garding himself, that he is not an economist, is true of most of us here at this panel, and we may not be familiar with economic questions. I for one have been surprised to hear the opinion voiced at this conference that installation of air pollution control devices may put many firms out of business, that industry operates on such a narrow margin as to be unable to absorb the costs of air pollution control. Even though this may be true for some marginal producers, very, very few firms have been put out of business or forced to move from a community by the imposition of air pollution controls, mainly because the community usually considers such possibilities and permits ample time for installation of equipment. Many thousands of firms have installed air pollution control equipment without any financial difficulty, and many thousands more can also afford to do so. It is also true that the imposition of control measures sometimes involves only better control of combustion processes, which results in fuel savings, and that sometimes the cost of control equipment does pay for itself in the recovery of valuable materials in effluents.

Though the relative frequency of savings or extra costs as a result of air pollution control is not known at present, Dr. Smith made the point that, whether we recognize it or not, "air pollution control measures are without exception the result of some kind of economic judgments," because, as he said, "decisions regarding air pollution controls must of necessity be based on economic considerations."

One cannot disagree with these facts of life. Dr. Smith went on to say that, since decisions on air pollution control are based on economic considerations, "there should be an awareness of the relative economics of any given situation," and that therefore "all other factors must be translated into economic terms." Finally, as a consequence of this reasoning, Dr. Smith has told us that the effects of air pollution on human health should similarly be expressed in economic terms, in order to give them "their correct relative economic weight," as part of the "complete spectrum of costs" which should enter into decisions on air pollution control programs.

Dr. Smith recognized that it is not easy to place a dollar value on health, and that he as an individual might object to an air pollution control official's possible decision that, in the light of a purely economic cost analysis, Dr. Smith's worth as an individual was insufficient to warrant any control action to protect Dr. Smith's health. In other

words, Dr. Smith is not sure that he likes the position to which his logical argument leads him. And, as Dr. Schwegmann pointed out, "it is doubly interesting because it is the position which has gained for business and industry the reputation of being uncooperative in matters of air pollution control."

I believe that it would be inappropriate for us to conclude this panel without exploring the implications of Dr. Smith's statements, because one can logically extend his argument to the conclusion that we should spend no money on air pollution control unless we can prove that whatever we spend is balanced by proven savings as a result. And if we were required first to prove the extent of money losses, all or most air pollution control programs would grind to a halt very quickly.

Dr. Smith has recognized this by stating that “a lot of differences in opinion on the principles involved lose their vitality when real situations are considered." I would venture to suggest that the reason that economic considerations seem to lose their vitality in real situations is that economic considerations are not the basic considerations; they are only the means to ends dictated by other considerations of a more human nature. Economic considerations, in the sense of balancing the cost of doing against the cost of not doing, certainly constitute a major basis for the operation of a business. It even may be proper for a business to consider the health of its employees in economic terms. But the millions of individuals who make up the public do not run their lives on such an impersonal businesslike basis.

For better or for worse, people do look at health matters in a nonbusinesslike manner. We all know of families who have spent all of their life's savings, and gone heavily into debt, to prolong the life of a member of the family, even for only a month or two, without any thought of recouping the tremendous expenditures involved. We all know of the efforts which communities exert to prevent a few children from locking themselves in abandoned refrigerators, to prevent a few people from contracting polio, etc., etc. No, in the matter of the health of an individual and the members of his family, the principle of balancing economic considerations is rarely applied.

People spend money to enjoy life, to make themselves more comfortable, to increase their satisfactions. It is toward these ends that people spend much of their money, with no thought of any monetary returns to balance expenditures. In these mat

ters, as in the matter of health, people are different from business; their needs are different, and their attitudes are different. The Pittsburgh leader of air pollution control quoted earlier today by Dr. Haagen-Smit expressed this very appropriately, and it bears repetition: "Air pollution control in a modern city and in a mature city is built on a fresh concept of people living together in productive enterprise rewarded in terms of work and enjoyment."

Air pollution threatens man's comfort, his health, and the effectiveness of some of his activities. Where it affects his economic life, as in the case of agriculture, in which air pollution raises the cost of foods, or as in the case of land resources, in which air pollution depreciates land value and limits its uses, man should consider the economics of the situation; the question of balancing the cost of air pollution control against the economic losses incurred by not controlling the pollutants is quite pertinent. But in cases where air pollution affects man himself, his health, and his comfort, in any way, economic considerations are not the primary factors which dictate whether or not we should institute control of air pollution. There is no balancing of the costs of air pollution control against the discomforts and pains and illness caused by smog.

Of course, we want the control to be as inexpensive as possible, just as we want to get TV sets at as low a price as possible. And, of course, the prices may be more than we can afford, in some cases. It is precisely for these reasons that one of the primary goals of air pollution control research is to bring the effectiveness up and the costs down. But it is not true that we must achieve a balance of control costs against costs of noncontrol in all cases.

Rather, it is as Dr. Haagen-Smit stated it: "Control is always a balance between the desire of obtaining as clear air as possible and the price the community is willing to pay for reaching this goal.” Perhaps we can generalize all this by saying that a community will be willing to pay the necessary costs only when it is convinced that either the comfort and health of its inhabitants will be increased or their economic burdens will be eased. A keyword here is "convinced"-and this implies an educational process. It is therefore altogether fitting that this afternoon's sessions will include a panel on public information.

"Convinced" also implies that we have available the necessary facts with which to do the convincing. It is therefore also fitting that other panels

will discuss the measuring of air pollutants and the available control methods.

Dr.

Dr. Smith suggested that the facts presented to the public should include all the pertinent cost figures whenever possible, and he deplored the general practice of giving one-sided cost figures. He gave as an example the case of auto exhaust controls, in which the unit cost per car is often cited, but not the total for all the cars involved. Smith proposed that instead of telling people only that it may cost $100 per car for an exhaust eliminator, we should also tell them that the cost in the Los Angeles area would total about $300 million initially and millions more each year. This proposal seems quite reasonable, and I would like to take a minute to discuss the real impact which such a simple, innocuous-sounding proposal may produce when we follow through on it. One immediately obvious result would be to enable communities to compare alternative solutions; for example, the people in Los Angeles could then weigh the relative merits and costs of the auto exhaust eliminator program and an electricpowered public transportation system.

Dr. Smith's proposal should work both ways, of course. Let us apply it to the case of the burning of leaves in Detroit, which Dr. Smith also mentioned. He pointed out that officials of the city of Detroit have decided that the city cannot afford the estimated half-million dollars to have the leaves carted away instead of allowing them to be burned in the streets. Now, according to Dr. Smith's proposal, the Detroit City Council should tell the public not only the half-a-million-dollar total figure, but also that it would cost each of Detroit's 1,670,000 inhabitants only 30 cents per year to have the city get rid of the leaves. The citizens of Detroit might well acquiesce to paying 30 cents a head to eliminate leaf burning, if they understood the harmful effects of burning leaves, and if they had an opportunity to express themselves on the subject, particularly early in November.

I believe that the cost of the leaf burning in Detroit is an excellent example of the need to translate the costs of air pollution control into terms applicable to the individual citizen, the consumer of the polluted air. The individual citizen is not only the ultimate consumer of polluted air, he is also the one who ultimately pays the costs, whether it be in the form of higher taxes, higher prices of appliances and foods, or the cost of an exhaust eliminator on his car. He is entitled to know how

he personally will be affected, whether it be 30 cents to have leaves carted away, or $100 for an exhaust eliminator on his car. He is also entitled to know about the other side of the coin: that control costs would or could be balanced to some extent by lower prices for foods, as the effects of pollution on agriculture are abated, that he would have to paint his home less frequently and wash his car less frequently, that his clothes might last longer and look better; yes, even that he would not need to shampoo his hair as often.

Not only is the individual citizen entitled to know the relative costs of living with polluted air or clean air, but I am also convinced that such information could be very persuasive, purely in terms of economic savings which can be achieved by air pollution control in some cases. For example, if we were to inform the inhabitants of a community that each family is spending several hundred dollars per year in extra cleaning and maintenance costs alone because of air pollution, and that most of this sum could be saved by investing less than $5 per family per year in an air pollution control program, it might well rally public support for air pollution control. I am aware that most attempts to rally public support by this means have failed in the past, but I strongly suspect that a reason for the past failures is that we really do not know the actual costs involved. We can only give vague "guesstimates" at present, and these are hardly convincing; we need hard, cold facts in this area, if we wish to persuade people to take appropriate action.

A pilot study started in 1960 by Consumers Union indicates that the added personal costs to families living in polluted air are difficult to assess, but that the difficulties are surmountable. Without going into details of either the assessment or the difficul

ties, let me note that here is an area in which can be obtained those cost figures which Dr. Smith described as necessary to justify expenditures for control programs.

Perhaps the most revealing paper we have heard today is that presented by Dr. Herring. Her presentation was in the form of suggestions for future planning of urban areas so that residential sections can be relatively free of air pollution. Inherent in her paper is an exposure of the many dreadful mistakes man has made in building his present cities. Her proposals are so fundamental and far reaching, and so attractive, that we must approach our present problems with a deep sense of guilt that these problems are a result of our past mistakes, our past inaction, our past thoughtlessness. It is especially frustrating to realize that these principles can apply immediately only to newly developing areas, that we cannot apply these principles to our present cities except in a very slow and incomplete way unless we suffer the kind of sudden changes which engulfed Rotterdam, Stalingrad, Frankfurt, and Hamburg 20 years ago. Would that our ancestors had had the benefit of Dr. Herring's proposals, and had chosen to utilize them. We must not make the same mistakes again, and Dr. Herring's blueprint should be a valuable guide for newly developing

areas.

Meantime, we must still face up to the consequences of our past mistakes: we must deal with our present problems of air pollution in our present urban areas, even if the measures we must use may seem to be only temporary palliatives by Dr. Herring's standards. Let us conclude this panel session with a resolve to work out realistic and effective methods of conserving our resources, utilizing all our know-how, at this conference.

Applying Present Know-How to Air Pollution Control

Chairman: GLENN R. HILST

Co-Chairman: MOYER D. THOMAS

Reporter: RAYMOND SMITH

Participants

GLENN R. HILST, Vice President, The Travelers Research Center, Inc., Hartford, Conn.

AUGUST T. ROSSANO, JR., Visiting Professor of Environmental Health Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. LELAND C. BURROUGHS, Executive Secretary, Air and Water Conservation Committee, American Petroleum Institute, New York, N.Y.

E. R. HENDRICKSON, Professor, Air Pollution Research Laboratory, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. BENJAMIN LINSKY, Air Pollution Control Officer, Bay Area Air Pollution Control District, San Francisco, Calif. RAYMOND SMITH, Chief, Air Pollution Control Section, Department of Public Health, Philadelphia, Pa. CHARLES S. MANERI, Chief, Air Pollution Control Services, New York State Department of Health, Albany, N.Y. MOYER D. THOMAS, Physical Chemist, Agricultural Air Research Program, University of California, Riverside, Calif.

Panel Resource Personnel

ELBERT C. TABOR, Chief, Air Quality Section, Division of Air Pollution, Public Health Service, Cincinnati, Ohio WILLIAM H. MEGONNELL, Regional Program Director, Air Pollution, Public Health Service, Region II, New York, N.Y.

RICHARD W. HURN, Bureau of Mines, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bartlesville, Okla.