If one assumes that all abatement costs are passed on to consumers without a change in the quantities of goods sold, the per capita cost if borne by city dwellers alone could be about $12 or one-fifth of one percent of the average income of Americans (per capita personal income). In the future, however, this cost will undoubtedly rise. People are clustering more closely together and industry is locating closer to urban centers than before or urban centers are growing to surround industry which was originally rural. With this trend, more wasteloads will have to be controlled to achieve the same level of environmental cleanliness. By 1985 when population in metropolitan areas could rise from 140 million to 195 million and the national population grows from 200 million to 265 million, the additional cost could more than double to about $30 per person or about one-third of one percent of per capita income at that time. Therefore, the moderate cost of environmental quality control is likely to become more burdensome and not less in the years ahead. The cost to control pollution of landscapes has not been estimated, even crudely. Nor has society determined what relative cleanliness really means in this area. However, we do know that sanitary disposal of solid wastes alone could require about $1 billion more in urban areas. This is about $7 per city dweller per year. But even this amount does not include the rapidly increasing costs of solid waste collection. We do know that the removal of unsightly junk autos will be similarly costly; however, there are encouraging signs that declining junk processing costs and increasing prices of junk metals will help to automatically alleviate this problem. The cost of noise control is even more unknown, even though current knowledge of the physical damage to ear drums, the reduction in work efficiency, and deterioration of home environments are enough to encourage additional abatement. MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY Management of the quality of the environment is extremely important. Poor management can result in excessively high costs of control for each level of environmental quality improvement. And this is not merely an increase of 20 to 40 percent, but rather 200 or 400 percent. The economies of environmental pollution control are greatly affected by the institutions created for such control. In my judgment, this is now the most critical question. It requires more than just the disciplines of the physical and biological sciences. Economists, sociologists and political scientists are required. Environmental problems should be managed so as to encompass the location where the problems originate and where it causes damage or in the context of problem sheds. In the case of waterborne pollutants, river basins or river basin segments and larger lakes provide a convenient starting point; however, feasible methods for controlling water may be more important between water basins than between upstream and downstream portions of the same river. Or existing political institutions may so compromise embryonic basin organizations so as to make them an undesirable organization with only half enough muscle to manage water quality. In the United States, we have, in part, rejected entire basin management in preferences for segmented basin management through the 50 States. This occurred understandably because Congress is composed of State representatives who are unlikely to encourage competing power centers in interstate organizations. Also, planning and management of water quality at the national level has the disadvantage of being too extensive. Some planning, however, is occurring by regions and river basins which may improve the decisions of States in their management of river basin segments. Perhaps this might be the beginning of a slow evolution towards region or basin management, or, more importantly, enough planning will occur by basins to gain many of the benefits that flow from basin management. In the case of airborne pollutants, meteorological conditions and the topography of urban and affected rural areas appear to be the major determinants of the dimensions for management. Hopefully, recent legislation creating airsheds will provide adequate incentive to assure that proper institutions will be created. Currently, city governments are often too small and State governments either too large or unable to encompass the problems shed which may overlap two or more States. In the case of noise, land and air transportation corridors and metropolitan areas are the key to control. This is obviously virgin territory for public policy and is just now being explored. The problem shed for solid wastes is necessarily tied to urban centers and an area surrounding them where, based upon the limits of transportation costs, disposal is economically feasible. Cost-reducing technology in the transportation field is making it possible to transport waste 100 miles instead of the more expensive alternative of disposing it within city limits. If the quality of the environment is more broadly defined, provision for open spaces, parks and other recreational resources, and congestion-less streets and highways should also be urban related since overcrowding is related to population density. In the future, preventive measures can be taken as opposed to relying on curing environmental degradation problems as they arise. For example, new techniques that are developed primarily for other purposes but which may have environmental quality effects can be identified early and modified before the new technology is widely adopted. This is already occurring in the case of new drugs where the side-effects are explored before they are released for public use. I would imagine preventive controls on new technologies will increase in the future. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS Because the cause of many pollutants and the benefits of their removal are often related to urban development, analysis and management of the quality of the environment can be, in part, urban related. Population size and the geographical dimension of metropolitan areas can be planned to preserve the quality of the environment. Much can be done with advanced metropolitan planning of land and air uses. In fact, three dimensional city planning and analysis should be the trend of the future. The location of freeways and airways not only affects travel time and congestion, but also the concentration of airborne pollutants, noise levels, and access to tranquil open spaces and parks. Obviously, better city planning should and can satisfy a multitude of social objectives simultaneously. Perhaps combining heating, electric power generation, and solid waste incinerators all together can be one way of controlling our burgeoning problem, efficiently and effectively. Cities, however, are often unable to plan for environmental quality both because of fragmented political jurisdictions and because of the acceptance of the traditional separation of social responsibility among industry, utilities, and municipal governments. Potentially, actions by the central government through planning and other forms of assistance and through requirements for environmental quality standards are helping in a small way to resolve these problems. A major limitation on the usefulness of analysis and efficiency of environmental quality management is the lack of appropriate institutional focus. Unfortunately, there is too little scholarly effort in this area. The Symposium tended to give inadequate recognition to this major shortcoming of current analytical efforts. In the future, new towns could be justified by environmental quality factors. It may be less expensive to maintain environmental quality by encouraging the growth of population in new or small cities rather than packing more people into existing large cities, especially since the per capita cost of pollution abatement likely increases with each additional city dweller. Also, the current tendency for cities to spread out because of the automobile as opposed to packing tighter should help to provide some dilution of additional pollutants. But the increase in total population and industry to serve them will more than offset dilution gains. Therefore, additional abatement from existing sources will likely be required in the future. SUMMARY Maintaining the quality of the environment is primarily a problem for society because those who benefit are not necessarily those who pay and environmental quality is a public good. Although public policy in the United States is helping to internalize this problem, existing institutions are not meeting the challenge of managing environmental quality, efficiently and effectively. We need to focus existing institutions on problem areas, or if this fails, develop new institutions that will. The situation is aggravated by the difficulty of measuring benefits. However, crude cost estimates indicate that only moderate expenditures are required to treat some dimensions of environmental quality, such as pollution abatement. And it is obvious to me that the damage from degradation of environmental quality merits more control. The per capita cost of controlling environmental quality is forecast to rise with increasing concentration of people and industry. Therefore, the maintenance of the quality of the environment should be an integral part of threedimensional metropolitan planning even though particular pollutants can best be simultaneously managed by problem shed institutions which should overlap cities and rural areas. Perhaps the dialogue developed by the Symposium will help to move the United States towards more effective management of the quality of the environment. I hope my comments are useful for this purpose. Representative EMILIO Q. DADDARIO, Washington, D.C. CORNELL UNIVERSITY, DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, Ithaca, N.Y., July 19, 1968. DEAR REPRESENTATIVE DADDARIO: The following are the remarks I would have made at the colloquium July 17 if there had been time to get to me: Dr. Ripley has emphasized the long developmental process ahead for ecology. This is correct but ecologists already have a great deal of knowledge that should play a role in planning but which is not being so used today. I am glad that Dr. Gates and Dr. Cain mentioned some specific such areas. I am particularly sensitive right now on the subject of thermal pollution because we are threatened with a nuclear reactor to be built on the shore of Cayuga Lake. The plan is to heat 10 percent of the volume of the lake each year by some 25 degrees F. Leaving aside the questions of safety and radioactive contamination of the lake and atmosphere, we are not certain that the lake can survive this thermal insult. But I recently discussed the matter with an exponent of “progress" who said: "oh this is only the beginning, you'll have 10 or a dozen reactors on that lake eventually; we have to keep generating capacity growing by 10 percent per year." I think the fact that this colloquium has been organized indicates a growing awareness on the part of Congress that they do need competent advice on ecological questions. I have read most, if not all, of the bills calling for the establishment of some sort of "council of ecological advisors." I think the need for such a council is urgent but I am disturbed by the present bills which fail to specify the range of competencies that should be represented. I shall mention here only two areas that are not well represented in the places that Congress traditionally turns to for scientific advice. First, underlying all of the problems of environmental deterioration is the problem of population growth. If the population is going to continue to grow indefinitely the environment is going to continue to deteriorate and its ability to support life will eventually be destroyed. If the capacity to generate electricity by means that are feasible today continues to grow we shall find ourselves writing off one body of water after another until none remains and we shall change our climates through thermal pollution of the atmosphere. Without population regulation disaster is inevitable. Therefore, I think it should be spelled out that any council of advisors on environmental problems must include demographic competence of the highest order. The second area I wish to mention is ecology itself. We ecologists have become fairly accustomed to seeing one commitee after another set up to deal with ecological problems without including a single competent ecologist. Many of the traditional scientific organizations are so ignorant of the field that it never occurs to them that ecologists might know something that would not be immediately apparent to a chemist or engineer. (I know of one recent case of an engineering dean who announced that it was now necessary to invent a new interdisciplinary field to be known as "environmental biology.") So I consider it very important to assure by specifying that any council of ecological advisors shall include ecologists of the highest competence. Any such council will also need competence in chemistry, engineering, geology, meteorology, sociology, and economics. While a few rare individuals can be found who are competent in two or three of the areas mentioned, it seems to me certain that the three-man council envisioned by at least one of the bills is too small. Respectfully, LAMONT C. COLE, Professor of Ecology. UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, Norman, Okla., July 29, 1968. Senator H. M. JACKSON, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR SIR: The enclosed contribution for the record of the "Symposium on Environmental Quality" is submitted at the suggestion of Dr. Walter Orr Roberts, President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. He suggested that a statement might be appropriate in connection with the environmental quality symposium at the Capitol Wednesday, July 17th, since I was not at the Symposium. As is the case with many of the members of my profession, I am vitally interested in the impact of the atmospheric and hydrologic environment on man, and vice versa. I would be happy to supply further elaboration or specific documentation of the enclosed material should you wish it. Yours truly, AMOS EDDY, Professor; Chairman, Department of Meteorology. ON THE NEED FOR EDUCATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL APPLIED SCIENTISTS The interaction between man and his environment is quite clearly a problem of survival. In the specific use of our Urban Environment, the problem has taken on alarming aspects. A descent by plane into the major cities in our country can present a person with a startling view of the pall of health-destroying pollutants hanging in the very air with which he will shortly be trying to sustain his own life. The many hours of inaction forced on countless people every winter as they sit in snowbound traffic jams in our northern cities imposes time for thought on problems of the cost of snow removal, work loss, property deterioration and even health hazards stemming from such frustrating experiences. In many states floods and heavy rains create hazards, stall traffic and dstroy property: does this stem from ignorance of the impact of the atmosphere on urban problems? Can these losses be reduced through education in the field of applied meteorology? Then, what are the implications of a drought? This particular type of weatherproduced disaster was recently inflicted on the northeastern part of the United States. New York City faced a succession of crises, some in quite unforeseen directions, because of this water shortage. Droughts in other areas threaten the food supply of the country. Many pages would be required to give even a cursory treatment of the various facets of the problem. Strategies for the deployment of water, gas, and electricity are required and one of the inputs affecting such decision making is the atmosphere with it's role in the hydrologic cycle and in the redistribution of the sun's energy. We need well trained applied scientists and engineers to provide answers to these problems and especially to contribute to logical and efficacious decision making processes. My specific proposal for a positive course of action is to establish a center of excellence in Environmental Applied Science which would train people to tackle these critical problems, to produce and test engineering solutions, and then to aid in implementing these solutions in an effective manner. 98-999-68-12 We have now the scientific maturity and technological skill to effect tremendous improvements in our environmental living conditions. In order to bring about these improvements we have only to bring home to our future engineers the importance and even the drama of work in this field. And they must be provided with a first class educational institution where they can meet the problems and train to design their solutions. MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, St. Louis, Mo., July 19, 1968. Hon. EMILIO Q. DADDARIO, DEAR MR. DADDARIO: I received your letter of 12 July upon my return from Washington. I shall take your suggestions and continue to see congressmen concerning the status of science in general. I do not expect to get to Washington again this summer. However, when next I do get there if you are there as well I will see if we can meet for a good discussion of what to do about ecology and environmental science. There were several other things I might have said during the colloquium the other day. It was kind of you to suggest that Representative Miller call on me to make a few remarks. I am sending to your office within a few days a paper I am just now completing for the MII alumni magazine Technology Review. I believe you and your staff will find it of interest. It contains a number of ideas which I might have expressed the other afternoon. Sincerely yours, DAVID M. GATES, Director. EXPLOITATION, EVOLUTION, AND ECOLOGY Mankind has lit the fuse of the environmental bomb. It is not a question of whether or not it will explode, but only a matter of how fast. Man is the product of a long evolutionary web of life and the consequence of a billion years or more of development. Man stands at the pinnacle of the food chain pyramid and at the summit of resource utilization. Man is distinguished from all other animals by the intensity of his impact on the landscape, by the irreversible character of his actions, and by the suddenness with which he produces changes in the habitat. Man is capable of rational decision and has the capacity to control his own destiny. Man can visualize a better way of life, a higher quality of health and happiness, while at the same time having a realization that he is backsliding to a lower level of existence. it is clear that all segments of the world-all soils, waters, woods, mountains, plains, oceans and ice covered continents-will be occupied and used by man. Not a single solitary piece of the landscape will go untouched in the future and, in fact, not be used repeatedly for as long as man survives. Everything between soil and sky will be moved about, redistributed and degraded as man continues to exploit the surface of the planet. There is no question as to the fact that man will be around for thousands of years in the future. The only question concerns the quality of his mental, social and physical well-being. A thermonuclear war will be devastating and might leave man a grotesque shadow of his former self, temporarily reduced in population, with multitudes of badly mutated and inept forms, yet with vast numbers of normal human beings who will strive to maintain the species against the aberrant millions. Yet the Earth will be populated by people and the population will grow until it reaches some equilibrium level. The thermonuclear holocast would be only a temporary setback in numbers but a permanent reduction of the quality of human life. An alternate ultimate destiny is for an earth of half-starved, depressed billions gasping for air, depleted of oxygen and laden with pollutants, thirsting for thickened eutrophic water, struggling to avoid the constant presence of one another and in essence continuing life at a degraded subsistence level limited in numbers not by conscience but by consequence. A third possibility exists for mankind which is to maintain a reasonable quality for life by means of population control, rational management of the Earth's ecosystems and conservative exploitation of resources while at the same time avoiding involvement in major wars, either nuclear or non-nuclear. If this is not achieved soon, we will go down in history known as elegant technological |