(The information requested follows:) Cost of heating Los Angeles building before and after conversion The The heating system at the Post Office and Courthouse building in Los Angeles, California, was converted from oil burning equipment to gas in July 1953. comparative cost of heating the building with oil and gas is indicated below: NOTE. Electricity is used as the source of power to operate the refrigeration machines for the air condi tioning systems in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C This electricity is purchased in both cities from the local power company. Senator TYDINGS. Have you run any surveys in your office or department on the speed in which you have to clean buildings in the District over the last 20 or 30 years? Would you have any figures on that? Mr. SCHMIDT. No. But I might say that there was a period when it was very difficult to convince architects, and especially the Fine Arts Commission, that buildings ought to be cleaned. This is why the records will show that most of the cleaning was done in the last 5 or 6 years. Even the old State, War and Navy Building, for years we were not permitted to touch that building, and finally between the pigeons and all the rest of the grime we just felt we had to clean it. and I think it worked out very well. Incidentally, some of these costs I mentioned, under the contracts included bird-proofing, for pigeons and starlings. Senator TYDINGS. Are there any other immediate effects that air pollution does to your buildings other than the harmful effects such as corroding, rotting, or anything like that? Mr. SCHMIDT. Some of the older stone, like the old Corcoran Art Gallery at 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue, there is just a deterioration of the stone, but I do not think that has been caused by any pollution in the atmosphere. It is just the normal weathering and wearing away of the stone-erosion. Senator SPONG. When you get the Los Angeles figures on operating and heating Federal buildings together it might be helpful if you could also go back to before the time the present Los Angeles County ordinance was put into effect and show us the comparative cost before the ordinance was enforced and after it was enforced. I gather from your testimony that you are complying with the order because you are demonstrating leadership by reducing the sulphur content and improving the quality of the coal and oil you are using while you are awaiting standards and criteria from HEW. Is that correct? Mr. SCHMIDT. That is correct, both in our own operations as well as the specifications and the purchasing that we do for other Federal agencies. Senator SPONG. And you have received these standards and criteria already for Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York? Mr. SCHMIDT. They have been published, right. On the Los Angeles situation, I would like to mention that there is really one building that has been in that downtown civic center for any appreciable period that GSA manages, and that is the Post Office and Court House. The Federal Office Building, which is just across the Mall, was recently completed, about 2 years ago, so we will have difficulty there in getting data for comparative purposes. Senator TYDINGS. Do you have the square footage? Mr. SCHMIDT. Yes, we have that. Senator TYDINGS. If it is so many million square foot there that has a certain cost. Mr. SCHMIDT. I am thinking of the before-and-after cost. Senator SPONG. I would like to thank them. I think their testimony has been very helpful. Senator TYDINGS. There has been some comment on the Bureau of Engraving as a source of pollution. What kind of fuel do they use out there? Mr. SCHMIDT. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, heating is done from our central plant. This source of pollution might be incinerators. I do not know. Senator TYDINGS. They have incinerators out there at the Bureau of Engraving? Mr. SCHMIDT. I do not know what process they use for the destruction of old currency, and so on. I understand that they do have an incinerator with a pretty heavy burning rate, 30,000 pounds a day. Senator TYDINGS. Are there any devices, any precipitators, or anything like that, to control pollution? Mr. SCHMIDT. We do not operate the buildings, so I do not know. We would have to take a look at the equipment. Senator TYDINGS. Who operates the buildings, Bureau of Engraving and Printing? Mr. SCHMIDT. Yes. Senator TYDINGS. They would operate the incinerator, too? Mr. SCHMIDT. Yes, the Bureau operates its own buildings. Senator TYDINGS. What about the buildings you lease in the area? Do you have any type of air-pollution requirements now as far as the amount of pollution you permit your landlords to dump? Mr. SCHMIDT. In the list of plants which are furnished for the record, six of those are in leased buildings; six plants that we are operating are in leased buildings. They are small plants. And I would imagine they would be a very small part of any pollution, total pollution. We do occupy a lot of leased space, where we are either the total tenant or the tenant with commercial tenants and we do not operate the building. Senator TYDINGS. When you lease a building from a landlord, you require that they meet certain plans and specs, certain requirements for your buildings, for your occupancy, for your tenancy. Are any 77-536 0-67—8 of these plans, specs, or requirements based on pollution emissions for protection of the general public? Mr. SCHMIDT. Not that I know of, but the private operators would be required to comply with the District of Columbia regulations. Senator TYDINGS. On air pollution, if there were any. Mr. SCHMIDT. To the extent there are, they would have to comply. Senator TYDINGS. Do you anticipate that you will in the future—is this an area which you will consider? Mr. SCHMIDT. Our leases do require the owner to comply with local codes, ordinances and regulations. To the extent that these might be issued by the District, this is one way of getting at the problem. Senator TYDINGS. Suppose there are no regulations issued by the District. If you adopt the rules and regulations for your own buildings, standards, would you require those same standards in buildings which you lease or not? Mr. SCHMIDT. At best I think we can only encourage the lessors to adopt these practices. I think we would find it a little difficult with the demands for office space in this area. We would find ourselves having to occupy the space and since we have no other place to move, we are in a rather difficult position to enforce any of this with the owners or lessors. Senator TYDINGS. Well, Mr. Schmidt, I think your testimony has been most helpful and concise. I appreciate you and Mr. Davis, Mr. Vaughn, Mr. Innamorati being here, and as I said to the last witness, this your city, too. Mr. SCHMIDT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator TYDINGS. Next we have Dr. Eloise W. Kailin, representing the District of Columbia Medical Society. Delighted to welcome you, Dr. Kailin. STATEMENT OF DR. ELOISE KAILIN, REPRESENTING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA MEDICAL SOCIETY Dr. KAILIN. I understand you wanted me to present the statement of the District of Columbia Medical Society last August on air pollution. Do you want me to summarize or do you want me to read it? Senator TYDINGS. I would like you to summarize. We will incorporate the entire statement at the conclusion of your testimony. Dr. KAILIN. The summary is the first page. Senator TYDINGS. Why do you not include that and go ahead and summarize it. Dr. KAILIN. I am going to summarize on the medical society's statement to say that the Nation's Capital has had an increase in air pollution problems, first well-defined in the last decade. Numerous studies indicate that human health is adversely affected by the kind of air pollution which we now have. In addition to ill health resulting from chronic air pollution, there is also a threat that a combination of weather conditions will allow pollution to stagnate and become highly toxic so that this city may experience an acute epidemic of smog poisoning with fatalities such as have occurred in other cities. Senator TYDINGS. Would it be possible to have the same type of epidemics as Donora, Pa., had and which London has had? Dr. KAILIN. Certainly, and you heard good testimony, I think, on this subject yesterday, judging by what I read in the paper., The medical society is concerned with what can be done about it, not in the future, not after studies get done, but what can be done about a situation which is bad now. One suggestion would be blowby devices costing about $20 which we feel should be mandatory for all cars registered in the District within a year. Senator TYDINGS. What are these? Dr. KAILIN. These are little devices that are put on the exhaustblowbys which can be put on quite readily. At least they can be put on quite readily on cars dating from 1958 and subsequently. Within 2 or 3 years all cars should be forced to meet standards based on maximum permissible exhaust emissions. Senator TYDINGS. You know, in the 1968 model cars, all cars in the United States, new cars will have to meet the standards which are already being met in the Los Angeles-that is going to be upgraded so that by 1970 the number of unburned particles of hydrocarbons will have gone down from 275 per million to less than 150 per million. Dr. KAILIN. I know. But that does not really take care of the immediate problem because only about 10 percent of the cars on the road will get the new devices each year. So by the time you get half your cars covered with a really good device it is going to take 5 to 10 years. Senator TYDINGS. It will take about 10 years. Dr. KAILIN. We do not think we should be breathing that stuff for that long. Senator TYDINGS. I agree with you. My only comment would be that it is my understanding that the state of the art is not such that you can apply these new inspirations, these new systems that you can engineer them on old cars. Dr. KAILIN. Los Angeles has found, I believe, that they can provide this and they do not insist on the extremely old cars. This appeared in the Archives of Environmental Health in January-I am sorry I didn't bring a copy with me. I thought this was established. Senator TYDINGS. This was not my conclusion after completion of the 3 days of hearings in Los Angeles. That is just a comment, however. Please continue. Dr. KAILIN. Funds have already been allocated for a modern incinerator to replace the open-burning Kenilworth dump which handles one-quarter of the city's trash. This should be built without further delay. Other measures will be needed also, aimed at preventing pollutants from entering the air. A laissez faire attitude toward air pollution is not compatible with the basic needs of our population to breathe comfortably and safely. We must be willing to accept the costs and disciplines involved in applying available technical measures to reduce pollution well below present levels. Time is important as the problem is worsening as population grows. Clean air must be restored. That is the gist of the statement as it was put out last August. Since this statement has been released there have been plans made on the part of the District to lease land in an industrial area in Maryland, near Beltsville, and to haul Kenilworth's trash for land fill until such time as incinerator No. 5 can be built. That needs to be funded before they can get their contracts let. It is certainly a possibility and they are working on it. I think that I should also note that in all fairness, that the statistics and facts on which this statement was based were provided for us by both the District of Columbia Health Department and by the Public Health Service. They have been very cooperative in helping get this rolling. I would like to introduce an article written by Drs. Prindle and Landau on "Health Effects From Repeated Exposures to Low Concentrations of Air Pollutants." This summarizes the medical, laboratory, and experimental evidence through May 1962. It is one of the best summaries of health effects for overall veiw that I have run across. Senator TYDINGS. Would you like to summarize the summary? Dr. KAILIN. I will give you a copy and let you read it. The gist of it is, air pollution is bad and that you know. Senator TYDINGS. We will include it in the record at this point. (The document referred to follows:) |