DISCUSSION

E. Clinton Stokes. In recent hearings by Congress, there was mention of a report from a study conducted extensively on research projects and needs, both present and projected, for the Department of Agriculture and it covered about 279 different areas. Was air pollution research included as a part of this report and has any subsequent action been taken? Has the Department, particularly the Agricultural Research Service, requested research funds for this purpose? And what action has been taken?

Middleton. Dr. Rodenhiser, I'm sure that you as deputy administrator are in a proper spot to respond.

Rodenhiser. The answer to your first question is yes, for the construction of a laboratory to do basic research in this general field and also to staff this facility and provide funds for operating in this facility. As to your second question, on whether or not there is a request in for funds in fiscal year 1964, unfortunately I'm not at liberty to state what is in our request for this year until the budget has appeared in the President's message to the Congress. George H. Hepting. I am associated with the U.S. Forest Service group doing the work on white pine damage from stack gas and ozone referred to by Dr. Rodenhiser. Since the stack gas research results are in press and not yet available, I would like to amplify his remarks concerning forest values and air pollution.

Eastern white pine is one of our most important conifer species from Canada to Georgia. Our investigations have demonstrated major injury to this species from industrial stack emissions. Trees are killed or reduced in growth up to 20 miles from several sources studied. While some acute sulfur dioxide injury has occurred locally around some sources, the nature of the pollutant or pollutant mixture that causes damage at greater distances is not known. Soft coal consumption seems the most likely source of such damage in some cases.

A second type of damage to white pine, under study since about 1900 and prevalent from Canada to Georgia, has been demonstrated by our group to be due to an oxidant, probably ozone (G. H. Hepting and C. R. Berry, 1961, Internatl. Jour. Air and Water Pollut. 4(2): 101-105). This is the pine equivalent of weather fleck on tobacco and results from ozone concentrations in the same range that cause weather fleck. We are not sure of the source

of this ozone. Damage in remote forest areas, particularly in the North, appears unrelated to man's activities. It definitely seems related to certain weather patterns. In other areas this ozone damage could possibly result from air pollution oxidants.

In the case of both the stack gas injury that we call postemergence tipburn (PET) and the ozone injury that we call emergence tipburn (ET), there is great tree-to-tree variation in susceptibility. This variability has given us two valuable tools for our current and future research. One is the availability of a dependable, uniform bioassay for either PET or ET conditions through the simple multiplication of trees by grafting from susceptible lines. These are more sensitive and more useful to us than most chemical monitoring devices. The second tool is the resistant clone also readily multiplied by grafting. Such genetically uniform material from resistant trees has already been planted into what we call a "seed orchard." If the heritability of the factor for resistance to either stack gas or ozone is high, we can produce by crossbreeding resistant strains of white pine. These may tolerate as high or even higher levels of either type of pollutant gases than their parents.

The growing use of hydrocarbon fuels is causing increasing damage to coniferous trees both here and in Europe, putting an added and growing strain on our timber resources and threatening the recreation values of our forests in several areas. We have reason to suspect fume damage to evergreen species other than white pine.

We have strong reasons for being concerned with the effects of the ever-increasing output of powerplant and industrial stack gases on our forest acreage. This acreage is already under attrition from urban growth, superhighways, powerlines, new lakes, and other land uses. We must do far more than we are now doing in forest air pollution research to define and understand the full losses we are sustaining. (We can recognize readily only the more acute cases.) We must develop measures to prevent new kinds, as well as present forms, of air pollution damage to our forests which serve us with water, wood, wildlife, rangeland, recreation facilities, and many other valuable assets.

Arthur A. Atkisson. First, I was greatly impressed with the carefully reasoned approach taken by both Mr. Smith and Mr. Schwegmann. However, I did have the impression that the approach was essentially unidimensional. May I draw an analogy? Several years ago I bought a home in a

new development. We neighbors banded together and retained a landscape architect at our own expense to blend our landscape architecture. Shortly after, a hotrodder converted our front lawns into a racing path one evening. It seems to me that the repair of this damage was, in the terms of your paper, uneconomic to myself and to my neighbors. The indemnities to the parents of the hotrodder were also uneconomic, and yet an individual had unleashed upon his neighbors an instrument capable of causing nuisance and damage and, in strictly economic terms, the repair of this damage was probably not feasible at that time and in that place.

Is it not true that an industry or any complex of activities can enter a community and by the very nature of its operation can create a situation which, under the criteria posed by both Mr. Smith and Mr. Schwegmann, will elude control because it is uneconomic for either the community or the industry to pursue control? And if this criterion has a validity, as asserted in the paper, does it not also have a validity with the industrial planners who are even now planning the location, the expansion, and the revision of existing and new plants throughout the country? And should this not be placed high on the list of such planners, so that we don't create situations where control officials are faced with a choice between the preservation of values which are very difficult to price or with obvious economic consequences of some magnitude to individual property owners or the community itself?

Smith. You've described a fairly complex situation with the hotrodder example. I would say that it was not uneconomic to repair the damaged lawns as you did; in the frame of reference I choose to use, it was indeed the correct thing to do. The lawn damage had a very large economic weight in your system, it was an important feature of your environment, and I should think that there is no contradiction here with the industrial situation. I don't for one minute intend to imply that looking at everything through an economic eyeglass, as I was requested to do, means that we must soft-pedal any of our desires to have a better environment, a more healthful environment, or a cleaner environment. My only point is that all of these desires are not only reducible, but must be reduced finally, to an economic basis in order that we can take some kind of action. And as to the final question, a necessary economic judgment is made when a firm locates a plant and when it is decided what the effects of the plant on its surroundings will be. Then the correct

action is based on the economic weight of all these factors.

William A. Gnoss. I am speaking first for the ranchers and the agriculturists in the San Francisco Bay area. At the present time, ranchers in the fruit business have a problem with disease in the fruit trees. Some infected trees have to be immediately destroyed and we are allowed to burn these. Also, the rancher who produces grain has a large crop of stubble left after the harvester leaves about 1/2 feet of straw still standing, and we are allowed to burn it. This causes a great deal of smoke and, as members of the Air Pollution Control Board, we are worried that the time will come when this will have to be disallowed.

Speaking officially now for the Bay Area Air Pollution Control District, we urge the Federal Government, as a major financier of soil conservation practices and other agricultural subsidies, to do extensive agricultural engineering development for practical means of disposing of agricultural field wastes such as grain stubble, orchard prunings, artichoke tops, range brush and weeds, brussels sprouts, and tules. We also ask the Federal Government to require as a condition of financing that anti-airpollution methods, to the extent that they are practical, be used by growers. We further ask that the Federal Government require all who purchase timber rights, lumber or soil-mill operators, to follow trash disposal or soil-mill refuse disposal practices that will not pollute the air. We realize we have a problem. We want to stop air pollution, but we must find some means of disposal that doesn't cause any smoke.

Middleton. This brings up another issue, one that others have also asked about. What is the effect agriculturalists are having upon agriculture by their destruction of wastes? Mr. McElroy, could you tell us about the influence that destruction of wastes, such as Mr. Gnoss mentioned, has upon agriculture?

John S. McElroy. In California we recognize two facts about air pollution and its relationship to agriculture: first, that agriculture does make a contribution to air pollution; and second, that we suffer a fairly tremendous loss in agricultural production as the result of air pollution. So we have been very much concerned. Through the extension service we have made a survey of the principal counties of the State as to their burning of agricultural waste products, which we classified as prunings of trees and vines, stubble burning, miscellaneous

burning (which includes the burning of various wastes around the farm), the cleaning of ditches and fence lines, and other disposal practices. We have worked very closely with the research people with respect to what these contributions and their effects may be. This study will be reported soon and I think it will give us some definition of the contribution of agricultural burning to the air pollution problem of California.

In the problem of disposal of wastes, we may have to turn from what we are doing to something else and to a considerable extent change some of the patterns of agricultural practice. We may have to place a temporary economic burden on the farmer which he is not, of course, going to like. But we've made a small start on the problem. However, the experiment station is working on equipment for the disposal of some of these wastes. Much is already known which, if it were practiced, would be a help. Gradually I think these things are becoming known and being applied. We attemped to measure the effects of burning according to the time of year and meteorological conditions and this may prove helpful.

But the point I wish to make is that in California, the University of California, for example, is aware of this problem, is beginning to work with it, and is beginning to show some promise of results. The Bay Area Air Pollution Control District has tentatively outlined a program of cooperation on burning of weeds between the district and the University of California, which has a great deal of knowledge concerning weed control.

J. J. Weinstein. What effects do the farmers' cultivation practices have on air pollution?

Rodenhiser. There's no question that they do have some effect on air pollution. However, I should like to point out that the situation over the past few years has changed rather radically with new methods of farming, and a considerable research effort is being put into just this particular problem of soil management. Unfortunately, from our point of view, with the changes in different types of agriculture in certain parts of the country, this seems to be a continuing problem. Not only are Agricultural Research Service efforts involved but also most land-grant college experiment stations include soil management research in their program.

Middleton. Two questions which deal with some of the remarks of Dr. Herring might both be phrased this way. What, if any, influence does the application of agricultural chemicals, including

toxic pesticides, have upon community air pollution? Dr. Daines, perhaps you could answer this.

Daines. The workers in the agricultural experiment stations, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the industries are aware of the problems from the application of pesticides, whether sprays or dusts, but I think this is an area where much more information is needed. In New Jersey, we tell our farmers of such possibilities whenever it seems appropriate and we encourage them not to use highly toxic materials as dusts, but rather to apply them as sprays, so that the amount of air pollutants is at an absolute minimum. I think our farmers are in most instances following this kind of advice. When we talk to people who mix dusts, we encourage them to use heavy materials, so settling will be as rapid as possible. I should add that, as far as I know, materials that are very toxic to warm-blooded animals are not usually applied as dusts.

Howard A. Post. First of all, my impression from all the papers and discussion has been that air pollution in general is a local or regional problem that requires solution at a local community level. This is probably because local conditions and the effects of pollution and local needs and the ability to solve the problems seem to be unique to each particular situation. Dr. Middleton presented an excellent paper, I believe, and my impression is that he leans toward solution of pollution problems at the community level and he did say that adequate air conservation depends upon total community planning. In his last sentence, however, Dr. Middleton mentions national aspects and he clearly states that there should be national air quality standards, national control over motor vehicles, and strong national leadership in air conservation programs. I wonder, Dr. Middleton, what you had in mind as to particular programs and standards.

Middleton. I don't have any prepared legislative resolutions to present. I should like to point out, however, that the apparent conflict in the text which you ably detected exists because I used the State of California as my model. What I tried to do was to show that, as in California, there are other airsheds, creating other specific community problems, and it's quite certain from what Dr. Herring has reported that communities themselves can do something about these. Now for the question: What is the proper role of the Federal Government in these issues? Simply this, that there

needs to be a leadership which will allow communities that are in two or more adjoining States to have a basis of getting together. There needs to be, not necessarily uniformity, but a basic understanding of the adverse levels of designated pollutants; having different standards for different counties and different States is a ridiculous situation. There should be a sound basis for adequate standards and then these should be applied nationally. I urged Federal leadership in the sense that perhaps the Public Health Service, already deeply concerned with this problem, would know what the county and State problems are and could then, rather than dictatorially, say, "These shall be the standards for the United States," afford other States and communities the opportunity of having this information in order to do something about it, perhaps modifying it to accord with local circumstances. In essence, this would be my reply to your comment. Dr. Herring, do you have some comments that might be pertinent to Mr. Post's remarks?

Herring. I'm not quite sure that I understand how national standards could fail to be uniform. There seems to be a conflict in what you said, if I understood it correctly.

Middleton. Well, we hope they would be uniform. The standards should have uniformity in value, but their applicability might not be uniform across the country. A standard for sulfur dioxide might not be pertinent for the State of Nebraska, whereas that standard might be highly pertinent elsewhere. I think the difference concerns the imposition of the standard once it had been determined.

Herring. Local communities would decide, for example, which parts of the standards were applicable to them?

Middleton. To some extent, yes. Give them the facts and I think one can count on their good judgment. I think it would be quite obvious that communities within any one airshed would have to have a common air quality requirement.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

IRVING MICHELSON

Director, Public Service Projects Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. Mount Vernon, N.Y.

During the past few hours we have examined several facets of the problems created by air pollution. Dr. Middleton directed our attention to the fact that air is a primary resource, and that man's dependence upon this resource imposes on him the need to protect it from contamination. Dr. Rodenhiser pointed out that pollution of air produces a wide range of deleterious effects on other vital resources—crops and livestock. Dr. Herring gave us a better understanding of how air pollution affects our use of still another fundamental resourceland-and presented a series of proposals on urban planning and development which would help avoid the air pollution problem in the future. All three speakers indicated that we have learned a great deal about these problems in the past few years, but they also made clear that there is still a great deal to be learned. There is no doubt that we are not yet aware of all the pollutants in our atmosphere, nor are we yet aware of all of their deleterious effects. What we have heard today was essentially a summary of the latest information available on the complex subject of the effects of air pollution on our natural resources of air, agriculture, and land.

During the same time that we have been discussing our subject, delineating the known areas and the research needs, three other panels have been busy doing the same things for related subjects. The four panels this morning have been laying the groundwork for this afternoon's panel discussionswe have been spelling out the problems, and this afternoon's panels will discuss the best ways to attack these problems immediately. Even though we know that our present knowledge and means are not the ultimate, even though research undoubtedly will lead us to greater understanding and more effective means of control in the future, we cannot afford to

wait for ultimate solutions. We must do whatever we can now, attacking these problems with the latest knowledge and most effective means now at our disposal.

The morning panels have divided the problems into two parts. Two panels have been discussing the major sources of air pollution-motor vehicles, industrial plants, powerplants, and municipalities (including homes). The third panel and we in this fourth panel have been reviewing the effects of air pollution. The third panel has been discussing the effects on health; that is, the direct effects on man himself. On the other hand, we have been discussing the effects on man's environment, and we have seen that man's inhumanity to man's environment boomerangs to his own disadvantage.

Our panel is unique among all of today's panels in that, as an official part of our assignment, we have had to discuss ". . . Economic Considerations." Even though the word "economic" does not appear in any other part of the program of this conference, I should be very much surprised if the subject of economics did not rear its ugly head in every other session today, as it did yesterday. For, let us face it, economic considerations are a key question in air pollution control efforts. In fact, the effectiveness of our air pollution control effort will be in direct proportion to the economic consideration we give it.

As I have indicated, this panel's assignment on economic considerations may have been intended to have us discuss economic effects of air pollution, and not the broader question of economic feasibility of air pollution control. But since Dr. Smith and Dr. Schwegmann have centered their discussions on economic feasibility, let us pursue this matter a bit further. What Dr. Schwegmann indicated re