is similiar to the situation which has now developed through recent legislation in the United States where the Federal Government takes an immediate interest in and concern with interstate streams.

In Belgium, the Ministry of Health is responsible for the control of pollution. Informal and voluntary watershed councils have been established and it is proposed that their powers and functions be considerably strengthened in a law now being considered by the Belgian Parliament.

In Germany, very general pollution control authority rests with the water and navigation offices, the water economy offices and the public health and fisheries ministries of the various German states. By all means the most comprehensive drainage basin organizations in the field of water pollution control exist in Germany. These are the German Genossenschaften. These public cooperatives or corporations are responsible under state supervision not only for water pollution control but also for the collection and treatment of wastes, flood controì, drainage, the distribution and sale of water, and many related processes such as the recovery of certain industrial products from industrial wastes. Members of these river basin authorities are, broadly speaking, those who discharge pollutants into the drainage basin benefit from the facilities owned by such authorities. These usually include industrial enterprises, municipalities, and water users. The state government and the Federal Government usually are members of these authorities as well.

Each of the authorities has an assembly composed of all of its members which elects a managing board. Members are those who meet a minimum fixed contribution. The weight of a vote in the assembly meeting depends on the amount of the contribution or annual payment which is made. The laws establishing the Genossenschaften contain safeguards to prevent certain industries, particularly the mining industry from controlling the vote. Members pay contributions to the operation and maintenance of the waste collection and treatment systems which are based on an appropriate share of the annual budget. These charges are based on waste flow, waste composition, or a combination thereof. They are quite similar to the sewer service charges used in this country.

The Ruhrverband is perhaps the largest and the most complex of these organizations. It serves a watershed of 1,700 square miles. The Ruhrverband operates 100 treatment plants, 40 pumping stations, and together with the Ruhrtalsperrenverein, its water supply counterpart, operates 20 hydroelectric powerplants and 2 gas works. Two-thirds of the industries in the basin discharge their wastes to treatment plants operated by the Ruhrverband. Recreational water use is very high in the rural area. The legislation establishing the Ruhrverband makes its primary purpose the "cleaning up of the Ruhr." The actual relationship which exists between the German states and the Genossenschaften ought to be a subject of further study. It is clear that the Genossenschaften, or water authorities, must operate within the framework of German Federal and State law. 21 22

21 Lyon and Maneval, op. cit., pp. 12-20.

22 Gieseke, Paul. "River Basin Authorities on the Ruhr and on Other Rivers in Germany.' Conference on Water Pollution Problems in Europe, United Nations Publication G1, II E/Mim 24; pp. 276-282.

In Sweden, the primary Federal agency concerned with water pollution control is the National Water Protection Service. Its activities are nationwide and conducted in cooperation with other agencies concerned with water pollution control such as the local health committees which concern themselves with the public health aspects of water pollution control. Applications for permits to discharge wastes to streams in Sweden and conflicts concerning water use and water pollution problems are heard and decided by water rights courts. The decisions of the water rights courts can be appealed to a superior water rights court and, if necessary and permission is granted, to the Supreme Court of Sweden. As can be seen, Sweden places a great deal of emphasis on the judicial aspects of water pollution control practice.23

PERMIT SYSTEMS

As is the case in most of the United States, some procedure for obtaining permits prior to discharge of wastes to streams exists in all European countries. These procedures are usually safeguarded by provisions for hearings in case of adverse proceedings. In some cases, hearings are always held prior to the issuance of a permit. In nearly all cases, interested parties are advised by public notice prior to the hearing.

It is interesting to note that the laws of many countries provide for time limits for granting permits. In England, for example, if a permit is not granted within 6 months, the permit (consent) is considered as granted free of restrictive clauses. In Poland, permits must be issued within 2 months from the date of the application. If the permit has not been issued, the officials involved must notify higher authorities requesting additional time and stating the reasons for the delay. Officials who cause the delay are subject to disciplinary action. In the United States, some State laws specify time limits for dealing with applications for permits. If no time is set and there is undue delay, applicants have, of course, the right to apply to the appropriate courts. In Yugoslavia, according to Federal Administrative Procedure Act, failure to issue a permit within 2 months means that the application has been rejected.24

In some countries, such as Germany, Poland, and Yugoslavia, permits for any change in industrial process are required and the question of pollution by industrial waste is considered prior to the issuance of such permits.

Most European laws, as is the case in the United States, provide for revisions or modifications or even revocation of permits. In the case of Germany and Poland, compensation can be provided for economic losses incurred by modification or revocation of permits. Similarly, many national laws provide for damages to be paid by polluters to water users. For example, in Sweden if the discharge of industrial waste water in an area has an adverse affect on fishing, the owner of the plant may be required to pay an annual amount in the form of damages to be used for "the promotion of fishing in Sweden." 25 In Poland, apart from any penalties and criminal sanctions, the water economy section can impose a special water contamina

23 Dyrssen, Gösten, in Litwin, op. cit., pp. 137-145.

24 Litwin, op. cit., p. 49.

25 Dyrssen, Gösten, op. cit., p. 138.

tion fine, which is chargeable to the enterprises funds and can be related to the degree of pollution, particularly if there has been an arbitrary change in the manufacturing process. An enterprise to which a fine has been imposed must trace the person who caused the pollution and have recourse to law to recover the amount.26

The French law provides for a wide range of means to compel industrial plants to comply with pollution requirements. The Prefect, a top local government official can order the work done at the manufacturer's expense or else issue an order suspending the operation of the enterprise and, in that case, "compel the offender to pay his staff during the period of suspension." Naturally, the manufacturer has a right to appeal to the French administrative court system.27

SUMMARY

Any study of the dynamics of pollution control legislation and administration throughout industrialized Europe points to certain general conclusions.

First, there appears to be in Europe, a general movement toward decentralized river basin management of water pollution control and waste treatment. Second, increased pollution of streams in the industrial sectors of most countries has had an adverse effect on many of the uses of rivers, particularly recreational uses. As a result, conservationists, fishermen, and professionals have put considerable pressure on parliaments and governments with the help of an interested press. This has caused stronger laws to be considered or passed in most European countries, just as has been true for the United States. Permit and classification systems are used in Europe as well as in the United States.

In general, water pollution problems in Europe have increased as has been the case in the United States. The public response in terms of stronger laws is comparable to that in the United States. Significant differences exist in the form of organization of national pollution control efforts. In many countries the trend is toward decentralized water quality management on a drainage basin basis.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Information for this paper was drawn from two major sources. The primary source has been a study conducted by Joseph Litwin, professor of administrative law, University of Lodz, Poland, for a joint committee of the International Association of Legal Science and the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, Brussels, Belgium. The study included a detailed review of reports from the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Yugoslavia. I have borrowed freely from the study and only cited specific quotations from the study. Much additional valuable information, particularly concerning water pollution problems in Germany, Belgium, Holland, and the United Kingdom was gathered during a travel fellowship sponsored by the World Health Organization during the fall of 1965.

20 Litwin, op. cit., p. 42.

2 Gentot, Michel, in Litwin, op. cit., pp. 87-88.

STATEMENT SUBMITTED TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT, BY PHILLIP SPORN, AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER Co., INC., AUGUST 25, 1966

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ADEQUACY OF AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY FOR POLLUTION ABATEMENT WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO SULFUR DIOXIDE

The subject of the inquiry; namely, the adequacy of our technology for pollution abatement, raises not only a highly important question for our society, but is, I think, particularly timely in view of the current deepening concern with the cumulative effect of industrial and biological wastes on our environment. While many of the situations that trouble this generation had their origins in the industrial revolution, it has remained for those oriented toward space, to apply fully the protective technologies to the indispensable bases of human life on our planet-air, soil, and water. In part, this stems from our new sense of affluence and in part from an uncritical view that fails to distinguish between the technically possible and economically obtainable.

In the hearings of last January, I pointed out that, particularly for SO, and other gases in stack effluents resulting from the burning of hydrocarbon fuels, the only satisfactory disposal known is the discharge at an elevated point with resultant diffusion in the upper air. I stated that the ability of a stack or stack system of practical height to lower SO2 concentration at ground level to a value of 0.5 parts per million, even for powerplant complexes up to 5,000 megawatts, has been clearly established. I also called attention to the fact that much lower levels of SO2 concentration have been postulated in codes and regulations, without any technical or physiological basis for such lower levels, and certainly without any demonstration that

such lower levels were at all needed.

The tall stack, which is available as a perfectly solid piece of technology to take care of a pressing problem, has been neglected by some planners of facilities which could become sources of disturbing pollution. Far more distressing has been the reaction of many people concerned with creating and enforcing standards for clean air who for some strange reason have almost totally disregarded or discounted this proven technology. Instead of critically examining the incontrovertible facts with regard to the performance of high stacks, we find that various paper studies are produced and inserted in the literature in a fashion that exempts them from the criticism of other workers in the field to which scientific papers are normally subject. Later, these exempt statements are quoted overseas and elsewhere as proof that high stacks are ineffective. Along with this ostrichlike stance of officials, we have repetition ad nauseam of the bad experience of many years ago at Donora or the bad effects with washed, moistened, and chilled effluents at Bankside and Battersea coupled with massive

low level emissions from household heating equipment in the much publicized tragic experience of London in 1952.

Since, in my discussion of January of this year, I did not offer any extensive proof of my statement, I would like to offer for the record the experience with high stacks in two companies with which I have been intimately associated, in one-the American Electric Power System-over the past 40 years, and in the Ohio Valley Electric Corp., of which I have been the chief executive officer since its founding in 1952.

The entire development of this technology is set forth in a paper that a colleague of mine, T. T. Frankenberg, and I prepared for submission at the International Clean Air Congress to be held in London this coming October 4-7. This will in due course be printed in full. I offer it for the record here in the highly condensed version (see p. 884).

No reading and study of this record, it seems to me, can fail to result in anything but agreement that high stacks offer a highly acceptable, effective, and so far the only available pragmatic solution to the problem of disposing of SO2. Efforts to remove sulfur from fuel before burning it have so far come to naught. Numerous studies seeking to remove SO2 from the flue gas have arrived at estimated costs which make the process totally unacceptable even before the operating problems have been evaluated by actual construction and operation.

In making the above categorical statement, I do not want to be charged with the belief that high stacks are a permanent solution to this problem, good for all time into the future. Very few technological solutions have any such permanency and this is no exception. But it is certainly a solution that is good for some decades to Still, since decades have a way of rolling around, there is need for continuing careful studies to find other solutions which can be developed to practical application. Economic application might perhaps take anything from a decade to two or three decades.

Such

In this connection. there is certainly also need for very careful studies before and after the installation of every major powerplant utilizing the technological device of high stacks in order to obtain a more extensive evaluation of the mechanism of diffusion. studies will without doubt provide the students of the problem, and the designers of pragmatic technological devices for coping with them, with a degree of confidence in evaluating this mechanism and variations of this mechanism for dispersal of SO2 so that we con continue to improve the effectiveness of the solution in the years to come without playing havoc with the country's economy.

In addition to the studies of high stacks by the Tennessee Valley Authority, alluded to in my January presentation, further attestation to the abatement possible by this means has recently come to my attention. In the July 1966 issue of the Journal of the Institute of Fuel (vol. XXXIX, No. 306, pp. 294-307), A. Martin and F. R. Barber of the Central Electricity Generating Board, Midland Region, Nottingham, England, report "Investigations of Sulfur Dioxide Pollution Around a Modern Power Station." The High Marnham Power Station, situated in a relatively flat area, has a maximum output of 1,000 megawatts and two stacks, each 450 feet high. I should like to quote briefly from the abstract of the paper: