STATEMENT OF ALFRED LEFEBER, OF BARSTOW & LEFEBER, INC., REPRESENTING COMMISSIONERS OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO, CITY OF PORTSMOUTH, OHIO, AND CITY OF ASHLAND, KY.

Mr. LEFEBER. My name is Alfred LeFeber. I represent the commissioners of Hamilton County, Ohio, the city of Portsmouth, and the city of Ashland, Ky., as consulting engineer.

I have been up and down the Ohio River for a period of 11 years, taking in the stream from Steubenville to Cincinnati, inclusive. The wastes there, of course, range all the way from the dairy wastes, strawboard, oil refineries, and so on.

Much of the data that I have here is in the nature of repetition, but there are two or three points that I feel are worthy of emphasis. With particular respect to the water-supply problem at Ashland, Ky., I think it is probably one of the most difficult situations on the Ohio River. There the water, on the basis of the annual average, is acid the year around, and it is very destructive, of course, to the devices

The CHAIRMAN. What form of acid? Is that sulphuric?

Mr. LEFEBER. Well, we calculate it simply in terms of hydrogen and iron concentration, without endeavoring to calculate it back. If you calculate it back to the various types of acid, it will vary in strength, and it is very weak.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the source of it?

Mr. LEFEBER. It is a combination of sources-mine waste, steel mills, manufacturing processes, acid pickling wastes, so that, being a weak acid, at the time that we get it at Ashland, it is very effective as an electrolite and will be very destructive. There, in the past few years, by reason of the combination of the acid with the organic and other pollution, our count has increased by 80 times from 1921 to 1934, so that our pollution index is very serious, and we are overloaded the biggest part of the year. In the first 3 months of this year, our maximum costs for simply treating the water with chemicals alone have gone up to $48 per million gallons, an unusually high cost. These exhibits which I have here explain, I think, or show very eloquently, what has transpired over the last few years, showing that the costs for 1925 up to the present time in 1936 have more than trebled for simply the use of chemicals.

What we are doing, in effect, is paying for sewage treatment through the medium of purifying our water supplies and not getting sewage treatment. This sample over here was furnished to me by the city officials at Ashland, Ky., and in making a simple investigation, purely physical, we find as a result of our experiences on the Great Miami River, where we investigated the pollution of that stream over an 18-month period for oil-emulsion wastes from refineries, that one part per million was the source of complaint, and when we reduced 1 gallon of this sample to that same 1 part per million, we find that 200,000 gallons of unaffected water are necessary, so that, in all probability, to eliminate all taste and sources of complaint-and, believe me, they have been general in Ashland—it would require approximately 300,000 gallons of water for each gallon of that particular waste that is received in the stream.

Now, that leads to the question, isn't there that much water there? Yes; there is that much water; but, again, the pool stage creeps into

the picture, to the extent that if you will stand on the Ohio shore and look over toward the mouth of the Big Sandy, you will see the difference in the color of the stream, which will tell you exactly what is happening with the streams themselves.

We find that the water from the Big Sandy makes a right angle turn and hugs the Kentucky shore, and several miles below, about 22 or 3 miles, there is a dam. That water must pass immediately over the intake to Ashland's water supply. The intake is about 100 feet from there, and immediately below us, some 300 or 400 feet, is the dam, so that we have a very difficult and unusual situation there. We are really paying for sewage treatment, and not getting it.

Mr. BEITER. You say that it is costing them $48 per million gallons. What is the annual cost at Ashland?

Mr. LAFEBER. I do not know. It will vary with the season of the year. They average around a million and a half gallons a day in a city of around 36,000. Their water consumption per person is low, and in that connection I will narrate an experience that I had.

I went to the Henry Clay Hotel in Ashland, and we were commenting on the water and the waiter apologized, and he said, "I am sorry, but today we are using city water. Ordinarily we get our water from a well, but the boy that was to go up and get the water did not show up today."

Mr. DONDERO. What is the source of your supply?

Mr. LEFEBER. The Ohio River.

Mr. DONDERO. What is the annual cost for the average domestic consumer in your city?

Mr. LEFEBER. For water?

Mr. DONDERO. Yes.

Mr. LEFEBER. I do not recall the minimum charge. The unit rates are 30 cents a thousand gallons-that is the beginning of their schedule, and it gets down to 10 cents.

Mr. DONDERO. What is it that causes this form of pollution?

Mr. LEFEBER. There is a series of refineries near the mouth, and we suspect that they are the source of it.

Mr. DONDERO. Is that acid?

Mr. LEFEBER. No, sir.

Mr. DONDERO. From some industrial plants?

Mr. LEFEBER. That is a combination of crude oil and probably what should be in the bottom of an oil separator.

The CHAIRMAN. About 15 years ago we were holding hearings on matters up around Wheeling and in the Pittsburgh district, and the testimony before our committee at that time showed that the acid pollution up there came principally from galvanizing plants, where they make galvanized wire, roofing, and things of that kind, and the testimony was that it killed all of the fish in the Ohio River. I do not know whether you have any at Ashland or not. I used to catch fish in the Big Sandy River.

Mr. LEFEBER. I did too. There is a lot of difference in the river from the time we paddled it as boys from Pittsburgh to Cairo.

I would like to leave this with the clerk.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. Thank you very much.

(The paper referred to reads as follows:)

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION OF 1-GALLON SAMPLE OF RAW WATER TAKEN FROM THE BIG SANDY RIVER BELOW THE REFINERIES

The 1-gallon sample separated or stratified into free oil, sludge, and clear liquid, with some emulsion. A sediment on the bottom was that typical or similar to Ohio River waters, a finely divided clay. The free oil is similar to crude oil and is very viscous. The sludge is very thick and viscous in appearance although its specific gravity is low. It is similar to old grease from automobile differentials or transmissions and appears to be mixed with graphite. The sludge and free oil emulsifies very easily.

The sample transferred from the sampling bottle to a graduate to a storage jar showed definite emulsion formation and considerable free oil in spite of the great care taken to mechanically separate the various strata for volumetric measurement. The oil is very tenacious and adheres easily to vessels. Some small craft in the river are coated with oil, as is vegetation along the banks. Of the sample collected, approximately 82 percent is clear liquid containing some emulsion, while 18 percent is sludge and free oil. On the basis of previous experience we find that 1 part per million of oil emulsion of all types present in water is sufficient to cause complaints from taste.

A simple calculation indicates that to reduce 1 gallon of this sample to the equivalent 1 part per million so that taste is still noticeable, approximately 200,000 gallons of unpolluted river water will be required. It is estimated that approximately 300,000 or more gallons of water per gallon of this type of waste will be necessary for effective dispersion and unless effective diffusion is accomplished, tastes and treatment difficulties will persist at the Ashland Water Works plant. While there is undoubtedly sufficient water to accomplish this in the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers, effective diffusion is not accomplished by the stream.

Observation indicates that during periods of normal or low flow, tributary streams to the Ohio River make a right-angle turn at the point of confluence and follow the shore line down stream into the Ohio for several miles before the Ohio River again assumes a normal appearance. The Ashland Water Works intake is less than 100 feet from the shore line on the Kentucky shore and about 2 miles below the mouth of the Big Sandy so that the water-works intake is directly in the path of the undiffused waste coming from the Big Sandy River.

The CHAIRMAN. Is Dr. Tarbert here?

STATEMENT OF DR. R. E. TARBERT, CHIEF, ENGINEERING SECTION, UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

Dr. TARBERT. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I am here; but Dr. Parran has covered about everything that we want to say.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Tarbert is the sanitary engineer of the Public Health Service.

Dr. TARBERT. Just two or three things, perhaps would fill in with what has already been said.

Of course, the majority of our cities must depend upon surface water for water supplies. That is largely due to the amount of water that is required for a city's supply. Also, we must depend upon our streams to carry away our waste water, so that it is necessary that the proper plants be maintained from the standpoint of pollution and from the standpoint of the limitations of waterfiltration plants to properly treat that water.

Mr. Elliot gave you the report of the advisory committee on water pollution, that made a rather thorough study of the whole problem of pollution in the United States. That report will show that approximately 68,000,000 people are connected with sewers in the United States, of which approximately 40,000,000 are tributary to sewers that are discharged directly to waters without treatment. Of the 28,000,000 that are tributary to sewage-treatment plants,

about half are tributory to plants that give partial treatment, approximately 30-percent treatment, and the other 14,000,000 are tributory to plants with more complete treatment, ranging perhaps from 60-percent to 90-percent treatment. We know how to treat domestic sewage. We know how to treat economically a few of the industrial wastes, but we do not know how to treat economically the greater part of the various industrial wastes.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not a fact that the wastes from the pulp mills are the most serious problem of treatment?

Dr. TARBERT. The paper mills have practically solved their problem, but not completely. Certain industries, such as artificial silk, present a very serious problem, and I doubt if anyone knows how to properly handle the artificial silk industry. The oil industry, among others, has done a great deal toward solving their problem, but it is not by any means solved as yet. The distillery-waste problem has not been solved. The larger plants are able to evaporate, but that is too expensive for the smaller plants.

So that the industrial-waste problem is one that has not been solved as yet, and it will have to be solved before we can properly control the stream pollution.

The CHAIRMAN. The acid pollution can be solved, can it not, by treatment with alkalies, lime, and so forth?

Dr. TARBERT. It could be, but it would be very expensive. It would produce an enormous amount of sludge material which would have to be disposed of.

As a W. P. A. project, we are now carrying on a sealing of abandoned mines in the bituminous area, to reduce the acid. In the States of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, there is being discharged into the streams at the present time, in terms of concentrated sulphuric acid, about 28,000,000 pounds a day. That action is formed by the pyrites, the iron sulphide, water, and oxygen that are in the air. If any one of those three could be separated out the acid would not form.

We have found that by sealing out the air, that is, by closing these abandoned mines and eliminating the air, the formation of the acid can be prevented, and as Works Progress projects and one that was started under the Civil Works Administration, we are attempting to air seal abandoned mines in those States and thus reduce the acid. We have gone far enough to know that that is an effective way, and Mr. Tisdale, who I believe will appear before the committee, will tell you that some of the small streams in West Virginia have now returned to a point where water can be used for industrial uses and the fish, trout, have returned to those streams. That method is effective and is very much cheaper than an attempt to neutralize it.

A fair estimate of the cost of constructing sewage treatment plants for those 40,000,000 persons now sewered directly to the streams would cost in the vicinity of $1,000,000,000. What it would cost to treat the industrial waste is more or less of a guess, but the estimates range from three to five billion dollars for the cost of corrective works, so that the problem is rather a large one, and rather expensive.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, it is a big problem, one which will have to be handled with care as you go along.

Dr. TARBERT. I think that to a considerable extent the problem of control of industrial waste goes back into the process, rather than to attempt the treatment of the large amounts of waste as they are discharged from the industry. That is, I think, a method that is being followed by the paper mills today, to prevent the waste from ever leaving the plant, rather than correcting it after it has been discharged.

Dr. Parran mentioned the additional load on water filtration and water treatment plants due to pollution. Of course, the real danger to health from pollution is that coming from sewage pollution which may contain disease organisms. However, the plants are designed to remove not only bacteria, but more or less all organic matter, so that if we have a sewage pollution mixed up with a large amount of industrial pollution, both organic and inorganic types, we place an additional load on those treatment plants, and there are a number of sections today where the pollution load in the stream is such that it taxes the plant to the utmost to produce a safe water, and they are not always able to produce a palatable water.

Cincinnati and Louisville both have had conditions where, while the water bacterially was probably safe, it had tastes and odors that made it very objectionable for drinking purposes, and in some cases the pollution is increasing faster than we can devise methods to offset it.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell me this: Take tributaries of the Ohio like the Kanawha, the Muskingum and other rivers; is the content of those rivers as much polluted as the main stream, as a rule?

Dr. TARBERT. Some of them, yes. The Scioto has been very badly polluted. That will be corrected with the completion of a new sewage treatment plant at Columbus, to a certain extent.

The Kanawha carries a great deal of acid water.

The CHAIRMAN. That is from the mines?

Dr. TARBERT. That is from the mines.

There are the industrial wastes in the Charleston district, as well as the sewage of those communities, and I should say that at times the Kanawha in the Charleston district is about as bad as the Ohio is, we will say, in the Ironton-Ashland district, which is one of the worst polluted sections.

Mr. FIESINGER. Even though you should be successful in removing all man-made pollution, you would still have to have your filtration plants?

Dr. TARBERT. Absolutely, yes, and, of course, it would not be possible to remove all man-made pollution.

Practically no surface water would be considered safe for drinking without some form of treatment, but where you have to go further and further in that treatment, increasing the cost and, of course, decreasing the factor of safety at all times, it is to avoid. that.

The CHAIRMAN. Chlorination is the usual method of purifying the water, is it not?

Dr. TARBERT. No. On supplies that are relatively safe, free from direct sewage pollution, subject only to perhaps accidental pollution,