shall be no toilet facilities. Would not that be better than just dumping it raw in the middle of our high density areas?

Dr. EDWARDS. There is no question that this is a possible solution to the commuter type of operation. I think some of the commuter trains, as a matter of fact, are moving in this direction.

Mr. VANDER JAGT. Do you think your agency will give consideration to the possibility of requiring them all to move in that direction?

Dr. EDWARDS. I think either in that direction or the installation of appropriate facilities. I think one of the two has to come about. Mr. VANDER JAGT. It is true, is it not, that Canada has prohibited the construction of any railroad cars without full retention facilities, as of May 1969 ?

Dr. EDWARDS. My colleagues tell me that they are referring primarily to cabooses and locomotives.

[See Order No. R-0-37 of Canadian Transport Commission in the appendix of this hearing record.]

Mr. VANDER JAGT. While we still have no regulations?

Dr. EDWARDS. We have none.

Mr. VANDER JAGT. So we are a little bit behind Canada?

Dr. EDWARDS. We are behind, yes.

Mr. REUSS. Thank you, Dr. Edwards and Dr. Kolbye.

Our next witness will be Mr. Ralph Nader. You have submitted a statement, Mr. Nader, which, under the rule, will be received. You may now proceed.

STATEMENT OF RALPH NADER

Mr. NADER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wish to point out that I am appearing in an individual capacity at the present time, not representing any organization's views.

I am grateful for the invitation to testify on the established indulgence by the railroad industry, which is known in mundane contexts as the dumping of raw human waste on the open land. There are those who assert that the Nation suffers from more serious forms of industrial pollution and that the problem before this subcommittee deserves little if any attention. There are clearly more serious forms of pollution. But none show more clearly than this case the raw callousness and open contempt over a long period of time by an industry that has written its own law for over a century. Thus, this railroad excrement practice allows a unique insight into the intransigence of these corporations and the weak, self-demeaning posture of the Food and Drug Administration toward them.

Railroad companies have always dumped raw human wastes on the tracks in accordance with the law of gravity. This was the only law they observed. Disregarded with regular depository abandon are regulations such as 42 CFR 72.154, which provides that toilets be locked while trains are standing in stations or servicing areas unless there is a means available to prevent contamination. The other part of the regulation provides that there shall be no discharge of excrement while trains are passing over areas designated by the Food and Drug Administration. No areas have been so designated, so the provision is a nullity. Unlike buses and aircraft, railroad trains are free, while in motion, to discharge human waste into the environment.

As an example of disregard for this regulation, I would like to submit for the record photographs taken at the Pomona, Calif., railroad station, at the passenger disembarkation area, which indicates the fecal matter that is being deposited in that area. These photographs were taken by a Public Health Service official whose name is H. White Tisdale. I would like to submit these for the record.

Mr. REUSS. When were they taken?

Mr. NADER. Some time within the last 8 months. I will get you the exact date, or you can ask the Commissioner for the exact date because I am quite sure the Food and Drug Administration can tell you.

(NOTE. The photographs submitted by Mr. Nader are in the subcommittee files.)

Mr. NADER (Continuing with prepared statement). The public health hazard of fecal matter precedes homo sapiens. Animals of yesteryear had an instinctual territorial imperative which they observed in their discharges. Generations ago, public health authorities recognized the certainties and the probable risks of not properly handling the flow of human sewage. In 1967, the Public Health Service summarized what has been known for decades:

Many of the most devastating infectious ailments are the enteric diseases of man and animals. Their agents are commonly excreted, often in enormous numbers, in the feces of infected individuals, and comprise all major categories of pathogens: bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and helminths. The highly dangerous human bacterial agents of typhoid fever and cholera have been responsible for many millions of deaths. They are prevalent in all countries and continue to cause much disease and death in areas existing in both developed and developing countries in which sanitary disposal of human feces has not been achieved. The same problem exists with regard to other disease forms found in feces, especially as a cause of death among infants and children. [Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Solid Waste/Disease Relationships, A Literature Survey (1967) at p. 12.]

Some of the specific diseases transmitted by human fecal matter are amoebic dysentery and other protozoal infections, cholera, Coxsackie's disease, infectious hepatitis, poliomyelitis, shigellosis, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, tuberculosis and worm infestations.

Oblivious to these hazards, American railways are operating some 15,000 passenger cars, 27,000 locomotives and 15,000 cabooses with open toilets, the so-called gravity feed flushing hoppers. Hundreds of millions of pounds of raw fecal matter and liquid sewage is dumped on the tracks every year in stations and over the rails. I might add that Japan, Canada, and the nations of Western Europe are far stricter in present and prospective requirements for their railroads. Sweden, for example, has direct dumping of sewage.

On December 19, 1969, I wrote to the Secretary of HEW, Robert Finch, about this continuing contamination and requested a suitable revision and enforcement of the quarantine regulations. A month later I filed a formal petition requesting the Commissioner of Food and Drug to amend 42 CFR 72.154 to provide in substance that discharge of human excrement and liquid waste shall be prohibited except in circumstances that assure their sanitary disposal. Over 6 months have passed and there has been no reply to this petition by the Food and Drug Administration. I should like to submit both the letter and the petition for the record with your permission.

(The texts of Mr. Nader's letter of December 19, 1969, and the petition, referred to above, follow :)

Hon. ROBERT FINCH,

DECEMBER 19, 1969.

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SECRETARY FINCH: I wish to bring to your immediate attention some documentation of what must be considered the most blatantly outrageous corporate pollution that your departmental regulations permit to continue unabated. Reference is made to the dumping of raw human excrement directly on railroad rights-of-way, street crossings, stations, watershed, and other land areas.

The scope of the problem.-The American Public Health Association lists 27 communicable diseases which could be passed on by raw waste. It is one of the most elementary principles of public health and sanitation that raw feces and urine not be dumped onto the land. Buses and aircraft are required by Public Health Service regulations to retain all wastes and direct disposals are prohibted. Not so with the favored railroad industry. A double standard is at work here. Over tens of thousands of miles of railroad tracks, through railroad stations, over bridges and along reservoirs, railroads are permitted to dump human excrement wholly untreated just as soon as an employee or a passenger relieves himself in the toilet. The only possible restriction on this repulsive corporate practice is contained in 42 CFR 72.154 (b) which states that "Toilets shall be kept locked when conveyances, occupied or open to occupancy by travelers, are at a station or servicing area unless means are provided to prevent contamination of the area or station." This regulation has never been enforced; it is outrageously violated and there is no record of any penalty ever being assessed against a railroad. The Surgeon General has not designated any other prohibited areas in the regulations.

Although your Department has long been aware of this dumping of raw sewage; there has been no study conducted about the volume deposited; where deposited in rough percentages; and the consequences. This is not because public health officials are not worried; indeed they are very concerned. Rather, they have been intimidated by the Association of American Railroads which is intent on perpetuating the freedom of enterprise to defecate on open land and in crowded stations.

A very recent study of Monogram Industries, a producer of waste disposal equipment, provides statistics on the extent of the waste volume dumped directly without treatment onto the tracks from locomotives and cabooses. This study was conducted with the knowledge and assistance of the U.S. Public Health Service but has not been made public by any Government agency. PHS's assistance was purely technical and indicated a long familiarity with this major public health hazard. On the most conservative estimate, the Monogram study reports that 30,000 locomotives, and 15,000 cabooses with a total of 45,000 toilets dump 51.5 million pounds of feces per year on the land and the total sewerage output per year is 30.5 million gallons of waste. These figures are based on the most conservative calculations. In addition, there are 17,600 passenger cars which carried 296 million revenue paying passengers in 1968. It can be prudently estimated that the total waste dumped wholly untreated by the railroad industry per year is around 200 million pounds of feces and 90 million gallons of waste. The general hazards to human health need no elaboration, except to the primitive insensitivities of railroad executives. The last time the railroads tried to whitewash this disease-breeding sewage disposal was in the late 1940's when they attempted to dismiss the problem as (a) inconsequential, (b) subject to air and sunshine purification, (c) the rights of private property which did not need to recognize trespassers. If such responses were crude then, they are even cruder today. Demographic patterns have changed; once rural areas through which railroads passed are now built up residential areas. Easements come closer to the tracks than before. House pets of nearby residents roam the area. More freight trains are in operation. Further, as before, railroad laborers maintaining or replacing track are exposed to human waste material surrounded by flies in their work. Their felt stories of their experiences heap shame and disgrace on company management. Toilets are kept in the filthiest condition by this management which has chosen this way to cut costs. Railroad chiefs rarely make field trips here.

Even the railroads' advanced planning does not take into account the necessity of being toilet trained. Every year there are about 3,000 locomotives and cabooses built and put into operation. Over 98 percent of the toilets in these brand new vehicles are primitive toilets that empty directly onto the tracks. Like their

predecessors they will be a threat to humans, watersheds, and provide animal carriers with their diseased burdens. Japan and the nations of Western Europe have far stricter laws and take greater precautions in practice. In Sweden, direct disposal is banned and retention toilets are required. Some States, such as Pennsylvania and New York, are beginning to show other than verbal concern. But the national remedy belongs inescapably to the Federal Government. Canada has now passed legislation prohibiting direct dumping of human waste and as this law is implemented, it will be felt by five U.S. railroads who operate about 1,200 miles of track inside Canada.

The technical and economic remedies are quite simple and even compatible with the dreams of avarice that are inspiring railroad conglomerates to range far and wide in their acquisitions and downgrade their passenger service. I have made inquiries as to the cost of replacing all existing toilets known as gravity feed flushing hoppers. The minimum costs to refit some 80,000 units for all existing locomotives, cabooses, and passenger cars would be $3,750,000. This relatively trivial expenditure for an industry, that has shown a net yearly income after taxes from its railway operations of between $676 million to over $1 billion during the past 6 years, must be imposed immediately by the effect of new Public Health Service regulations. This expenditure would permit the purchase and installation of retention type buckets with appropriate chemicals in the tank. Disposal would then be accomplished when the trains are at a service station or arrive at their destination.

Even the most superior kind of equipment-a complete, self-contained retention system which recirculates the fluid, disinfects and deodorizes the waste with an electrically driven filter pump-would cost a total of $35 million for all locomotives, cabooses and passenger cars.

In the list of the foregoing facts, I urge you to immediately initiate the proceedings for revision of 42 CFR 72.154 to prohibit direct disposal onto land or human waste by railroads and establish criteria for sanitary waste disposal procedures that are enforceable. If this requires that you investigate or seek investigation of the Association of American Railroad's collusive lobbying at the Public Health Service, then let such an inquiry be made openly and in public. Unlike other public health decisions, this is not a difficult one to make. The facts are clear; the hazards recognized and banned on other transportation vehicles. Only the railroads remain outside the rule of law. I would hope that you act with firmness and dispatch.

I am forwarding copies of this letter to Mr. T. M. Goodfellow, president of the Association of American Railroads and to Mr. Stuart T. Saunders, chairman of the board of Penn Central. Both of these gentlemen are tidy enough not to expose themselves to the filthy conditions which their policies subject railroad employees and passengers to endure. They will now be asked to concede that corporations are not immune from the standards of decency common to men even if they be railroad corporations.

Sincerely yours,

RALPH NADER.

BEFORE THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, COMMISSIONER OF FOOD AND DRUGS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Ralph Nader, Petitioner

PETITION FOR RULEMAKING

Petitioner requests the Commissioner to establish a rule of general applicability for railway locomotives, cabooses and passenger cars, as an amendment to 42 CFR 72.154 to provide in substance that discharge of human excrement and liquid waste shall be prohibited except in circumstance that assure their sanitary disposal. The text of a proposed regulation is appended to this petition.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

Authority to promulgate such rules is provided by 42 U.S.C. 264. This authority, formerly exercised by the Surgeon General, is now exercised by the Commissioner pursuant to delegation. 34 F.R. 9895 (1969). Regulations similar to that requested in this petition have been promulgated and are in effect for aircraft, 42 CFR 72.155, and highway vehicles, 42 CFR 72.156. The regulation of railways, however,

42 CFR 72.154, merely provides that there shall be no discharge of excrement while trains are passing over areas designated by the Commissioner's predecessor (no such areas have been designated) and that toilets must be locked while trains are standing in stations or servicing areas unless there is a means available to prevent contamination. Unlike buses and aircraft, however, railroad trains are free, while in motion, to discharge human waste into the environment.

NEED FOR THE REGULATION

1. Human fecal matter, untreated raw sewage, is a carrier of deadly hazardous human diseases. The Public Health Service has noted:

"Many of the most devastating infectious ailments are the enteric diseases of man and animals. Their agents are commonly excreted, often in enormous numbers, in the feces of infected individuals, and comprise all major categories of pathogens: bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and helminths. The highly dangerous human bacterial agents of typhoid fever and cholera have been responsible for many millions of deaths. They are prevalent in all countries and continue to cause much disease and death in areas existing in both 'developed' and developing countries in which sanitary disposal of human feces has not been achieved. The same problem exists with regard to other disease forms found in feces, especially as a cause of death among infants and children.

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service, "Solid Waste/Disease Relationships, A Literature Survey 12," (1967).

Some of the specific diseases transmitted by human fecal matter are amebic dysentery and other protozoal infections, cholera, Coxsackie's disease, infectious hepatitis, poliomyelitis, shigellosis, typhoid and paratyphoid fevers, tuberculosis and worm infestations. Id., 52-71.

2. The contribution of the American railways to this health hazard is tremendous. In 1968 the railroads carried 295,600,000 passengers and traveled more than 4 billion passenger-miles in 15,100 passenger cars; 95 percent of the cars are equipped with toilets and virtually all are equipped with the so-called gravity feed flushing hoppers. Association of American Railroads, "1968 Yearbook of Railroad Facts" (1969); Railway Age Group Research Reports (to Monogram Industries). There were also in service in 1968, 27,400 locomotives and 15,000 cabooses with similar open toilets. Yearbook, supra, Monogram Industries, "A Report on Railroad Waste Pollution" (1969).

The Monogram report cited concluded that toilets on locomotives and cabooses which serve only train crews, not passengers, alone discharge 51.6 million pounds of solid human fecal matter each year; this is flushed with water and is discharged as 30.6 million gallons of raw liquid sewage. One can only guess the quantity discharged by passenger cars traveling 4 billion passenger-miles.

3. In the late 1940's the Association of American Railroads commissioned a series of studies of this problem which, not surprisingly, concluded that it was not a problem of moment for the railroads. Even so, the studies found that enteric organisms were present in railroad track ballast and remained there for several months; that in heavily trafficked areas the number of easily identified fecal deposits (presumably only fresh ones) was 13.3 per mile; and that there was an ascertainable increase in the coliform count in the atmosphere outside and inside the train after a toilet flush. Association of American Railroads, Technical Report No. 6, "Bacteriological Studies of the Effects of Human Wastes From Passenger-Carrying Cars on Railroad Rights-of-Way" (1950).

4. The cost of installing nonpolluting toilets is minimal. Figures on five types of recirculating toilets are $110 for a manually operated toilet, $200 for a recirculating flush toilet and for two types of electrically operated recirculating toilet, and $400 for the most expensive, an air operated recirculating toilet.

For 27,000 locomotives, 15,000 passenger cars and 15,000 cabooses (57,000 toilets), the cost for toilets would be $11,400,000 at $200 for a safe, adequate toilet; the cost for toilets would be $22,800,000 at $400, for the most expensive. The railroads themselves have estimated the cost of servicing equipment at $40 per toilet $2,280,000, and servicing labor at 30 cents per toilet per day on an assumption that 80 percent are in operation-or about $5 million per year. (Association of American Railroads, Technical Report No. 7, "Retention of Wastes From Railroad Passenger Cars 24" (1950).

Compare the capital cost with a total railroad investment of $27.9 billion, and the $7 million in annual maintenance cost with railroad net income of $592