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About Eugene register-guard. (Eugene, Or.) 1930-1983 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1962)
EUGENE REGISTER-GUABD, Sunday, Oct. 21, 1962 Figs 7D From Polluted Water . .Effects Are Cumulative. U.S. Inviting Death by Poison EDITORS NOTE: Most Americans take it for grant ed that when they turn the tap, they'll get a cool, clear, safe drink oj water. It has been so for generations, but it may not be so forever. The nation say some legislators and a horde of Public Health Service scientists is rapidly poisoning its drinking water. By Hl'GH A. MULLIGAN Of the Associated Press "Water, water everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water everywhere Nor any drop to drink." S. T. Coleridge. Such was the curse of the Ancient Mariner. Posted over every bridge and dam, on every river and stream, it one day could serve as an epitaph for a civilization. Unless we stop poisoning our waters with chemical bug killers and quick sudsing detergents, with radioactive wastes and virus-bearing slaughter house remains, with untreated mu nicipal and industrial sewage, with oil well brine and pulp mill acids and tons ol silt from road and building projects; un less we reduce these and other hazardous contaminants, the curse could fall on our land in our lifetime. And the boards that will shrink may well be the props holding up the entire free world. Here indeed is a case where more truth than poetry is in volved. Buried In Its Own Garbage For want of a glass of clear water, the continent that hears Niagara's restless roar and sang of the mighty Mississippi and the wide Missouri and drew its. life hlood from the Great Lakes,' that incredible reservoir hold ing more than one-third of the world's fresh water supply, that continent, that civilization could die of thirst in the midst of plenty. And the nation that Khru shchev once threatened to bury might well bury itself inglori ously, ironically, insanely in its own garbage. The evidence Is already there: Appalling, irrefutable, increas ing every day. President Kennedy has called the lituation " national dis grace." Drinking Water Radioactive "Pollution of our country's rivers and streams," he told Congress in his message on natural resources, "has reached alarming proportions." A housewife in Babylon, Long Island, draws a glass of water with a two-inch i head of froth. It looks more like a glass of beer, but it has an oily, fishy taste. Towns along the Animas Jtiver in Colorado and New Mexico, where a uranium mill dumps its wastes, learn their drinking water contains 40 to 160 per cent more than maxi mum safety levels of radio activity. Epidemologists trace an out break of hepatitis along the eastern seaboard to oysters raked from the Gulf of Mexico and to clams dug in New Jer sey's Raritan Bay and along the Connecticut coast. Rensselaer, N. Y., orders its residents to boil all drinking water as the bacteria count soars in its water mains from pollution in the Hudson River. Faced with drought conditions in the Neosho River, Chanute, Kan., attempts to recycle water from its sewage treatment plant directly into its purification Trusted . . . Dedicated to Constituents. Experienced . A Specialist Law Making plant. The water meets accept able health standards, but foam rises to the top of every glass, piles up in 15-foot high billows at the water works and blows across town like snow. Freighters passing through Chicago's ship and sanitary canal churn up so much suds that sprays are employed to break up the billows. On Mon days, when Chicago housewives discharge tons of detergents with the water from the weekly wash, the frothing is noticeably worse. A Flow of 'Lentil Soup' Gas bubbles rise from the sludge at the bottom of the Mis souri River below Sioux City, where a packing house unloads tons of animal entrails. Further downstream, Omaha awaits the river's arrival for drinking water. Along a 40-mile stretch of Wisconsin's Fox River, where 3 paper and pulp mills hug the banks, the water flows with the color and consistency of lentil soup. And the great sal mon runs are diminished in Puget Sound, another pulp mill area. . ' A chemical plant near Austin, Tex., discharges its wastes in the Colorado River. For 140 miles downstream, all fish die. Paterson, Nutley and Passaic, N. J. switch to emergency water reserves when the Pass'aic River floats up a cargo of dead fish. The verdict is poison by pollu tion. A similar verdict is returned for thousands of dead fish found floating in tributaries of the Tennessee River, where valley farmers used DDT to rid their cotton of boll weevils. Youngslown, Ohio, steel mills using the Mahoning River for cooling processes raise the tem perature of the river so high in summer that not only is all fish life eliminated but the water is rendered unfit for anything even for cooling purposes. Typhoid fever breaks out in Kecne, N. H. Hepatitis cases set a new record. Leptospirosis, bet ter known as "sewer worker's fever," suddenly crops up in the Missouri River Valley. Health departments in a number of cities note an upsurge in di arrhea, intestinal disorders and stomach sicknesses. In each case, water is the virus carrier. These are not Orwellian nightmares of some distant day. All of these incidences of pol lution actually happened in re. cent years. Some already have been corrected. Some are up for action in federal enforcement cases. Some continue unabated New Ones Coming The point is that pollution problems like these can and do happen to Americas' rivers and streams every day. New and worse ones are in store in the future as our population booms and industry flourishes. Warns Sen. Robert S. Kerr, chairman of the U.S. Senate's Select Committee on National Water Resources, which made a monumental two-year study of pollution dangers: "Although too many people seem unworricd. their drinking water is rapidly being poi soned." Says Gordon McCallum, chief of the U.S. Public Health Serv ice's Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control. "In city after city, drinking water is less palatable as more and more chemicals are added to rid it of pollutants. In many states miles of streams, bays and estuaries are lost each year to fish and wildlife, to fishing and swimming because of un sightly, smelly and actually in V 1 all I tyrj The Remedies Must Come dangerous sewage and indus trial wastes clogging the water." Says Dr. Luther L. Terry, the U.S. surgeon general: "We are by no means sure that at least some viruses are not slipping through our present water purification and disin fection processes and entering our water mains. Hepatitis may be an example." i Clean water is absolutely es sential to America s continued existence as a nation and a civilization. We drink it, bath in it, wash with it, cook with it, fish and swim in it. It ir rigates our crops, powers our (plants, refines our products, produces our electricity. Re-Used Water Despite a favorable annual rainfall, our available water has not increased appreciably since Columbus landed. Its use and abuse has . drastically. For well over a half century, we have been using our great riv ers the Mississippi, the Mis souri, the Ohio, the Colorado, the Columbia, the Hudson as little more than open sewers. In that time, our population has doubled and the pollution load in our waters tripled. The greatest gains in popula tion and industry are yet to come. We now use about half the water we can trap. By 1980, when according to the Senate Select Committee's figures our population will jump to 244 mil lion, we will be using it all. By the year 2,000. with a popu lation of 329 million, demand will triple. Water reuse will be a necessary way of life. Today about 40 per cent of our population drink re-used water: Water that has been through the sewers of some other city before purification. For instance, Pittsburgh's sew age plants empty into the Ohio River, Cincinnati takes the water out for drinking purposes and in turn' dumps its sewage back in the river, Louisville re peats the process, and so on down the river. Some Ohio River towns use water that has been flushed down the sewers of 10 other communities. A Vastly Complicated Problem Water is our only major re- useable resource. It can't be duplicated. It has no substitute, no synthetic equivalent. But it can be used over and over again. The problem of keeping our rivers clean enough for this sort of constant reuse has been vastly complicated by the won ders of modern living. Fish, plants, molds and other stream life can break down most impurities, but they can t seem to do a thing with house hold detergents', insecticides plastics, radioactive wastes and the thousands of new chemicals that have come along in recent years. Neither can most sewage treatment plants. The result is that our streams , and rivers are being clogged with a weird as TO SECRETARIES Rrmind the boss that Irarnlnc to dance at an Arthur Murray Stu dio Is Rood exercise and fun. ARTHUR MURRAY DANCE STUDIO 31 West Hlh III M3I1 Mr. A Mrs. Robert firefury Licensee WE RENT Hospital Beds VALLEY RENTAL 886 W. 6th DI 3-2115 Pala tar r DONALD R. HUSBAND For Senator Cnmmtlt.. WANK A. GRAHAM Jaipar Chairman i 'X sortment of exotic substances that defy treatment and wind up in our drinking glass. Last year housewives used four billion pounds of deter gents on the family dishes and laundry, flushing the suds down the drain to the nearest water way. Aside from gumming up waterworks machinery, there is little evidence so far of harm ful human effects, but research ers at the Public Health Serv ice's Taft Sanitary Engineering Laboratories in Cincinnati are keeping a close watch. Animal Deaths Increase Studies at the Taft labs by Aquatic biologist E. W. Surber of the effect of alkyl beneze sulfonate (ABS), the compound used in most detergents, show a dose of 16 to 32 parts soap to a million parts of water elimin ates the May fly, a food source for sports fish, and a 10-part dose reduces shrimp and craw fish life. Similar studies are now being made on fish and birds. Agricultural chemicals pose an even greater problem. With out them, we would never have the bountiful harvests we now enjoy. And yet there is mount ing evidence that these saviors of crops may be subtle slayers. Last year 94 million acres of U.S. farm and forest land were treated with four billion pounds of insecticides, pesticides, weed and fungi killers. Every rain storm washed some of these synthetics into our rivers and streams. Some seeped down to ground water. Since 1944, when DDT was introduced, there have been increasing cases of bird and fish deaths. These are the immediate effects of indiscrim inate spraying. Long range ef fects are harder to gauge. We know now that long after the poison passes through the water, it lives on in plant, fish and bird life, increasing in con centration. What About Human Beings? Clear Lake, Calif., is a classic example. The 19-mile long lake was sprayed with a weak solu tion of insecticide (roughly one part toxicant to 50 to 100 mil Mof Sirippedl The ROAM El. Mode. JJIOO Trim, ompMt tMtertd ftnlitiad metal cabin in Qoidon Tfcooror Wood Smoka Gray color. Top Carry Hanoi. 19 overall eif. (Wetu-t mt-t-t. 177 tq. lit. net. ptetuf LOW MONTHLY PAYMENTS Vjwith GREATER Of HANDCRAFTED Chal Thar, art no printed tifcuitt...no production arrortotrta. M chattit oonnactioni art caratuSy handwlrad and aoldaMd. K cot mora to make Iwiith trite Saver chmala 1Mb way bvt rt rtaurts In battar parformaoca, longer TV Ufa. lion parts water) to eliminate a pesty gnat that annoyed fisher men. Since no adverse effects were reported, the treatment was repeated five years later. That winter, 100 Western Grebes, a beautiful bird, were found dead in the lake. In spring the fish died, along with more birds. An autopsy showed the birds had built up a con centration of 1,600 parts poison within their systems. For fish, the concentration had jumped to 2.500 parts, an increase of 250,000 times the original do sage. The lake water showed no poison at all. Could there be a similar build-up within humans? The answer is we don't know, says Murray Stein, chief of the en forcement branch of the Divi sion of Water Supply and Pol lution Control, "We're not cer tain what the combined effect of some of these toxicants is. Many are stored up within the body. It could be that they will have some sort of long range disastrous effect, like thalido mide. We just don't know." To say that these new chem icals and synthetics should be outlawed because they upset the balance of nature is a gross over simplification. Many conservationists agree with secretary Maurice Goddard of Pennsylvania's Department of Forests and Waters that man "is of necessity a polluter of his environment." Every time he plows a field, drains a swamp, harnesses a river, irri gates a desert, he upsets the bal ance of nature. Regardless of what else happens, it's too late for him to go back living in the trees. Progress has become his natural habitat. Long, Uphill Struggle Or, as secretary Goddard says, "put simply our job is to Channel 13 Watch "It Is Written" Sunday Morning at 10:0 Down Inside -not 2 stages 15995 DEPENDABILITY America' Beat Built Swiftly see that we always know what we are doing and that our short range interests do not sabotage our long range goals." By and large, the short range excesses can be corrected. Yet even in Congress, the struggle for effective pollution -controls has been a long, uphill affair, with the leadership com ing in the Senate from aggres sive, acid-tongued Sen. Robert S. Kerr, D-Okla., whose speeches on conditions in the "pew-tomac basin" led to a major clean-up In the Washington area and who is regarded as the best in formed man on Capitol Hill on conservation, and in the House from Rep. John Blatnik, D Minn. Alerting Congress to the men ace was, in Blatnik's words, "a forlorn, depressing experience. Schedule a hearing and three people would show up. Leaders in both parties grumbled about 'that stinking sewer bill' and couldn't see what all the shout ing was about." The Encouraging Side With Kerr and Blatnik pound ing away on opposite sides of the capitol, the "stinking sewer bill" finally passed in 1953. It gave the federal government power to force cities and indus tries on interstate waterways to build treatment, plants, provided matching construction funds and more money for research. Amendments passed last year extended enforcement to all navigable waters, provided $600 million for treatment plant matching funds in the next five years and set up a system of ACTIVE FUN RETIREMENT for $67$ Month Here at Woodburn Senior Estate in the heart of Oregon1! beautiful Willamette Valley yon mm your own new home on your own tot with, monthly payments as low at $67 op to $85 ... In a completely new com munity. Yon have a modest invest ment and low monthly living costal This li active retirement . . . you may play golf on your own course HOW TO GET TO W.S.E. It's easy. 29 miles South of Port land or 14 milea North of Salem, turn right off interstate Highway ( at the Woodburn Est (whether you're beaded North or South). Woodburn Senior EsMes 1275-J Market Rood No. 214, Woodburn, Oregon Sand th covpon today for cnmpMe color brochure giving all the detail of "Happy D7 Ahead at Wnorfrmni Senior Ertatea", storage reservoirs to maintain water quality in dry seasons. Dark as the pollution picture has been and difficult as the future looks with our predicted population and industrial explo sion, there is an encouraging side. "We will get to the Moon before we solve our sewage problems," says Rep. Blatnik, "but at least we have made a start on the problem." Detergent Count to He Added The Public Health Service maintains a network of 125 qual ity control stations across the country to check conditions in major rivers and streams. Vol unteer workers row out in boats, walk along beaches and piers, take samples from be neath bridges and dams to test for poisons, viruses, bacteria and radiation. Soon a detergent count will be added to the data gathered from the various waterways and processed by computer in Cincinnati so sig nificant changes can be spotted rapidly. Enforcement actions have been brought against 250 cities, including New York, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore.; and the two Kansas cities, and against a like number of industries, including such giants as Armour, Swift & Co., Monsanto and Olin Malhie son, forcing a clean-up of 4,000 miles of river and stream. Some Success Stories Despite the increasing com plexity of pollutants, a growing public awareness has led to a number of individual success stories. The Ohio River, al though still plagued with, taste and odor troubles, begins its run into the Mississippi a good deal cleaner than a decade ago, thanks to treatment and purifi cation plants in 80 per cent of ...fish or bunt In a thousand spot dose by... shop in the city... visit beeches and mountains . . . have hv terestjng f1 to share yovr so tivitiea ... yet yon enjoy Use privacy of your own delightful new noma thafs not too much to care for. These or noma of th people) ' who have purchased 2 SO homes at Woodburn Senior Estates and mm enjoying happy, ootf're i A ' IS s-rz trT li .... w. ii-. ' r : Tvj Mr a.sT V saW . V So much fot. milt Your new home Include Rolt dub membership and all recreation fa cili tie. Chooae from 22 ettractive deigns- from 1 bedroom. 1 garage up to 9 bedrooma, doable garage. Low doira paymanta and total monthly payments only $69 to $88 a month. Total cash price from $897$ ts $11,350. NO FOUNDERS FEES, r i WtHinnt'BN RENIOR rsTATFH lllyj Mara.t Road 214, Woodburn, Oraioa I am l.l.r.ttoa'. FImm m , wlHi.tt aar .bllfaHMi m wr port. rr Plft COIOI WOCMUIC aanlMna la hll Mil WnSsn S..IM I itatM. the towns along its banks. Salmon runs have been restored-, in Oregon's Willamette River Neighboring states are banding--together to clean up the Arkan; sas, the Colorado, the Delaware,! and Susquehanna rivers. Engi--; necrs hope the Potomac will bo' clean enough to swim in by l9t6, even if health officials , are adopting a "you first" atti". hide. ' An inspiring example of what, can he done is Pennsylvania's Schuykill River. Ten years ago it gurgled and bubbled with coal mine silt. Today it runs clean. Idiocy of Neglect Although the Senate Select -Committee predicted we will have to use our rivers for waste : disposal for many years to come, scientists are hunting . new and exotic ways of taking ' care of the nations wasto mat-.: ter. Under study are such- methods as freezing, distilling",'! ionizing and electrolyzing our- wastes to free them of contam-" inants. , -. But until such a scientific breakthrough becomes economt". ically feasible, our main pollu-" tion concern will be as simple!! and elusive as drawing a clean? glass of water from the kitchen:", tap. The fact that most river can be salvaged with available" technology only points up the-J irony and the idiocy of our neglect. The proverbial babbling--; brook is babbling out a warning. to all of us. ' As Sen. Kerr told a banquet"" audience' recently: XT U.ll.... iL.l It . 1 I got an analysis of the water you and uneasy. The result might even drive you to drink but not water." ' '. i-' 881 Willamette Established 1917 I I car- IMS SJLtf htth I
