letters

Strip mining control

DEAR SIR: Many thanks for your comprehensive

article on coal strip mining (ES&T, January 1972, p 27) and your mention of Conservation Foundation testimony presented by Malcolm Baldwin of our staff before congressional committees.

I want to correct your reference to the Conservation Foundation as an en- vironmental lobby similar to the Sierra Club, however. This does not accurately describe our tax status. The Foundation is a tax-deductible, tax-exempt organiza- tion which, unlike the Sierra Club, can- not in any substantial way seek to influence legislation. Our testimony before Congress was by committee invitation.

I might also note, in a substantive vein, that our position differs from that of the Sierra Club, in that we advocate

abolition of contour stripping only, and stringent regulation, but not necessarily abolition, of flatland or area stripping. In that respect, we differ with several other environmental groups.

Sydney Howe, President The Conservation Foundation Washington, DC 20036

Sewers and groundwater

DEAR SIR: Your criticism of the government’s

simplistic approaches to the funding of water pollution control (November 1971, editorial) is both well taken and timely. It is particularly pertinent to the situa- tion in Long Island’s Nassau and Suf- folk Counties, where sanitation officials have opted for environmentally and

economically disastrous sewer and sew- age treatment plant construction pro- grams, without a comprehensive con- sideration of alternative approaches.

Sewers and sewage treatment plants serve a useful function in densely popu- lated metropolitan areas which draw their supplies from and discharge their effluent into surface waterways. How- ever, Long Island is entirely dependent on groundwater for its supplies, while its coastal waters support a rich eco- system that is very sensitive to changes in salinity and other environmental pa- rameters. Thus, the indiscriminate re- placement of septic tanks by sewers and sewage treatment plants that dump their effluents into the bays poses a major threat to Long Island’s water supplies and to its coastal ecosystem. To add insult to injury, the cost of the program

(Continued on p 194)

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192 Environmental Science & Technology

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Circle No. 27 on Readers' Service Card

Volume 6, Number 3, March 1972 193

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to the average homeowner is expected to rival the price of his house!

The primary justification for sewers lies in preventing the contamination of groundwater supplies by nitrates from human toilet wastes. (Incidentally, sewers do nothing to curtail nitrate contamination by fertilizers, which are estimated to contribute about half of the loading in Suffolk County.) Other water-borne wastes are either degraded or filtered out in the soil (e.g., organic matter, phosphates), or banned (e.g., surfactants). Thus, if separate disposi- tion could be provided for toilet wastes, which constitute less than 1 % of an average household's waste load, the remaining waste water could be recycled through the purifying mechanisms of the soil to replenish groundwater sup- plies.

Fortunately, modern technology is able to provide for such separate dis- posal by thermal, chemical, or biological treatment. Several manufacturers are offering such systems at a small frac- tion of the cost of sewers and none of their adverse environmental effects. Why then have these innovations not been adopted in Nassau and Suffolk Counties? The rhetoric is long and tortuous, but it all boils down to the fact that most sanitation officials abhor in- novative approaches, in spite of the immense economic and environmental benefits that would accrue.

Alex Hershaft Environmental Technology Seminar Bethpage, N Y 11714

Missouri controls strippers

DEAR SIR: In your January 1972 article on surface

mine legislation (p 27), you state that Missouri does not have legislation con- trolling the surface mining of coal. This is not correct.

The 1971 Missouri General Assembly passed bills regulating the surface min- ing of coal and other minerals. These bills impose a bonding requirement on surface miners that is designed to ensure that the affected land is reclaimed.

This legislation can be found in Chapter 444 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, 1971 Supplement.

Peter H. Ruger Assistant Attorney General State of Missouri Jefferson City, M O 65101

0 We regret the error--Ed. Circle No. 31 on Readers' Service Car3

194 Environmental Science & Technology