00:00:00 The following program is produced by KQED and the American Chemical Society.

00:00:10 This is a virtual corpse, a lake dying before its time.

00:00:16 Unfit to swim in, it serves only as a waterway for ships and as a sewer.

00:00:22 It killed it. This, this, or this?

00:00:30 New York City doesn't have a dying lake on its hands, but its citizens encountered a problem so bad that even restaurants stopped serving water.

00:00:38 A drought threatened the city. Pollution of its rivers, including the Hudson, shut off other water sources.

00:00:47 A massive outbreak of gastroenteritis in Riverside, California, uncovered another phase of water pollution.

00:00:53 The water is rebelling. We are not about to be forgiven for our sins.

00:00:59 For the first time in many places, a price is being put on an ingredient indispensable for life.

00:01:07 It takes two quarts of water a day to keep one of us alive.

00:01:12 It takes about 50 gallons to produce a loaf of bread.

00:01:16 300 gallons for a decent-sized steak.

00:01:19 A yard of wool, 500 gallons.

00:01:21 A ton of aluminum, over 200,000 gallons.

00:01:26 We use water for nearly everything, lots of it.

00:01:30 And the water is there.

00:01:32 But in all too many cases, it stinks.

00:01:38 From a factory that dumps its wastes into a convenient stream.

00:01:42 From cities that use harbors and rivers as cesspools.

00:01:46 From power plants that dump enough of an invisible pollutant, heat, into a river to kill fish.

00:01:54 What does pollution do?

00:01:56 Pollutants may soak up enough oxygen to literally suffocate fish.

00:02:01 Or spur plant growth, choking a lake.

00:02:05 The effects are often complicated.

00:02:08 Bits of copper or zinc by themselves won't kill fish.

00:02:12 Put together, they will.

00:02:16 The battle is on against water pollution.

00:02:19 New ways to clean dirty waters are being experimented with.

00:02:24 If that doesn't work, we can only put our trust in the hope of Henry David Thoreau,

00:02:29 that perchance after a thousand years, if the fish will be patient and pass their summers elsewhere,

00:02:36 nature will have leveled the dams and factories and the river will run clear again.

00:02:42 Here is the moderator, David Perlman, science editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

00:03:05 Good evening.

00:03:06 Our guests this evening are Dr. James J. Morgan,

00:03:09 associate professor of environmental health engineering at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California,

00:03:16 and Dr. Thurston E. Larson, who is head of the chemistry section of the Illinois State Water Survey in Urbana, Illinois,

00:03:23 and Mr. Arthur J. Innerfield, principal engineer with the firm of Leeds Hill and Jewett in San Francisco.

00:03:31 All three are concerned very much with water and the water problem that exists today.

00:03:36 All of us are facing that water problem in one way or another,

00:03:40 and I think our first question should be, is the technology, as designed by engineers and chemists,

00:03:46 capable of coping with the growing pollution in our rivers and streams and perhaps even our ocean?

00:03:52 I'll address that one to you, Dr. Morgan.

00:03:55 Where do we stand technologically?

00:03:57 I think that technologically we have the capability to control most of the familiar forms of water pollution,

00:04:04 and I think we also have relatively sound technology now to control some of the more recently recognized forms of water pollution,

00:04:12 for example, eutrophication or the presence of too much organic material in a water which is to be used as a reclaimed water.

00:04:21 You bring up this word eutrophication.

00:04:24 As I gather it, what happens is you enrich the water supply to such an extent that plants grow, choke out everything else.

00:04:32 Eutrophication means a well-fed aquatic system, so that you're right.

00:04:37 One form of eutrophication would be to add so much phosphorus or so much nitrogen

00:04:42 or so much of some other essential element that plants could proliferate in a lake, usually in a lake or perhaps in a stream.

00:04:50 What's the source of the nutrients?

00:04:52 Well, the major source of phosphorus is at least twofold.

00:04:57 One of the major sources of phosphorus is the phosphorus that's in such materials as synthetic detergents

00:05:02 and chemicals used for water conditioning, but probably the major source there is synthetic detergents,

00:05:07 where the polyphosphate materials are essential builders.

00:05:10 The second major source is agricultural runoff,

00:05:14 as we use relatively large amounts of phosphate-containing fertilizers in some situations,

00:05:19 and these find their way, in many cases, in a complex route through the groundwater and the surface water and then to the lakes and streams.

00:05:26 This is a different kind of pollution than the sort of pollution most people think about

00:05:31 when they think of a large industrial plant just dumping toxic wastes into the streams.

00:05:35 Yes.

00:05:36 Yet this still goes on on many of our streams, does it not?

00:05:40 Yes, I think that one of the things that you have to be careful about at the beginning

00:05:45 is to define all the aspects of pollution from the most obvious physical kind

00:05:50 then to the depletion of oxygen in the stream, which is perhaps that which is most familiar to most of us.

00:05:55 And then more subtle forms of pollution, such as eutrophication or addition of pesticides.

00:06:00 All of these can exist, or some of these can exist, in a given situation.

00:06:07 The problem in the Midwest, the problem in Lake Michigan specifically, Dr. Larson,

00:06:14 is becoming more and more familiar to more and more people.

00:06:18 Yet I don't know enough about it.

00:06:20 I wish you'd tell me something about what's going on there.

00:06:23 As I understand it, that lake is sort of on a knife edge at the moment as to which way it's going to go.

00:06:29 Yes, we must say that Lake Michigan is by no means anywhere near Lake Erie,

00:06:36 which has really been getting all of the publicity.

00:06:39 Lake Michigan, however, is on the verge of becoming more and more eutrophied,

00:06:46 however you want to call it, eutrophicated.

00:06:51 And their concern right now is to prevent this from going ahead at a rapid pace.

00:06:58 Can you do it?

00:07:00 I think to a large extent we can control it.

00:07:04 There's always a certain amount of natural eutrophication that's going to take place anyway.

00:07:08 But it's going faster than what you would expect from just plain natural eutrophication,

00:07:12 natural fertilization from contributions from runoff in the soils and so forth.

00:07:19 How would you go about controlling and saving Lake Michigan?

00:07:23 Control the quality of the water that's going into the lake.

00:07:27 Well, all right, now back up onto the streams that go into the lake.

00:07:30 How do you control the pollution of those streams?

00:07:32 This comes back to controlling the effluents from waste treatment plants,

00:07:38 controlling the effluents from industrial sources of pollution.

00:07:42 How many states are involved here?

00:07:44 Four of them around Lake Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

00:07:53 And Michigan.

00:07:54 And how are you going to get four states to act together to solve a problem

00:07:58 that's obviously common to all of them?

00:08:00 Well, it is common to all of them, and I think they will solve it.

00:08:04 They've had hearings on it.

00:08:06 It was a requested hearing from the Secretary of the Department of the Interior,

00:08:12 and they cited the facts and what the conditions of the lake are

00:08:17 and what the changes have been,

00:08:20 and they brought out in these hearings methods of control,

00:08:24 particularly on this eutrophication part of it with phosphate or phosphorus

00:08:28 as being the prime ingredient to control.

00:08:33 Are there actually, I take it, chemical ways of removing this material

00:08:37 or keeping it from getting into the streams?

00:08:39 That's correct.

00:08:41 But the sewage treatment plants can modify their treatment

00:08:45 or extend their treatment to the point where they can reduce the phosphorus

00:08:48 that's going out by something like 90 or 95 percent.

00:08:51 Well, Mr. Ennerfield, you and I, both being Californians,

00:08:55 are aware that there are political difficulties involved in interstate action,

00:09:02 and we're face-to-face with political difficulties like that at Lake Tahoe,

00:09:06 which lies between California and Nevada.

00:09:08 Yes, there are.

00:09:09 How optimistic are you about interstate action on pollution control,

00:09:13 water pollution control?

00:09:15 I'm optimistic now.

00:09:17 One time I was, and I served on one of the committees

00:09:20 trying to do something about Lake Tahoe,

00:09:22 and it becomes obvious that the states in many cases march to a different drummer.

00:09:27 But I think that Lake Tahoe has become such a well-known case,

00:09:32 and it's occupied the attention of people all over the United States.

00:09:35 I think that the two states are going to finally resolve their differences.

00:09:39 And they're not so far apart in the case of the protection of Lake Tahoe.

00:09:43 In fact, only, I guess it was this week or last week,

00:09:46 a project to pump sewage out of the southern end of the bay of the lake was completed,

00:09:54 and the first water was pumped out of the Lake Tahoe area.

00:09:58 In connection with that, though, David, I wanted to ask Dr. Lassner a question.

00:10:03 It relates to what we found up at Lake Tahoe, too.

00:10:06 If you were to control all of the sewage going into Lake Michigan, for instance,

00:10:10 is there reasonable assurance that eutrophication would be prevented?

00:10:14 Not prevented, it would be slowed down.

00:10:16 This is the key point.

00:10:18 And you've got to realize that Lake Michigan is a very peculiar lake

00:10:22 and is distinct from all of the rest of the Great Lakes.

00:10:25 It's nothing but an impendage, whereas the rest of the lakes,

00:10:28 they're being constantly flushed out, however slowly,

00:10:31 Lake Michigan is just stuck right down there,

00:10:33 and it takes a long time for that water to get flushed out or changed.

00:10:38 For instance, if this lake were polluted right now,

00:10:40 it would take over 100 years or something like that

00:10:42 before you could flush out 90 percent of what was in there.

00:10:46 That's a long time.

00:10:48 It is that.

00:10:49 What do you think about the political prospects for the control of pollution?

00:10:54 Well, the political prospects are not really my peculiar province.

00:11:00 I feel that personally I feel that there are distinct roles

00:11:04 for the federal government and for the state governments.

00:11:07 One major contribution of the federal government is to support

00:11:11 and actively pursue research which will develop

00:11:15 and to demonstrate the utility of technology

00:11:17 so that this technology then can be taken up directly by the local people.

00:11:23 But I think that the real solutions to water pollution problems

00:11:27 have to come on a very local and regional basis

00:11:30 because while one can speak of a national water pollution problem,

00:11:33 the peculiarities of the local situation,

00:11:36 the economic values associated with water in different parts of the country,

00:11:41 being as different as they are,

00:11:43 it's very important to concentrate on local solutions

00:11:46 so that I think there's an interesting relation

00:11:48 between the federal and the regional and the state areas in at least two ways.

00:11:53 I think you can say it's local, but the local people have to act together.

00:11:57 The apathy of one community cannot be allowed to override anything

00:12:03 that the other community will try to do to correct the situation.

00:12:08 They have to work together, and this brings it up into a state level

00:12:11 and eventually for interstate problems brings it up into the federal level.

00:12:15 But this is why I was suggesting before that I felt a little skepticism

00:12:20 at whether or not four states were really going to be able to get together

00:12:24 and solve a common problem.

00:12:26 Well, there's a certain amount of nudging going on,

00:12:28 of course, from the federal end of it.

00:12:30 There has to be because this is essential.

00:12:33 At the same time, it really comes back to the attitude of the people themselves.

00:12:39 They're the ones who have to be informed and know what the facts are,

00:12:43 and if they desired a good lake, they'll have to work together.

00:12:48 To counter a little bit the skepticism, I think it's important to note

00:12:51 that there are examples in the United States of significant accomplishments

00:12:55 where whole groups of states have worked together.

00:12:57 I think the impetus has usually been the realization

00:12:59 that there's a tremendous economic value in solving.

00:13:02 That's right.

00:13:03 The Orsanco group of states, the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission

00:13:06 group of states is one example.

00:13:08 What did they do?

00:13:09 Well, essentially they established a very massive cooperative effort

00:13:13 directed by commissioners from each of the states

00:13:15 to control the pollution from the industrial and the municipal sources

00:13:19 at significant points along the whole Ohio River Valley,

00:13:22 not only the mainstream itself, but the tributaries to the stream.

00:13:26 I think the results are quite significant.

00:13:28 One can see large improvements in the level of oxygen,

00:13:31 in the level of other sorts of pollutants in the streams.

00:13:35 Another example is the Delaware, where there are several states cooperating,

00:13:40 first in analyzing the problem and deciding on the magnitude of it

00:13:43 and what it will cost to solve it,

00:13:46 and then acting together with the federal government

00:13:49 to actually decide what will be done

00:13:51 and where the money is going to come from for the solutions.

00:13:54 Well, the money is going to come from the people, let's face it.

00:13:56 The local people.

00:13:57 Eventually. Local and federal too.

00:13:59 I think, though, that where you have an effect,

00:14:02 the pollution effect being caused by more than one state,

00:14:05 I think we have to say that the states will get together

00:14:08 because if it's desirable to create an environment that we want,

00:14:12 it can happen.

00:14:13 In other words, it can't work out unless these states all get together

00:14:16 and find out some way to finance it.

00:14:18 And when you have more than one state involved,

00:14:20 the federal government is almost of a certainty to have a share.

00:14:23 Now, they'll either provide money to be able to stimulate this sort of thing

00:14:27 or they'll provide a legal stimulus.

00:14:29 In other words, they'll threaten if they don't get together.

00:14:32 But I have every hope that these things are going to work out.

00:14:35 Are the sewage disposal plants of most American cities today

00:14:41 doing an adequate job in handling the waste from those cities?

00:14:47 You said most American cities, which is a very broad...

00:14:50 I would say, well, it's a very tough question to answer.

00:14:57 There are many, many cities in the United States that are doing an inadequate job.

00:15:00 Whether these could be classified as most cities, I don't know.

00:15:04 But there's a tremendous amount of work that has to be done

00:15:06 because a lot of cities are not doing an adequate job.

00:15:09 There are at least two aspects to it.

00:15:11 One is to ask whether there are sewage treatment plants at all,

00:15:14 where there should be sewage treatment plants.

00:15:16 And it's very interesting to take a map of the United States

00:15:18 and shade in those areas where one has, say, 90% of the sewage

00:15:23 being treated by a treatment plant at all.

00:15:25 And if you do this, the map looks surprisingly spotty.

00:15:28 The other thing is to ask whether the sewage treatment plants themselves

00:15:32 are functioning properly.

00:15:33 And I think this is a very serious problem,

00:15:36 one which is going to need a lot of attention.

00:15:37 We need trained personnel, people who are really knowledgeable

00:15:41 because the operating efficiency of the plant as it really exists

00:15:44 is often not that which is designed into the plant at the beginning,

00:15:47 simply because of the lack of skill and the lack of sufficient manpower

00:15:51 at the operating level.

00:15:53 Yet there are some sewage plants that are just doing a fantastic job.

00:15:56 Yes.

00:15:57 I've heard it estimated that it would cost close to $30 billion, really,

00:16:01 to clean up our water supplies over the coming five years or so.

00:16:07 Is that a fair figure?

00:16:08 I think that's probably a fair figure.

00:16:10 It may even be a minimal figure.

00:16:12 But the interesting thing is if you were to project that back

00:16:15 over the last 50 years during which this sum of money

00:16:18 should have been spent, it wouldn't look like very much.

00:16:20 All our debts are being called in at roughly the same time.

00:16:23 Yes, well, the same thing is true, of course,

00:16:24 in every pollution problem that faces us.

00:16:27 We're trying to clean up a big backlog.

00:16:29 And if they don't do it now, what's going to be 20 years from now?

00:16:32 $130 billion.

00:16:35 As a Californian, though, David, I have to say one thing,

00:16:38 that we haven't got this tremendous pollution problem in California.

00:16:41 Our problems here are a little bit different, a little bit more subtle.

00:16:44 We haven't.

00:16:45 It's been a long time since we've had those areas

00:16:47 where the river turned black and the fish bellied up.

00:16:50 We used to have those areas, but we don't.

00:16:54 We've had them to some extent in some of the delta areas

00:16:58 around east of San Francisco, I think, in fairly recent times,

00:17:04 where still moving waters have run into trouble.

00:17:08 But I would say, yes, the rivers certainly are relatively clean.

00:17:12 Because I remember, and I guess you do too,

00:17:14 when the San Francisco Bay was a national disgrace.

00:17:17 And to be able to go down now and see people actually fishing

00:17:20 in the area that used to be black,

00:17:22 it's really something, tremendous progress.

00:17:24 There are some interesting research programs going on right now, however,

00:17:27 in analyzing the fish in San Francisco Bay to see just how clean they really are.

00:17:34 Let me ask you a question on a totally different area,

00:17:36 because we've been talking mainly about the pollution dirtying the water.

00:17:40 Pollution is a lot of other things too,

00:17:42 and I'm interested in a new phenomenon,

00:17:44 at least new in the public's consciousness,

00:17:46 which is thermal pollution.

00:17:48 The heating of water by power plants

00:17:51 that dump hot water essentially into streams and into ocean shores.

00:17:57 What's this doing to our bodies of water?

00:18:01 Well, there are some rivers, of course,

00:18:03 whose main purpose is to use,

00:18:06 I have to talk about several aspects of the thermal pollution,

00:18:09 or at least the thermal characteristics of water.

00:18:11 In some areas, water is used for cooling.

00:18:14 In other words, it's brought into industries of one kind or another.

00:18:17 Of course, this becomes obvious.

00:18:18 If the water is warmer than it ought to be,

00:18:20 then the efficiency of the water as a cooling medium has been reduced.

00:18:24 So either more water has to go in or different processes have to be.

00:18:28 But also the fact that the water becomes warmer

00:18:30 intensifies those processes which tend to pollute and degrade.

00:18:34 In other words, when the bacteria take oxygen out of the water,

00:18:37 if the temperature is increased, they take it out faster.

00:18:40 The concentration of oxygen in the water, which fish need,

00:18:44 becomes lower as the temperature goes up.

00:18:47 And at the same time, the fish in this water, in the warmer water,

00:18:51 require their metabolism goes on faster.

00:18:54 So everything is operating contrary to each other.

00:18:56 So this matter of the thermal pollution of water is a real threat

00:19:01 to the fish life, to the aquatic environment itself,

00:19:04 and also to the use of the water for certain uses.

00:19:07 On the other hand, you have to distinguish between

00:19:10 thermal pollution in a lake and thermal pollution in a stream.

00:19:14 After all, as soon as you put that heat in the stream,

00:19:17 and the best way to, of course, to handle thermal pollution is to dilute it.

00:19:21 And you don't get as high a rise in the water.

00:19:24 But whatever temperature you add to that water

00:19:26 is eventually going to cause that water to evaporate a little bit more too.

00:19:29 And in the process of evaporation, it cools.

00:19:31 So it doesn't take too long before that river is back down

00:19:34 to its normal temperature again.

00:19:36 What's the name of that river running in Michigan

00:19:39 across one of the automobile plants?

00:19:41 It gets to be 125 or 130 degrees hot finally.

00:19:46 They just don't have enough water in that river for the heat they're putting in.

00:19:49 There are some rivers in the United States

00:19:52 whose total flow in substance is the flow of water

00:19:55 which has been used for cooling water.

00:19:57 And obviously these are exaggerated situations.

00:19:59 But these situations exist.

00:20:01 There are certain rivers in the industrial parts of states like Ohio and Indiana

00:20:04 in which the temperature becomes quite high,

00:20:06 as much as 10 degrees centigrade higher for reasonable distances.

00:20:09 Over this period, you have a serious, over this distance,

00:20:12 you at least have a very serious pollution problem.

00:20:14 You certainly can't maintain any kind of natural ecology in that river.

00:20:18 It disturbs the whole ecological situation.

00:20:20 I think this is clear.

00:20:21 Well, at the same time, I know of a place where there's a power plant

00:20:24 and they have a pond.

00:20:25 It's their own private pond that's used for cooling the water

00:20:29 that they're using through their process there.

00:20:32 It's constantly being recycled.

00:20:34 That pond is a great fishing place for certain types of fish.

00:20:39 Well, there is concern, of course, along both coasts of the United States

00:20:43 that the increasing number of nuclear power plants will,

00:20:47 because they're so big.

00:20:49 That's right, they're big.

00:20:50 Where are you going to get the water to dilute it with?

00:20:52 The ocean is very big, but still there seems to be an area of ocean

00:20:57 along the coast that gradually may warm up

00:20:59 as a result of this kind of pollution.

00:21:02 I don't think one is really restricted to accepting thermal pollution of water

00:21:06 as the only technological alternative.

00:21:08 I wanted to ask you, is there some way of averting this?

00:21:11 Well, one thing that suggests itself

00:21:13 is to improve your methods of heat exchange at the nuclear facility itself

00:21:17 and also to develop air cooling techniques.

00:21:21 I think one has to at least look at the alternatives of cooling the ambient air

00:21:26 in a rather controlled way.

00:21:28 The property surrounding a nuclear site is often quite substantial,

00:21:31 in fact, has to be.

00:21:33 One can at least analyze the possibilities of doing this

00:21:35 versus elevating the temperature of the receiving water

00:21:38 some temperature for some distance.

00:21:40 Well, you talked about, we've all talked about this backlog

00:21:43 that we're trying to catch up with.

00:21:45 Here's a new technology posing a problem which we now know about

00:21:49 really before the problem has become massive.

00:21:51 Are we doing these studies that you suggest?

00:21:54 Is the power industry, the nuclear power industry

00:21:57 actively engaged in trying to forestall the development of thermal pollution?

00:22:03 I think they are.

00:22:04 I think the attention is so sharply focused

00:22:06 and I think you may be aware there have been many recent hearings

00:22:09 in the United States Senate, Senator Muskie and others

00:22:12 who are probing very deeply into the consequences of thermal pollution.

00:22:16 It demands a lot of technical capability.

00:22:19 It demands people to look at the thermal balance,

00:22:21 to look at the hydrologic and hydraulic situation,

00:22:23 and mechanical engineers and civil engineers to interact.

00:22:26 I think that makes it a fascinating problem,

00:22:28 but I think it will be solved.

00:22:30 I'm very confident that the thermal pollution situation,

00:22:32 because we have such a lead on it,

00:22:34 that we will be able to devise the necessary technology

00:22:36 and analyze the natural situation

00:22:38 so as to really cope with it in an effective way.

00:22:40 This certainly is a good case in point for the recognition,

00:22:45 public recognition of a social problem at the beginning of the technology

00:22:48 rather than after the technology has gotten ahead of us.

00:22:51 It's like nuclear energy in itself,

00:22:54 the possibilities of pollution by radionuclides.

00:22:58 We've got to jump on that before it got away from us.

00:23:03 A different area of pollution is the question of pesticides,

00:23:07 and a lot of people are worried particularly about DDT,

00:23:10 which has a very long lifetime,

00:23:13 indeed remains in the areas where it has polluted.

00:23:16 I've been reading recent reports

00:23:18 about the discovery of residues of DDT

00:23:21 in the plankton in the ocean,

00:23:23 in birds and sea organisms generally.

00:23:27 Is this a serious problem,

00:23:30 and what do you think is likely to happen about it?

00:23:33 I have real mixed emotions about this problem,

00:23:37 and I've thought about it a lot.

00:23:38 I've served on various committees,

00:23:39 and one time I was involved in doing some work

00:23:41 on this San Joaquin Valley drain

00:23:43 when that thing was discharging into this area.

00:23:47 One thing is the toxicity of DDT.

00:23:50 It's very toxic to certainly some organisms.

00:23:53 We don't know what concentration they're toxic.

00:23:56 We know it gets into fish.

00:23:58 We know sometimes it's killed fish.

00:24:00 The mechanism apparently has been

00:24:02 where the DDT was absorbed into the eggs,

00:24:05 and then when the fish were hatched

00:24:07 and they had to live for a time on the material in the egg,

00:24:11 the concentration of DDT apparently was high enough to kill them.

00:24:15 But if you recall, if you served in World War II,

00:24:18 I was in New Guinea for a couple of years,

00:24:20 and I guess I dusted myself every night

00:24:22 with DDT powder every night,

00:24:25 and you had to do this to keep the mosquitoes away.

00:24:27 Well, apparently in my body fat,

00:24:30 I run somewhere around 11 or 12 parts per million,

00:24:33 and this is about what everybody else does.

00:24:36 One of the problems, one of the things I think

00:24:39 we haven't been able to determine,

00:24:41 just what the long-term effect of DDT is.

00:24:44 We know it's bad on some fish.

00:24:46 We know it's probably bad on some types of wildlife.

00:24:50 But we really don't know enough,

00:24:52 and I have to emphasize this,

00:24:54 I don't think we know enough to be able to manage our resource.

00:24:58 But I think, and you asked me also

00:25:01 where we think we're heading on this sort of thing,

00:25:03 I think that what we have to do

00:25:06 is to do the same thing in detergents.

00:25:08 I think the answer is not the treatment of waters

00:25:11 that have DDT in them,

00:25:13 but hopefully there will be something

00:25:15 so that the pesticides which are used

00:25:17 are not so long-lived, you see.

00:25:20 This is what I would hope happens.

00:25:23 See, in the case of detergents,

00:25:24 one found that the consequences were very undesirable,

00:25:27 and then one simply changed the technology,

00:25:29 changed from a non-degradable detergent

00:25:31 to a biodegradable detergent

00:25:33 so that these things would not persist in the environment.

00:25:35 I think it's very important to know about the fate

00:25:37 of these pesticides, not only in rivers and lakes,

00:25:39 but I'm convinced in the oceans.

00:25:40 In fact, in the whole Earth,

00:25:42 because they're distributed so widely.

00:25:44 And I think we need to know that as soon as possible.

00:25:46 And if the consequences look very bad,

00:25:48 I think we simply have to force the technology

00:25:50 in a different direction.

00:25:52 Well, is there any doubt in your mind

00:25:53 that the ingenuity of the chemists

00:25:56 who produced DDT in the first place

00:25:58 can produce molecules with the same effectiveness

00:26:01 that will be degradable rapidly?

00:26:03 No question in my mind.

00:26:05 I think there has to be provided an incentive.

00:26:07 Yes.

00:26:08 And this is what's going to take our ingenuity,

00:26:10 is what should the incentive be?

00:26:11 I think it ought to be something less than,

00:26:14 if you don't change over, we'll shut you down.

00:26:17 I hope this doesn't happen.

00:26:19 I think that could happen if it had to happen,

00:26:21 but I don't think we've really challenged

00:26:23 the ingenuity yet of chemical technology

00:26:25 with respect to pollution problems

00:26:27 because we're still mostly back-reacting to them.

00:26:30 But I think we've finally reached the stage

00:26:32 where we're going to start forward-reacting,

00:26:33 or at least I hope we are.

00:26:35 Well, wouldn't the incentive be the ability

00:26:38 to offer our civilization, our culture,

00:26:42 a product that was useful and at the same time harmless?

00:26:47 Useful and profitable?

00:26:49 My experience has been that industries,

00:26:51 certainly in the last 20 years,

00:26:52 have been very sensitive to public opinion,

00:26:54 and I think that they themselves desire

00:26:56 to move off in this direction.

00:26:58 I think they have an economic problem, presumably.

00:27:00 California uses...

00:27:01 It's amazing how much DDT California uses.

00:27:05 You can't just shut that off

00:27:06 while you're waiting for an answer.

00:27:08 You have to do something.

00:27:09 In other words, you have to keep on using this,

00:27:11 presumably, until something comes along.

00:27:13 I think the thing that has to be done

00:27:16 is that the pace at which new products

00:27:18 are being developed or being sought

00:27:20 will be maintained at a very rapid pace.

00:27:24 I'd like to go back to one other point

00:27:26 because at the very beginning you asked,

00:27:27 is the technology adequate?

00:27:29 I would make one qualification to my answer,

00:27:31 which is that it has to be continually receiving inputs

00:27:34 from new research and development

00:27:36 because we're going to encounter new problems,

00:27:38 so that I don't think we should stand pat

00:27:39 on the present technology.

00:27:40 It's going to have to be receiving scientific inputs

00:27:43 and responding to new problems.

00:27:44 And, in fact, I would assume that you people

00:27:46 will have to anticipate the needs of tomorrow

00:27:49 and the next day and develop the research now

00:27:53 to cope with the technological needs for the future.

00:27:56 Well, with that, we'll have to say good night

00:27:58 and thank you all for being with us.

00:28:01 My guest for this program, Dr. J.J. Morgan,

00:28:12 Associate Professor, Environmental Health Engineering

00:28:15 and Editor of Environmental Science and Technology,

00:28:18 California Institute of Technology.

00:28:21 Dr. T.E. Larson, Head, Chemistry Section,

00:28:24 Illinois State Water Survey.

00:28:26 Arthur J. Innerfield, Principal Engineer,

00:28:29 Leeds, Hill, and Jewett.

00:28:36 We wish to thank the American Petroleum Institute,

00:28:39 the Chicago Tribune,

00:28:40 Field Enterprises Educational Corporation,

00:28:43 publishers of the World Book Yearbook,

00:28:45 the Humble Oil and Refining Company,

00:28:48 and Shell Oil Company

00:28:49 for their cooperation in providing visuals

00:28:51 used on this program.