Results. The report has been in great demand by public officials at all levels of government. It has been widely used as a working document by the delegates of constitutional conventions in those States where constitutions have undergone revision in the last several years. In addition, the committee has received numerous requests for the report from universities, research institutions, and national organizations who have used it as required reading in connection with formal courses, research, and discussion sessions dealing with the subject of strengthening our local and State governments.

NATURAL RESOURCES AND POWER SUBCOMMITTEE

[H. Rept. 204, 89th Cong., first sess.]

DISPOSAL OF MUNICIPAL SEWAGE (WATER POLLUTION CONTROL AND ABATEMENT)

Twelfth Report by the Committee on Government Operations

(Submitted to the Speaker March 24, 1965)

This report examined the role of the Federal Government in aiding pollution abatement action by municipalities.

RECOMMENDATIONS

SEWAGE TREATMENT CONSTRUCTION GRANTS (Recommendation 1):

The sewage treatment construction grants program should be fully implemented and accelerated in order to stimulate municipal governments to provide, as rapidly as possible, the most effective practical treatment for their wastes.

Results. When House Report 204 was written, the maximum authorization for grants to municipalities to construct sewage treatment facilities provided in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 466e) was $100 million for each of the fiscal years ending respectively on June 30, 1965, 1966, and 1967.

Authorizations for such grants were increased to $150 million for each of fiscal years 1966 and 1967 by the Water Quality Act of 1965 (Oct. 2, 1965, Public Law 89-234, sec. 4, 79 Stat. 906). The Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966 (Nov. 3, 1966, Public Law 89-753, title II, sec. 205; 80 Stat. 1249) authorized greater appropriations for such grants for fiscal years subsequent to 1967, as follows:

The Budget Bureau has requested, and the Congress has appropriated, the following sums for sewage treatment construction grants (73)

for the 4 years since enactment of the increased authorization legisla

1 The sums for fiscal year 1967 include: (a) the authorization in sec. 212 of the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-4, 79 Stat. 5; 40 U.S.C., App., Supp. III, 212), of $6,000,000; and (b) the request by the Budget Bureau, and the appropriation by Congress, of $3,000,000, for grants for construction of sewage treatment facilities in the Appalachian region, without regard to the appropriation ceilings or State allotments prescribed in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.

The Budget Bureau requested, for fiscal year 1968, $200,000,000 for waste treatment construction grants under sec. 8 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and an additional $3,000,000 for sewage treatment plant construction grants in the Appalachian region. However, the Appropriation Act (Public Law 90-147; 81 Stat. 471, 479; act of Nov. 20, 1967), providing the $203,000,000 for construction grants, made all of it available for waste treatment construction grants under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.

INCREASE LIMITATIONS ON CONSTRUCTION GRANTS (Recommendation 2):

The present dollar-ceiling limitations on grants for construction of municipal sewage treatment plants should be greatly increased for both single projects and for joint projects involving two or more communities.

Results. The Water Quality Act of 1965 increased the maximum Federal grant for construction of a single municipal sewage treatment project from $600,000 to $1.2 million, and for multimunicipal sewage treatment construction projects from $2.4 million to $4.8 million.

The dollar ceiling was removed, effective July 1, 1967, by section 203 of the Clean Water Restoration Act. Municipalities are now eligible for grants of up to 30 percent of the construction cost of the project, and, under certain conditions, for grants of as much as 55 percent of the project cost.

CONFORMITY WITH OVERALL DEVELOPMENT PLANS (Recommendation 3):

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare should encourage construction of sewage treatment facilities which conform with the overall plans for development of an entire metropolitan area, and thus help to achieve more effective use of Federal funds and better development of water pollution control in urban areas. The committee believes that a useful and proper means of encouraging such planned facilities would be to increase by 10 percent the allowable grant for each municipal sewage treatment project which is certified by an official State, metropolitan, or regional planning agency as conforming with the comprehensive plan developed or being developed for the metropolitan area.

Results.-House Report 204 described as a "promising and useful step" the policy which HEW adopted in March 1964 of evaluating applications for waste treatment construction grants in the light of

information from the State, metropolitan, or regional planning agency for the area as to whether the proposed project conforms with the comprehensive plan developed or being developed for the metropolitan area in which the project would be located. This policy is being followed by the Department of the Interior, to which HEW's water pollution control functions were transferred by Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1966 (31 F.R. 6857, effective May 10, 1966). The committee's recommendation to increase by 10 percent the grant for a municipal sewage treatment project which is certified as conforming with the comprehensive plan of the metropolitan area was enacted into law by sec. 4(h) of the Water Quality Act of 1965.

EFFICIENT OPERATION OF FACILITIES (Recommendation 4):

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare should inquire more fully into whether municipalities are complying adequately with their assurances that facilities constructed under the Federal construction grants program would be efficiently operated, and should take positive steps to obtain such compliance.

Results. Section 8(b) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, specifies that "no grant shall be made for any project * until the applicant has made provision satisfactory to the Secretary [of the Interior] for assuring proper and efficient operation and maintenance of the treatment works after completion of the construction thereof." To assure compliance with this requirement, the Interior Department, to which the Federal water pollution control functions of HEW were transferred in 1966, requires each municipality, when applying for a grant, to give assurance that it will have adequate staff and resources to operate and maintain the treatment works after completion of construction. The Department also, in cooperation with Public Health Service, promulgated guidelines for the design of waste treatment facilities which will discharge effluent into shellfish waters. Applications for construction grants for such projects are reviewed by both agencies under those guidelines. The Department seeks to encourage municipalities to achieve proper operation and maintenance of the treatment works when they are completed, and participates in joint Federal-State "operation and maintenance" audits of sewage treatment works constructed with the assistance of Federal grants.

The Department is now compiling data (for 1965 to mid-1968) on the results of operation and maintenance inspections which pinpoint operational problems in the plants. Furthermore, the Department has initiated a program for evaluating current criteria and practices and new developments in the design, operation and maintenance of waste treatment works. Its FWPCA regional offices maintain close relationships with State and local agencies, consulting engineers, contractors, professional associations, and others concerned with research, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of waste treatment works, and thus endeavor to promote better operation and maintenance of waste treatment works. In addition, FWPCA has established a

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Division of Manpower and Training which, in cooperation with the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare, assists States and local governments in training waste treatment plant operators.

RESEARCH PROGRAMS (Recommendation 5):

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare should intensify its intramural and extramural research programs to develop new and improved methods of waste treatment and to test new methods under actual field conditions in demonstration projects.

Results. Since the date of House Report 204, FWPCA has engaged in considerable in-house research and cooperative arrangements with municipalities, States, private industry, research foundations and universities, and has made significant progress in three areas of research: (1) Enhancing operational efficiency of conventional waste water treatment plants; (2) providing additional treatment steps to meet higher standards of quality for effluents discharged to waterways or suitable for reuse; and (3) diminishing environmental pollution from disposal of sludges from wastewater treatment. Some 60 separation or ultimate disposal processes have been or are being screened for technical and economic feasibility. About one-fourth have been rejected, and the remainder are undergoing tests, including several which have progressed to full-scale field evaluation and demonstration. Considerable progress has been made in connection with several different processes and techniques, and the results are being disseminated in seminars and papers on advanced waste treatment and water renovation.

Since the date of House Report 204, Congress has authorized substantial increases in appropriations for research to develop and test new and improved methods of waste treatment.

First, section 3 of the Water Quality Act of 1965 authorized annual appropriations of $20 million for fiscal years 1966 through 1969 for grants to public agencies, and for contracts to anyone, for projects which would demonstrate new or improved methods of controlling the discharge of untreated or inadequately treated sewage or other wastes from storm sewers and combined sewers. Each grant could be for not more than 50 percent of the estimated reasonable cost per project and not more than "5 per centum of the total amount authorized by this section in any one fiscal year" (a phrase the FWPCA interpreted to mean $1 million each), but the total fiscal year expenditures under contracts could not exceed 25 percent of the funds appropriated for this purpose in the fiscal year.

Section 201 of the Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966 further expanded the appropriation authorizations for research purposes. It increased the general authorization for research, investigations, training, and information under section 5 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act from $5 million per year to $60 million for fiscal year 1968 and $65 million for fiscal year 1969, to remain available until expended. It also authorized $1 million for each of fiscal years 1967, 1968, and 1969 for a study of pollution in estuaries. In addition, section 201 of the 1966 Clean Water Restoration Act amended section 6 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act by (a) raising the ceiling on individual