ECOLOGY AT THE HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL

Senator RIBICOFF. Take Connecticut. I think practically every high school I know of has a biology department. Youths want to get involved. They have been involved in the high school, grammar school and college level in the problem of ecology. They, themselves, could organize around their biology teachers, and you get high school students and high school faculty going down to a zoning board, expressing their will and their desire.

I believe it could be very effective.

Dr. DE SANTO. I think in many instances this has indeed been done. I think one of the motive forces behind the design of Connecticut Public Act 695 was a group of high school girls in the Stamford area, I believe, who became very interested in saving a particular piece of marshland.

There are a number of groups. One group-I have forgotten the school-took a canoe trip down the Connecticut River, logging what they saw as they came down.

I would certainly agree that the youth of the country, particularly of the shoreline and particularly the Northeast-because I am most familiar with that area are very much interested in preserving the environment and studying it from the point of view of looking at the the whole thing as a living system rather than picking it apart.

Senator RIBICOFF. How do you envision your board of ecological impact being set up and working? Would this be local? Would it be statewide? Would it be Federal? How do you envision it?

Dr. DE SANTO. I cannot conceive of an effective board in any way but a Federal organization, because it is as if you were dealing with air pollution. In a very real sense, the sea is exactly similar in that you cannot divide it up into packages, dividing Connecticut from New York or Connecticut from Rhode Island. The boundary, if you wish to construct any, must be based on natural boundaries or species distributions, and so forth.

So I think it is very difficult to have an effective organization based at a local or State level when it is necessary and absolutely essential that you ignore State boundary lines.

Senator RIBICOFF. Would you advocate a regional approach of Long Island involving New York or Connecticut, or Chesapeake Bay with Virginia and Maryland to work out their problems on a regional basis, with authority to take action against any invasion of the ecology and the preservation of the future of the area!

FEDERAL-REGIONAL APPROACH

Dr. DE SANTO. Yes; and I would go further to say that the future view should be, I think, an aim toward dividing the continent—at least North America-up into regions of this sort. There, I think, you can logicallly have subdivisions, such as the Northeast and the tropical South and the west coast, as three regions encompassing the United States, and they should all be on a Federal level and they should all be tied together at least in formal meetings, so that one group informs

another.

For example, the problem of thermal pollution in the Northeast is different than the problem of thermal pollution in the tropics, simply

because the waters here are cooler. But the principles involved here are the same as they are in the tropics, and I think a great deal more can be gotten out of statistics and data if they have such cooperating Federal-regional structures.

Senator RIBICOFF. Senator Mathias.

Senator MATHIAS. I would like to pursue a line of questioning that you began.

Dr. De Santo has made a very interesting catalog of some of the sources of pollution of Long Island Sound. This catalog unhappily confirms one of the depressing aspects of this problem.

Let me switch the focus to another environment for just a moment: In the city of Washington, the National Capital, a city which every President of the Republic has said should be an example to the whole world, the greatest polluters of the Potomac River are the Federal and District of Columbia Governments. It is responsible for more of the pollution that is plaguing the Potomac River than any other single

source.

In your statement, Dr. De Santo, you say that a substantial portion of the pollution of Long Island Sound results either from the direct action of government at some level-municipal, State, Federal-or from some action which is licensed by government at some level.

I wonder if you could estimate the current percentage of Long Island Sound pollution which is the product of governmental activity. Dr. DE SANTO. You mean, as you categorize, through licensing or direct

Senator MATHIAS. Either the direct action of government, as where a municipal system is pumping raw sewage, or, as Senator Ribicoff suggested, where a local government licenses a land-fill operation, which would be indirect governmental action.

What percentage, in your judgment, of this whole problem is directly resulting from some governmental action and therefore, at least theoretically, within governmental control?

POLLUTION UNDER GOVERNMENT CONTROL

Dr. DE SANTO. Then I would only exclude individuals polluting the sound—that is, homeowners or boatowners-and I would lump every other polluter under government control as being industry or city government or the Federal Government.

Therefore, although I admit it is an off-the-cuff estimate on my part, I would say between 90 and 98 percent.

There are an awful lot of beer cans in the Sound. I am a scuba diver, and it is really amazing how many beer cans there are in the Sound.

But the major pollution, this insidious kind of pollution, results from continuous effluents, manufacturing effluents, and so forth, dumped into the river, and untreated sewage, as well as primary and even, to some extent, secondary treatment sewage plants.

So all of these things contribute in a major way to pollution in the Sound, and individual polluters, although significant, are not nearly as insidious as are these licensed or direct government activities. It seems to me that it is obvious.

I am not in any way meaning to sound as if I am condemning the government or any individual industry. It is a very bad problem.

I think many of us, scientists included, have done our darnedest over the past several years to try and ignore the problem and either pretend it is not there or say that there are easy means by which we can remedy it. I honestly do not feel there are easy means by which we can remedy this problem.

I think the Federal Government certainly is becoming more and more aware and, indeed, even taking action to correct of some of its problems of pollution, as evidenced by the submarine tender Fulton at the mouth of the Thames, which is being converted to sewage treatment very soon, if not already.

These are very embarrassing problems, but the fact that they are embarrassing, I think, is a good sign, because I think that will result in action, hopefully action soon, hopefully action before it is too late to reverse the cycle or to even things out or to smooth them out. So I think the major responsibility for control is a Federal responsibility, but I also recognize the tremendous difficulty it would be to implement such control.

If you do not wish any thermal pollution in Long Island Sound, shut down all the electric generating plants. Well, you cannot do it.

A QUESTION OF ECONOMICS

Senator MATHIAS. I agree with that. But isn't there an alternative, whereby you provide coolants or you require before licensing a nuclear generator-a cooling system, which may be more expensive and which will ultimately face the ratepayers with a higher cost of electricity as a result of avoiding thermal pollution?

Dr. DE SANTO. Yes.

Senator MATHIAS. In the case of sewage, you require every community, indeed, every householder, who has previously discharged raw sewage into the sea to subject this waste to some sort of treatment? Dr. DE SANTO. Yes.

Senator MATHIAS. This, then, is a question of economics.

Dr. DE SANTO. I couldn't agree with you more.

I think we have to realize that sewage is going to cost money. You have to, in effect, buy the privilege to dispose of sewage or anything else. I mean we live, certainly, in a very affluent society, but it is not free. We have to pay for everything, including disposing of plastic wrappers and aluminum beer cans.

ECONOMIC PRIORITY, A JOB FOR ECOLOGISTS

Senator MATHIAS. So then we come down to this, don't we: That we have a problem for which solutions are available to the Government today, but we have not as a Nation assigned economic priority to their being applied?

Dr. DE SANTO. Yes.

Senator MATHIAS. Isn't it the job of the ecologists to help us establish that priority by showing not only what it will cost to solve the problem; but what it will cost not to solve it?

Dr. DE SANTO. Yes.

I think prior to this time or within the past few years, ecologists have not been asked pointed questions, and I do not think prior to this

time many ecologists formed answers to these specific questions that are being formed now.

So I would certainly agree with you that priorities have to be set and that I think the Federal Government should work in consort with the ecologists to arrive at these priorities.

Senator MATHIAS. Mr. Chairman, I have just one technical question.

OIL SPILLS

Dr. De Santo, you implied that oil spills are more damaging in the summer than in the winter, from an ecological point of view.

I am interested in this, in light of the great concern of the Canadians over the Northwest Passage, where there would be low temperature problems should an oil spill occur, I am wondering how the removal of a low temperature oil spill would be affected by the biological cleansing which normally, if slowly, works on summer and winter spills.

Dr. DE SANTO. I cannot answer that with any sort of authority. I can say that the preliminary study, really, that we made at White Point in that 20,000-gallon spill was specifically based on information collected at that site at that time.

I would hesitate at this point to make generalities. I do not know the conditions that would define the ecology of cold-water spills. Senator MATHIAS. I think this is an interesting problem, one we should look at further.

Thank you very much.

Senator RIBICOFF. Thank you very much, Doctor.

Mrs. Jane Clifford.

We do appreciate your coming here, Mrs. Clifford, and why don't you proceed as you will.

STATEMENT OF MRS. JANE CLIFFORD, HOUSEWIFE

Mrs. CLIFFORD. Thank you very much for having me.

I am here because I am a housewife, and we have three children. We live a half block from the beach, and we have been using this beach for many years, taking for granted it would always be lovely and beautiful and clean, until this year.

In June I had occasion to take my son to the beach, and when he came out of the water he was covered with tar. You could smell the oil. You could smell the oil all over him. You could smell the oil in the air. It was disgusting.

We have had garbage on the beach, beer cans, banana peels. You name it-it's been there.

I am here to see that something gets done about it.

That's all.

Senator RIBICOFF. Is this a municipal beach?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. No; it's a private beach, up the street.
Senator RIBICOFF. Near where you live?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. Yes.

Senator RIBICOFF. How long have you been using this beach?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. For about 14 years.

Senator RIBICOFF. Have you noticed a gradual deterioration in the situation?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. Yes. Not until about 4 years ago, 4 to 5 years ago. Senator RIBICOFF. This is debris that comes from all over the sound? Mrs. CLIFFORD. I don't know where it would come from. All I know is that it's there.

I would assume-first of all, we have an anchorage right off our beach for tankers that are coming into the city to dock. I would assume that they probably don't help the situation any. Facilities-naval facilities, et cetera they're dumping sewage into the Thames and the

sound.

Senator RIBICOFF. In these 14 years, have you noticed whether anyone has cared or been interested in stopping the debris and the pollution coming into the Thames River or the sound?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. No, no; it's getting worse.

Senator RIBICOFF. It is getting worse, but no one seems to care?
Mrs. CLIFFORD. Well, apparently not till now.

Senator RIBICOFF. How many children do you have?

Mrs. CLIFFORD, Three.

Senator RIBICOFF. How old are they?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. They are 17, 16, and 412.

Senator RIBICOFF. Do you restrict their use of the beach because of it?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. Well, I haven't so far, but it looks as though, if things don't clear up, it will have to be that way.

Senator RIBICOFF. How do your neighbors and the other people using the beach feel about the deterioration of the beach?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. They feel the same as I do.

Senator RIBICOFF. They think it ought to be stopped and the waters ought to be swimmable?

Mrs. CLIFFORD. As soon as possible.

Senator MATHIAS. Thank you very much.

Senator RIBICOFF. Thank you very much for coming.

Mr. Peter Millaras.

STATEMENT OF PETER MILLARAS, REAL ESTATE AND INSURANCE

BROKER

Mr. MILLARAS. My name is Peter Millaras. I reside at 165 Old Norwich Road, Quaker Hill, Conn. My real estate and insurance office is located at 311 State Street, New London.

I was born and raised and have lived my 50 years here in the New London area, with the exception of the years at school and 6 years in Uncle Sam's Navy. Since the age of about 10, I have fished the local waters, including the Thames River as well as the other nearby rivers, coves, inlets, and the sound.

As a boy, and later as a young man, I found the fishing in the Thames River fantastic as compared to today's fishing. We were able to catch a variety of fish-butterfish, hickory shad, weakfish, squid, herring, mackerel, bluefish, blackfish, fluke, whiting, sometimes called frost fish, smelts, and striped bass. Blue crabs also were abundant all along the river shores and coves.