil shale, coal, and uranium.
There is growing concern over the potential impact that
development of these energy resources will have on the
salinity problem.
So far, the 1972 salinity levels have been maintained
in the lower mamstem. However, should energy
and water development efforts proceed as projected,
considerably more effort will have to be devoted to
controlling salinity.
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Promoting Safe
Drinking Water
Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974
to ensure that public water supply systems meet
minimum national standards for the protection of public
health. The Act authorized EPA to establish a joint
Federal-State system to implement the standards and to
safeguard underground sources of drinking water. The
Act also provided Federal grants to aid States in carrying
out their oversight responsibilities.
PROTECTING GROUNDWATER
Hobbs, New Mexico: Conserving Groundwater By
Reusing Wastewater
Hobbs, New Mexico, has turned what was both a
public health problem and an environmental problem
into an economic asset.
The city's wastewater treatment plant, built in 1938
and modified in 1953, was adding unsafe levels of
nitrates to groundwater in the Ogalala formation, which
serves as the city's water supply. Since there are no
waterways in the area to receive discharges, the plant
used a trickling filter process followed by discharge into
percolation ponds. As the treated effluent percolated into
the ground, it carried nitrates to the groundwater.
The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Agency
found excessive nitrate concentrations in water supply
wells near the plant and ordered Hobbs to remedy
the situation. The Agency was concerned about the high
nitrate levels because they are a serious health threat,
especially to infants. High concentrations of nitrate
hamper the blood's ability to carry oxygen to the brain.
In response to the problem of high nitrate levels, the
city decided to improve the wastewater treatment
process it was using and sell part of the effluent. Oil
producers buy the effluent and inject it into petroleum
formations as part of their secondary oil recovery
operations. The remaining effluent is pumped to a
second facility for land application and denitrification.
With EPA and State grants, Hobbs completed the land
application facility in 1976. That allowed the city to begin
restoring the quality of the underground water supply.
One quarter of the city's effluent is now sold for use in
oil recovery, and the city soon expects to sign a contract
with a second oil company that would nearly double the
amount sold. Since the oil companies would be using
groundwater for their secondary recovery operations if
the effluent were not available, Hobbs is helping to
conserve water through the sale of its treated
wastewater.
Thus, Hobbs' unusual arrangement is not only saving
money, but also conserving water—the West's most
precious natural resource.
The O'Neill Reservoir On The Niobrara River: Applying
Best Management Practices
The Federally sponsored O'Neill irrigation project on
the Niobrara River in Nebraska has been controversial
since its inception. The sponsoring agency is the Water
and Power Resources Service (WPRS). (Until recently
this agency was known as the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation.) A coalition of citizen environmental and
agricultural groups strongly opposed the project. The
coalition charged that the project, which will provide
irrigation water for some 77,000 acres of land extending
70 miles downstream, would destroy a valuable free-
flowing river and a unique natural area and would
inundate good rangeland and cropland. In addition,
in reviewing the draft Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement (EIS) on the proposal, EPA raised
another major environmental concern—increased
nitrate levels in groundwater due to use of nitrogen
fertilizers on the irrigated land. EPA feared that nitrates
would enter in greater quantities than they had
previously. In response to EPA's concerns regarding the
groundwater quality, the Water and Power Resources
Service (WPRS), the North Central Reclamation District,
and the Niobrara Basin Irrigation District signed a
memorandum of understanding in early 1979. The
agreement requires each user of O'Neill project water to
follow specific best management practices and to limit
the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied to the lands.
Each water user has to take a short course in irrigation
scheduling, has to purchase and install devices to
measure the amount of groundwater in the root zone,
and has to develop and follow an irrigation schedule
based on root zone measurements in order to prevent
water from passing below that zone during irrigation.
Also, no nitrate fertilizers may be applied in the fall or
winter, since that is when nitrates pass quickly through
the soil into the groundwater. Furthermore, the WSPRS
will monitor the ground-water to make sure it remains safe
for drinking.
The agreement set a precedent; it is the first time best
management irrigation practices have been required in
conjunction with a Federal project. Similar requirements
have since been applied to another WPRS irrigation
project in Nebraska—\heNorth Loup Pro/ect—and may
well become an important and highly effective means of
controlling water pollution from non-point sources in
other areas too.
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PROTECTING AGAINST TOXICS
Huron, South Dakota: A Chlorination Problem Solved
While the possible presence of disease organisms in
drinking water had long been of concern, what triggered
passage of the new Federal law to protect drinking water
was the discovery of widespread contamination of water
supplies with toxic pollutants—especially toxic organic
chemicals.
Philadelphia: Stopping Carbon Tetrachloride Problems
William Blankenship, of EPA's Regional Office in
Philadelphia, had a hunch about possible sources of
contamination of drinking water by organic chemicals, a
problem in many water supply systems. In a memo to
EPA Headquarters in August 1977, Blankenship
theorized that the chlorine used to disinfect drinking
water might itself be contaminating the water with toxic
organics. He noted that organic chemicals were found at
times as impurities in bottled chlorine There was no
proof, however, that those impurities were actually
contaminating the drinking water in any given locality.
However, Blankenship's theory was soon borne out.
In November 1977, the Philadelphia Water
Department reported to EPA that it had found relatively
high levels of carbon tetrachloride, a toxic organic
chemical and a known animal carcinogen, in the finished
drinking water from two of its treatment plants The city
and EPA investigated and found that the source of the
carbon tetrachlonde was contaminated chlorine used at
the plants. EPA traced the chlorine to the manufacturer's
plant in Delaware City, Delaware. The manufacturer
investigated and discovered that a malfunction in the
manufacturing process had caused the contamination.
EPA investigated further and learned that 13 public
water systems had received contaminated chlorine from
the same manufacturer. EPA sent telegrams to the water
utilities asking them to stop using the contaminated
chlorine and to analyze their finished water for carbon
tetrachloride. Several public water systems confirmed
that their water did indeed contain excess carbon
tetrachloride in concentrations as high as 1 5 times the
recommended safe levels. When they stopped using the
contaminated chlorine, the problem disappeared. All
systems were back to normal within a month.
EPA learned that few companies in the chlorine
manufacturing business tested the chlorine for carbon
tetrachloride contamination. Although the manufacturer
whose chlorine has caused the problems had voluntarily
agreed to test its chlorine and to ensure that carbon
tetrachloride levels would not exceed 100 parts per
million (ppm), EPA wanted to make sure the problem
would not arise elsewhere.
EPA alerted the entire industry and met with the
Chlorine Institute, a trade association, and several
major chlorine manufacturers. As a result of that
meeting, the industry agreed to meet a standard of 100
ppm of carbon tetrachloride in chlorine, a level that
ensures that drinking water cannot become
contaminated through the use of chlorine. The industry
also agreed to seek better methods of testing to ensure
that the new standard would be met on a continuing
basis.
The result of these cooperative efforts between EPA
and the chlorine manufacturers has been that a
significant source of carbon tetrachloride contamination
has now been eliminated.
EPA's 1975 National Organic Reconnaissance Survey
found that the drinking water in Huron, South Dakota,
contained the highest concentration of bromodi-
chloromethane, a suspected carcinogen, and the second
highest concentration of chloroform of all the 80
cities sampled. Both compounds have caused tumors in
rats and mice and may pose a cancer risk to humans.
Public concern m the State led to an EPA grant to the
South Dakota School of Mines to study the problem. The
study indicated that the bromodichloromethane and
chloroform were being formed at the point of chlorina-
tion in the water supply's treatment plant, and that the
amount formed was highly dependent on the pH level of
the water supply. When the point of chlormation was
moved and the pH was adjusted, the amount of
chloroform in the treated water dropped by 75 percent.
Boston, Somerville, And Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Danger From Lead Reduced
Although toxic organics in drinking water are currently
receiving much attention, they are not the only toxic
threat in our water supplies that the Agency must
address. There are other toxic threats, one of which is
lead. Too much lead may severely damage the human
nervous system, and lead poisoning in its advanced
stages has caused irreversible brain damage. Children
are particularly susceptible to these adverse effects
EPA's standard for lead in drinking water is 50
micrograms per liter. A 1974 sampling of 109 homes in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, found lead levels in the
drinking water ranging from 21 to an alarming 276
micrograms per liter. Another study that sampled 383
households in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville
showed that lead exceeded standards in 14 percent of
the homes tested in Cambridge, in 25 percent of the
homes tested in Boston, and in 30 percent of the homes
in Somerville.
EPA discovered that the source of the lead was
corroded plumbing. Boston and Somerville draw their
water from the Boston Metropolitan District Commission
(MDC). Following the EPA study, the MDC began adding
a zinc-phosphate compound to the water to reduce the
lead pipe corrosion. This did not prove to be effective, so
its use was discontinued and replaced by additions of
sodium hydroxide Cambridge, which has its own
reservoir, also added sodium hydroxide to the water to
reduce the corrosion of its pipes.
The concentration of lead in drinking water fell
substantially. A sampling in November 1975 of the 10
Cambridge homes studied earlier found no detectable
lead in eight of the homes and and only 20 micrograms
per liter—less than half the standard—in the other two.
Twenty homes in Boston and Somerville were tested in
1978. Although some individual samples were higher
than the standard, the average of the samples was below
the standard.
CORRECTING OTHER PROBLEMS
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma: Protecting Its Drinking
Water
The city of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a growing
community of 35,000, draws its drinking water from the
Verdigris River, downstream from Tulsa. In 1978 the
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city's water supply system could not meet the national
drinking water standards established under the authority
of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The city had two choices: either to improve its drinking
water treatment system to make water from the
Verdigris usable, or to spend $20 million to tap a new
source of drinking water at a reservoir 28 miles away.
With technical help from the Oklahoma State
Department of Health and from EPA, the city was able to
modify its treatment system to bring its drinking water
into compliance with national standards.
Now both the State and EPA are attempting to keep
the Verdigris River usable as a source of drinking water.
However, Broken Arrow's location downstream from the
Tulsa metropolitan area, together with extensive boat
traffic on the river—with the inevitable spillage that
comes with it—poses some risks to the quality of the
water. The city is aware of the risks and is taking
precautions to make sure its drinking water remains
safe.
Elmo, Texas: Safe Water Again
The drinking water was not always good in Elmo,
Texas, but it is now.
The community of 250 families had a rapidly deterio-
rating public water system. As a result, the water in
Elmo was in violation of both State and Federal drinking
water standards. When used to wash clothes, the water
stained clothing. Many residents were bringing in
bottled water to drink and were washing their clothes in
a neighboring town. The water was so dirty and muddy
that it could not even be tested for contamination. In
response to the situation, orders to boil drinking water
were issued.
When the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water
Act went into effect in 1 977, Elmo's current treatment
system could not comply with them. EPA staff met with
the water district's board and with residents of the
community and encouraged them to bring their system
into compliance.
With help from the Texas Department of Health and the
Farmers Home Administration, the board of directors of
Elmo's water district joined a neighboring water system.
The community now has a tested, safe water supply
under the supervision of a certified operator. Residents
no longer have to bring in bottled water or wash their
clothes elsewhere. They no longer have to pay for a
deteriorating water plant. The value of their homes—
threatened when the water was bad—has stabilized.
Unsafe drinking water is no longer either a health threat
or a deterrent to economic growth in the area, so Elmo
has a new lease on life.
Neskowin, Oregon: Enforcement of Drinking Water
Safety
When nearly 200 people came down with acute
gastrointestinal illness in the small city of Neskowin,
Oregon, staff from EPA's Office of Research and
Development (ORD) were called in to provide technical
support to the city's privately owned and operated public
water system following determination that the system
was the probable cause of the illness.
ORD's response in emergency assistance cases such
as this is to identify the cause of the outbreak, determine
its route of entry into the water supply, provide technical
support to help correct the problem, and make
recommendations to ensure that the event does not
recur.
An ORD sanitary engineer working with EPA Regional
personnel identified serious deficiencies in the city's
water system, including inadequate chlorination. They
recommended improvements, but when the water
system owner and operator proved reluctant to
implement them, EPA initiated enforcement proceedings
under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The ORD engineer
who investigated the initial outbreak was called as a
witness at the proceedings. He described deficiencies in
the system, prescribed short-term improvements
necessary to ameliorate the immediate health effects,
identified long-term improvements to remedy the
general inadequacies of the system, and estimated the
health risk involved with continued operation of the
system without improvements.
Incorporating the ORD technical advice into its order,
the court ruled that the water system must make the
improvements. This was a precedent-setting decision, in
that it was the first instance of court enforcement in
support of the Safe Drinking Water Act. It also served
to notify to recalcitrant water system operators that
health risks from inadequate and poorly-operated public
water systems could not and would not be tolerated.
As an outgrowth of public concern, and concurrent
with the court action, Neskowin citizens formed a group
to establish a publicly owned water system for the city.
Federal funding was obtained. Currently, all signs point
to upgraded drinking water for the community
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Applying
Alternative
and Innovative
Technology
There are few secret weapons in the war on pollution.
Mostly it just takes determination, effort, and time. But
there have been some innovative ideas—especially for
treating the billions of gallons of sewage a day that are
the by-product of our burgeoning population.
While in many areas conventional approaches will
meet communities' treatment needs, there are other
areas in which alternative treatment methods may prove
equally effective in controlling pollution—at significantly
lower costs to communities. Moreover, some of these
alternatives have additional benefits. For instance,
communities can recycle and reuse wastewater and the
nutrients it contains. These alternative technologies may
be particularly useful in areas that require "advanced"
wastewater treatment, which removes more pollutants
than normal secondary treatment does.
The following stories present examples of
communities that found that pollution control can be
effective without being too costly.
THE GREAT LAKES REGION
Crystal Lake, Green Lake, The Steuben Lakes and
Others: Savings with a New Approach
In EPA's Great Lakes Regional Office, the
environmental impact statement (EIS) staff came to the
conclusion that small lakes can present big problems
after they studied hundreds of sewage treatment
construction grant proposals for communities located on
small lakes in rural areas
They noticed that most of the projects called for
centralized sewage treatment systems for the rural
areas around these small lakes, which are plentiful in
the region. Most of the proposals were unusually
expensive, considering the population served. Even with
a Federal construction grant covering 75 percent of the
project cost, the remaining local cost of some of the
projects was $4,000 or more per dwelling, compared to a
typical cost of $2,000 per dwelling for an urban sewage
treatment system. The local costs were so high in many
of the proposals that they threatened either economic
disaster or involuntary displacement for many of the
people they were supposed to serve.
Most of the proposals had included only casual
consideration of alternatives such as private waste
treatment systems. Most also threatened wetlands or
the habitats of endangered species
In trying to find a solution to this problem, EPA in July
1977 selected seven of the small lake projects for
development of individual environmental impact
statements—Crystal Lake and Crooked-Pickerel Lake in
Michigan, Green Lake and Otter Tail Lake in Minnesota,
the 11 Steuben Lakes in Indiana, Nettle Lake in Ohio, and
the eight Salem Township Lakes in Wisconsin
The seven projects covered 35 different lakes with
varying degrees of shoreline development and with
varying levels of water quality. Water quality ranged
from pristine to highly eutrophic with high bacterial
levels. The factors to be considered in the EIS included
the impact of the high costs of sewage treatment on the
populations to be served, the impact of the project on
endangered species, the impact on secondary
development, and the expected impact of inter-basin
transfers of either raw or treated wastewater.
Once the study was under way, the staff soon
discovered that engineering plans for some of the
projects were bewilderingly complex. One proposed
project to serve 10,000 people had some 85 miles of
interceptor and collector sewers. Almost all the project
plans lacked any definite determination of the need for
the project or of its impact on the water quality of the
lakes they would supposedly protect. Local costs ranged
from high to astronomical. In one project, 30 percent of
the population to be served faced local and private costs
of from one and one half times to two and one half times
the value of the average single family dwelling to be
served. Local reactions to the proposed projects ranged
from vigorous support, to passive acceptance, to
vociferous opposition
It was obvious that a new approach was needed to
reduce local and Federal costs and to deal more
efficiently with the communities' water pollution
problems. The need for centralized, expensive treatment
systems had to be restudied. Innovative approaches had
to be considered. The projects could then be redesigned.
The staff found that in many projects centralized
sewage treatment systems had been proposed without
adequate evidence that the septic tanks already in place
were actually resulting in pollution problems in the
lakes. The project staff therefore arranged for aerial
infrared surveys,which accurately pinpoint which septic
tanks are polluting a lake. They also used the "Septic
Snooper," a new machine that uses ultraviolet light to
locate septic tank failures.
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The cost of the infrared aerial survey technique was
about $2,000 per project. The old door-to-door survey
method would have cost about $100 per dwelling,
leading to survey costs of $100,000 to $200,000 per
project.
With these new techniques, the staff found in one
case only 90 of 1,500 septic tanks were feeding into the
lake, and that only two were substantial polluters. The
conclusion with regard to this lake was that it was
clearly preferable to deal with those two poorly
performing septic tanks than to rip out 1,500 septic tanks
and build a new central treatment system.
To deal with the problems identified m the survey, the
staff investigated the cost of rehabilitating existing
individual septic systems as well as a variety of other
low-cost alternatives. These alternatives included
collection systems such as small diameter gravity
sewers or local pressure sewers; treatment systems
such as composting toilets, a cluster septic tank or soil
absorption field (in which several homes share one
system), and devices and special water saving shower
heads. In summary, the staff considered a variety of
treatment techniques in developing alternative designs
that would protect both the lakes and the communities'
economic well-being.
By investigating other options, the staff were able to
identify alternative actions that reduced total costs 30-70
percent. Local costs could be cut 60-80 percent. The total
potential savings identified so far on the seven projects
are $30 million.
EPA is now preparing a generic EIS to deal with all
similar situations The approaches and solutions
developed in the seven-project study will then be used in
hundreds of other cases. That could easily save
taxpapers—both Federal and local—millions of dollars.
Muskegon County, Michigan: Land Application of
Wastewater
The citizens and community leaders of Muskegon
County, Michigan, went to advanced wastewater
treatment—using alternative technology—to solve their
water pollution problems.
Near the end of the 1960's, each of the many in-
dependent communities in the country was trying to deal
separately with its own municipal and industrial
wastewaters in small, overburdened treatment facilities.
Several of the main industries and principal com-
munities were still discharging inadequately treated
wastewater directly into the county's lakes.
The three main recreational lakes were being polluted.
The resulting problems included algal blooms, encroach-
ing weeds and periods of foul odor. Swimming and
boating were becoming unpleasant and unsafe. Older
industries were closing, and new businesses were not
coming in to replace them.
Muskegon County's approach was first to persuade its
many independent communities to agree to the need for
a unified approach to the problem, and then to develop a
method for providing a uniformly high level of
wastewater treatment. Communities in the area did
agree that a unified approach was to design and build a
large-scale spray irrigation system that would reliably
and safely handle up to 43 million gallons of wastewater
a day. This land treatment system has removed about 98
percent of the BOD, suspended solids, and phosphorus
and 70 percent of the nitrogen from the 27 million
gallons of wastewater treated daily in the county. It is
protecting and enhancing the county's lakes and
streams as well as benefiting Lake Michigan Since
1975, the system has also used its treated wastewater to
irrigate over 5,500 acres of corn grown on what had
previously been sandy, unproductive soil. The project
has served as a keystone in the county's efforts to
revitalize its economy.
Although the primary purpose of the Muskegon
system is wastewater treatment, the yield of corn
watered with the effluent equals the average 65
bushels-an-acre of corn yielded by Muskegon County's
privately owned farms—and the land treatment site has
some of the poorest soil in the county. The sale of this
crop reduces the cost of treating the wastewater by
$700,000 each year.
Land application of wastewater has been practiced in
the United States and in Europe for decades. But the
Muskegon project is the largest Federally-assisted effort
of its kind in this country. EPA funded approximately 45
percent of the construction costs.
The cost of treating the wastewater in 1975 was only
24 cents per 1000 gallons, and the cost has not
increased substantially in subsequent years despite the
pressures of inflation. This cost figure includes
repayment of the bonded indebtedness as well as all
operating costs. The cost is low compared with many
other, more conventional wastewater treatment
systems.
The Muskegon success may serve as an example for
other communities: a well-designed and well-managed
land application system for municipal wastewater
treatment can be operated without contaminating the
land with heavy metals and other toxic substances, and
should be as safe as conventional treatment systems.
And it has an advantage over conventional systems—it
reinforces the resource recovery ethic. It can also bring
secondary benefits: it can help revitalize and augment
parkland and recreation areas, help replenish
groundwater supplies, and help provide nutrients for the
growth of forests, grasslands, and even crops.
Although toxic substances in the raw wastewater do
not appear to be contaminating local groundwater or
crops grown at the county site, what happens to these
substances during treatment is not clearly known.
Muskegon County recently received a grant from EPA to
study this question.
FLORIDA
St. Petersburg: Using Effluent for Irrigation
In 1972 the State of Florida required that persons
discharging into the critically polluted areas around
Tampa Bay provide advanced wastewater treatment
with essentially complete nutrient removal.
St. Petersburg responded with an alternative solution
that at the same time was an important first step toward
conserving scarce drinking water.
Before the 1940's the city drew its potable water from
wells in southern Pinellas County, but with the rapid
population growth and the increasing drain on fresh
water supplies, the groundwater aquifer was soon over-
pumped. Salt-water intrusion followed, and the aquifer
had to be abandoned as a source of fresh water Since
then the city has drawn its water from northern Pinellas
County by pipeline, and faced future needs it cannot
meet.
The city combined the solution to its wastewater
disposal problem with a step toward relieving its water
shortage. It decided to use modified secondary treatment
together with spray irrigation. The treated effluent is
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sprayed on golf courses, parks, and school yards in the
city, saving scarce fresh water for more important uses.
The effluent is treated to safe levels before it is
sprayed on sites accessible to the public. The actual
spray irrigation is done during hours when there is no
public access. A standby deepwell storage system stores
the treated effluent during periods when irrigation is
unnecessary. The system works well. The city is
delighted with it.
Largo: Drying and Selling Sludge
The City of Largo. Florida was under the same
pressure as St. Petersburg to upgrade its wastewater
treatment. Like St. Petersburg, Largo chose spray
irrigation, but it went one innovative step further.
While wrestling with the problem of what to do with
the 10 tons a day of dry sludge generated by the new
treatment plant, the city's consulting engineer discovered
that approximately 100,000 tons of dried sludge were
being imported from Houston and Chicago to the nearby
port of Tampa to be used as a soil conditioner.
The engineer devised an innovative and cost-effective
system to drain Largo's sludge mechanically and dry
it in a rotary kiln. The end product is sludge in a dust-free
granular form that is now sold as a soil conditioner
because of its high organic and nutrient content.
The advantages of Largo's sludge handling process are
many It recycles and reuses the sludge itself, eliminates
the need for a less desirable means of sludge disposal,
and sale of the end product reduces the net cost of the
sludge handling to a figure considerably below that of
the other possible sludge disposal approaches.
Pearl Bayou and St. Andrews Bay: Zero Discharge to
Protect Coastal Resources
In 1971 EPA notified Tyndall Air Force Base that its
sewage treatment facilities were outmoded and
completely inadequate to meet State and Federal
requirements.
EPA and the State of Florida agreed that advanced
wastewater treatment would be required at the base's
main wastewater treatment plant before discharge to
the adjacent beach area on the Gulf of Mexico. Those
waters and the beach had been designated for recrea-
tional use and were to be suitable for fish and wildlife
propagation as well. EPA set limitations for BOD and
suspended solids, and EPA and the State determined
that wastewater from a second sewage treatment plant
should no longer be permitted to empty intof earl Bayou,
a tributary of St. Andrews Bay and a haven for shellfish
After a series of negotiations and consultations, the
Air Force designed and built a spray irrigation system.
Completed in 1975, the system has totally eliminated all
discharges from the base into the Gulf of Mexico and St.
Andrews Bay.
To eliminate the ponding and cross water flow from
the spray irrigation field which sometimes occurs now
due to high groundwater levels during wet weather,
base officials are considering expanding the spray
irrigation system or diverting all or some of the plant's
effluent to the Bay County Regional Treatment System,
located on Tyndall Air Force Base. The Bay County
system is nutrient deficient, so such a diversion would
enhance the treatability of the wastes already being
received at the Bay County Regional Treatment System.
Choctawhatchee Bay and Santa Rosa Sound: Spray
I rrigation Allows for Coastal Recreation and S hellf ish
Harvesting
Eglin Air Force Base is on Choctawhatchee Bay near
Fort Walton Beach, a prime recreational and fishing
area.
In 1970 Eglin's wastewater disposal system could not
provide the degree of treatment required by Florida's
Department of Environmental Regulation. EPA, the
State, and the Air Force consulted and decided that spray
irrigation in the Air Base's undeveloped sandy
woodlands was the best solution. The system was
completed early in 1975. Since then the Air Force has
also helped Okaloosa County authorities design a spray
irrigation system that would also use Federal lands.
The Eglin system has eliminated wastewater
discharges into Choctawhatchee Bay and Santa Rosa
Sound, allowing those waters to be used for recreation.
The waters will also be suitable for shellfish. The system
eliminated three outfalls and enhanced the quality of
Gulf beaches in the Fort Walton area,
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
Micronesia: New Sewer Systems
The U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands encom-
passes three major Micronesian island groups: the
Eastern Carolines, the Western Carolines and the
Marshall Islands. These three island groups contain
more than 2,000 islands scattered across three million
square miles of the western Pacific Ocean.
Only about 100 of the islands are permanently
inhabited, and as of 1976 more than half of the 125,400
people in the Trust Territory reside in the six admini-
strative towns known as district centers and in several
other towns. As a result, population densities are very
high on some islands. For example, Ebeye Island in the
Marshall Islands has an estimated density of 65,000
people per square mile, more than double that of New
York City.
Population growth and migration have brought
overcrowding and inadequate water and sewer services.
To date, only 8 percent of the households are connected to
sewers or have septic tanks. Most have simple
"benjos"—privies over water or pits—or no facilities at
all. As a result, there have been widespread violations
of water quality standards for bacteria and resultant
public health problems. Ten percent of the population was
treated for intestinal parasites, 9.2 percent for digestive
system disease, and 8.5 percent for dysentery in one
recent year.
EPA grants can help build new and improved sewage
collection and disposal systems, but a majority of the
population cannot afford to buy basic household sanitary
equipment or to connect to the sewers those grants
would support. Average annual per capita income was
$400 in 1976 and is not proportionately higher today.
For this reason, the Trust Territory government in 1 976
developed a program to improve family hygiene,
sanitation, and health. The key to the program is low
interest loans from the Farmers Home Administration
(FmHA), enabling Micronesian families to borrow
enough to install sanitary core units—toilet, washing
and bathing facilities—in their homes. The sanitary units
cost between $2,000 and $2,500. With a repayment
period of 15 years and an interest rate of one percent,
payments average $15 a month, making the facilities
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much more affordable than what they would cost under
a conventional payment plan. Even so, they are still a
major expense m a typical Micronesian family's budget.
In order to tie individual families' sanitary core
systems to sewer systems, EPA allowed construction
grants to be used to connect the houses to sewer lines.
Demonstration units were built in urban and rural areas
to familiarize the public with sanitary core facilities and
to promote the FmHA loan program.
The public's response has been encouraging. FmHA
has already approved 481 loan and grant applications,
and another 489 are pending. Meanwhile, plans for
sewage collection and disposal systems are nearmg
completion in all districts. Over the next two years, EPA
will award construction grants for sewage systems,
including house connections.
It is estimated that some 3,750 house connections are
needed for existing and planned sewers and that about
2,300 additional household sanitary core facilities are
needed for areas that already or soon will have sewers.
Although it is too early to measure changes, the
combination of FmHA loans and EPA grants should bring
significant improvements in sanitary conditions and
public health for many Micronesian families.
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A CONTINUING SEARCH FOR NEW SOLUTIONS
Because industry has played such a major role in
polluting the environment, it has also had to play a major
role in cleaning it up.
Some companies and some industries have lagged.
Some have had to be forced to take the necessary and
often expensive steps to reduce their adverse effects on
the environment. However, once the cleanup challenge
has been issued, most industries have undertaken major
pollution control efforts. Some industries have even
pioneered new pollution control techniques.
Several notable examples of effective pollution control
efforts by industry come from the food processing
industries. One element common to almost all food
processing is organic waste. Finding environmentally
sound methods to dispose of it requires approaches
tailored to the unique circumstances of each industry.
Some examples of what has been accomplished in the
industry follow.
Florida: The Citrus Industry
In Florida, the citrus industry is demonstrating that
waste products can be converted from a liability to an
asset.
For many years, Florida's citrus processors dumped
their liquid wastes into the nearest waterway, over-
loading the receiving water with organic material. The
solid wastes were piled up on the ground. The results
were depressed oxygen levels, discolored waters, fish
kills, and odors, all of which grew worse as the industry
expanded. Like so many pollution problems, this one had
developed because no one knew what else to do with the
waste.
The first attempt to seek alternative methods of
disposal came shortly after World War II. The industry
began producing cattle feed from solid citrus waste—
orange peelings and pulp By 1950, all of this type of
process waste was being converted into cattle feed.
In the early 1960's, however, a State of Florida study
showed that the liquid citrus waste was one of the most
significant sources of pollution \r\LakeApopka. Prodded
by threats of legal action, the citrus industry started a
long-term effort to treat those portions of its waste
that were resulting in the greatest contamination.
In 1968 a Federal grant funded the construction of an
innovative activated sludge plant at the Winter Garden
Citrus Cooperative. This technology proved successful,
and additional systems were built at several other sites.
Some of these facilities are presently disposing of their
treated effluent by spray irrigation.
Experimental spraying of liquid citrus waste directly
back on the orange groves is also under way, and results
indicate that it can be done without damage to the trees
or fruit. NPDES permits issued to most citrus processors
have also spurred industrial programs to recycle cooling
water and to use additional spray fields. There is a strong
trend toward total reuse of water and zero discharge. As
a result, many of the eutrophic lakes of central Florida
should soon begin to recover.
The Snake River: Reducing the Impact of Cattle
Feedlots
Cattle and other animals raised for food generate
wastes potentially damaging to the environment.
This situation existed on an island feedlot in Idaho's
Snake River, close to the town of Payette. The island was
subject to annual flooding, which flushed organic
matter, bacteria, and nutrients from the feedlot into the
river. This resulted in low dissolved oxygen and generally
eutrophic conditions in the river downstream, with a
particularly significant increase in the environmental
stresses placed on the downstream Brownlee Reservoir.
Fisheries and recreation were impaired and heavy algal
growths appeared seasonally throughout the Hell's
Canyon area. Odor from the feedlot discharges also
affected the residents of the area down river.
In settlement of a lawsuit filed at the request of EPA, a
consent decree with the owner-operator of the feedlot in
1973 required that of the facility be relocated to a site
away from the waterway. The terms of this decree
aroused the concern of the entire industry. As a result,
the Idaho Cattle Feeders Association took an active role
in the development of the EPA effluent guidelines and in
helping its members comply with those guidelines. The
Dairymen's Association, the Soil Conservation Service,
the Agricultural Extension Service, and the Food
Producers of Idaho cooperated to accelerate the instal-
lation of control systems.
Permits were issued to 73 feedlots with a total popula-
tion of 400,000 animals, a large percentage of which
were discharging process or runoff effluent to the
State's waters. By 1980, most of the feedlots had
achieved compliance with their permit limits.
The Boise And Snake Rivers: Potato Processing
Cattle feedlots were not the only sources polluting
Idaho's rivers with organic wastes. Potato processing
operations throughout southern Idaho also burdened the
State's waterways in the 1960's and early 1970's.
The J.R. Simplot plant at Caldwell, Idaho, once a
problem, today stands as a model of what a company can
do. Wastewater from the Caldwell plant carried high
concentrations of nutrients, suspended solids, and BOD.
The wastewater was given primary treatment in holding
ponds, then discharged into the Boise River. This daily
outpouring of 2,500 pounds of ammonia, 600 pounds of
phosphorus, 7,500 pounds of suspended solids, and
41,000 pounds of BOD led to sludge banks and algal
slime. It also severely depleted the river's dissolved
oxygen. The nutrients flowed down the Boise River 25
miles to its confluence with the Snake River, and
contributed to algae problems in that river as well.
Seasonally low flows in the Boise River prevented the
company from using conventional biological treatment
systems—they just were not good enough. The Idaho
Department of Health and Welfare worked with the
Simplot managers to arrive at a plan to meet the
water quality standards in the discharge permit issued
by the State in 1972.
The J.R. Simplot plant chose to end its problems by
ending its discharge altogether with a system combining
primary treatment and spray irrigation. Prodded by a
1974 deadline, Simplot hurried construction of the
system, and on September 6,1973, advised the EPA that
the Caldwell plant no longer discharged wastewater.
A study by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service and the
Agricultural Research Service indicated that, as of 1976,
virtually all of the 40,000 pounds of BOD, the nutrients,
and the suspended solids had been eliminated from both
the stream and the groundwater. Dissolved oxygen
levels had improved, and the sludge banks were
disappearing.
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Moreover, nutrients in the wastewater are now
sprayed on the land to produce high protein forage,
which, combined with other solid wastes from the plant,
feeds 26,000 yearling steers. The waste heat in the
effluent now sprayed on the land allows a 10 or 11
month growing season, effectively shrinking the
duration of the normally lengthy Idaho winter and
thereby making possible an annual yield that is nearly
twice that of other croplands in the area.
Hawaii: The Sugar Mills
The environmental damage caused by uncontrolled
sugar wastes is most graphic in Hawaii. Sugarcane mills
produce "trash," which is waste foliage, and "bagasse,"
which is fiber left after juice extraction. In addition,
harvesting and sugar extracting processes strip sub-
stantial amounts of topsoil away.
Until recently all of these wastes—plant fiber, stripped
topsoil, and organic wastes—were discharged directly
into the Pacific Ocean in the mills' wastewater. Huge
floating mats of decomposing fiber were formed, some-
times washing up on nearby beaches. Thick sludge
banks accumulated on the ocean floor. Red plumes of
polluted water fanned out in a thin film over the sea. Five
sugar mills on the northeast coast of the island of Hawaii
dumped 4,000 to 5,000 tons a day of this waste material
into the ocean.
State efforts to check this pollution were unsuccess-
ful, so EPA started enforcement action against the sugar
mills late in 1972. Permits now require an end to trash
and bagasse discharges entirely, and a reduction in
suspended solids in the sugar mill effluents. With the
addition of control equipment, the mills have achieved
substantial compliance. By 1979, effective measures
had been taken by the mills to reduce the amount of
suspended solids in sugarcane wastewater. Indeed,
some of the sugarcane wastewater is being used for
irrigation; this constitutes the sugar industry equivalent
to land treatment.
Furthermore, three sugar companies are now using
the bagasse as fuel to generate electricity. They sell the
excess power they generate to the Hawaiian Electric
Company. The process is producing a significant
percentage of the island of Hawaii's electric power.
What were previously viewed as "pollutants" have
turned out to be of benefit when recovered and put to
use.
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Toward Cleaner Air
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THE CLEAN AIR ACT
Air pollution evokes the image of pollution that can be
clearly seen—a dingy haze hanging over a city, bringing
with it foul odors and smarting eyes. That, in the public
mind, is air pollution at its worst. Yet what cannot be seen
is often more dangerous than what can.
One pollutant—carbon monoxide (CO)—can be neither
seen nor smelted, yet in high concentrations it is lethal.
Other pollutants that are visible and foul-smelling are
often less harmful. It is necessary to control both kinds of
pollution—that which is visible and that which is not.
The mandate for the current attack on the Nation's air
pollution problems came with the passage of the Clean
Air Act Amendments of 1970. This precedent-setting
legislation empowered EPA to establish ambient air
quality standards to protect the public health and welfare
and then to see to it that they are enforced.
EPA works closely with the States, which draft and
enforce implementation plans subject to EPA review. If
necessary, EPA itself prepares or enforces the
implementation plans. EPA also sets emission standards
for new pollution sources and for all sources of
especially hazardous pollutants. In addition, EPA sets
and enforces limits for emissions of carbon monoxide,
hydrocarbons, and oxides of nitrogen from the Nation's
automobiles, trucks, and motorcycles.
To carry out the law's strict requirements, EPA was to
establish two kinds of ambient air quality standards for
the most common and widespread air pollutants. One
set—the primary standards—is designed to protect
human health. The other—the secondary standards—is
more restricted and has been established to clean the air
of visible pollutants and to prevent corrosion, crop
damage, ancj other adverse effects of pollutants.
What Has Been Done
The battles against air pollution have been fought
largely by States and cities. There have been major
victories. In city after city the air has become cleaner:
there has been a strong downward trend in the tonnage
of emissions escaping into the air and, with the possible
exception of ozone, the ambient concentrations of
pollutants are diminishing.
Air pollution control for all pollutants on a national
scale has been under way only since April 1971, when
EPA issued the first national ambient air quality
standards. Since then the effort has concentrated on
curbing emissions of the most widespread and
troublesome pollutants, the so-called "criteria
pollutants."
Particulates, which consist of airborne dust and grime
and are perhaps the most widespread of all air
pollutants, have been sharply curtailed. The technology
for curbing paniculate emissions was available before
the national effort to do so began. Some States had been
at work on the problem for 20 years; some cities had
been addressing it for more than 40 years. The Federal
Clean Air Act gave them new weapons to use in their
fight.
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) levels are another major air
quality concern. Although nationally SO2 levels have
decreased, much of that reduction resulted from the
increased use in the late 1960's and the early 1970's of
low sulfur fuels. However, due to the limited availability
of low sulfur fuels, the use of "scrubbers" to remove
oxides of sulfur from stack gases soon became
necessary.
Ozone levels continue to be a serious problem. Ozone
is formed in the atmosphere from complex reactions
involving sunlight, volatile organic compounds, and
oxides of nitrogen. By controlling volatile organic
compounds (VOC) emitted from motor vehicles and
stationary sources of air pollution, the ozone problem
can be reduced. In 1970 automobiles were primarily
responsible for VOC emissions. However, increasingly
stringent emission controls for automobiles and other
mobile sources have reduced their relative impact.
Meanwhile, emissions from stationary sources like
petroleum marketing facilities and surface coating
operations have shown steadily increasing emissions.
As a result, in many metropolitan areas stationary
sources now provide more than half the emissions
leading to the formation of ozone.
Ozone levels showed little change from 1972 to 1977.
Although control systems have reduced hydrocarbon
emissions from new cars, this reduction has been largely
offset by the 30 percent increase in motor vehicle miles
traveled since 1970.
In 1978 approximately 57 percent of all ozone monitor-
ing stations reported violations of the ozone standards.
Thus, ozone remains a serious and pervasive problem.
Although the substantially stricter auto emissions
standards of 1981 and 1982 should cause a continued
decline in ozone levels in major cities throughout the
country, stringent control of stationary sources will also
be necessary.
Carbon monoxide (CO} is another pollutant produced
by motor vehicles. In the case of carbon monoxide, the
concentrations in urban areas—where the problem is
the worst—are due almost completely to motor vehicles.
The vehicular contribution to CO emissions is sometimes
as high as 98 percent.
The distribution of carbon monoxide is unusual in that
concentrations may vary substantially over a distance of
as little as ten to twenty feet horizontally or vertically.
Concentrations are highest along heavily congested
roads. Poor circulation of air, as is often the case on
downtown streets surrounded by tall buildings, seriously
compounds the problem.
Establishment of increasingly more strict auto
emissions standards and the gradual replacement of
vehicles on the road with new vehicles meeting those
standards should greatly reduce carbon monoxide levels.
In many areas, however, measures to control and limit
traffic will also be necessary to fully attain the air quality
standards for both carbon monoxide and ozone.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels are currently exceeding
EPA's annual NO2 standard in five metropolitan areas.
Motor vehicles and power plants are the major sources
of this pollutant. There are technical tradeoffs between
controlling NO2 and controlling CO and hydrocarbons
from motor vehicles. CO and hydrocarbons were
originally considered the more serious pollutants, and
little attention was given at first to controlling NO2
emissions. N02 control is now receiving much
stronger attention, and this is reflected in current and
prospective automobile emissions standards. There is
now a slight upward trend in N02 levels which should
turn downward as emissions standards for new motor
vehicles and for stationary sources are tightened.
Lead is another air pollutant that has come under
tighter control over the last few years Lead emissions
also escape into the air primarily from automobile tail
pipes; lead is used as an anti-knock additive in all but
unleaded gasolines. With the required use of unleaded
fuels in most new cars and the required reduction in
lead levels in leaded gasoline, the lead levels in the air
should decrease.
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The Health and Economic Benefics of Air Pollution
Control
Information from a recent study suggests that the
health benefits of controlling emissions of pollutants
from stationary sources are more than double the costs of
control.
The new study, prepared for EPA by three western
universities, concludes that the health benefits from
air pollution control are much larger than previously
estimated. Computations using estimates of the cost of
control from the Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ) together with air monitoring data show that the
current benefits of stationary source control are at least
twice as large as the costs. The authors of the study
emphasized, however, that their conclusions should be
regarded as preliminary because of the short time they
have worked with the data and the many combinations
of explanatory hypotheses they will need to test.
The 2 to 1 calculation of benefits vs. costs is based on
an EPA-calculated 12 percent reduction in particulate air
pollution as of 1977, compared to particulate levels
before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. The study
data imply that health benefits of more than $8 billion a
year would correspond to the air pollution reductions
from stationary sources achieved from 1970 to 1977.
Since total annual costs attributable to federal air
pollution control regulations for stationary sources were
estimated by CEQ to be $4 billion m 1976, the benefit-
cost ratio is thus at least 2 to 1
For higher levels of control, the study estimates com-
mensurately greater benefits At 60 percent control, for
example, the value of improved health in urban areas
would be at least $5 billion a year for reduced deaths and
$36 billion for reduced illness—a total of about $41
billion a year. That amount is equivalent to about $190 a
year per person in the United States
The new study and other recent work suggest a new
perspective on air pollution damage and its measure-
ment. The new work indicates that the major damage
from air pollution is increased chronic illness and
aesthetic effects such as reduced visibility. This
contrasts with earlier views that increased deaths were
the major type of damage
The calculated economic damage attributable to
increased air pollution-related deaths is roughly
comparable to that obtained in earlier studies. Although
the new estimates of mortality effects are lower than
earlier studies have indicated, these lower estimates are
offset by higher—and more realistic—estimates of the
value society places on avoiding the risk of death.
The researchers derived their estimates of damage to
health through two independent approaches One
approach examined data on illnesses among a random
selection of the U.S population. This information was
compared statistically with indicators of biological and
social situation, life styles, income levels, physical
environment, and air pollution levels in the county of
residence. The analyses suggest the extent to which
each indicator is associated with time lost from work
because of illness.
The studies found statistically significant associations
between lost work time because of chronic illness and
ambient levels of both nitrogen dioxide and total
suspendedparticulates. The researchers arrived at the
$36 billion estimate by projecting the relationship
between lost work time and particulate levels m the
sample to the national urban population, using wage
rates of the sample population to put a monetary value
on the time lost from work.
In the second approach, the researchers concentrated
on death rates in 60 cities across the country, comparing
the rates to air pollution levels and other factors that
might influence death, such as smoking, doctors per
capita, and diet. They found statistically significant
associations between deaths horn pneumonia and
influenza and the level of particulates in the air, and
between early infant disease and the level of sulfur
dioxide.
In addition to studying health damage from air
pollution, the same study also attempted to quantify air
pollution damages in one air quality region—the Los
Angeles Basin. It found that a 30 percent improvement
in air quality would provide benefits of $650 to $950
million a year (or $350 to $500 a household) for this one
region alone.
In an interview survey, the researchers found that
people living m the Los Angeles Basin believe aesthetic
effects, such as impairment of visibility, account for from
22 to 55 percent of the damage associated with air pol-
lution. These findings are consistent with an earlier
survey which found that people living in the Four
Corners area of the Southwest would pay an average of
$90 a year to avoid having visibility reduced by 50 miles,
from 75 to 25 miles.
Although some of the results of the study related to
damages from illness are still preliminary, they provide
an important new insight into the benefits an air
pollution control program can achieve and into how
these benefits can be estimated. It concludes that many
benefits, such as aesthetic ones, which are traditionally
viewed as intangible and thereby non-measurable, can,
in fact, be measured and can be compared to other
economic values and costs.
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Progress Toward
Attaining
Air Quality
Standards
S02 AND PARTICULATES—TWIN PROBLEMS
Two of the major pollutants that hang in the air over
the Nation's cities are sulfur dioxide (SO2) and
suspended particulates Both are unpleasant to breathe
and are harmful in high concentrations
Suspended paniculate matter hangs in the air as a
dark haze that dirties all exposed surfaces Houses in
cities where particulates are a problem must be painted
more often than elsewhere Moreover, particulates can
be dangerous to health when they enter the lungs
S02, when it mixes with water vapor and oxygen, is
converted to sulfurous and sulfunc acids, both of which
are corrosive and capable of pitting metallic surfaces
SO2 and related compounds are very damaging to
human tissue The lungs are especially vulnerable when
the pollutant and the related compounds become
attached to particulates which are then inhaled and
lodge in the lungs' smaller air passages
The hazards of SO2 and particulates are especially
pronounced because they tend to be formed at the same
time—with the combustion of fossil fuels like coal and
fuel oil by stationary sources of air pollution Fortunately,
efforts to control levels of S02 and particulates have
produced discernible improvements in air quality over
the last ten years
AREAS WHERE AIR QUALITY STANDARDS ARE NOW
BEING MET
New England: Early Success in SO2 and Paniculate
Control
Some of the earlier successes in controlling sulfur
dioxide emissions came in New England. Primary and
secondary standards for S02 are no longer violated in
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.
In fact, much of the progress was achieved in 1969 and
1970, just before passage of the strong new Clean Air
Act requirements in 1970.
These early reductions in S02 levels were achieved by
requiring plants in those States to burn only low-sulfur
fuels—and, for the most part, this took the form of low-
sulfur fuel oil.
As the Nation seeks to reduce its dependence on
imported oil, New England utilities are being called on to
switch from oil to coal. EPA believes that with careful
planning, violations of the SO2 standards can be
prevented as we shift to domestic energy sources. We
can achieve this either by using low-sulfur coal or, if
high sulfur coal is burned, by installing stack gas
scrubbers or other sulfur control systems.
Particulate emissions have also been curbed substan-
tially in New England. \nMasSachusetts. where
incinerators and other polluters once poured 29,000
tons of soot and dust into the air each year, paniculate
emissions in 1979 totalled only 790 tons. And in New
Hampshire and Maine, where pulp and paper mills
belched 41,000 tons of particulates into the air each
year, emissions have now been lowered to 3,500 tons a
year.
The Midwest: Another Example of Compliance
In Springfield, Missouri, the local pollution control
agency in 1970 opened a vigorous attack on the sources
of paniculate emissions, most of which were industrial.
Violations were traced to wood preserving activities,
gray iron casting, chemical lime manufacturing, electric
arc furnaces, and boilers using wood chips and sawdust
for fuel
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All sources are now in compliance. No primary
standard violations have occurred since 1973; no
secondary standard violations have been reported since
1975.
The West: Planning for Continued Control
In the greater Portland, Oregon, area paniculate
standards were violated in 1970 by emissions from a
variety of sources. Wood processing plants alone
accounted for 40 percent of the particulates in the air.
Industrial fuel combustion, grain loading facilities along
the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, and a large
aluminum processing plant also contributed
substantially. Control of these sources helped Portland
meet the primary standard for particulates in 1973.
An air quality maintenance plan has now been drafted
that is intended to ensure that particulates never return
to their former, unacceptably high levels in the city.
AREAS WHERE THE CLEANUP IS CONTINUING
In some areas primary standards are not, as yet, fully
met, but air quality is nonetheless substantially better
than it had been. The campaign for clean air in these
areas is continuing.
New York City
In the New York metropolitan area, the number of
areas of the city exposed to primary standards violations
for particulates and the extent of public exposure have
been reduced markedly since 1970. Currently, the
primary standards for particulates are being met,
although secondary standards are still being violated.
Further control actions are under way by State and local
agencies, with the support of EPA.
Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania municipal refuse
incinerators once contributed nearly a tenth of all
particulate emissions. Two of the six incinerators have
been equipped with electrostatic precipitators and the
rest have been converted to transfer stations from which
refuse is hauled to landfills. As of 1979, the two
incinerators still operating were generally in compliance
with emission standards, although malfunctions cause
occasional violations.
One monitoring station in the Philadelphia metro-
politan area has shown SO2 violations recently. As a
result, Philadelphia has been classified as a non-attain-
ment area for S02. The problem is expected to be solved
when the Philadelphia Electric company installs
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scrubbers at its Eddystone generating plant and when
additional controls are added at an oil refinery complex
in Philadelphia.
Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama registered annual average
paniculate levels two and one-third times the primary
health standard in 1972. As of mid-1976, annual
paniculate emissions from stationary sources had been
lowered 83 percent from 1972 levels—from 155,000
tons a year to 26,000 tons. The days are now gone when
Birmingham was perpetually enveloped in a smoky haze.
Even further improvement is anticipated. EPA is
developing regulations that will require control of
fugitive emissions from process sources. Planned
reductions in emissions from these sources are expected
to reduce paniculate levels below the primary health
standard.
Detroit
In Detroit. Michigan, and in surrounding Wayne
County, air pollution was a serious problem as recently
as 1971. At some locations the air was irritating to
breathe. By 1976, paniculate emissions had been
reduced from 139,000 tons per year to 82,000. SO2
emissions had dropped from 490,000 tons a year to
250,000 Ninety-seven percent of the major sources
were already in full compliance with emissions limita-
tions Smoke from burning rubbish and from apartment
and home furnaces has also been curbed substantially
As a result the air in Wayne County is substantially
cleaner.
Gary
Gary, Indiana was also notorious for its heavy
industrial pollution For years the sky over Gary was
clouded and red with smoke and soot particles—largely
from the mills and plants of the United States Steel
Corporation.
Over the last few years that has started to change In
1965, paniculate levels in Gary were almost two and
one-half times the primary standard. In mid-1976,
although the primary standard was still routinely being
violated, the extent of the area exposed to unacceptably
high pollution levels had shrunk considerably. But
industry still has far to go to reduce pollution to safe
levels
Chicago
In Chicago, Illinois, two of every five monitoring
stations showed violations of the annual standard for
S02 in 1970 By 1975, there were no violations at all
and the annual averages have continued at a relatively
constant level through 1979. In the period from 1970
through 1975, paniculate levels fell significantly. In
1970, every monitor showed a violation of the annual
paniculate standard, by 1975, only half the stations
recorded violations. Paniculate averages have not
changed significantly since 1975, although the number
of values in excess of the 24 hours paniculate standard
have decreased Chicago was once considered a "dirty-
shirt town" because of the soot-laden air The air there is
not yet clean, but with the success of past and present
pollution control efforts, Chicago's air has been showing
continued improvement in quality.
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Controlling
Stationary
Sources
Among all classes of stationary sources, three stand
out as pre-eminent contributors of paniculate and sulfur
dioxide emissions:
• coal-fired power plants;
• coal-burning industrial and commercial boilers (i.e.,
heating plants for specific factories or buildings); and
• coke plants and integrated iron and steel mills,
which transform coal into industrial coke for use in
steel mills.
In 1970, when major Clean Air Act (CAA) Amend-
ments were passed, these three types of sources emitted
35 percent of all particulate emissions nationwide and
62 percent of all SO2 emissions.
The lower percentage of particulates in part reflected
the fact that there were already controls on particulate
emissions from power plants and steel mills. Since then,
the CAA Amendments have helped achieve overall
reductions in particulate emissions by power plants and
industrial boilers, despite an increase in the total
number of sources. However, particulates from steel
mills, a major problem, have been reduced very little in
non-attainment areas.
There was little control of S02 emissions in 1970
other than through the widespread use in some areas of
low-sulfur fuels. Since then, emissions have been
curbed substantially.
POWER PLANTS
Power plants, through sheer numbers and size, have
the potential for enormous environmental impact. They
can emit large quantities of SO2 and particulate matter,
severely reduce visibility, and generally degrade air
quality. But some companies have dealt effectively with
these emissions problems.
Nashville, Tennessee: A Facility for Resource Recovery
The Nashville Thermal Transfer Company has done
much to achieve fuel economy. The facility burns
municipal solid wastes as its primary fuel, producing
steam and chilled water for a limited number of buildings
in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The facility, there-
fore, doubles as a power plant and a facility for resource
recovery.
Following its start-up in 1974, a number of severe
mechanical, operational, and financial problems sur-
faced. An unfortunate cost-cutting decision allowed the
plant to begin operating with equipment that would emit
2,000 tons of particulates a year. Two electrostatic
precipitators have now been installed that reduce
particulate emissions 92 percent. These allow the plant
to operate both its boilers in compliance with air
pollution emission limits.
The Tennessee River Valley: Civil Actions Bring
Improvement
The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) power system
includes 12 coal-fired steam plants, of which two are
located in Alabama, two in Kentucky, and eight in
Tennessee. In June 1977, civil suits were initiated
against ten of the plants for noncompliance. The
plaintiffs in these actions were the States of Alabama
and Kentucky, a number of private citizen groups, and
EPA.
In 1977 and 1978, highly technical negotiations took
place among all parties to the actions. These
negotiations resulted in a broad-based agreement
specifying a control program to ensure compliance with
both sulfur dioxide and particulate regulations by all of
TVA's coal-fired steam plants.
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On October 15, 1979, after two years of court action,
Judge Pointer in the U.S. District Court in Birmingham
entered a consent decree applicable to the two TVA plants
in Alabama. EPA anticipates that the Nashville court will
act on the consent decree applicable to the TVA plants in
Tennessee and Kentucky in the near future. These civil
actions taken against the nation's largest utility represent
some of the most significant and far-reaching settle-
ments ever negotiated by EPA. The settlements will result
in reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions of 1,000,000
tons a year and in particulate emissions of 85,000 tons a
year from the TVA plants. When completed, those
controls will reduce air pollution substantially in the
region.
Alma, Wisconsin: Reducing SO2 and Particulates
The Dairyland Power Co-operative \r\Alma. Wisconsin
is located adjacent to the picturesque Mississippi River
bluffs. To ensure that no down drafts or inversions laden
with plant emissions caused damage to the bluffs, the
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources required in
1974 that Dairyland burn low-sulfur fuels during
inversion conditions Dairyland complied and, in
addition, agreed to use low-sulfur fuels on days such as
weekends when the plant was not operating at full
capacity.
The plant was able to reduce S02 emissions by as
much as 80 percent. The Co-op also installed an
electrostatic precipitator that resulted in similar reduc-
tions in total suspended particulates. Ambient standards
are now being met in Alma. Dairyland has also built a new
coal-burning generating plant that uses low-sulfur coal
It too meets State and Federal requirements.
LaCygne, Kansas: Using Limestone Scrubbers
Use of low-sulfur fuel is not always practicable There
are other approaches that use other, more available and
less expensive forms of energy The Kansas City Power
and Light Company and the Kansas Gas and Electric
Company built an 820 megawatt steam electric
generating plant at LaCygne, Kansas, that enables the
company to use high-sulfur fuel without damaging the
environment.
The company installed limestone slurry scrubbers
designed to remove 80 percent of the sulfur oxides from
the flue gases. The coal the plant uses is of low quality,
containing up to 6.5 percent sulfur and 24 percent ash
which, after combustion, becomes particulate. If burned
without controls, the plant would generate and emit
97,000 pounds an hour of S02. This plant was the first of
its size to use flue gas desulfurization and is the largest
such system in operation in the world today.
Kansas City, Missouri: Planned Control Systems
Kansas City Power and Light's Hawthorne generating
plant in Kansas City was a major polluter, the plant's five
coal-fueled boilers were putting 44,000 tons of
particulates m the air each year.
Under pressure from EPA and the Kansas City Division
of Air Pollution Control, Kansas City Power and Light
agreed in December 1978 to install control systems at
the generating plant. Construction is now under way
When the control systems are completed, the plant's
particulate emissions will drop to 4,400 tons a year—just
10 percent of the current emissions levels.
That will help clear the air m the area, but additional
particulate reductions will be needed elsewhere in
Kansas City before the air there meets the air quality
standards designed to safeguard health
Colstrip, Montana: Preventing Significant
Deterioration
On September 11,1979, EPA gave the Montana
Power Company (MPC) the go-ahead to build Colstrip
Units 3 and 4 at its Colstrip, Montana generating station.
The unprecedented environmental conditions of the
permit will make the new units the cleanest coal-fired
power plants m the Nation in terms of sulfur dioxide
emission levels.
Controls on the plants proposed by MPC represent the
best available technology and will ensure that air quality
limits on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation will
continue to be met.
Under an earlier proposal rejected by EPA, MPC
proposed to remove 82 percent of the sulfur dioxide from
the units. The proposal that received EPA approval will
remove 95 percent of the S02.
Nitrogen dioxide—which accounts for the brownish
color in power plant plumes—will also come under in-
creasing control as a result of negotiations between
MPC, EPA, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. The permit
now contains conditions requiring the units to be
controlled if and when technology for reducing nitrogen
oxides becomes feasible.
Some 99.6 percent of particulate emissions will be
removed as well. Particulate emissions may also be
subject to additional controls if a particulate plume is
visible on the reservation. This was the first time
visibility protection of this type was required of a utility
company. Nevertheless, a legal challenge from the
opponents of the Colstrip plant is anticipated based on
the applicability of the New Source Performance
Standard (NSPS) for power plants.
As the company is constructing the controls, it will
keep EPA and the State closely informed about design,
engineering, and operating information related to its
proposed control systems. If it begins to appear that the
devices won't produce the expected degree of control
and the problems can't be corrected, the permit could be
rescinded.
Montana Power must establish elaborate stack
monitoring systems to ensure continuous maintenance
of the control systems. Another condition requires the
company and the Northern Cheyenne to work toward
establishing a joint program to monitor impact of the
plant on visibility on the reservation.
STEEL MILLS
Steel mills have also been sources of air pollution.
Some steel companies have been slow to clean up their
emissions, but continuing pressure by the States and
EPA, as well as the force of public opinion, is beginning
to produce significant results.
Fontana, California: Enforcement Actions Have
Worked
The quality of the air is not what it should be m the
South Coast Air Quality Management District in
Southern California's metropolitan Los Angeles area.
Indeed, the area violates national air quality standards for
particulates, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon
monoxide, ozone and lead.
Kaiser Steel Corporation's integrated steel mill at
Fontana— the largest stationary source of air pollution in
the district—became a prime cleanup target in 1973,
when EPA initiated enforcement actions following
violations of emissions limitations by the company.
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Kaiser has since brought most of its operations into
compliance and, as of 1979, was on a schedule to
correct most of the remaining problems.
Kaiser has replaced five of its eight old open hearth
furnaces with a modern, well controlled basic oxygen
furnace The remaining open hearths are currently shut
down. However, if they were operating they would also
be in compliance with the applicable regulations. The
company also made several other pollution-reducing
modifications at the steel mill as part of a modernization
effort.
The new facility and the modifications at the plant
have required sizeable investments, but the changes will
reduce emissions for four of the six problem pollutants:
particulate emissions will be reduced by 157 tons a year,
nitrogen oxide emissions by 3,400 tons a year, sulfur
dioxide emissions by 2,600 tons a year, and carbon
monoxide emissions by 14,400 tons a year In addition,
the company has installed, or is m the process of
installing, advanced pollution control systems for several
other operations.
Steel Mills Elsewhere
In 1978 and 1979 there were a large number of break-
throughs with regard to control of emissions from the
steel industry. Agreements leading to compliance with
Clean Air Act requirements have been reached with:
• U.S. Steel. All nine plants in Western Pennsylvania
will be brought into compliance. This will bring about
a 50 percent reduction in the remaining particulate
levels in the area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. U.S.
Steel will also be installing pollution controls and
closing certain polluting units of its Fairfield,
Alabama integrated steel works. The company has
also agreed to install new pollution controls at its
Gary, Indiana works and to study the environmental
effects of the new system it will use.
• Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. In an agreement
involving EPA and the states of Ohio, West Virginia
and Pennsylvania, Wheeling-Pittsburgh agreed to
bring all of its facilities into compliance.
COPPER SMELTERS
Copper smelters also generate a disproportionate
share of pollution in some States. \nArizona, for
instance, seven smelters—constituting about one-half of
the Nation's copper processing capacity—are the source
of most of the severe sulfur dioxide pollution in the State.
Efforts by the State of Arizona to control SO2 from
smelters have resulted m a reduction in emissions from
5,573 tons per day of SO2 in 1972 to 2,398 tons per day
in 1979. More reductions are needed in the future to
meet final compliance limitations. This area will be a
continuing focus for both the State of Arizona and EPA.
Magna, Utah: Using a New Process
On July 1,1978, the Kennecott copper smelter in
Magna. Utah, started operating their new Noranda
smelting process. This facility is one of the few using
modern smelting technology.
The new smelting process has brought the company
significant energy savings. In addition, the new process
made it possible to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from
about 380 tons a day to about 225 tons a day, and has cut
particulate emissions from about 32 tons a day to about
6 tons a day.
Despite these improvements, the sulfur dioxide
standard is still violated at times, and EPA is considering
requiring additional controls at the plant.
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Allowing
for Growth
The 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act sought to
grapple with the problem of how to clean up areas with
dirty air while at the same time not stifling industrial
development. To accomplish those dual objectives,
Congress legislated an "emissions offset" policy
developed by EPA. Under that policy, a company that
wants to build a new plant in an area with dirty air must
either clean up emissions at its existing plants in that
area beyond the degree of cleanup mandated by law, or it
must get other sources to control air pollution more
tightly. Some impressive examples of the creative use of
emissions of offsets are presented below.
New Stanton, Pennsylvania: Exchanging Asphalt for
a Volkswagen Plant
In Pennsylvania, the emissions offset approach
enabled Volkswagen to build its first U.S. assembly
plant. The State switched from a hydrocarbon-based
asphalt for road maintenance to a water-based asphalt,
thereby reducing emissions of hydrocarbons by more
than 1,000 tons a year. That was enough to offset
emissions from the new VW plant in New Stanton. By
creative application of the new emissions offset policy,
it seems we can have both cleaner air and a healthy
economy.
Detroit: Offsets Allow a Lime Kiln
Marblehead Lime Company decided to buy an
abandoned cement kiln in Detroit, Michigan and
convert it to a lime kiln. The new kiln was to be
located on Zug Island, m the heart of Detroit's
industrial area, where air quality is at its worst, and
where Federal standards for paniculate pollution were
being violated. Before it could get a permit to build the
kiln, Marblehead had to find a way to offset the 91.2
tons of dust the new plant was expected to add to the
air each year.
After developing a number of possible options, Marble-
head proposed a way to reduce emissions in the area that
would more than offset the emissions of the new lime
kiln. The company identified ways to cut emissions by
more than 144 tons a year. It eliminated 39 tons of stack
particulates a year by improving the collection efficiency
at one of its other plants at nearby River Rouge, and
agreed to resurface nearly a mile of roadway belonging to
the Great Lakes Steel Company, which cut out 95.5 tons a
year of fugitive dust. It also made other small reductions.
The settlement means an increased tax base for
Detroit because of the presence of the new kiln. The
new source of lime reduces nearby steel companies'
dependence on Canadian lime manufacturers And the
air will be cleaner by some 50 tons of particulates a
year.
Oklahoma City and Shreveport. Louisiana: New
General Motors Plants
Emissions offsets enabled General Motors to build
new production plants in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
and Shreveport, Louisiana.
Neither city met the air quality standards for ozone,
which is produced when hydrocarbons react with
nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight. Therefore,
before new plants that would emit hydrocarbons could
be built in those cities, ways had to be found to reduce
hydrocarbon emissions at existing facilities in each
city.
Working closely with EPA, the State of Oklahoma
was able to allow General Motors to build its new
plant—which generates 3,200 tons of hydrocarbon
emissions each year when at full production—by
eliminating 5,200 tons of hydrocarbon emissions at
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eight crude oil storage tanks in the Oklahoma City
area The net reduction in hydrocarbon emissions was
1,900 tons a year.
A new General Motors plant in Shreveport will emit
3,800 tons a year of hydrocarbons. Those emissions were
offset by eliminating 3,700 tons a year of hydro-
carbon emissions from 22 oil storage tanks in the area,
and by eliminating the use of residue gas in instru-
mentation and control systems at other nearby plants.
The net reduction in hydrocarbon emissions will be 76
tons a year.
The economic benefits from the new plants are sub-
stantial. When in full operation in 1982, the
Shreveport plant will have an annual payroll of about
$100 million. The Oklahoma City plant will employ
about 5000 workers at full production, and will have a
payroll of $120 million.
And, of course, the air in each city will be cleaner,
thanks to lower total hydrocarbon emissions.
CONTROLLING MOBILE SOURCES
Motor vehicles emit several major pollutants,
including hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and oxides
of nitrogen. The hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen
join in the air to form ozone—which is the primary
constituent of "photochemical smog."
Ozone and photochemical smog first became a
severe problem in Los Angeles County because of that
area's early dependence on the automobile, together
with the especially adverse meteorological conditions
there. Now ozone has become perhaps the most
widespread and troublesome of all air pollutants
nationwide. Ozone is a serious problem in virtually
every metropolitan area in the country.
EMISSIONS STANDARDS
California was the first State to begin controlling
emissions from motor vehicles in earnest. The State's
emissions standards for new motor vehicles date from
1966, two years before the Federal program began, and
the State continues to set emission standards for new
motor vehicles which are more stringent than those
elsewhere in the U.S. The first benefits of control
actions were felt there as well.
For most of the ten year period ending in about
1977, there was a continuing decrease in the number
and severity of ozone violations in Los Angeles.
Improvements comparable to those in Los Angeles
have been monitored in San Francisco and San Diego,
where the ozone problem was never as severe.
While these improvements are significant, they are
not cause for complacency. For example, in September
1979, a prolonged emergency air episode of 13 days'
duration, caused by unusually adverse meterological
conditions, was recorded in the Los Angeles metropoli-
tan area. This suggests that despite apparent success in
emissions reductions, the Los Angeles air pollution
control efforts still have a long way to go. Furthermore,
there has been a statistically significant increase in
ozone levels over the last two years.
Emission controls on new motor vehicles have also
lowered carbon monoxide levels in California. By 1975,
the peak one hour carbon monoxide concentration
decreased by 21 percent in metropolitan Los Angeles
from the levels when auto emissions controls were
first introduced. There were comparable decreases of
13 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area and 55
percent in San Diego County.
Although emission controls on new cars have
helped, it is now clear that they alone will not be
enough to achieve oxidant air quality standards in the
most severely polluted areas. If air quality standards
are to be met universally, something will have to be
done—especially in urban areas—either to dimmish
the heavy reliance of Americans on the personal
automobile as the primary mode of transportation, or
to modify fundamentally the emissions performance of
these vehicles.
Meanwhile, vehicle-related pollution must be dealt
with in the interest of public health EPA, working with
State and local governments, has looked for answers
from such programs as vapor recovery at the gas
pump, inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs for
vehicles on the road, reduced vehicle use, and, to a
lesser extent, more efficient—and therefore less
polluting—traffic patterns.
VAPOR RECOVERY
The wavy fumes floating from the gas tank when a
car is being filled are hydrocarbons—gasoline vapors—
escaping into the air. Vapor recovery programs aim to
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recapture those hydrocarbons at various fuel transfer
points where they are likely to be emitted, such as ship
and barge unloading and offloading docks, truck
terminals, storage tanks, and service station gas
pumps Vapor recovery programs have now been
implemented in a number of areas around the country,
including the District of Columbia, Houston and San
Antonio, Denver, and San Francisco.
The District of Columbia
There are two steps to vapor recovery: control of
bulk transfer losses at large petroleum storage
facilities, and control at the gas pump of the local gas
station. EPA promulgated regulations which specify the
nature of those controls in late 1973. The District of
Columbia made control of bulk transfer losses
mandatory in 1974, and nine states set a uniform
deadline of March 1, 1976. Several of those States, as
well as the District, have now instituted gas pump
controls as well.
Houston-Galveston, San Antonio, and Dallas-Fort
Worth, Texas
In Texas, where EPA regulations require vapor
control in three metropolitan areas as part of a larger
program to reduce ozone levels, the results have been
impressive
In the Houston-Galveston area, vapor recovery keeps
2,500 tons of hydrocarbons out of the air every year—
and saves over 800,000 gallons of gasoline each year.
In the San Antonio area, vapor recovery keeps 920
tons of hydrocarbons out of the air each year—and
saves almost 300,000 gallons of gasoline each year. In
the Dallas-Fort Worth area, vapor recovery keeps
2,800 tons of hydrocarbons out of the air each year—
and saves over 900,000 gallons of gasoline each year.
The vapor controls cost money, of course. In 1979
they added from one-tenth to three-tenths of a cent to
the price of a gallon of gasoline, but this seems a
small price to pay for cleaner air and energy
conservation.
Denver, Colorado
Representatives from EPA, the State Air Pollution
Control and Oil Inspection Divisions, local fire
marshals, and the gasoline marketing industry formed
a vapor recovery task force to develop and implement
Colorado's vapor recovery program. The task force
negotiated for installation of recovery systems now
operating at all seven bulk gasoline terminals.
Eventually, the program will be operational at 1,100
gas stations and 45 bulk plants in the Denver area.
These efforts will recapture 3,000 tons of vapor a
year—almost a million gallons of gasoline
San Francisco, California
Vapor recovery can be implemented by local
ordinances, as they are throughout California. The
ordinance then becomes part of the State Imple-
mentation Plan. The San Francisco Bay Area began a
two-step program of vapor recovery in 1973, but with
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some difficulty. It completed the first stage, bulk
transfer control, in 1974. The second stage, pump
recovery, began on January 1, 1976 after several
delays. Vapor recovery systems at bulk transfer points
as well as at the Bay Area's 3,500 service stations are
now recapturing an estimated 9.2 million gallons of
gasoline a year.
The State of California is now committed to
controlling gasoline vapor emissions in all of its major
metropolitan areas, so we can expect further adoption
of vapor controls there soon.
PROMOTING INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE
OF MOTOR VEHICLES
The primary source of hydrocarbon emissions
continues to be motor vehicle exhaust. For that reason,
to effectively control hydrocarbons we must reduce the
total emissions from motor vehicles.
The strict emissions standards that Congress
originally required car manufacturers to meet by 1975
were essentially technology-forcing. But even as new
car emissions are getting cleaner because of these
emission standards, to meet the goals of the Clean Air
Act in heavily polluted areas will require that we also
control emissions of vehicles already on the road.
EPA requirements provide that new cars meet
emissions standards for their first 50,000 miles, but
£
we know that emissions increase drastically as soon
as new cars are put into use. After only one year of
operation, the majority of cars are already substantially
in violation of the emissions standards.
Even if the original new-car standards for 1975 had
been met, hydrocarbons would have been cut only in
half by 1977 because of the continuing use of older
cars. Moreover, experience shows that even vehicles
with emission controls do not meet emission standards
throughout the full time they are driven, in part
because they are not properly maintained.
Inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs are one
way to reduce this performance gap. The States and
EPA continue to press car manufacturers to produce
better emissions control systems for the future, but
I/M is still considered a critical part of the overall
strategy.
Inspection and maintenance programs are in
operation now in various States and cities. New Jersey
and Rhode Island both have statewide programs.
Chicago. Illinois; Cincinnati, Ohio; Portland, Oregon;
Riverside, California; and cities in Nevada are also
implementing systems. Arizona's I/M program, which
has been in operation for five years, was the first to be
implemented through legislation as a State program
without being added on to an existing safety inspection
program. New York City has a program that will be
implemented beginning in 1981. A pilot program
began in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area (South
Coast Air Basin) in March of 1979.
The effectiveness of vehicle inspection and
maintenance in reducing major urban air pollutants—
hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide—has been
substantiated by an EPA study conducted in Portland,
Oregon, by fuel economy studies, and by the I/M
program in New Jersey.
Portland, Oregon
In Oregon, average hydrocarbon and carbon
monoxide exhaust emissions were reduced as much as
47 to 54 percent, respectively, in vehicles that had
maintenance work after failing inspection tests. When
tested again at three, six, and nine-month intervals
after the maintenance, the cars emitted significantly
less pollution than before their inspections. This study
showed that cars requiring additional maintenance
generally needed only minor tuneup work—such as car-
buretor adjustment, spark plug replacement, choke
adjustment, replacement of the air filter, adjustment of
the idle speed, or adjustment of the timing—to pass the
State inspection. The average cost of the maintenance a
car needed was $29.47. For half of the cars repaired the
cost of maintenance was $14.00 or less.
Results from other studies show that such periodic
checks on cars on the road can result in significant
energy benefits—a 3 to 4 percent increase in fuel
economy for vehicles that fail inspection and then
undergo appropriate maintenance.
REDUCING VEHICLE USAGE
The third thrust in the program to reduce vehicle-
related pollution is reduction of vehicle miles traveled.
At least 50 urban areas will require more than just
cleaner cars to attain air quality standards by 1987. In
these areas, EPA must find ways to ensure that cars,
even if they emit less pollution, are driven less. Efforts
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to reduce driving, known as "transportation control
measures," were successfully implemented between
1970 and 1980 in cities throughout the U.S. The
following examples illustrate how these measures were
implemented.
Arlington, Virginia
At the Pentagon across the Potomac River from
Washington, D.C., 18,000 employees began
participating in a computer-match carpool program in
1973. As a result of the matching service and a car-
pool priority parking scheme, nearly 5000 carpools
were formed with an average of 2.6 persons per
vehicle. This means that there are nearly 2000 fewer
cars on the highway each day.
Los Angeles and Marion County, California
Lanes exclusively for high-occupancy vehicles (buses
and carpools) have been established on a number of
freeways in Metropolitan Los Angeles and the San
Francisco Bay Area since 1971.
On the U.S. 101 freeway in the Golden Gate corridor in
Marion County north of San Francisco, a bus lane
system was established in 1975. It consists of an
inbound 3.7 mile bus lane for morning use, and an
outbound 7.7 mile bus lane for evening use. Using
these lanes, express buses save about 6 minutes in
the morning and 3 minutes in the evening, and have
improved schedule reliability. This has attracted
greater bus patronage and has reduced the number of
automobiles and emissions of air pollutants.
An exclusive busway has been opened for 11 miles
along the San Bernardino Freeway east from the
outskirts of the Los Angeles Central Business District
to suburban El Monte. Commuters who take the bus
instead of driving save over $1 a trip, and often save
travel time as well. Bus patronage grew from 1,800
"person trips" daily to over 15,000 daily in less than 3
years, eliminating some 5,500 auto trips each day and
cutting air pollution emissions.
Portland, Oregon
A computer-matched carpool program that was
started in Portland in 1974 resulted in at least 22,000
employees out of the area's total of 396,000 joining
carpools within the first 8 months. The program has
been credited with removing over 13,000 cars a day
from the roads, at an annual savings of six million
gallons of gasoline, and a correspondingly significant
reduction in engine exhaust pollutants.
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Preserving Natural Systems
JGL
«•* * » «• „ * *» v * *« * "
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Preserving
Natural
Systems
Many pollution control efforts are not aimed
specifically at protection of the water, air or land, but
are aimed at a more subtle and more complex
objective—preventing the disruption of complex natural
systems. Such systems are affected by the cumulative
impact of different pollutants. Natural systems can also
be disrupted by obliteration of natural barriers that
provide essential protection for coastal areas, by
destruction of habitats crucial for the survival of many
waterfowl, or by disruption of the reproductive cycles
of birds
This section discusses some notable accomplish-
ments in turning around what recently seemed to be
irreversible trends toward disruption and destruction in
each of these areas.
PRESERVING THE WETLANDS
Puerto Rico: Protecting the Mangrove Forests
Mangrove trees are an essential component of
Puerto Rico's sensitive coastal ecosystem. As the
mainstay of the transition zone between the land and
sea, these trees, which grow in coastal marshes, serve
as protective barriers for the island in stormy weather.
The trees are also a source of shelter and
nourishment for an enormous variety of marine and
terrestrial life. Their roots form a tangled web at the
water's edge to trap sediment, leaves, twigs, and other
flotsam, which compact into a firm surface essential
to sponges, sea anemones, oysters, and limpets.
Commercial species of fish such as the majarra, jack,
snapper, and ladyfish spend at least part of their lives in
the channels that lace the mangrove forests.
The debris formed from their leaves, twigs, and
barks is the basis for a food web essential to the
marine community. Micro-organisms feed on it, marine
and insect larvae feed on the micro-organisms, and
young fish feed on the larvae.
Many rare and endangered species of birds have
been attracted to the mangrove forests. It is not
uncommon to spot a peregrine falcon or a brown
pelican. But the mangroves are in serious danger.
More than 80 percent of them have been destroyed. Of
Puerto Rico's original 64,000 acres of mangrove
forests, less than 12,000 remain, continually
threatened by public and private development projects
and by shortsighted dumping practices.
EPA found it necessary to intervene to save the
forest in 1974. PFZ Properties, Inc. planned to develop
the 266-acre Vacia Talega apartment-hotel complex
eight miles east of San Juan. Of the 266 acres to be
used for the complex, 170 were mangrove wetlands.
In September 1974, EPA issued a notice of violation
ordering PFZ to cease discharging rock, sand, and
dredge soils into the mangrove marshes without a
permit. PFZ countered by challenging the order in
court. In January 1975, the case was tried in the U.S.
District Court in the District of Columbia.
The United States, in its case against PFZ, argued
that:
• The mangrove wetlands are navigable waters of
the U.S. both by virture of "historic navigability"—
established by demonstrating the presence of a
canal which had been used for commercial
purposes in the past—and by virtue of "ordinary
high water mark" determinations—that is, by
demonstrating that under normal conditions (i.e.,
at high tide) the mangrove wetlands were
connected to a navigable lagoon by a continuous
sheet of water.
• The mangrove wetlands are "waters of the U.S."
within the meaning of the Clean Water Act
because, under normal conditions, the waters in
the area flow westward to the Laguana Pinones
and thus are a potential source from which
pollutants may flow to the lagoon and to the
ocean.
• The mangrove wetlands are "waters of the U.S."
within the meaning of the Clean Water Act by
virtue of the biological productivity of these man-
grove wetlands and their vital contribution to the
biological vitality of the lagoons and the Atlantic
Ocean.
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The Court, in a landmark decision, ruled in favor of
EPA on all grounds. The court not only upheld or
reaffirmed the "historic navigability" definition but also
joined those opinions, giving the broadest possible
constitutional interpretation of navigable waters under
the Clean Water Act on the grounds of biological
productivity.
As a result, an important step has been taken
toward preserving the vital mangrove forests on Puerto
Rico's coast.
St. Charles Parish: Redesigning a Highway to Save
Valuable Wetlands
When construction of a major interceptor highway—
Interstate 310—running through St. Charles Parish
from an area southwest of the Mississippi River to
Interstate 10 was proposed, EPA was concerned that
the proposed highway would wipe out some 1,OOO
acres of valuable wetlands.
In cooperation with the State Highway Department
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA identified a
different route and suggested an alternative con-
struction technique—end-on-end construction—which
reduced the area that had to be disturbed. The
highway was also routed, for the most part, across
higher ground. As a consequence, 830 acres of vital
wetlands were preserved.
Puget Sound: Eliminating a Poorly-Sited Landfill
In 1964, the Tulalip Indians leased some land on
their reservation in Snohomish County, Washington, to
a commercial trash disposal company for use as a
landfill. The company began barging 5,000 tons of
solid waste from downtown Seattle to the dump site
30 miles to the north, near Everett.
The landfill—actually an open dump—was in
wetlands on an island between two sloughs that run
into the Puget Sound. The solid waste was unloaded
from the barges directly into excavations containing
water as much as 10 feet deep. The excavated disposal
areas drained into the sloughs and ultimately into
nearby Puget Sound. The dump created odors and the
fear that wastes, including some hazardous
substances, might enter the fragile ecosystem of the
Puget Sound wetlands as well as the nearby waters
used by water skiers, boaters and scuba divers.
Snohomish County and the State attempted to shut
down the dump, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
neither had authority over the operation because it
was on the Tulalip Reservation.
That seemed to be that until 1972, when EPA began
studying the dump. EPA found that the manner in
which the dump was being operated violated
established landfill practices and requested that it be
shut down by December 31, 1974.
The request for the voluntary shutdown was spurned.
EPA then took the case to the U.S. Attorney in Seattle,
who went into U.S. District Court to end the pollution
of the wetlands. As a result of this action, a consent
decree was signed requiring that all dumping cease by
April 1979 and that the site be properly graded and
covered to minimize the dangers of any further
environmental damage.
The company sought an extension, but EPA and the
U.S. Attorney made it abide by the terms of the
consent decree. The dump was shut down on
schedule. As a result, the fishery and wildlife
resources of Puget Sound are now better protected
from needless harm.
This case is believed to be the first closing of a
major garbage dump in a wetlands area anywhere in
the United States.
PROTECTING FISH AND WILDLIFE
The Middle Arkansas River: Saving a Fishery
When the Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company
(OG&E) applied for a permit to discharge water from its
coal-fired Sooner generating plant into the Arkansas
River in Noble and Pawnee Counties, EPA evaluated
the plant's potential impact on the river's valuable
striped bass fishery.
EPA found that unless special measures were taken,
the impact would be severe. EPA therefore required
the power company to submit a plan to minimize
adverse effects during the striped bass spawning
season.
The company's plan, which was included as a permit
condition, now works to protect striped bass eggs and
larvae. To eliminate the possibility of striped bass eggs
and larvae being sucked into the plant's water intake
pipes when the plant draws cooling water out of the
Arkansas, the company now monitors the river
upstream from its water intake for striped bass eggs
during the spawning season.
When striped bass eggs are found, OG&E stops
pumping water out of the river for at least 24 hours.
Pumping resumes only after three consecutive samples
contain no bass eggs.
The monitoring program is carried out in cooperation
with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife
Conservation. OG&E submits weekly reports to EPA
during the bass spawning season.
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Coleto Creek: Protecting A Natural Habitat
Central Power and Light Company in Goliad, Texas
wanted to build a coal-fired power plant, the Coleto
Creek Power Station. It needed a "new source permit,"
so EPA prepared an environmental impact statement.
That process identified several environmental con-
cerns, and the project was altered to accommodate
them. The plant was required to operate within
thermal limitations to protect aquatic life in the cooling
reservoir and the receiving stream. After discussion
with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the company also
agreed to set aside some 1,200 acres of land as a
natural area. School groups and others interested in
conservation will be allowed to visit the protected
natural area.
EPA also coordinated with the State's Historical
Preservation Officer and the Advisory Council on
Historic Preservation to ensure the protection of
historically significant buildings on the plant property.
Diablo Canyon: Protecting Marine Life
Diablo Canyon, on California's Pacific coast,
illustrates the problem of new technology and the
difficulties that sometimes accompany it.
During a 1974 test, Pacific Gas and Electric's
(PG&E's) 2,300 megawatt nuclear facility was found to
be discharging large amounts of copper from its
cooling water system. The metal was killing marine life
in the Diablo Cove. Red and black abalone that
commercial fishermen and local skindivers harvested
were particularly hard hit.
Environmental detective work traced the poisoning of
the abalone to corroding pipes. Whenever the power
plant was shut down, and the pipes emptied of water,
salt air infiltrated into the system and corroded the
pipes.
The California Department of Fish and Game,
represented by the State Attorney General, initiated
legal action against PG&E in mid-1975 that required
the company to halt further pollution in the cove and
to repair the damage to the marine environment. By
November the company replaced the copper tubes with
non-corroding titanium. In addition, an out-of-court
settlement resulted in a $375,000 payment by PG&E
to the California Department of Fish and Game The
money was used to plant abalone m order to ensure
that they become re-established in the adjacent shoreline
areas
Yellowstone National Park: Protecting Our National
Heritage
American tourism boomed in the 1960's and the
National Parks were overwhelmed by sightseers
Yellowstone, one of the Nation's most magnificent
natural showcases, and the first of our national parks,
absorbed a 50 percent increase in visitors. Each year,
more than 2 million people enjoyed the natural
wonders of the great park.
An area naturally unsuited for extensive human use
became, in the summer season, a burgeoning
population center Yellowstone began to share many of
the problems familiar to the Nation's sprawling
suburbs. The overload on existing wastewater
treatment plants and sewer systems was tremendous
The National Park Service faced a dilemma; how could it
upgrade tourist facilities and still maintain the natural
state of the park's waters? The future of the Yellowstone
River, into which the park's waters flow, was at stake
In the late 1960's, a consultant evaluated the
existing sewer systems and prepared a blueprint for a
wastewater treatment and disposal system. The
Federal Water Pollution Control Administration made
pollution control studies and found continued
discharge of raw sewage into Yellowstone Lake, raw
sewage overflows from existing facilities, and existing
treatment facilities that did not meet established
Federal requirements.
The Park Service adopted a plan to alleviate these
problems, and Congress authorized funds for the
construction of necessary treatment facilities. Small
sewage systems were incorporated into the existing
regional plants. By 1976, the systems serving the
major population centers were nearly complete. Almost
all direct discharges to surface lakes and streams had
been eliminated. Land application of the treated
effluent had been accomplished with spray irrigation
and through the use of rapid infiltration basins.
Nevertheless, there is still work to be done. Yellow-
stone's one remaining treatment plant with a surface
discharge needs to be modified to a non-discharging
facility, and one of the Park's older treatment facilities
needs future expansion due to increased loadings. In
addition, the National Park Service faces the recurring
problem of operating complex waste treatment plants
on a seasonal basis, with seasonal and part-time
employees. The Park Service starts up the plants in the
spring to handle summer peaks, and shuts them down
in winter because of icy weather. Each year part-time
and seasonal employees have to be retrained to
operate these facilities at top efficiency in order to
prevent possible discharges of untreated sewage
EPA has helped the Park Service start up some of
the treatment plants, and has helped develop operating
procedures to improve the plants' effectiveness. The
Park Service is also evaluating the impact on water
quality of nonpoint sources.
Meanwhile, as tourism continues at Yellowstone, it
now seems certain that the park's natural beauty and
the quality of its waters will be preserved.
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SAVING RARE AND THREATENED BIRDS
Certain bird and animal species fall prey easily to
pollution. They are easily destroyed and, once gone,
are gone forever.
For many years, little thought was devoted to
protecting such forms of life. But in recent years some
have come so near destruction or extinction that the
danger to them could no longer be ignored. In many
cases action came just in time.
Four great and picturesque birds—the osprey, the
peregrine falcon, the bald eagle, and the California
brown pelican—were, until recently, all in serious
danger of extinction. Persistent pesticides had affected
the calcium metabolism in all of these birds, making
their eggshells so thin they broke under the weight of
nesting birds and made reproduction impossible.
Recent bans on DDT and dieldrin and restrictions on
other chlorinated hydrocarbons will diminish that
threat. Pesticides, however, were not the only factor
driving the birds toward extinction. In many cases their
natural habitat was also being destroyed. Below are
examples of the actions that have been taken to save
these birds.
The Osprey
The osprey, an eagle-like fish hawk, was nearly
exterminated from the New York and Connecticut
coasts. Now it is slowly making a comeback. Some 130
young osprey were born in 1976 along Eastern Long
Island Sound, the best brood in 20 years.
There have been massive cooperative efforts on
behalf of the osprey by Cornell University, the New
York Zoological Society, the Carolyn Foundation, the
New York State Department of Environment
Conservation, and one private corporation, the
Northeast Utilities Company. These concerned
organizations have transferred uncontaminated eggs
and chicks from the Chesapeake Bay area to nests on
Long Island and the Connecticut coast. Transplants
were made in 1968, 1971, and 1973; each time the
eggs and chicks were readily accepted as their own by
the adult ospreys in the new location.
The Peregrine Falcon
Cornell ornithologists started breeding the peregrine
falcon in capitivity in 1970. By 1973, the offspring of
captive falcons were surviving, and in 1975, they were
being released regularly into the wild. This was a
major milestone, since breeding populations of the
peregrine falcon had not been present in the Eastern
United States in 20 years. Now the goal is to release
enough young birds so that they can breed and
reestablish themselves naturally all along the eastern
seaboard.
The Bald Eagle
The bald eagle was also on the brink of extinction.
Today there are several thousand new-born eagles in
the United States. Alaska, Puget Sound, Chesapeake
Bay, and the Mississippi River area all report rebounds
in their eagle populations.
The return of the bald eagle is no accident. In 1972
the Federal government, with the help of Seven-Eleven
Inc., Hunt-Wesson, and Anheuser Busch, set aside a
4,000-acre eagle preserve in the upper Midwest. The
Wisconsin Eagle Valley Environmentalists launched a
campaign in 1976 to raise $2.5 million to help manage
the preserve. The National Wildlife Federation set up a
computer data bank as a clearinghouse for eagle
information. Egg transfers between Minnesota and
Maine are now common. Forest activities, such as
timber cutting and snowmobiling, as well as overhead
plane routes, have been altered or restricted to
minimize their effects on the eagles' habitat.
The Brown Pelican
The California brown pelican was also a near victim
of the buildup in the environment of persistent,
chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides.
California brown pelicans were once plentiful
from the islands off Baja California in the south up to
Annacapa Island off Ventura County in the north. Then
came DDT and DDE, which began to contaminate
many species in the ocean's food web, including the
northern anchovy, the pelicans' primary food.
DDT and DDE caused pelican eggshells to become
thin and collapse. In 1969, only four pelicans were
hatched in all of southern California. In 1970, only one
pelican was fledged on Annacapa Island from 552
mated pairs of pelicans. The California brown pelican
became an endangered species.
The major source of the DDT contamination was the
wastewater discharge from the Montrose Chemical
Company's DDT manufacturing plant in Los Angeles.
The wastes from this plant went to the Los Angeles
Sanitary District's treatment plant at Carson. The
treatment plant was unable to remove the great
amounts of DDT-DDE in the wastes. As a result, large
quantities of DDT-DDE remained in the treatment
plant's discharges, which went into the Pacific Ocean.
In 1971, about 10,000 pounds of DDT-DDE went into
the Pacific from the Carson treatment plant.
Under pressure from EPA and the Los Angeles
Sanitary District, the company, which still produces
DDT for export, stopped piping its DDT-contaminated
wastewater to the treatment plant. Instead, it began
shipping the wastes to a sanitary landfill designed to
handle hazardous wastes safely. Despite the cancella-
tion of most uses of DDT in 1972 and despite the
elimination of DDT-contaminated wastewater from the
Montrose Chemical Plant, the sewage treatment plant
at Carson reported that in 1976 its annual discharges
still contained over 400 pounds of DDT-DDE. Experts
speculate that the DDT was coming from residues still
present in the treatment system as a result of
discharges in previous years.
Nevertheless, concentrations of DDT in the waters
off the coast have decreased significantly. (EPA's 1972
ban on most uses of DDT contributed overwhelmingly
to that decrease.) And the California brown pelican has
come back; the pelicans' researchers counted 1,185
successful hatchings. The number has remained high
since—so high that some scientists no longer consider
the brown pelican to be an endangered species.
CONTROLLING PESTS WHILE PROTECTING THE
ENVIRONMENT
EPA's pesticides program focuses on a very
specialized group of mostly toxic materials. In addressing
the potential environmental hazards associated with
pesticides, this program must also consider the
legitimate social benefits of minimizing damage Unless
adequately controlled, pests can do enormous harm by
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spreading disease, by destroying food and fiber crops or
by attacking homes and other structures.
New methods of pest control are now being devel-
oped that minimize both pest damage and the adverse
effects on human health and the environment of
unnecessary use of toxic pesticides. Two notable
examples of new, "bio-rational" approaches to pest
control are presented below.
Puerto Rico: Controlling Schistosomiasis
Much progress has been made in eradicating
schistosomiasis—a disease caused by a parasitic worm.
The Department of Health of the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico has been operating schistosomiasis control
programs in cooperation with the U.S. Public Health
Service since 1954. The control programs have been
directed primarily against the parasite's intermediate
host, a certain type of snail.
Snail control methods include chemical, engineering,
and biological techniques, the third proving the most
successful. Initiated in 1956, the biological control
program has been simple and inexpensive. It has had a
unit cost five orders of magnitude lower than the cost of
the chemical control methods used previously. Biological
control is now costing 5 cents per 10,000 cubic meters
of water controlled. The previous chemical control
method cost $800 for the same amount of control.
Biological control is so inexpensive that the average
annual cost of applying it has been $750 for the last 20
Essentially, the biological control program has
involved the decimation of the snail carrying the
parasite—the "host" snail—by another, non-host, snail.
This control program has been carried out in 30 major
lakes and reservoirs, which provide water for irrigation
and hydroelectric power as well as for some municipal
and industrial uses. Populations of the non-host snail
were introduced into all 30 lakes during 1956. Before
the program began, the host snail was present in all of
the 17 lakes surveyed. By 1976, the host snail was
present in only 5 out of 28 lakes surveyed. In the lakes
where the host snail was still present, its population was
very small and was limited to habitats unsuitable for the
competing, non-host snail.
Today host snails that carry the parasite are limited
mostly to shallow swampy areas and irrigation ditches.
The biological control program cannot be extended to
these areas because the new snail is unable to compete
with the host snail in shallow water or in areas that dry
out periodically.
The present picture with regard to schistosomiasis in
most of Puerto Rico is greatly improved when compared
with conditions 20 years ago. With the reduction of the
disease-carrying snail, the incidence of schistosomiasis
in school.children in areas with populations highly prone
to the disease has dropped sufficiently to suggest that
the disease may soon no longer be a problem. If a new
chemotherapy program is added when oxaminiquine, a
new drug under study, becomes available for wide-
spread distribution, schistosomiasis may be completely
eradicated in Puerto Rico.
The Pacific Northwest: Controlling Tussock Moths
A significant pest control accomplishment in the
Pacific Northwest in recent years was the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture's development of new techniques to
control tussock moth outbreaks in the area's Douglas Fir
forests.
The events leading to the initiation of the USDA
research program began with EPA's cancellation of most
uses of DDT in 1972. The cancellation came in the midst
of a tussock moth outbreak over some 800,000 acres of
Douglas Fir. In 1974, the timber industry sought an
emergency exemption to allow continued use of DDT.
EPA reluctantly granted the exemption for the 1974
season—but only on the condition that a comprehensive
research program be launched to find suitable
alternatives to DDT.
Four years later, the research program has achieved
these successes:
• Scientists can now detect tussock moth outbreaks
before they reach epidemic proportions.
• Forest managers now know where tussock moth out-
breaks are most likely to occur and concentrate
early warning detection work in those areas.
• More environmentally desirable alternatives to DDT
have been developed. Two new, environmentally
safe, "biorational" pesticides, bacillus thuringiensis
(BT), and nucleopolyhedrosis (NPV), were registered
for use against the tussock moth in 1976.
• New integrated pest management techniques—
using the least hazardous and least costly combina-
tion of biological, chemical, and other approaches
against tussock moths—are now within reach.
As a result of these research breakthroughs, we are
confident that the new techniques will provide adequate
control of the tussock moth. At the same time, vast areas
of the Pacific Northwest are no longer subject to the
environmental threat that comes with heavy use of DDT.
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Protecting the Land
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Effectively
Controlling
Solid
Waste
In the past, pollution control efforts focused almost
entirely on controlling discharges to our Nation's air and
waters. But in recent years, we have come to realize that
disposal of wastes on land can also have serious and
sometimes catastrophic environmental effects. Noxious
or toxic pollutants can be washed off during rainstorms
into nearby streams. They can be leached from the soil
by rainfall and carried down to the water table to pollute
groundwater. They can be absorbed by plants that we
ultimately consume as food. Sometimes they simply
contaminate the soil directly, posing a threat to children
who play in contaminated areas or giving off toxic fumes
to those who live or work nearby.
For these reasons, safeguarding the land from
improper waste disposal practices has now become one
of the EPA's highest priorities.
The best known materials disposed of on the land are
those each of us personally helps generate, and are
known as "domestic" or "municipal" solid waste. Solid
waste includes most of the discards of our high-
consumption society: food scraps, empty bottles, paper
and plastic wrappings, animal carcasses, worn out tires,
junked refrigerators and cars, old newspapers and
magazines—an endless list of things no longer needed
or wanted. Since World War II, the outpouring of waste
has quickened with the proliferation of plastics and
disposable packaging of all kinds.
IMPROVING LAND DISPOSAL PRACTICES
The traditional method for disposing of solid waste
was to "dump" it—either in an "organized" site on
unused land, or else at random on vacant lots, in
streambeds, or along roadsides. The case histories that
follow show what the States have done—with EPA
support—to change these environmentally unsound
practices.
Wisconsin: Successful Landfills
Wisconsin is a prime example of how an action-
oriented State with the necessary authority can make
things happen.
Wisconsin, like many other states, initially
concentrated on promoting properly engineered sanitary
landfills. Sanitary landfills are well-controlled land
disposal sites for solid wastes. In a sanitary landfill,
wastes are first spread and compacted in layers a few
feet thick. They are then covered daily with a layer of
earth and again compacted. In such sites, the potential
for jdors, fires, and wind-blown wastes is minimized.
The site is also prevented from becoming a breeding
ground for flies, rats, and other potential carriers of
disease.
Once a landfill is closed, the site is suitable for open air
recreational uses. Many landfill sites have been made
into golf courses or parks.
State and local authorities in Wisconsin accomplished
a number of successes with regard to land disposal
practices.
• The Wisconsin State environmental agency closed a
dump in the city of Washburn that had allowed
surface runoff to empty into an adjacent ravine. The
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site was re-engineered, sloped, covered with topsoil,
and seeded to stop the runoff problem. A newsite was
opened in a more suitable location and is being run
now as a sanitary landfill.
• The State, working with local officials, re-
engineered an abandoned dump in the city of Merrill
to stop serious leaching into groundwater. They also
improved operations at the current site to eliminate
runoff problems.
• The State, working with local officials, converted a
large open-burning dump in Oneida County into a
sanitary landfill and was then able to close many
small dumps scattered about the county.
• State and local officials selected a geologically
suitable site for a new landfill in LaCrosse County. The
topography and soil type at the site prevent runoff or
leachate from polluting streams or groundwater.
• State and local officials developed a landfill design
adequate to prevent runoff and leachate \r\Juneau
County, where naturally suitable sites were unavail-
able. The design included a clay liner beneath thesite
and a leachate collection system. Several other land-
fills in the county, without such design features and
with documented leachate and runoff problems, are
being closed.
The cumulative impact of these efforts and many more
like them has been to reduce to a minimum the polluting
effects of solid waste disposal in Wisconsin.
The Midwest: Upgrading Land Disposal Practices
Iowa in 1970 had 800 open dumps. In July, 1976, it
had only 240. In 1970, there were only 10 sanitary
landfills, serving 10 percent of the State's population.
By 1979, there were 97 sanitary landfills serving 100
percent of the population within reasonable driving
distance.
In Missouri, from 1970 to 1976, the population
served by approved landfills jumped from 10 percent to
82 percent. Now Missouri has 124 sanitary landfills,
and 98 percent of the population has reasonable
access to the landfills.
In Kansas there are 123 sanitary landfills. Each of
the 105 counties in the State has its own landfill or
access to one nearby.
Denver, Colorado: Reducing the Methane Hazard
Although the use of sanitary landfills is highly
preferable to disposal of wastes in open dumps, there is
one potentially hazardous side effect that must be
accounted for: methane generation within the landfill.
Methane is a product of the natural decomposition of
the organic component of domestic waste. Since in a
sanitary landfill, all wastes are carefully sealed off with a
layer of earth, this methane is trapped underground.
Persons responsible for engineering landfills or for
designing facilities to go on top of closed landfill sites
must be careful to ensure that the methane will not
migrate to enclosed areas, such as the inadequately
ventilated basement of an adjacent building.
Denver. Colorado, is one of many communities that
have the problem of methane gas seeping from old
landfills. Four children were severely burned in 1976
when methane gas ignited at a construction site. Two
men working on a sewer died in a methane explosion in
1977. To date, 40 old landfills in the Denver area have
been found to be generating methane—and explosions
and fires are potential threats for churches, schools,
and shopping centers, private homes, and other
structures that have been built on or near those landfills.
When reports of methane problems began to filter in,
representatives of some three dozen local, State, and
Federal agencies began meeting to discuss the situation,
and created the Intergovernmental Methane Task Force
created. It pulled together all available information on
methane for use by any and all member agencies, and has
produced much useful material, including a safety check-
list for local construction companies, an instruction sheet
on methane detection, an alarm system for building
occupants, and a 45-minute slide show on the hazards
and control of landfill gas.
Task force participants helped secure $200,000 from
State and Federal agencies to survey landfills where
methane is a problem. As a result of a presentation by the
Task Force tot he International Council of Building Officials
(ICBO), ICBO's 1980 publication on building codes
contains information to guide builders with projects on or
near landfills.
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News of the Task Force's work spread and stimulated
interest in a national conference on the hazards and
opportunities presented by landfill methane. The
conference, held in Denver in March 1979, provided up-
to-date information on proper landfill siting and
operation to minimize the dangers of methane
generation—and on efforts to harness the potentially
dangerous gas for productive use. Methane is not just a
landfill "problem"; it is also a clean fuel that can be
captured and used in place of fuel oil. To that end, the
U.S. Department of Energy is funding a $230,000 project
to collect and sell the methane from six landfills just
north of Denver in Adams County.
SLUDGE—A NEW WORRY
Household and commercial wastes—trash and
garbage—are only part of the solid waste problem.
Another type of waste of mounting concern is sludge,
the residue generated by air and wastewater treatment
operations. Since indiscriminate dumping of sludge into
the water is no longer allowed, ridding ourselves of it has
become a major land disposal problem.
The most troublesome sludge—because it is so
abundant—comes from municipal sewage treatment
plants. It will become an even more acute problem as
more and more wastewater treatment plants are built.
Municipal sludge is a particularly vexing problem
because it frequently carries nighly toxic metals and
organics which, when disposed of on land, can be
absorbed by food crops or leach into groundwater and
contaminate drinking water supplies.
Lake County, Illinois: A Sensible Solution for Disposal
of Sludge
In an effort to deal with the sludge problem, localities
have been approaching sludge disposal in a variety of
ways. The North Shore Sanitary District of Lake County,
Illinois, for example, designed a special landfill for sludge
disposal. The 271 -acre site consists of an access road, a
sludge storage building, and a leachate collection
system. Ten monitoring wells have also been
constructed, at a cost of $ 12,000, to help verify that
leachate does not pollute the local groundwater. If such
pollution is detected, the county will take steps to correct
it. The cost of the facility, including the land, trucks, and
machinery, came to $860,000. When the site is totally
filled in 25 years, it will be turned into a park. By
comparison, had the community used an incinerator, it
would have cost an estimated $5 million.
RESOURCE RECOVERY AND WASTE REDUCTION —
OTHER SOLUTIONS TO THE SOLID WASTE PROBLEM
It appears that land disposal will remain for a while,
the principal method for dealing with most solid waste.
However, two other solid waste management
techniques are beginning to emerge—resource recovery
and waste reduction. Resource recovery consists of the
reuse or recycling, rather than the discarding, of used
materials. Waste reduction entails the redesign of
packages of consumer products or of industrial
processes so that less waste is generated in the first
place.
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Resource recovery is especially promising. It promotes
conservation, rather than disposal, of potentially
valuable resources. It also reduces the volume of waste
to be disposed of in landfills, so it cuts land disposal
costs.
Certain grades of paper, some metals, and energy
have all been recovered successfully from municipal
wastes. Energy is recovered by burning the "organic"
portion of solid waste, such as plastics, food scraps, and
paper that cannot otherwise be recycled. Energy recovery
alone can substantially reduce the waste volume: as little
as 5 to 15 percent of the initial waste may remain
afterwards.
We now present several examples of efforts to reduce
the solid waste disposal burden through resource
recovery.
SOLID WASTE AS A SOURCE OF ENERGY
North Little Rock. Arkansas: Energy from Municipal
Waste
North Little Rock, Arkansas, which generated 70-80
tons a day of solid waste, was faced with a landfill with
no more space, and no public land was available north of
the city for a new site. A private site was available north
of the city, but would have cost about $40,000 a year for
the land and an additional $14,000 a year to haul the
wastes to the disposal site.
North Little Rock decided instead to go into the energy
generating business. It purchased four 25 ton-a-day
modular incinerators with steam recovery units. The
steam generated by burning solid waste is sold to an
industrial plant under a 20 year contract. City officials
estimate that the incinerator steam generating project,
in operation since 1977, is saving the city about $50,000
a year in disposal costs. The incinerator steam project is
also reducing the need for landfill space by 95 percent.
Kansas City, Kansas: Energy From Wood Wastes
While widespread recovery of paper, metals, and
energy is just now becoming a reality, some less
comprehensive alternatives have already been in
operation for several years. Among them is energy
recovery from wood wastes.
A system developed by the American Walnut Company
is a notable example. The company's Kansas City,
Kansas, plant saws and processes wood from walnut
trees for use in gun stocks and other wood products. This
generates large quantities of sawdust, wood chips, and
other wood waste.
The company originally burned such wastes in a
"teepee burner," which created a dense plume of black
smoke. When cited for violating local air pollution
ordinances, the company modified the burner design.
Not only did that fail to reduce pollution sufficiently, it
also increased the plant's consumption of natural gas.
The company then attempted unsuccessfully to find a
buyer for its wood waste. Finally it decided to construct
a starved-air type boiler that generated steam by burning
the waste. Part of the steam is used to cure wood-steam
which had formerly been generated by a gas-fueled
boiler. The remainder of the steam is sold to other local
users.
By choosing the approach it did, American Walnut has
both reduced air pollution and reduced its consumption
of natural gas.
Denver, Colorado: Saving Energy by Recycling
Paper
The Federal Government is one of the leading
practitioners of recycling and selling high-grade waste
paper.
In Denver. Colorado, 30 Federal agencies under the
direction of the Federal Regional Council, began a paper
recycling program in 1975. As a result, 6,376 tons of
high-grade and mixed paper have been reclaimed since
the program began. EPA has issued guidelines extending
the program to Federal agencies nationwide. It is
estimated that 223,000 tons of high-grade paper fiber
will be recovered, recycled, and sold each year. The
operation will save the government $7.4 million a year in
waste disposal costs and save nearly four million trees
each year. Energy savings are a further benefit: making
paper from recovered fibers requires 60 percent less
energy than making it from virgin materials.
SOURCE SEPARATION
An approach to resource recovery that has shown
itself to be both sensible and practical is source
separation. In such a program households are asked to
sort their trash into groups by type. The item most often
kept separate for special pickup is newspaper, but some
cities also have separate collection for glass and for steel
or aluminum cans.
The city then sells the separately collected discards.
The funds generated in this way, together with those
saved by not having to landfill those same discards, more
than pay for the additional cost of the separate
collection.
While only two American cities were conducting such
programs in 1970, over 225 communities do so now. In
many cases separated collection can reduce the volume
of solid waste to be disposed of by as much as 25
percent.
Rockford, Illinois: Making Money from Source
Separation
In the city of Rockford, Illinois, citizens are recycling
paper resources, saving money, and planting trees with
part of the savings.
Rockford's recycling program started in 1972, when
the city decided to collect and sell old newspapers. There
was interest, but the program was not economically
justifiable.
The city tried a new approach in 1974. It contracted
with Container Corporation of America, the nation's
largest waste paper recycler, which agreed to buy the
collected newspaper at a price based on the Chicago
market price. The city, in turn, agreed to provide the
company with a guaranteed minimum quantity of
newspaper each month.
In the first 30 months of the new program, 2,200 tons
of newspaper were collected and sold to Container
Corporation of America for $49,000. The city saved an
additional $15,000 by not having to put those papers in
its landfill, for a total saving of $64,000. It costs the city
$24,000 to collect the newspapers. Thus, the city's
recycling program netted the city $40,000 in the first 30
months.
Between February 1 and December 31,1979,
Rockford recycled a total of 284 tons of newsprint.
Although this total is down considerably from the
spectacular initial totals, Rockford has pinpointed the
problem: waning public interest due to the lack of a
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continuing, vigorous public awareness program. To
correct the problem, the city has earmarked a portion of
the profits earned from newsprint recycling to support a
new, ongoing citizen awareness program. A large
portion of EPA's Urban Policy grant will be used to kick
off the new program.
SALVAGING ABANDONED CARS
Salvaging abandoned automobiles is another way to
recover resources while improving the environment. The
following stories show how two communities initiated
and financed programs to salvage abandoned cars.
Kentucky: Profiting From An Auto Graveyard
Eastern Kentucky has acquired the nickname
"Detroit's Graveyard" because of the large number of
abandoned vehicles in the area. A few years ago an
estimated 300,000 junked and abandoned cars were
strewn along rural roads or in fields. The unsightly
blights contributed to environmental degradation and
attracted additional trash or garbage. The resulting open
dumps were breeding grounds for rats and flies.
In 1973, Kentucky's Department of Natural Resources
and Environmental Protection launched a pilot program
to collect and recycle abandoned automobiles. The
agency bought 10 trucks equipped with winches and
loading ramps and hauled in abandoned cars. The pilot
program succeeded, and a large demonstration project
followed, funded with $45,000 from the State and
$60,000 from EPA. More trucks were purchased and
personnel were hired and trained for the one-year
demonstration project covering 14 counties, beginning
in January 1975.
The top elected official in each county was contacted.
The project was explained and cooperation sought.
Attempts were made to find a sponsoring organization—
usually a high school band, scout group, or other
nonprofit, nongovernmental organization. The
sponsoring group then conducted a survey of vehicles in
the county, developed public information materials, and
obtained releases for the abandoned cars. A minimum of
200 releases and a temporary storage site had to be
obtained before the collection trucks would come into
the county.
After the abandoned cars were collected, the sponsor
group was given a list of scrap metal companies and a
model bid advertisement. When all the vehicles in a
county had been collected, the winning bidder would
then arrange to crush the old cars and haul them to a
recycling facility.
Some 5,000 junked cars were collected and recycled
during the one-year demonstration project. Sponsoring
groups received $94,000 from the sale of the cars.
The State has continued the program with some
minor modifications, using 16 trucks. So far,
organizations in 59 counties have participated. Now the
State is considering expanding the program to collect
and recycle abandoned applicances and other bulky
discarded items.
As a result of this program, some of the junk along
Kentucky's roads is being made useful again, and
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sponsoring organizations are making money in the
process of helping to clean up their counties.
Montana: Underwriting Salvage Operations
In Montana the distance to scrap markets is so great
that auto salvaging is not profitable for a private salvage
company. State lawmakers have therefore adopted
legislation to help underwrite the cost of removing
junked cars. The program is financed by a nominal fee:
two dollars for the transfer of a vehicle title and fifty cents
at the time of annual re-registration.
These funds have been used to establish and maintain
county graveyards for junked cars. When 200 cars have
accumulated in one of these yards, the State advertises
for bids to haul them away for scrap metal.
An unanticipated benefit of this program is the energy
it saves. Producing a ton of steel from auto scrap takes
8,500 kilowatt-hours less energy than producing the
same amou nt of steel from iron ore. In some areas of the
country that much energy could supply the electrical
needs of an average household for an entire year. The
program thus has not only eliminated a blight on the
Montana countryside but is also saving energy.
REDUCING WASTE: THE BOTTLE BILLS
Waste reduction means not just recovering useful
materials from the waste stream, but also preventing
them from entering the waste stream in the first place.
For instance, instead of "recycling" bottles—collect-
ing them after they are discarded, melting them down,
* '
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and then using the glass to make new bottles—we can
design them to be returned and reused. This saves the
cost and energy of having to manufacture the bottles
between each use. Since bottles and other packaging
items make up a large share of America's waste
materials, the savings can be significant.
Oregon: The First Bottle Bill
In Oregon a bottle bill was passed by the State legis-
lature in 1971 and took effect in October 1972. It banned
the sale of beer and soft drinks in pull-tab cans. It
imposed a minimum two cent deposit on beer and soft
drink bottles of a standard design reusable by more than
one bottler, and a five cent deposit on non-standard
bottles reusable by only one company.
Oregon legislators viewed the bottle bill chiefly as a
litter control measure, although the people who lobbied
for it were also aware of its potential as an energy saver.
The idea was that Oregonians v. jld return bottles to
grocery stores to recover their deposits rather than
throw them out in the trash—or along the roadside. Pull-
tab cans would not be available.
Oregon's bottle bill has been popular and effective.
Roadside litter has been drastically reduced. Studies
show that litter in the form of beverage containers has
declined by 83 percent. At the same time consumer
prices for beer and soft drinks have remained
competitive with those of neighboring Washington
State, which does not have a bottle law.
Consumers are returning a surprisingly high percent-
age of the beverage bottles to retailers to redeem their
deposit money. On the average, four out of every five
bottles leaving stores are coming back. There is also
other evidence that Oregon consumers overwhelmingly
approve of the bottle bill. In polls taken throughout the
State since it was passed, 90 percent of the persons
polled said they favored it. A similar percentage said that
returning bottles to stores was not an inconvenience.
That claim appears to be borne out by the fact that they
are buying more beer and soft drinks than ever. There is
no evidence that the "hassle" factor has reduced the
public's consumption of these products.
There has been an additional benefit. The energy
saved each year by the switch to returnable containers in
Oregon would be sufficient to heat the homes of 40,000
people—slightly over 2 percent of the State's population.
The bottle bill idea has spread. Vermont soon followed
Oregon with similar legislation. Then Maine, Michigan,
Iowa, and Connecticut enacted bottle bills. The experi-
ence of each of these States has been similar to that of
Oregon.
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Hazardous
Waste—
A Newly
Recognized
Threat
Some discards from our chemically based, indus-
trialized society, including poisons, explosives, carcino-
gens, acids, and other hazardous materials pose
significant, immediate dangers. In the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, Congress
directed EPA to establish, in cooperation with the States,
a nationwide program to ensure the safe handling,
transportation, and disposal of hazardous wastes. That
program is designed to minimize threats to public health
and the environment from hazardous wastes and to
make sure there are no more "horror stories" like the
one at Love Canal.
Love Canal: The Long-Term Effects of Inadequate
Hazardous Waste Disposal
Amost everyone has heard about the tragedy of Love
Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, where toxic chemicals
dumped by the Hooker Chemicals and Plastics Corpora-
tion leached into groundwater and migrated into base-
ments and backyards. Two hundred and forty families
were forced to evacuate their homes permanently, and
some residents were apparently left with serious
illnesses, including neurological disorders, reproductive
effects, and birth defects. Fewer people know what has
been done to remedy the situation. Although the story of
Love Canal is far from over, it is worth telling as an
example of what can and must be done to protect people
from environmental disasters resulting from past
inadequate waste disposal practices.
When the Love Canal crisis occurred, EPA provided
technical and financial aid to the State and the local
community. EPA sent in a mobile lab to analyze samples
and a mobile activated carbon treatment unit to detoxify
the contaminated groundwater until a permanent
treatment system could be installed. EPA also arranged,
with the cooperation of the Canadian Government, to
bring in a highly sophisticated machine from Canada to
detect and identify chemical fumes within the homes
and in the air around Love Canal. The unit, in a mobile
van, provided on-site analytical results within 20
minutes of testing the fumes.
Efforts have been made to prevent further migration of
toxic chemicals. EPA and New York State shared funding
of an $8 million remedial construction program to
provide for the control, cleanup, and monitoring of the
wastes. The State has authorized $5 million to form a
local task force to revitalize and stabilize the area.
No one knows when, if ever, the site will be safe again.
But at least the families who lived where the problem
was greatest are away from danger now and their homes
have been bought by New York State.
Some persons who were driven out of their homes by
the toxic chemicals reported feeling better after they left.
One survey of the vacuatedfamiles revealed that liver
disorders and asthmatic conditions tended to improve
after the families were relocated.
Atkinson, Illinois: An Example of the Proper Disposal
of Hazardous Wastes
As a result of incidents like Love Canal, communities
are becoming increasingly concerned about and are
taking strong steps to ensure careful, environmentally
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sound disposal of hazardous wastes. When properly
managed, hazardous waste disposal facilities can be
operated without ill effects, and can even be profitable to
the communities operating them.
For example, a hazardous waste landfill owned and
operated by the village of Atkinson, Illinois, has been
keeping some moderately toxic wastes contained safely
for ten years—and has been more than paying for itself.
Indeed, profits from the landfill, located at an abandoned
strip mine, have helped pay for schools, road repairs, and
other city services. The landfill, which has an Illinois EPA
permit to accept "special" wastes, accepts municipal
refuse as well as high-BOD wastes, fluids, and some
moderately toxic wastes like latex paint sludges. It does
not accept heavy metals or other highly toxic chemicals.
An added bonus is that the landfill operation is improving
the appearance of the old strip mine site, making it an
aesthetic, as well as an environmental and economic,
success.
Recycling Industrial Wastes
Land disposal in appropriately selected, carefully
engineered landfills is one way to dispose of hazardous
wastes. Another way to keep hazardous and other
industrial wastes from becoming environmental
problems is to prevent them from becoming "wastes"
in the first place. That is exactly what industrial waste
exchanges try to do. The premise is simple: one
factory's waste can be someone else's useful raw
material. For example:
• Nitric acid used to etch silicon wafers in the
electronics industry can be neutralized with phos-
phate materials to produce calcium nitrate, which is
then used in high grade fertilizers.
• Gypsum wallboard scrap can be used as a soil
conditioner.
• Spent steel pickle acid, which is up to 15 percent
ferrous sulfate, is used in the geothermal power
industry to control emissions of hydrogen sulfide
gas. Indeed, there is a shortage of this "waste."
• Ferric chloride, used in the electronics industry to
dissolve copper, can be recycled and used in waste-
water treatment plants.
The first waste exchanges started in Europe in 1972.
The concept spread quickly there and in the U.S. Since
then at least 18 information exchanges and 3 material
exchanges have been established here with EPA's
encouragement.
A list of industrial waste exchanges in the U.S. is
available from EPA's Office of Solid Waste,
Washington, D.C. 20460.
Coping with a Specialized Hazardous Waste
Problem-HCN
Liquid hydrocyanic acid (HCN) is a fumigant used
widely m the gram industry to control insects and
rodents It is very effective and leaves no residue on
the grain.
HCN used to come in cylinders, most of which were
filled and distributed by the American Cyanamid
company in the 1950's and the 1960's. Some 100 of
the old cylinders—which came in 5, 30, 75 and 166
y*C. -4
M#*-,: .
pound sizes and were painted silver—are still un-
accounted for. That is cause for concern because, as
the cylinders age, the chemicals inside become
unstable. If moved, a cylinder can explode, releasing
poisonous fumes, hurtling shrapnel through the air,
and causing fires. HCN cylinders may have been the
cause of some grain elevator explosions.
In cooperation with EPA, American Cyanamid has
worked out a new procedure for disposing of the old
cylinders as they are found. Using the services of a
firm that specializes in handling explosives—Jet
Research Center of Arlington, Texas—American
Cyanamid provides trained teams to handle the
removal. EPA, which serves as emergency coordinator
when an HCN cylinder is found, works closely with
other Federal, State, and local agencies on the
problem
When an old cylinder is found, the disposal crew
digs a deep pit, puts the cylinder in it, and affixes an
explosives charge to the cylinder. The charge blows
the ends off the cylinder, releasing the internal
pressure and preventing an accidential explosion. At
the same time, the charge ignites flammable material
in the pit, which burns any poisonous gas that is
released.
Three cylinders have recently been successfully
disposed of in this manner—one at Lubbock, Texas;
one at Princeton, New Jersey; and one at New
Orleans, Louisiana
Every one of the hazardous HCN cylinders that can
be safely disposed of means the possible saving of
human lives and the prevention of property damage.
If you happen to come across an old HCN cylinder,
do not attempt to handle it Call EPA
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Radium Wastes in Denver—a Newly Discovered
Problem
For 60 years, radioactive waste from a once-
flourishing business of radium processing lay forgotten
in Denver, Colorado. Mention of the mills that once
processed uranium ore to extract radium slipped into
obscurity in dusty records and archives. In the
meantime the thriving young city of Denver grew up
around the old sites. The sites of old radium
processing or laboratory activities were later used for
office buildings and warehouses. No one remembered
the radium industry until February 1979, when an EPA
researcher pouring through old Bureau of Mines report
came across references to a National Radium Institute
operating in Denver from 1914 through 1917.
Surprised that he had not heard of the Institute before,
he called the EPA Regional Office in Denver. Research
by staff at Denver's archives produced an addres for
the forgotten institute. Located alongside a major
highway near Denver's central city, the site had
become the home of a major brick and tile firm.
Since the Colorado Department of Health, under an
agreement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
has primary responsibility for control of radioactive
materials in the State, the Department was notified
immediately.
Within hours, State and EPA radiation experts were
at the brickyard. The clicking and wildly fluctuating
needles of radiation detectors confirmed the investi-
gators' worst suspicions. The area was "hot." They
measured radiation levels 200 times higher than the
already high natural background level normally found
in Denver.
In the following weeks, investigators discovered
another 22 sites with varying levels of contamination.
State requests for assistance brought quick Federal
response. A Department of Energy helicopter and an
EPA mobile van equipped with sensitive gamma
radiation detection equipment were quickly dispatched
to Denver. Additional EPA staff help will be provided as
ground teams perform closer inspection of sites
identified by the helicopter and van surveys.
People exposed at various sites for substantial
periods of time will undergo extensive testing for
radiation-related health problems Early testing has not
yet uncovered any serious problems.
Once all the sites are identified and their contami-
nation levels known, the more difficult problem of
figuring out how to decontaminate them will begin.
The Colorado Department of Health has proposed
regulations requiring the owners of property where
radium or uranium mill tailings have been documented
to apply for a license from the State. The regulations
would allow the Department to control how those
properties are used—what could be built on them and
what kinds of public access and activities could be
allowed—until satisfactory solutions can be found.
Helping Correct the Asbestos Problem
EPA declared asbestos to be a hazardous air
pollutant in the early 1970's. EPA took this action
because of clear evidence that even short-term
exposure to asbestos is harmful to the lungs and that
long-term exposure often results in lung cancer and
other related diseases.
As a result, asbestos, which is a powerful
carcinogen, ceased to be used as a wall coating in
public buildings. For 20 years, however, it had been
widely used for that purpose. As buildings aged and
wall coating crumbled, unacceptably high levels of
asbestos in the air resulted.
fn December of 1978, EPA instituted a corrective
action program for "friable" (easily crumbled) asbestos
in schools. Since then EPA has been conducting a
program to assist local officials in identifying buildings—
especially school buildings—with asbestos-laden wall
coatings. EPA suggests the appropriate corrective
action for such buildings. The recommended
procedures vary, depending on the type of material, its
asbestos content and the current condition of a building's
walls and ceilings.
EPA researchers were asked to provide two kinds of
technical support to this effort: first, to produce a
videotape to summarize laboratory findings regarding
the effective use of sprayed-on sealants for asbestos
fiber control; and second, to provide technical support
for a series of seminars to be held in all EPA Regional
Offices. By March 1979, the videotape was complete,
and seminars were held between March and June to
acquaint Regional personnel with the hazards and
corrective actions recommended for asbestos
contamination. EPA research staff provided the
necessary technical support for this work and
conducted a workshop for EPA Regional asbestos
coordinators and Army, Navy, and Air Force
representatives to give them hands-on experience in
performing asbestos removal and sealing operations.
In EPA's Southeast Region, the asbestos-m-schools
program had been handicapped by a lack of laboratories
and trained personnel able to identify asbestos materials
in bulk samples using the polarized light microscope
technique recommended by EPA. No lab in the Region
could do the job. EPA therefore sponsored a training
course for lab personnel and for representatives of
seven of the eight States in the Region. (The eighth had
already arranged its own training program.)
Today three labs in the Region use the techniques
recommended by EPA for identifying asbestos fibers.
As a result, the program to deal with asbestos in
schools in the Southeast is now well under way
Additional training sessions were held in each of the
other Regions of the country, thus helping to ensure
sound activities nationwide to minimize exposure of
school children to asbestos. As a result of these
workshops, EPA personnel are now well informed and
well prepared to provide assistance to school
administrators in the procedures necessary to protect
the health of school children and school personnel.
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Responding
to Environmental
Emergencies
AUTHORIZE
PERSONEL
y
CONTACT EPA
OM-SCENE COORDINATOR
FOR ADMISSION
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The
PCB
Problem
PCBs were only recently recognized to be persistent
and widespread threats to the environment. I hey have
been shown to cause cancer in test animals and to
cause birth defects in monkeys, even when present at
low levels. They can accumulate in the food chain, and
they are harmful to fish and shellfish, which absorb
high quantities of the substance from polluted waters.
Furthermore, they do not break down in the
environment.
First manufactured in 1929, PCBs have been used in
transformers, capacitors, paint, castings, hydraulic
fluids, and refrigeration and electrical systems. In
1970 Monsanto, the only U.S. producer, voluntarily
restricted its sale of PCBs to companies using them in
transformers and other "closed systems." The
company cut its annual production from 70 million to
40 million pounds. Later the company voluntarily
terminated all production of PCBs. Since July 1979, all
other manufacture of PCBs has been banned.
But PCBs continue to be a widespread an extremely
serious problem. The principal sources now are
leaks from the tens of thousands of electric transformers
still in use that were built with PCBs as the dielectric
fluid. Another major source is runoff from disposal sites
where PCB-laden electrical equipment has been
discarded.
The case histories presented earlier give ample
testimony to the widespread extent and severity of the
PCB problem Several important rivers, among them
the Hudson, the Housatonic, the Kalamazoo, and the
Fox would be clean if not for severe and lingering
contamination from PCBs.
Nevertheless, the PCB story is not always a bleak
one. There have been notable accomplishments m
dealing with them.
McGirts Creek: Treating PCB Contaminated Waste-
water
In July of 1976, one of seven abandoned waste oil
ponds in Whitehouse, Florida, ruptured, spilling over
200,000 gallons of waste oil into McGirts Creek.
Subsequent investigation by the EPA On-scene
Coordinator revealed high concentrations of PCBs in
the oil and the oily water in the remaining ponds.
To treat the PCB-contaminated oily water, a carbon
filter system was designed and constructed on site.
PCB concentrations were reduced to an acceptable
level of less than 1 ppb and the water was discharged
to the creek. The remaining oil and PCBs were
immobilized on site.
Monitoring wells were drilled to test for any future
migration of PCBs into the groundwater. As of this
date, the site remains secure. A Federal contingency
fund provided the $250,000 that was required for the
cleanup operation.
Frontenac, Missouri: Correcting Improper PCB
Storage Practices
PCBs also posed a threat at Bliss Oil Company's
waste oil recycling facility in Frontenac, Missouri. Bliss
Oil had a tank containing 250 barrels of waste oil
contaminated with PCBs. The company did not have a
spill prevention or containment plan. In the event of a
spill, the contaminated oil would have flowed into a
nearby creek in the urban area.
EPA obtained a consent agreement from the
company and drained the contaminated oil from the
tank and shipped it to an authorized hazardous waste
disposal facility. The tank itself was moved to a more
secure site.
Kansas City, Missouri: Assisting with Proper PCB
Disposal
EPA also helped the Bendix Corporation find a safe
disposal site for 33,000 gallons—over 600 drums—of
PCB-contaminated waste oil. The Bendix plant in
Kansas City, Missouri, a government contractor, had
been given an estimate of from $100 to $130 a drum
for incineration of the tainted oil. With EPA's aid, the
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company found an approved disposal site in Nevada
and paid only $18 a drum.
St. Louis, Missouri: Safety Procedures for
Transformers
Preventing contamination from PCBs that have been
improperly disposed of is very costly. These costs can
be prevented, however, if we insist on proper disposal
in the first place.
As an outgrowth of a PCB spill investigation at the
Federal Center in St. Louis, EPA helped the General
Services Administration develop simple but effective
new safety procedures for handling and rewiring
transformers that contain PCBs. A five-gallon container
is now placed under each transformer insulator before
it is rewired. That keeps PCBs off the floor if the
insulator cracks. Also, six-inch dikes were built around
all transformers and PCB storage areas; each dike can
handle the total volume of PCB oil in the transformers
or storage drums. The dikes will keep PCBs from
entering the city's sewer system through floor drains.
Cleanup crews also wear protective clothing, and
special absorbent materials are used to soak up any
spilled PCB oil.
Newton, Kansas: The Repercussions of PCB
Contamination of Livestock
Early in May 1979, a livestock operator in Newton,
Kansas, delivered 168 head of cattle to a feedlot near
Mansion, Kansas. He had purchased those cattle from
a cattle broker in Wichita, Kansas, and had wintered
them on his farm. Upon delivery to the feedlot, the
cattle were vaccinated and dipped for lice and grubs, a
common practice in animal feedlots. Seven days later,
54 head of those cattle were dead.
Complex tests on the dead animals showed very
high concentrations of PCBs in their fat. The PCBs in
this incident were traced to waste oil used by the
Newton, Kansas livestock operator in animal back-
rubbers on his farm. He had purchased the waste oil,
including nine barrels of transformer oil, from a
salvage yard m Walton, Kansas in 1972.
Oil samples from the farm, taken from six full 55-
gallon drums, three empty 55-gallon drums, and two
back-rubbers, revealed concentrations of PCBs ranging
from 82 ppm to 950,000 ppm. Federal and State
inspectors traced the source of the waste oil to a
salvage company in Walton, Kansas, that had
purchased nine barrels of transformer oil from a utility
company in Wichita, Kansas in 1972 The livestock
operator in Newton had bought the entire lot of waste
oil later that year. At that time the danger of PCB
contamination was not widely known.
EPA, the Kansas Department of Health and Environ-
ment (KDHE), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), the Kansas Department of Animal Health, and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal
Plant and Health Inspection Service launched a major
cooperative effort to mitigate the effects of this
environmental accident.
On May 24, the Kansas Board of Animal Health
quarantined the remaining 114 cattle at the Pawnee
Valley Feedlot. USDA determined on August 23 that
the level of PCBs in the remaining cattle, which ranged
from 130 ppm to 1100 ppm, could not be reduced to
an acceptable limit during their lifetime, so the cattle
could not be used as a food.
All concerned agencies agreed that the animals had
to be destroyed and disposed of in an EPA-approved
PCB disposal site. KDHE impounded the cattle and
assumed the financial burden for containment,
destruction, and burial of the animals. The cattle were
subsequently destroyed and buried in a chemical
waste landfill approved by EPA.
Surface soil in the farmyard of the farm m Newton
was analyzed and found to contain from 20 to 1,000
ppm of PCBs. The most highly contaminated areas
were under the back-rubbers.
The highly contaminated soil was removed and
disposed of with the steers. The farmyard was scraped
to a depth of six inches. That soil was buried on the
farm. Evidence from USDA suggested that soil should
not contain over 5 ppm of PCBs, as they can be
absorbed through the hooves of cattle. KDHE and EPA
agreed that to ensure the safety of the farm, the soil
should contain no more than 1 ppm PCB. EPA tested
the farmyard after scraping and urged that the location
of the buried dirt and sampling results be attached to
the land records.
The remaining waste oil, empty drums, and back-
rubbers were impounded by KDHE. It is now the
property of the State of Kansas. The drums are being
stored in a concrete vault at a land disposal site near
Furley, Kansas, until such time as the oil can be
destroyed in a high-temperature PCB incinerator. The
back-rubbers were buried with the cattle.
The livestock operator also owned 533 swine. On
August 10-25, swine back fat samples were taken at
the farm. The samples showed PCB concentrations
ranging from undetectable levels to 17 ppm. USDA and
FDA agreed to apply FDA's tolerance for PCB residues
in poultry to the swine still located on the farm.
Currently, the tolerance for PCBs in poultry is 3 ppm
on a fat basis. USDA will ensure that swine over the 3
ppm limit do not enter food channels. USDA will also
notify FDA of any findings in these swine above the 3
ppm level. The swine that have already been tested
and found to exceed the 3 ppm level are not suitable
for use a human food and will not be sold for that
purpose. If necessary, they will be destroyed and
disposed of in such a manner as to prevent human
consumption.
FDA was also concerned about rendering the swine
that have been exposed to PCBs. FDA urged that
special precautions be taken to ensure that these
animals did not introduce PCB contamination into the
rendering plant and that rendered by-products do not
exceed FDA's tolerance of 2 ppm for PCBs in animal
feed ingredients.
Four or five families in the Newton, Kansas, area
stated that they had purchased beef from the farm
during the year. Fat samples from the remaining meat
contained as much as 1300 ppm of PCBs. The beef
was buried at an approved disposal site. The families
have been advised by KDHE to obtain blood and liver
function tests from their families' doctors. These tests
will be monitored by the Center for Disease Control in
Atlanta, Georgia.
This was the result of the innocent use of a mere
nine barrels of oil contaminated with PCBs.
Experts agree that this incident could have had
catastrophic results. Nevertheless, the containment
efforts of half a dozen Federal, State and local agencies
were successful and a catastrophe was averted.
Unfortunately, we must anticipate that in spite of
stringent efforts now being taken to minimize the
likelihood of PCB contamination, many more such
incidents will occur in the future.
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Lafayette, Colorado: Coping with Pure PCBs in
Corroded Tanks
For about ten years, 17 barrels of almost pure PCBs
slowly corroded behind a shed on a farm in Lafayette,
Colorado. Renters on the property, alerted to the
hazards of PCBs by a public television special on toxic
materials, contacted news media representatives, who
informed the EPA Regional Office in Denver.
Within hours, EPA inspectors had determined that
the barrels did in fact contain PCBs. The inspectors
began taking steps to reduce the public health hazard.
EPA quickly contracted for construction of a chain link
fence to bar public access to the site. Intensive
sampling revealed contamination of soil, poultry, cattle
and pets. PCBs were also found in the milk of a
nursing mother who was on of the renters on the
property.
A contractor was hired to repackage the dangerously
corroded barrels inside larger barrels approved for
hazardous materials. With the immediate threat largely
abated, EPA is working with the landowner to
establish a safe storage area for the barrels until the
PCBs can be disposed of in an approved manner.
Billings, Montana: PCB Contamination of Poultry
Feed
On August 28, 1979, EPA Regional offices were
notified by both FDA and USDA of PCB-contaminated
chickens at a poultry farm in Franklin, Idaho. In
September, 1979, EPA was notified of another
contaminated flock of chickens at a poultry farm in
Riverton, Utah, and of five tank cars of PCB-
contaminated tallow in Seattle. Washington.
FDA traced the cause of the contamination to feed
produced by a packing company in Billings. Montana.
EPA conducted an on-site investigation and found that
the source of contamination at the packing company
was a leaking transformer. No contaminated feed
remained at this facility. The facility's cement flooring
where the transformer drained was later removed for
disposal; the transformer itself was also removed for
disposal at a chemical waste landfill.
The 350,000 chickens at the farm in Franklin, Idaho
were disposed of at a municipal waste landfill
approved by the State of Idaho. The chickens contained
an average of 40 ppm PCBs, and one million eggs
were found to contain 3 ppm PCBs.
The 30,000 chickens at Riverton, Utah contained 25 to
30 ppm PCBs and were buried at a municipal waste
landfill approved by the Utah Department of Health.
The tank cars of tallow shipped from the packing
company in Billings, Montana, contained 250 ppm PCBs.
The contents of these cars had been mixed with non-
contaminated tallow and approximately 630,000 pounds
of this material was shipped to Japan. It is currently
being returned to the United States. 523,000 pounds
of contaminated material remain in Seattle. EPA's
Regional Off ice is working on the disposal of this material.
As FDA's investigation continues, EPA will assist in
ensuring the proper disposal of all contaminated
materials which are uncovered.
As a result of these very disturbing incidents, EPA
and FDA are currently implementing a national
program to survey the use of PCBs in food and feed
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handling establishments to ensure proper handling of
this substance in the future.
The Duwamish Waterway, Washington: Undoing the
Effects of a PCB Spill
Los Angeles, California: Minimizing PCB Discharges
In 1970-73, the Los Angeles County Sanitation
District began to investigate several hundred industrial
dischargers in order to determine the sources of PCBs
in the area. By 1975, district investigators had found
among them rebuilders of transformers, always major
users of PCBs. The district worked with the companies
to stop the PCBs from entering sewers. Separate work
areas were set up for equipment containing the
chemicals and the workers' clothes were kept separated
for eventual disposal in a special landfill for hazardous
wastes.
Speedy detection of the PCB sources was only
possible because Los Angeles County requires
industries to have "separate boxes," which allow
samples of industrial effluents to be taken before they
enter the sewer and mix with the effluents from other
dischargers.
PCB levels in the district's combined effluents had
already been reduced dramatically—from 765 parts per
billion (ppb) in 1970, to 16 ppb in 1972—reflecting
industry's voluntary effort to control PCBs. In 1975,
after the district worked with the rebuilders of
transformers, PCB levels droped to below 0.02 ppb.
Since then they have droped even further and are now
below the level at which they can be detected.
In mid-September 1974, a 250-gallon dose of PCB
(polychlorinated biphenyls) accidentally spilled into the
Dunwamish Waterway near a Seattle industrial-
commercial complex. A Westinghouse electrical
transformer containing the substances, and owned by
the Department of Defense, had fallen into the water
while being loaded aboard a barge.
Within two days an EPA field team had collected
bottom samples and traced the spread of the toxic
material. Most of the PCBs had stayed near the dock
where the transformer had spilled, but there was a
pocket further out in the waterway.
EPA had three choices. It could send down hard-hat
divers to pump the contaminated water and mud into a
Navy barge; it could remove it to Kellogg Island off-
shore by using a 22-inch pipeline dredge; or it could
use small hand held dredges to pump the water and
spill material into pre-settling tanks and then use a
physical-chemical treatment trailer.
EPA chose the third alternative. By late October of
1974 the Agency had recovered 80 to 90 gallons of
the contaminant. The Army Corps of Engineers then
dredged the waterway.
EPA continued to monitor the PCBs in the waterway.
The PCBs had, for the most part, penetrated only a
foot deep into the bottom mud. But at the spill site
itself there were still dangerous levels as much as
four feet deep. Dredgers finally had to dig all the way
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to bedrock—10 to 12 feet deep—in their efforts to
recover as much of the PCB as possible.
Another 140 to 150 gallons of PCBs were removed
by March 13. All together, 220 to 240 gallons of the
original 250 gallons spilled were removed. Most of the
danger was past.
COPING WITH OTHER HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
Nearly three billion tons of potentially hazardous
materials are produced and handled in the United
States each year. More than one million tons of these
materials escape annually into the environment
through some 5,000 to 10,000 transportation
accidents, pipeline breaks, lagoon ruptures, floods, and
intentional dumpings.
One of EPA's functions is to act in environmental
emergencies such as these. EPA is in the business of
scaling down environmental risks that degrade the
quality of life, taking quick corrective action when
necessary, and doing so in such a way that the local
community and its economy are disturbed as little as
possible.
Where risks must be evaluated, EPA draws on its
centralized store of experience and technical resources
to recommend the safest operating procedures. When
an accident does occur, EPA's role is to help the States
and localities cope with the situation in the safest
possible manner. Also, if the discharger refuses or
fails to take proper action, EPA has the authority to
initiate appropriate actions to remove or lessen the
danger.
The following stories provide examples of how these
types of spills are handled once they are detected.
Clarksburg Pond, New Jersey: Decontaminating The
Water After A Spill
When EPA's regional emergency response staff
received a call in the summer of 1974 from the/Veuv
Jersey Pesticides Project reporting hundreds of dead
bluegill, sunfish, and bass floating in Clarksburg Pond, it
sent out an investigating team.
The investigators found a toxic herbicide called
DNBP (dinitrobutylphenol) concentrated in the water. It
had been used in an adjoining parking lot as a weed
killer and had been washed into the pond by a heavy rain.
Clarksburg Pond holds about 3 million gallons of water
and covers only slightly more than an acre of land.
Nevertheless, the area's wildlife depends on the pond
for its water. The DNBP also threatened to contaminate
the groundwater and, since the pond empties into a
tributary of the Delaware River, the Delaware was threat-
ened as well.
A physical-chemical treatment trailer was hurriedly
shipped from Wisconsin on a flatbed trailer. Developed
under a research contract with EPA, the huge unit,
employing carbon column filters, began pumping the
water out of the pond at 200 gallons a minute. Five
filters, the first two sand and anthracite to trap
suspended solids and algae, the other three each
containing three tons of activated carbon, removed the
bulk of the DNBP that had washed into the pond. The
filtration unit was also used to remove pesticide
residues from the parking lot. After 90 cubic yards of
gravel were removed from the lot, the area was flushed
and the runoff put through the filtering unit.
Frequent samples of tap water from nearby homes
have since then shown the groundwater to be unaffected.
By 1976, the pond was again filled with fish, and birds
and amphibians were abundant.
The Ramapo River. New Jersey: Keeping a Plant
Operating Without Polluting
Some 13,000 gallons of ethylene glycol antifreeze
were inadvertently released from a storage tank and
entered the waste treatment system at the Ford Motor
Company's Mahwah, New Jersey auto assembly plant.
Ford wanted to keep the antifreeze in its three-million-
gallon lagoon until it bio-degraded. The antifreeze had to
be kept out of the river because it metabolizes to oxalic
acid which causes kidney blockage. So they could store
the antifreeze. Ford asked EPA for permission to bypass
its treatment system and discharge its other wastewater,
untreated, directly into the Ramapo River.
EPA agreed that the antifreeze should be kept in the
lagoon until it bio-degraded. But instead of allowing
Ford to discharge its normal wastewater without
treating it, EPA brought in its mobile activated carbon
treatment system to handle the auto plant's one
million gallons a day of normal wastewater.
The mobile treatment system operated for 11 days,
until the antifreeze had bio-degraded to safe levels and
the plant's own treatment system could be put back
into operation.
The discharge of potentially harmful ethylene glycol
and other pollutants was avoided, downstream water
quality was safeguarded, and the auto assembly plant
was able to keep operating throughout, with no loss
in production or in wages for its 1,000 employees.
employees.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Tracing a Contaminant
to Its Source
From time to time EPA and other organizations
conduct reconnaissance to seek out as-yet
unrecognized pollution problems in the water or air.
While analyzing water samples as part of its national
drinking water study in 1975, EPA found
concentrations of the suspected carcinogen BCEE (bis-
chloroethylether) in Philadelphia's water supply. Its
source was traced to the Rohm and Haas Company's
Bridesburg Plant. The company voluntarily responded
by temporarily halting the manufacture of BCEE and
immediately installing treatment equipment. Within the
year the levels had dropped low enough to meet EPA
guidelines.
Baltimore, Maryland: Danger from Rocket Fuel
In April 1976, a citizens group discovered a toxic and
carcinogenic component of rocket fuel in Baltimore's
air EPA traced the source to the FMC Fairfield Works,
and then worked with the Maryland Bureau of Air
Quality to bring about the voluntary shutdown of the
process that released the toxic chemical into the air.
The Plains, Virginia: Decontamination Needed
The discovery of a pesticide called toxaphene sent the
same physical-chemical treatment trailer used in
Clarksburg Pond to Plains, Virginia in the spring of
1975. A bag of toxaphene, a highly toxic poison, had
been dumped into a pond near The Plains and
threatened to contaminate the Manassas water supply,
which serves 40,000 people. After more than a month
of cleanup operations, including filtration of the entire
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pond, most of the toxaphene was removed and the
community was saved from harm.
Belle, West Virginia: Stopping DMN Discharge
In 1976, the DuPont plant in Belle, West Virginia
was discovered to be discharging DMN, a chemical
that is both toxic and carcinogenic, into the air and the
water. The DMN was a byproduct of the manufacture
of certain organic chemicals. DuPont eliminated the
water discharge and worked with the West Virginia Air
Pollution Control Commission to install control
equipment which eliminated the air emissions as well.
Williams Creek, Kentucky: A Quick Response
Protects the Ohio
In the early morning hours of a day late in October
1973, 15 cars of an eastbound freight train careened
off the track and plunged into a gully near the village of
Rush, Kentucky. Hearing the crash from his wooden
frame house across the road from the wreckage, Bobby
Joe Middleton saw fire spreading under the cars, so he
and his wife hurried their three children through the
rain and darkness to a neighbor's home a few hundred
yards away. Ten minutes later, a tank car exploded,
sending flames 50 feet high, destroying Middleton's car
and truck and the surrounding trees, blistering the paint
on his house, and melting the window panes.
Two of the derailed cars were filled with
acrylonitnle, a highly flammable liquid used in making
plastics and capable of giving off cyanide gas when
burned. Forty-three thousand gallons of the highly
poisonous fluid gushed into Williams Creek, setting it
afire and killing fish. Several cars of the train that
were filled with metallic sodium, also highly reactive,
lay ruptured on their sides.
State policemen and members of the Boyd County
Rescue Squad arrived and spread out across a broad
area surrounding the wreck, warning residents not to
drink the water and to keep livestock away from the
stream. The EPA Regional Office in Atlanta sent an on-
scene coordinator and urged that residents evacuate
the valley. An area three miles in diameter was
cordoned off.
Earthen dams were built across the creek, peat moss
was applied as a filtering agent, and stream water was
sprayed upward for aeration. The chemical remaining
in the cars was allowed to burn off to prevent contamina-
tion and further explosions.
Because Williams Creek runs into a tributary of the
Ohio River, scientists feared contamination of that major
waterway. While railway cleanup crews cleared the
debris, EPA initiated several weeks of intensive
monitoring to ensure that drinking water wells, and the
Ohio itself, had not been poisoned. When concentrations
of acrylonitrile dropped rapidly in the vicinity, the Agency
decided that the area was once again safe for the local
residents. A cooperative effort by State and local
authorities, railroad crews, and EPA had headed off what
might have been a major environmental disaster.
Lowe, Kentucky: A Train Derailment Releases Toxic
Chemicals
Ready access to the right information is critical in
any environmental spill. It helped avert a catastrophe
near Lowe, Kentucky on May 20, 1976.
EPA was informed that a train carrying industrial
chemicals had derailed outside of Lowe. Some tank
cars had been damaged and ruptured, and 40,000
gallons of methylene chloride and carbon tetrachloride
had poured into an adjacent stream, killing all the fish
and damaging the remaining aquatic life. Other tank
cars containing ethylene oxide, trichloroethylene,
ethylene glycol, and hyrofluoric acid were leaking.
EPA immediately notified Kentucky State authorities
and the appropriate railroad officials. Drawing on the
Technical Assistance Data System, a data bank set up
to help in such emergencies, EPA was quickly able to
determine the extent of the hazard and to alert all
concerned about the hazards of each of the toxic
substances that had been spilled and how to handle
them. Two hundred fifty people were evacuated from
the sparsely populated area, which was completely
cordoned off.
For the next several days, EPA's On-scene Coordinator
continued to work closely with State, local and railway
officials to neutralize the spill and limit further damage.
Several techniques, including aeration and filtration,
were used to prevent wider contamination of nearby
water. Because of EPA's experience in spill control and
access to critical information, and the diligence of State
and local personnel, the efforts vere successful.
Marion County, Kentucky: Danger Averted
In Marion County, Kentucky, a farmer named David
Wright and his four-year-old granddaughter watched
from the dinette of his home as a flat-bed trailer jack-
knifed across the road, slid into a ditch, and
showered his pastures and the highway with 55-gallon
steel drums.
When chemicals spilled out of the containers onto
the ground, Wright had to move his Hereford cows to
another pasture. The fumes and the odor soon drove
Wright away too.
One week later, the water pipes in Wright's home
began to tremble. Then water and air burst out of the
pipes. Invesitgation revealed that the spilled chemicals
had seeped three feet into the ground and dissolved
the four-inch thick plastic water main.
Further investigation revealed that the truck that had
spilled the steel drums had been heading to an
unauthorized dump on a nearby farm. Some 400 barrels
of chemicals and several open trenches were found
there.
With EPA's help, the Kentucky Department for
Natural Resources and Enviornmental Protection
cleaned up the dump site and the spill site. They removed
intact drums of chemical wastes and disposed of them
properly. Non-hazardous wastes were taken to an
authorized landfill.
EPA monitored wells near the dump and found that
the hazardous wastes had not contaminated the
groundwater.
Shepherdsville, Kentucky: The Valley of the Drums
In 1967, on a 23 acre site near Shepherdsville,
Kentucky, A. L. Taylor began collecting industrial waste
from various sources in and around the city of
Louisville, Kentucky. The waste material was
transported in drums to the site and then dumped.
When space became a problem, the drums were opened
and their contents poured into trenches or pits. Later,
these pits were covered with soil and additional drums
were placed on top.
Mr. Taylor operated this site without a permit until
his death in 1977. Although the dump site was
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abandoned at this time, it presented serious
environmental problems. Over the years, the drums
had begun to corrode, swell, and burst, discharging
hazardous substances into the headwaters of Wilson
Creek. Surface runoff from rain and melted snow
compounded the problem. In fact, some of the local
residents reported that the waste material entering
Wilson Creek made it multi-colored. There were also
reports that spontaneous fires developed at this site, for
no apparent reason.
In March, 1979, EPA was notified by a State
employee about the discharge of oil and hazardous
substances into Wilson Creek from the A.L. Taylor site,
which became known as "the Valley of the Drums."
With the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources,
EPA conducted a sampling program for a biological and
chemical survey of the site and the Wilson Creek
watershed. The chemical analyses identified 142
compounds primarily found in solvents such as
toluene, xylene and benzene.
As part of the source control, drums were uprighted,
arranged in rows and marked according to the general
nature of the contents, i.e., solids, liquids, or empty.
About 20,000 drums were above ground, with an
unknown quantity underground. Personnel from EPA
responded to the incident and initiated the activities for
containment and removal of the spilled materials.
These activities included:
• Construction of an underflow dam to contain
floatable material such as oil.
• Use of in-stream aeration devices to remove the
volatile organic chemicals.
• Construction of a catchment basin with
interceptor trenches to contain the surface runoff
and the lateral migration ot contaminants tnrougn
the soil.
• Construction of a temporary filtration unit
consisting of crushed limestone, aeration and two
cells of activated carbon to treat the
contaminated water in the catchment basin.
Approximately $300,000 in Federal funds has
already been expended to relieve the emergency
situation. This does not include the expense of
disposing of the waste—and disposal activities have
hardly even begun.
Harrodsburg, Kentucky: A Detective Story
Locating the source of a pollution problem is not
always easy. When EPA received a letter from a
resident of Harrodsburg, Kentucky complaining of a
recurring odor and "slime growth" in historic Harrods
Spring and in Town Creek, EPA staff consulted with the
Kentucky Department of Natural Resources, which
requested the Agency to investigate further.
EPA personnel concluded that the odor was caused by
decomposition of Sphaerotilus, a micro-organism that
feeds on nutrients and organic carbon in the water. AS
the Sphaerotilus died and decayed, hydrogen sulfide gas
was released, giving off a decidedly unpleasant odor that
is often likened to the smell of rotten eggs.
State investigators had already conducted dye tracer
studies and found a connection between Harrods Spring
and a sinkhole into which the Corning Glass Works
discharged its wastewater.
But why was the Sphaerotilus growing in the spring to
begin with? Was the connection with the Corning sink-
hole responsible? Compounds of strontium and the
rare earth element cerium were found in water samples
from the spring, in sediment collected from Town Creek,
and in the wastewater discharged by Corning. Since
these elements are not normally found in Kentucky soil
and were present in Coming's discharge, the State and
EPA considered the source found and the mystery
solved.
Corning agreed to install additional treatment
equipment and alter its manufacturing techniques to
improve the quality of its discharges. These measures
have worked. The residents report no further odor from
the spring, and the slime growth that plagued the creek
has disappeared.
Chattanooga, Tennessee: The Aftermath of a
Bankruptcy
In 1976, when the National Waste Oil Company in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, went bankrupt, it abandoned
open storage tanks containing 150,000 gallons of oil and
sludge contaminated with pesticides. Heavy rains could
have caused the tanks to overflow and spill the toxic
chemical wastes into nearby Citico Creek—and from
there into the city of Chattanooga's water system.
Quick action by EPA, the Tennessee Valley Authority,
and State and local officials prevented that disaster. EPA
used its mobile carbon filtration unit to decontaminate
the water mixed with the oil. The contaminated oil was
incinerated. With technical support from EPA, the State
filed charges and made the owner clean up the site. As a
result, the sludge was removed and the site was graded
and capped.
Memphis, Tennessee: Response to an Industrial Fire
Fire destroyed the manufacturing plant of an agricul-
tural chemical company in Memphis, Tennessee.
People in the surrounding area were evacuated due to
the toxic fumes emitted by the burning chemicals.
EPA was notified of the incident and responded to the
scene with spill response and air monitoring
personnel. This action was taken under the authority
of the National Contingency Plan (for spills of oil and
hazardous materials). When EPA personnel arrived on-
scene, runoff water from the fire, which already totaled
several million gallons, was contained by local officials
in a flood plain.
The EPA On-Scene Coordinator assembled all Federal,
State and local officials, who determined a course of
action. First priority was given to containing pollution
that might cause health problems (i.e., air pollution;
chemical fallout; garden, home and industrial
contamination; and human toxicological effects), and
second priority was given to environmental pollution.
Approximately two and a half weeks of close coordina-
tion among Federal, State and local officials culminated
in the safe disposal of about 14 million gallons of
chemically contaminated water. Within weeks the total
decontamination and disposal of the chemicals and
building materials of the plant was completed. These
cooperative actions averted the possible long-term
contamination of a water resource that is significant to
the Memphis area.
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The Saline River, Kansas: Another Major Disaster
Averted
On one hot July night in 1975, a corroded oil line in
central Kansas ruptured, sending 588,000 gallons of
crude oil flowing downhill toward the Saline River three
miles away. The immense magnitude of the spill, the
largest in Kansas history, matched that of the better
known 1969 catastrophe in the Santa Barbara Channel
in California.
The black torrent was discovered when an
unfortunate cat returned in the early morning hours to
its owner's farmhouse, wailing and with its fur slicked
down.
By this time the oil had advanced to within a mile of
the river. Amoco, owner of the pipeline, was notified,
and an all-out race to prevent the oil from reaching the
waterway followed. Huge pits dug across the path of the
oil quickly filled to depths of 12 feet. The Kansas
Department of Health and the EPA Regional Office both
sent investigators and supervisory personnel to the spill
site. The oil was pumped into transport trucks and stored
nearby, while the remaining oil in the dry well was
burned or soaked up with prairie hay. Contaminated
ground was plowed under or scraped off and buried.
Thanks to the timely and effective spill response
efforts, the only damage from the incident was the loss
of four small apple trees on a nearby farm, and
temporary contamination of the dry well and some
wheat fields that had already been harvested. Amoco's
on-site cleanup chief predicted the fields would yield a
poor crop during the next season, but that they would
yield a better than average crop the year after, when the
oil in the earth would have decomposed and begun to act
as a fertilizer.
Ogden Bay. Utah: Preventing an Environmental
Disaster
Utah's Ogden Bay lies along the eastern edge of the
Great Salt Lake on a major flyway for migratory
waterfowl. It is a beautiful, fragile, and incredibly varied
escosystem with extensive nesting and feeding areas. It
therefore has been set aside as a wildlife refuge.
For several years, until the summer of 1974, a
veritable death trap—a f ive-and-one-half acre waste
lagoon—lay a scant half-mile away from the refuge. The
lagoon contained oil residues and acid sludge from a
waste oil recovery operation conducted for a railroad in
the late 1960's.
Even after the recovery operation terminated,
wastes continued to be dumped into natural drainages
and behind poorly constructed dikes. A combination of
rainwater, runoff, and high groundwater left a lagoon
system containing three layers of waste material: an
oil/water emulsion on top; a strongly acidic, oil-
contaminated water layer in the middle; and, on the
bottom, acidic sludge and contaminated filter cake.
The lagoon became an iridescent, polluted pond. Its
glistening surface attracted and trapped hundreds of
waterfowl, including Canadian Geese and several kinds
of ducks. Once, the bodies of eight sheep were found
mired in the stagnant, acidic liquid. Finally, lagoon
liquids, overtopping or leaching through insecure dikes,
were identified at the refuge boundary.
State and Federal officials were alarmed. In October
1973, EPA declared the lagoon an imminent and
substantial threat to the environment, and requested
that the United States Attorney for the District of Utah
seek relief in the courts. Attempts to encourage the
owners of the property and the owners and operators of
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the recovery operation to clean up the lagoon dragged on
for several months, with no action.
In February 1974, a Federal team began to work
with the State of Utah and county agencies to initiate
immediate cleanup actions. It had become evident that
immediate emergency abatement action was required.
The lagoon was dangerously full—scant inches
remained between the oil surface and the top of the dike.
The annual peak of precipitation was imminent, and that,
combined with spring snow runoff, could lead to further
overtopping and probable catastrophic failure of the dike.
As a first stop-gap measure, an emergency response
contractor placed sandbags on the eroded and weakened
portions of the dike, constructed an oil-skimming pond to
contain the emulsion in the event of a dike failure, and
built diversion berms to prevent any additional
precipitation inflow. County crews assisted in the
construction of a site road and work area.The clean-up
contractor, using irrigation pumps, skimmed waste oil
from behind the weakened dike into another, higher
section of the lagoon. Screens at the pump inlets were
required to prevent bird carcasses from clogging the
pipes.
The Regional Response Team decided to "land farm"
the top two layers of polluted liquid. The liquid was
spread out in thin layers on specially prepared Air Force
land nearby, treated with chemicals to neutralize liquid
constituents or stimulate micro-organism growth, and
allowed to bio-degrade.
The bottom layer of sludge was treated in place. State
crews assisted in the construction of a clay perimeter
and cross dikes to isolate sludge. Then, tons of alkaline
soil were mixed with it and an 18-inch cap of clay was
compacted over the area to seal it against erosion and
moisture infiltration. Disposal was essentially complete
by August 1974.
Since that time, at the land farm the soil fraction of
the lagoon liquids has been decomposed by soil micro-
organisms, the liquids neutralized by the alkaline soil
and the heavy metal contaminants bound up in the soil
particles. Extensive revegetation of the site by volunteers
occurred within the first year. There has since been no
indication of offsite contaminant migrations from either
the land farm or the lagoon area.
Because of the timely cleanup action, the wildlife
refuge was preserved. Canadian geese still share the
skies with soaring gulls, and heron and tiny wading
birds continue to frequent the bay.
Spill Response Cooperatives
In many areas across the country, companies in the oil
industry prepared for emergency response by forming
spill response cooperatives. Joining together in co-ops,
they believed, would enable them to respond more
effecitvely, and at relatively low cost, to spill emergencies.
The Southeast-Wyoming Spill Cooperative, for
example, was formed in 1972 by 21 companies from all
phases of the oil business—exploration, drilling,
refining, and pipeline transmission. The Co-op has stock-
piled materials for cleanup and containment at strategic
locations within its area of coverage, from which they
can be quickly dispatched to a spill site.
A 16,000 gallon spill into the Powder River near
Kaycee, Wyoming, and a second spill, which dumped
over a quarter-million gallons of crude oil into Casper
Creek, did only negligible environmental damage, thanks
to the Co-op, which moved swiftly to clear the oil from
these waterways. Without such immediate on-the-spot
action, the Casper Creek spill, in particular, could have
been a major disaster.
INVOLVEMENT OF EPA RESEARCH SCIENTISTS IN
SPILL RESPONSE
Normally, spill response is handled by emergency
response staff located in each of EPA'sten Regional
Offices. On occasion, however, the nature of the spill is
such that the assistance of a special spill response group
from EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is
required.
When a spill requiring specialized assistance
occurs, ORD's technical team moves, on request, to the
site to collect and analyze samples. Depending on the
nature of the spill, ORD may then bring in its own
portable "mobile spills laboratory" and its physical-
chemical treatment trailer.
The mobile spills laboratory allows quick, accurate,
on-site analysis of the spill substance and avoids
potentially harmful delays involved in shipping samples
to and from the scene. The mobile laboratory employs a
variety of sophisticated analytical techniques, including
computerized gas chromatography; atomic, infra-red,
and fluorescence absorption spectrophotometry; and
the full range of standard wet-chemistry methods.
The portable physical-chemical treatment trailer is
effective in the decontamination of medium-sized spills.
This system contains three mixed-media filters for the
removal of suspended or precipitated material and three
activated carbon columns for the absorption of many
soluble organic chemicals. The system includes a
15,000-gallon portable tank, in which contaminated
liquids can be mixed with chemicals designed to
flocculate, precipitate, or neutralize the hazardous
substances. It also has several 3,000-gallon "pillow"
tanks for the storage of decontaminated effluent.
The ORD spill team has refined its spill response
procedure and technology over the years since its
inception in 1971, as illustrated by the following case
histories.
North Carolina: PCBs Along the Roadways
During the summer of 1978, over 200 miles of North
Carolina roadways were contaminated by polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) that were surreptitiously dumped along
highways. State and EPA enforcement officials carried
out an extensive investigation to find out who was
responsible for the dumping, and were ultimately
successful. ORD was asked to supply technical support
to the State and to EPA's Regional Office in assessing the
hazards associated with the spill and in developing a
strategy to rectify the problem.
To define the initial problem, ORD scientists analyzed
some initial samples of roadside soil from areas thought
to be contaminated. The soil was tested for PCBs and
other impurities. Analysis showed concentrations of PCS
in the upper inch of soil that ranged from 5,000 to 10,000
ppm. Chlorinated benzenes were also present.
The ambient air was monitored at three spill sites
before, during, and after a test removal of contaminated
soil to determine the extent to which PCBs were being
released into the atmosphere. Ambient air was also
monitored in connection with in-place treatment tests
proposed by the State. This treatment involved the mixing
of activated charcoal, lime, and fertilizer into the soil to
dilute and bind the PCBs. Results of all studies showed
PCS levels in the air to be no higher than those found in
urban or industrial areas.
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those found in urban or industrial areas.
Air was also sampled inside houses along the test
removal route and near a contaminated roadway. PCB
concentrations were found to be well within prescribed
standards.
A third air monitoring effort involved studying the air
breathed by personnel involved in removing or treating
the contaminated soil in place. During the soil removal
phase of the study, PCB levels were below the one
microgram per cubic meter level for all but one sweeper
operator. During the in-place treatment phase, a number
of workers close to the dustier parts of the operation were
exposed to PCB levels si ightly higher than those proposed
by NIOSH as being safe for humans in the workplace.
Blood samples from the test spill removal team were
taken by the State Department of Health and analyzed
by EPA's Office of Research and Development prior to
the operation to determine baseline levels and to
ensure that no one was selected for the task that had
higher than usual PCB levels.
Studies were conducted on the proposed in-place
treatment of PCBs by the addition of activiated
charcoal. Laboratory results indicated that the PCBs
were transferred from the soil to the charcoal with a
50 to 70 percent efficiency, and that PCBs were not
leached from either soil or charcoal by water.
Animal studies to determine the effects of activated
charcoal on PCBs found that activated charcoal does
decrease the effects of PCBs, but does not eliminate
them.
The ORD scientists concluded that the primary hazard
to humans from contaminated soil comes from chronic
exposure from direct contact, for example, by walking
over spill areas. Exposure through the air would be
negligible, even during removal or in-place treatment,
except for workers nearest to dust-producing operations.
While it was determined that precipitation would not
leach PCBs from the soil into nearby streams, their
spread by erosion during iieavy rains was a distinct
possibility.
The in-place treatment of the soil proposed by some
cleanup participants was not considered effective by
EPA scientists, who subsequently provided the technical
basis for EPA's decision to recommend against it.
Rather, EPA advised that the contaminated soil be
removed and placed in controlled chemical landfills to
eliminate all risks of human exposure.
Dittmer, Missouri: Danger from Rainwater Overflow
In Dittmer, Missouri, rainwater overflowed from a pit
that had been used as a dumping site for chemical
waste. The effluent contaminated a nearby water supply
feed stream. The ORD team responded with a cleanup
effort, which involved excavation and disposal of the
contaminants m the pit, treatment of the stream water
with the EPA portable physical-chemical treatment
system, and design and installation of a field-improvised
carbon treatment system for stream water
decontamination that could operate after the mobile
treatment system was removed.
SPILL PREVENTION
EPA's role is not limited to spill response. It also runs a
vigorous spill prevention program. In this program, those
who own or operate non-transportation related facilities
that could potentially be the source of spills must take
effective preventive measures such as constructing
berms around storage tanks to contain any leaks or
spillage. They must also develop procedures to follow in
case a spill escapes beyond such physical barriers. Since
its oil pollution prevention regulations were issued in
1973, more than 25,000 Spill Prevention Control and
Countermeasure (SPCC) inspections have been
performed.
In the Southeast U.S. alone several thousand on-site
inspections have been made at oil storage facilities.
These measures have paid off. U.S. Coast Guard records
show a steady decline in spills from such facilities. In
1973, 2,700,000 gallons escaped; in 1974, 1,500,000
gallons were spilled; by 1975, the figure was down to
1,100,000 gallons, less than half of what it had been two
years before.
The Clean Water Act puts the burden of preventing
and cleaning up pollution accidents largely on industry.
The company that might cause a spill should take the
first action to avert or minimize it, not only by law but by
reason of proximity. Once a spill occurs, every minute
counts. Even with jet aircraft, response time from an
EPA Regional Office to a remote site would be hours.
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Dealing With the Noise Problem
135
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The EPA Noise Program was formally established on
December 31,1970 under Title IV of the Clean Air
Amendments of 1970. Title IV directed the Agency to
conduct a full and complete investigation and study of
noise and its effect on public health and welfare, and to
report the findings to Congress within one year. That
report provided the information needed to support the
first national noise control legislation in the United
States: the Noise Control Act of 1972, which was signed
by the President on October 27,1972.
Under the Noise Control Act of 1972, the Agency was
mandated to:
• Identify major sources of noise;
• Regulate those identified sources;
• Propose aircraft noise standards to the FAA;
• Label noisy products;
• Engage in research, technical assistance, and
dissemination of public information; and
• Coordinate all Federal noise control efforts.
As the regulatory effort progressed, along with the
other aspects of the program noted above, it became
evident that although effective source regulations at the
national level were needed, those regulations must be
augmented by effective noise control programs at the
State and local level. In 1978, the Agency began putting
more emphasis on providing the necessary technical
assistance to States and localities with limited
resources.
During Congressional oversight hearings in the spring
of 1978, much of the testimony highlighted the need for
developing more effective local noise control programs,
expanding the public education/information program,
and providng increased funding for technical assistance
at the State and local levels. In response to these needs.
Congress passed the Quiet Communities Act of 1978
The Act was signed into law on November 8, 1978. The
Quiet Communities Act amended the Noise Control Act
of 1972 to increase significantly the EPA role in aiding
States and localities in establishing noise control
programs and in providing the public with information on
the harmful effects of noise on their health and welfare
The new Act mandates EPA to fund, through grants,
cooperative agreements or contracts for:
• Financial assistance to States and localities to
support
— Problem identification
— Noise control capacity-building
— Transportation noise abatement
— Evaluation and demonstration of noise control
techniques.
• Establishment of regional technical assistance
centers;
• Provision of assistance in staffing and training for
State and local programs;
• Employing maximum numbers of older Americans in
noise control programs;
• Conduct of a national environmental noise assess-
ment;
• Development of education materials;
• Loans of equipment to States and localities; and
• Increased noise research.
THE NEW FOCUS IS ON LOCAL ACTION
Under the authority of the Quiet Communities Act,
EPA has constructed an array of programs tailored to the
problems of individual communities and their noise
reduction goals There are four components of EPA's
strategy for assisting communities in these efforts the
Quiet Communities Program, the ECHO Program,
Regional Technical Assistance Centers, and Public
Information initiatives.
The Quiet Communities Program
In September 1977, EPA launched its first Quiet
Communities Program research and demonstration
project in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This is a pilot project
to demonstrate the application of the best available
techniques for local noise control.
The ECHO Program: Each Community Helps Others
The ECHO program (Fach Community A/elps Others) is
designed to aid communities throughout the U.S. in
developing or improving noise abatement programs
through the advice and assistance of volunteer noise
control experts from other communities. Program
emphasis is on the transferabilrry of local noise control
skills and experiences. The ECHO program, initiated in
1978, continues to operate successfully. Many
communities have already received assistance under the
ECHO program.
Regional Technical Assistance Centers
Ten regional technical assistance centers, using the
capabilities of universities and private institutions, have
been established. These centers have proved to be very
helpful supplements to the Regional noise control effort
by providing technical assistance and training to State
and local officials.
Dissemination of Public Information
A major education and public information effort was
launched in 1976, and has been given increased
emphasis m response to the Quiet Communities Act of
1978 New programs and materials have been designed
and developed to provide the public with information on
the effects of noise on their health and quality of life and
on specific remedies to alleviate or reduce this growing
environmental problem.
COMMUNITY-ORIENTED NOISE REDUCTION
PROGRAMS
The following case histories are examples of noise
pollution efforts at the local level made possible through
EPA programs
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Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown, Pennsylvania was selected in September
1977 as the first Quiet Communities Program research
and demonstration project. EPA provided guidance and
funds for fostering total community involvement. The
goal was to demonstrate noise reduction benefits
through the use of best available control techniques.
The Allentown project was designed to consist of four
phases, the first three of which have been completed:
(1) a comprehensive assessment study to identify and
define noise control needs, (2) development of a local
noise control strategy incorporating assessment data,
and (3) passage of a responsive noise control ordinance.
The fourth and final stage, enforcement, is ongoing.
While the first community-wide evaluation of
effectiveness has not been completed, preliminary
results from specific areas indicate that noise throughout
the city has been reduced by five decibels. The citizens of
Allentown can look forward to enjoying a quieter
environment.
noise control ordinance which was passed by the City
Council. Demonstrations of sound-level meters were
given and a workshop was held for police officers to
assist them in enforcing the ordinance. Officials from
Mason City, Iowa, also attended the latter event.
Because of EPA's ECHO Program and the dedication
of a volunteer Community Noise Advisor from a neighbor-
ing city. Fort Dodge has an effective noise program and
qualified personnel to enforce it.
Camp Grayling, Michigan
Anyone interested in buying property around a military
installation near Grayling, Michigan, can now find out
what to expect in the way of noise, thanks to the
Michigan National Guard and the Noise Program staff in
EPA's Chicago Regional Office.
The National Guard was aware that some local real
estate agents were starting to sell land bordering the
base, which contains a tank firing range. In order to be
able to alert potential buyers to the extent of the noise
problem, the Guard wanted to measure the noise levels
resulting from its activities, so it contacted EPA.
EPA staffers spent two days measuring tank firing
noise levels outside the base and then prepared a report
showing actual measurements at specific locations. The
report also contained a formula for predicting noise
levels at any distance from the tanks
The report has been widely circulated in the area so
that potential home buyers will know what they are
getting into. There was an additional benefit as well. The
Guard used the findings to relocate the gun range, and
noise levels everywhere off the base are now lower than
before.
The cooperative effort between the Michigan National
Guard and EPA has indeed paid off. Both potential home
buyers and current property owners around the base are
better off than before. The home buyers are benefiting
from better information about what noise level to expect,
and the current property owners are benefiting from
lower noise levels.
Fort Dodge, Iowa
Noise pollution has a deleterious effect on com-
munities regardless of their size. Fort Dodge, Iowa, a city
of 33,000 residents, was experiencing excessive noise
from vehicular sources. City officials contacted EPA for
assistance, and the city became a recipient of assistance
under the ECHO Program. A noise control specialist
employed by Sioux City, Iowa, was assigned as a Com-
munity Noise Advisor (CNA) and visited Fort Dodge to
discuss the problem. This meeting led to the drafting of a
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Improving Environmental Planning
139
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The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA)
requires that Federal agencies incorporate the
consideration of environmental values into their
program and project planning. A major requirement of
the Act was that Federal agencies prepare Environ-
mental Impact Statement (EISs) on any actions they plan
that may have significant environmental effects. This
requirement applies to actions that the Federal govern-
ment directly undertakes, to actions the Federal govern-
ment funds, and also to those projects that require a
Federal permit or license. As a result of NEPA, tens of
thousands of actions annually undergo environmental
review, and many of those go through the full-fledged
EIS process.
EPA's project-specific activities that require NEPA
review are the construction grant program for municipal
wastewater treatment facilities and the permitting of
new industrial wastewater discharges. NEPA requires
that EPA assess not only the water quality impacts of the
sewage from these municipal and industrial facilities but
all other potential environmental impacts of the facilities
as well, including air quality, noise, and land use
impacts. If any of these are significant, EPA writes an
EIS.
EPA also reviews the EISs prepared by other Federal
agencies and comments on both their adequacy and the
acceptability of the environmental impacts that will
result from their implementation. In this way, EPA
ensures that adequate consideration of the environ-
ment occurs in Federal planning, and that all Federal
agencies fully explore alternative ways to accomplish
their objectives in an environmentally acceptable
manner.
ASSESSING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF
EPA's ACTIONS
One significant example of the benefits to be derived
from conscientious environmental impact analyses was
presented earlier. The EIS for small lakes in the Great
Lakes Region demonstrated that, in most cases, the use of
alternative waste treatment results in significantly
reduced adverse environmental impacts as well as
greatly reduced costs. As a result of that environmental
impact analysis, the techniques used to treat wastes in
the vicinity of small lakes are expected to change
substantially over the next few years.
A second example of the impact of environmental
assessment was presented in the case history of Sope
Creek In this case, the EIS brought about a change not in
the control technology applied, but rather in the location
of necessary piping The environmental analysis of the
proposed project resulted in the identification of a clearly
more environmentally desirable route for the required
pipelines, thereby preserving the integrity of a canyon of
considerable natural beauty.
We now present another case history in which the EIS
for proposed EPA actions resulted in project design
changes that would ensure the protection of the environ-
ment.
Yarmouth, Massachusetts
Yarmouth, Massachusetts, like many towns on Cape
Cod, does not have any sewage facilities; its wastewater
flows to the groundwater aquifer through septic
systems. Since the groundwater is also the source of its
drinking water, Yarmouth is very aware of the need to
protect its underground water resources A consultant
was retained by the town in 1974 to study its
wastewater situation. The resulting facilities plan
recommended sewers and centralized treatment for the
southern part of Yarmouth, and construction of a
separate septic facility for disposal of wastes pumped
from septic tanks for the rest of the area In its review of
the facilities plan for construction grant funding, EPA
decided an EIS was warranted because of the potential
for groundwater degradation, local controversy over
system costs, and questions regarding the extent of
sewering that was necessary
The EIS study involved collection of extensive data on
the nature and extent of existing wastewater disposal
problems. This included a review of previous reports and
technical data as well as collection of new data via public
meetings, distribution of a town-wide questionnaire,
field inspections, and water quality sampling. The results
of the study showed that, with the exception of one
concentrated commercial area, the town's water quality
needs could be met without sewering by improving the
management of on-site systems. It was also determined
that the proposed sewering would have been 11 times
more expensive than retaining the septic systems.
The EIS identified three alternatives for handling the
wastewater flows from the commercial area. Because
State law prohibits wastewater discharge to adjacent
saltwater areas, all three alternatives are for ultimate
disposal to the groundwater aquifer. Planning is now
proceeding for the selection of the alternative that will be
implemented. EPA intends to condition its construction
grant to require that the community implement an
adequate on-site system management program, which
will ensure that the objectives of the project are
accomplished.
In addition to the substantial cost savings, the project
will mitigate several environmental problems associated
with the previously proposed projects. This includes a
potential nitrate contamination problem in the ground-
water, adverse hydrologic and ecological impacts
associated with the originally proposed disposal site, and
potential negative effects on nearby wetland areas and
conservation property.
REVIEWING OTHER FEDERAL ACTIONS
EPA has also had significant impact on the
environment through its comments on EISs prepared by
other Federal agencies. The Agency has commented on
EISs for highways, reservoirs, and improvements in
national forest areas
Highways
EPA has successfully influenced the design of high-
ways in order to protect the environment.
Two segments of Baltimore, Maryland's proposed
highway network—Interstate 95 and City Boulevard-
included a downtown loop and an Interstate which
connected downtown Baltimore with suburbs to the
southwest. EPA's review of the EISs indicated that
building the loop and Interstate would result in violations
of the ambient air quality standards for carbon
monoxide.
Control measures were developed to reduce pollution
levels to meet standards, but because there were many
unpredictable factors (e.g., future traffic projections,
relationship of other highway projects, effectiveness of
pollution control devices), the proposed control
measures could not guarantee that standards would
always be met. Approval of the final EIS would end EPA's
involvement. In order to allow filing of the final
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statement and still keep an active role in the issues as
the remaining uncertainties resolved themselves, EPA
signed a Memorandum of Understanding with local,
State and Federal highway agencies. This formalized
EPA's continuing review opportunities, established
continuing responsibilities for monitoring the
effectiveness of control measures by highway sponsors,
and allowed both completion of the final EISs and
subsequent construction of the highways.
Such agreements may be used in other highway-
related air quality controversies in the Baltimore area
and may be appropriate for other situations where EPA
wants to have i :ew authority after a final EIS has been
approved.
Reservoirs
Another example of the impact of EPA review of
actions proposed by other Federal agencies was
presented in the case history of the O'Neill Reservoir.
In that case, environmental concerns raised by EPA
led to agreement on the mandatory use of "best manage-
ment practices" by those using the reservoir's water
in order to ensure that groundwater quality was not
degraded.
Planning For Roadless Areas in National Forests
A third example of EPA involvement in environ-
mental planning by other Federal agencies is the
Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II)
process initiated by the Secretary of Agriculture. EPA
has had long and continuous involvement in this process,
primarily through NEPA reviews.
Under the terms of a 1973 out-of-court settlement with
the Sierra Club, the Forest Service agreed to prepare a
land management plan and an EIS for each roadless
National Forest area before permitting any access to
such areas. Because of problems associated with
conducting piecemeal analyses of the total 63 million
acres of roadless areas, the Forest Service decided to
conduct a comprehensive analysis of these areas.
To assist in the RARE II process, a systematic decision
model was developed to screen roadless areas and
determine whether they should be classified as
"wilderness," "further planning," or "non-wilderness".
In its review of the decision model presented in the RARE I
draft EIS, EPA pointed out several significant biases and
errors which discounted water quality considerations
and resulted in an inherent anti-wilderness bias.
Acknowledging these deficiencies, the Forest Service,
along with EPA, developed and applied an extensive
"hand model" review of the RARE II recommendations
for each tract.
EPA also helped ensure public involvement in the
RARE II review. The public, as well as EPA, found it very
difficult to obtain and review the lengthy and complex
RARE II recommendations and EIS in the limited time
provided in the initial Forest Service schedule
Recognizing this situation, and in keeping with EPA's
responsibility to ensure adequate EIS review, EPA
requested, and the Forest Service granted, an extension
of time for the public to review and comment on the
RARE II EIS. As a result, many significant comments
were received that resulted in improved decisions in
recommending wilderness or non-wilderness land uses,
and the Forest Service's RARE II process gained greater
credibility.
Altogether, EPA involvement in the RARE II NEPA
review resulted in recommendations which increased
protection of water quality as well as the confidence of
environmental and resource development groups and
the public in the integrity of the RARE II process.
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MINIMIZING THE ADVERSE IMPACTS OF ENERGY
DEVELOPMENT
EPA's Energy Policy Statement for the Rocky
Mountain-Prairie Region
Beneath many State and Federally owned lands in the
States of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the
Dakotas lie huge reserves of energy resources—coal, oil
natural gas, uranium, and oil shale.
These resources figure prominently in the Nation's
drive toward energy self-sufficiency. EPA is committed
to doing its part in helping achieve that National goal.
EPA is also committed to protecting the high quality
environment enjoyed by residents and visitors to these
States.
With those dual goals in mind, EPA's Regional Office
in Denver released, during 1979, a draft energy policy
for the benefit of elected officials, interested citizens,
environmentalists, and industry describing how the
Region and EPA intend to achieve the delicate balance
necessary to meet those goals.
The policy commits EPA to the following actions within
the Rocky Mountain-Prairie Region:
• to ensure that environmental standards and objec-
tives are not violated by energy facilities.
• to expedite regulatory decision-making on all
energy projects, including an objective to review all
energy facility permit applications within six months.
• to consolidate procedures, reviews and issuance of
energy related permits and requirements.
• to expand communication and coordination with
other levels of government, industry and citizens.
• to advocate phased-in modular approaches to
synthetic fuels development.
• to advocate selection of energy development options
which minimize consumptive use of water in the arid
West.
• to actively promote energy conservation measures in
its permitting and granting activities.
The 15-page policy goes beyond philosophical
commitment to improvement, and spells out the
responsibilities of various units within the Regional
Office in ensuring that the policy statement is
implemented.
At this writing, hundreds of copies are out for review
within the industrial and environmental communities.
Once finalized, the completed policy will be mailed to all
interested citizens in the Region and will stand as EPA's
written commitment to helping increase domestic
energy production while protecting the irreplaceable,
high-quality environment of the Rocky Mountain-Prairie
Region.
Oil Shale Development in the Rocky Mountain Region
Development of synthetic fuels can proceed and still
meet stringent air pollution standards in the West.
The Denver Regional Office, during 1979, issued
"prevention of significant deterioration" (PSD) permits to
five proposed oil shale developments on Colorado's
Western Slope which, together, are designed to produce
some 66,000 barrels of oil a day when fully operational.
PSD permits call for preconstruction review of new
sources planned in areas where air is already cleaner
than required by national standards. Designed to protect
such clean air areas—and that means much of the
energy-rich West—the policy contains air pollution limits
far more stringent than the national standards.
Much of the western oil shale resources are near
wilderness areas which enjoy Class I air quality—the
cleanest recognized in the Clean Air Act.
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By modeling the expected emissions from oil shale
facilities, the Region determines how much of the
allowable "increments" of particular pollutants would be
used up by particular industrial activities. While full-
scale oil shale development is presently awaiting a more
favorable economic atmosphere, the developments
proposed so far have received their air quality approvals
from EPA.
Helping Communities Cope With Energy Related
Growth
Many small communities in the Rocky Mountain area
face the prospect of rapid growth because of energy
development. To help them, EPA's Regional Office in
Denver asked a consulting firm—Briscoe, Maphis,
Muray, and Lament, Inc.—to prepare a handbook for
community management.
The result is "The Action Handbook," one of the most
sought-after documents on community growth in the
Region.
Parti of The Action Handbook presents an overview of
the community management process. It helps a
community determine how growth will affect the need
for various public services—police and fire fighters,
schools, sewage treatment capacity, drinking water
supplies, parks, zoning, etc. Part II outlines how to get
the community organized and involved. Part III focuses
on community action and growth management.
Six workshops have already been held—one in each
State in the Region—to acquaint local government
officials with the handbook and to encourage its use.
Several thousand copies of this useful tool have been
requested by local government officials in the Region
and in 14 other States as well.
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Some
Final
Words
Progress m improving the environment has resulted
from the combined efforts of many actors In many cases
progress has been possible only because a group of
citizens or agencies or industries—or often all of them
together—have acted. Dischargers of pollutants have in
many cases voluntarily complied with the requirements
set by EPA and the States, and have significantly
improved the environment as a result.
Nevertheless, numerous enforcement actions have
been necessary, and the number of EPA enforcement
actions has climbed significantly over the last three
years. Currently, under EPA's Major Source Enforce-
ment Effort, action is being taken against the most
blatantly out-of-compliance dischargers. Federal
enforcement activities, however, represent only a
portion of the total enforcement effort, since EPA shares
enforcement responsibility with State and local
governments. Indeed, in many Statesthe primary respon-
sibility for pollution control is at the State and local level,
with EPA personnel and resources serving only as
backup
THE FUTURE
The case histories included in this publication have
dealt, for the most part, only with the Nation's first
generation of pollution problems. Tomorrow's
environmental problems—particularly those involving
deadly toxic pollutants—confront us with even greater
challenges.
EPA's experience over the last decade demonstrates
that we must increasingly consider our waterways and
oceans, the air we breathe and our land as an integrated
whole This will require an increased emphasis on long-
term planning. Already, EPA is gaining increased
efficiencies and satisfying results by stressing interlock-
ing relationships among all natural systems. We under-
stand now that the Earth's life-giving systems are delicate
and its resources finite EPA is working to find innovative
methods of pollution control that will maintain these
natural systems and allow us to move forward as an
active, productive society.
Ultimately we must look beyond pollution abatement
to the more sophisticated arena of pollution prevention.
We need to identify and control potential pollutants,
especially toxic pollutants, before they actually damage
the environment. As the preceding case histories show,
we have made substantial headway m our effort to
control and prevent pollution in our environment. Future
accomplishments will require imagination, commitment,
and continued effort from Federal, State, and local
governments, from industry, and from the public
public.
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Glossary
and
Index
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GLOSSARY OF WASTE WATER TREATMENT TERMS
Primary Treatment — consists of the removal of
floating solids, debris and of
settleable solids. Primary
treatment relies on skimming
devices and settling tanks. No
efforts are made to remove
suspended solids or bio-
chemical oxygen demanding
substances (BOD).
Secondary Treatment — consists of primary treatment
followed by removal of approx-
imately 85 percent of sus-
pended solids and 85 percent
of BOD.
Advanced Waste — consists of secondary treat-
Treatment ment followed by additional
treatment for one or more of
the following purposes:
• greater than 85 percent
removal of suspended
solids or BOD
• greater removal of nutri-
ents (phosphates or nitrates
or both)
• removal of metals or
other toxic materials
Tertiary Treatment — means the same as "advanced
waste treatment"
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GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX
REGION I: NEW ENGLAND
Note: Entries are listed by Region (in numerical order)
then by State (in alphabetical order) within the
Region.
THE EPA REGIONS
Region I: New England
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
Region II: New York, New Jersey, and the Caribbean
New Jersey
New York
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
Region III: The Mid-Atlantic
Delaware Pennsylvania
District of Columbia Virginia
Maryland West Virginia
Region IV: The Southeast
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee
Region V: The Great Lakes Region
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Minnesota
Ohio
Wisconsin
Region VI: The South Central Region
Arkansas
Louisiana
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
Region VII: The Central Region
Iowa
Kansas
Missouri
Nebraska
Region VIII: The Rocky Mountains and Northern Plains
Colorado
Montana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Utah
Wyoming
Region IX: The Pacific Southwest
American Samoa Hawaii
Arizona Micronesia
California Nevada
Guam Northern Marianas
Region X: The Pacific Northwest
Alaska
Idaho
Oregon
Washington
Page
CONNECTICUT
Connecticut River 14
Housatonic River 15
Nashua River 14
Naugatuck River 15
Willimantic River 15
State-wide:
— S02 pollution 85
— Osprey 104
MAINE
Annabessacook, Lake 47
Haley Pond 48
Penobscot River 13
Rangeley Lake 48
State-wide:
— Air pollution 85
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston:
— Lead in drinking water 70
Cambridge:
— Lead in drinking water 70
Connecticut River 14
Nashua River 14
Quinsigamond, Lake 49
Sommerville:
— Lead in drinking water 70
State-wide:
— SO2 pollution 85
Yarmouth:
— Wastewater EIS study 140
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Connecticut River 14
Contoocook River 14
Nashua River 14
Pemigewasset River 14
State-wide
— S02 pollution 85
RHODE ISLAND
State-wide:
— SO2 pollution 85
VERMONT
State-wide:
— Air pollution 85
Winooski River 14
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REGION II: NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND THE
CARRIBBEAN
NEW JERSEY
Camden:
— Ocean dumping
Page
60
Clarksburg Pond:
— Toxic spill 127
Delaware River 127
Hackensack River 19
Navesink River 20
New York Bight:
— Ocean dumping 59
Princeton:
— Hydrocyanic acid 118
Ramapo River 127
Raritan Bay 20
Shrewsbury River 20
NEW YORK
Black River 35
Buffalo River 9
Erie, Lake
— General status 29
— Toxics problems 33
Genesee River 35
Hudson River 16
Mohawk River 15
Niagara Falls—Love Canal:
— Toxic chemicals in groundwater 117
New York Bight:
— Ocean dumping 59
New York City:
— Particulates 86
Ontario, Lake
— General status 30
— Toxics problems 33
State-wide:
— Osprey 104
— Peregrine falcon 104
Susquehanna River 17
PUERTO RICO
Protecting mangrove forests 101
Schistosomiasis control 105
REGION III. THE MID-ATLANTIC
Page
DELAWARE
Silver Lake 21
Delaware River 127
REGION III: THE MID-ATLANTIC
(Cont'd)
Page
Edge Moor:
— Ocean dumping 60
Mispillion River 21
St. Jones River 21
Smyrna River 21
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
District-wide:
— Vapor control
95
MARYLAND
Baltimore:
— Highway EIS study 140
— Contamination of the air
by a toxic rocket fuel 127
Gwynns Falls 21
State-wide:
— Bald eagles
104
PENNSYLVANIA
Allentown:
— Noise reduction program 137
Erie, Lake
— General status 29
— Toxics problems 33
Monongahela River 63
New Stanton:
— Emissions Offsets 93
Philadelphia
— Air pollution 86
— Carbon tetrachloride in drinking water 70
— Carcinogens in drinking water 127
— Ocean Dumping 60
Pittsburgh:
— Air pollution from steel mills 91
Western Pennsylvania:
— Air pollution from steel mills 91
VIRGINIA
Arlington:
— Reduce vehicle usage 97
Plains, The:
— Toxaphene spill 127
WEST VIRGINIA
Belle
— DMN, a carcinogen, found in the air
128
Dents Run 63
Monongahela River 63
Wheeling.
— Air pollution from steel mills 91
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REGION IV: THE SOUTHEAST
ALABAMA
Page
Birmingham:
— Particulates 87
Fairfield:
— Air pollution from a steel mill ..
TVA:
— Air pollution from power plants
.91
.89
FLORIDA
Apopka, Lake 77
Choctawhatchee Bay 75
East Bay 54
Eleven Mile Creek 55
Escambia Bay 54
Largo:
— Recycling sewage sludge 75
McGirts Creek:
— PCB m wastewater 123
Pearl Bayou 75
Pensacola Bay 54
Santa Rosa Sound 54
Perdido Bay 75
St. Andrews Bay 77
State Wide
- The Citrus Industry 75
St. Petersburg:
— Land treatment of municipal effluent 74
GEORGIA
Chattahoochee River 24
Flint River 25
Nickajack Creek 25
Rottenwood Creek 25
Savannah River 24
Sope Creek 24
KENTUCKY
Harrodsburg:
— Slime problem eliminated 129
Lowe:
— Spill of toxic chemicals 128
Marion County:
— Hazardous waste spill 128
Shepherdsville
— Hazardous Waste Spill 128
State-wide:
— Recycling abandoned automobiles 113
TVA:
— Air pollution from power plants 89
Williams Creek 128
REGION IV: THE SOUTHEAST
(Cont'd)
MISSISSIPPI page
Pearl River 25
NORTH CAROLINA
French Broad River 23
Ellerbee Creek 23
Neuse River 23
State-wide:
— PCB along roadways 131
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston Harbor 53
Savannah River 24
TENNESSEE
Chattanooga:
— Oil contaminated with pesticides 129
Memphis:
— Disposal of contaminated water 129
Nashville:
— A facility for resource recovery 89
The Tennessee River Valley:
— Civil actions bring improvement.
.89
REGION V: THE GREAT LAKES REGION
ILLINOIS Page
Atkinson:
— Hazardous waste disposal 117
Black Creek 65
Calumet River 36
Chicago:
— North Shore beaches 33
— Particulates 87
Lake County:
— Sludge disposal 111
Michigan, Lake
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 33
Rockford:
— Solid waste—source separation 112
INDIANA
Gary:
— Particulates 87
— Air pollution from steel mills 91
Hog Back Lake 49
Indiana Harbor Canal 36
Long Lake 49
Michigan, Lake:
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 33
Mississinewa Reservoir 49
Steuben Lakes 73
150
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REGION V: THE GREAT LAKES REGION
(Cont'd)
REGION V: THE GREAT LAKES REGION
(Cont'd)
MICHIGAN
Page
Camp Grayling:
— Dealing with a noise problem 137
Crystal Lake 73
Crooked-Pickerel Lake 73
Detroit:
— Particulates 87
— Emissions offsets 93
Detroit River 34
Erie, Lake:
— General status 29
— Toxics problems 33
Grand River 35
Huron, Lake:
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 33
Kalamazoo River 36
Michigan, Lake-
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 33
Muskegon County:
— Land treatment of municipal
wastewater • 74
Rouge, River 34
Sterling State Park.
— Beach reopened 33
MINNESOTA
Green Lake 73
Minnetonka, Lake 49
Otter Tail Lake 73
OHIO
Cuyahoga River 33
Erie, Lake-
— General status 29
— Toxics problems 33
Nettle Lake 73
Williams Creek 128
WISCONSIN
Alma-
— SO2 and particulates from
a power plant 90
Fox River 36
Green Bay 36
Juneau County
— Sanitary landfill 110
LaCrosse County
— Sanitary landfill 110
Lincoln County.
— Sanitary landfill 110
WISCONSIN (Con't.) Page
Maunesha River 37
Michigan, Lake'
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 31
Merrill:
— Sanitary landfill 110
Salem Township Lakes 73
Superior, Lake.
— General status 31
— Toxics problems 33
Washburn.
— Sanitary landfill 109
Wisconsin River 37
REGION VI: THE SOUTH CENTRAL REGION
ARKANSAS
Page
North Little Rock:
— Energy recovery from municipal waste 112
LOUISIANA
Bogue Lusa Creek 25
Gulf of Mexico 60
New Orleans
— Hydrocyanic Acid 118
Pearl River 25
St. Charles Parish
— Wetlands preservation 102
Shreveport
— Emissions offsets 93
NEW MEXICO
Hobbs-
— Reuse of wastewater effluent.
69
OKLAHOMA
Arkansas River 102
Broken Arrow 70
North Canadian River 40
Oklahoma City
— Emissions offsets 93
TEXAS
Coleto Creek 103
Dallas-Forth Worth
— Vapor recovery 95
Elmo
— Drinking water 71
Gulf of Mexico 60
Houston Ship Channel 44
Houston-Galveston
— Vapor recovery
95
151
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REGION VI: THE SOUTH CENTRAL REGION
TEXAS (Cont'd) Page
Lubbock-
— Hydrocyanic acid 118
Neches River 26
95
San Antonio1
— Vapor recovery
REGION VII: THE CENTRAL REGION
IOWA
Page
Fort Dodge.
— Community noise program 137
Sate-wide:
— Sanitary landfills 110
KANSAS
Kansas City
— Energy from solid waste 112
LaCygne-
— Participates 90
Newton
— PCB contamination 124
Saline River 130
State-wide.
— Sanitary landfills 110
MISSOURI
Center Creek 39
Dittmer.
— Chemical dump 133
Frontenac'
— Improper Storage of PCBs 123
Grove Creek 39
Kansas City.
— Particulates 90
— Disposal of PCBs 123
St. Louis
— PCB safety procedures 124
Sac River 43
Springfield
— Air pollution 85
State-wide:
— Sanitary landfills 110
Stockton Lake 43
Taneycomo, Lake 51
Wilson's Creek 39
REGION VIII: THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND
NORTHERN PLAINS
COLORADO Page
Colorado River 66
Denver.
— Methane from landfills 110
— Radioactive Wastes 119
— Source separation—recycling paper 112
— Vapor Recovery 95
Dillon Reservior 44
Lafayette:
— PCB storage problems.
• 125
NEBRASKA
Niobrara River
69
South Plane River 41
State-wide:
— Oil shale development—prevention of
significant deterioration 142
— Vapor recovery 95
— EIS on future energy sources 142
MONTANA
Billings:
— PCB contamination 125
Colstrip:
— Air pollution from a
power plant 90
State-wide:
— Recycling abandoned automobiles 114
— EIS on future energy sources 142
NORTH DAKOTA
State-wide:
— EIS on future energy sources 142
SOUTH DAKOTA
Gold Run Creek 40
Huron:
— Toxics contamination of drinking water 70
State-wide:
— EIS on future energy sources 142
Whitewood Creek 40
UTAH
Magna:
— S02 and Particulates from copper smelter.. 91
Ogden Bay 130
State-wide:
— EIS on future energy sources 142
Utah Lake 51
WYOMING
Casper Creek 133
Powder River 133
South East Wyoming Spill Cooperative 133
State-wide:
— EIS on future energy sources 142
Yellowstone National Park 103
152
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REGION IX: THE PACIFIC SOUTHWEST
REGION X: THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
(Cont'd)
ARIZONA
Page
State-wide:
— S02 pollution 91
- Motor Vehicle Inspection/
Maintenance Program 97
CALIFORNIA
Diablo Canyon 103
Fontana 90
Los Angeles County:
— PCB discharges 126
Marin County:
— Reduced motor vehicle usage 96
San Francisco1
— Motor Vehicle Inspection/
Maintenance Program 95
State-wide:
— Carbon monoxide 94
— Brown pelican 104
HAWAII
Hawaii, Island of:
— Water pollution from sugar mills /»
MICRONESIA: (Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands)
Territory-wide:
— Water pollution 75
REGION X. THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
ALASKA Page
Gibson Cove 55
Kodiak Harbor 55
State-wide:
— Bald eagles 104
IDAHO
Brownlee Reservoir 77
Boise River 77
Snake River 77
OREGON
Neskowin:
— Drinking water contamination 71
Portland-
— Air pollution 86
— Motor Vehicle Inspection/
Maintenance Program 96
— Reduced vehicle usage 97
State-wide:
— Waste reduction—the Bottle Bill 115
Tussock moth control 105
Willamette River TO
OREGON (Cont'd) Page
WASHINGTON
Duwamish Waterway 126
Puget Sound.
— Wetlands conservation 102
— Bald eagles 104
Tussock moth control 105
153
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