Pollution of Water Supplies

Report Outline
Pollution's Threat to Future Water Supply
Positions of Incoming and Outgoing Presidents
Progress and Problems in Pollution Control
Special Focus

Pollution's Threat to Future Water Supply

“CLEAN WATER—A Challenge to the Nation” is the theme of a national conference meeting in Washington, Dec. 12–14, to formulate means of dealing with the growing threat of water pollution to public health and to the economic and social welfare of the American people. The conference was called by U.S. Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney, but it was originally suggested by President Eisenhower in a message to Congress last Feb. 23 vetoing a Democratic water pollution bill. The objectives of the conference, according to Arthur S. Flemming, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, are “(1) to reach agreement on a set of national goals to curb pollution; (2) to set forth specific programs needed to achieve these goals.”

The President acknowledged in his February veto message that polluted water is a menace to the health and well-being of all Americans. “Yet, pollution and its correction are so closely involved with local industrial processes and with public water supply and sewage treatment,” he added, “that the problem can be successfully met only if state and local governments and industry assume the major responsibility for cleaning up the nation's rivers and streams.”

Sen. John F. Kennedy (D Mass.), now President-elect, criticized the veto message, saying that the bill's proposed increase in federal grants to municipalities for pollution abatement represented the minimum of federal aid needed for effective control. The question of federal vs. state and local shares in the responsibility for cleaning up the watercourses promises to be a leading point of controversy among the 1,500 public leaders and authorities on water management and environmental health who will attend the Washington water pollution conference.