road-Annual operating revenues of $5,000,000 or more.] at the close of 1969 [same, p. 68]. The figure included switch engines and type "B" auxiliary road engines which have no toilet facilities. The Association of American Railroads reported that on January 1, 1969, class 1 railroads had some 18,948 locomotive units equipped with toilets. There were approximately 14,400 cabooses in operation. "There were about 12,800 passenger train cars in the service of class 1 railroads at the close of 1969, used in the operation of 3,300 trains. More than 2,800 of these were commuter trains." [Same, p. 63.]

It is estimated that of the total number of passenger cars in operation at the close of 1969, there were approximately 1,037 sleeping cars. To be sure, a large percentage of these locomotives, cabooses, and passenger cars (excluding commuter cars) have toilet facilities that deliver untreated human waste to the roadbed.

The kinds of facilities now available which retain, or retain and treat, human waste rather than discharge it directly from railroad cars on rights-of-way are of basically four types: The first type is the incineration units electrical, gas, and oil. The second type is a standard fixture with retention. The third type is the self-contained chemical facility, and the fourth is a self-contained recirculation facility.

In recent years, some lines have installed incineration-type equipment on new locomotives. As you know, the turbo-trains and Metro Liners operating in the Northeast Corridor have retention facilities. The latter has approximately 30 cars in operation.

In addition, a number of Jersey Arrow cars have retention facilities, and we have received word that 10 new Erie Lackawanna passenger cars will have retention facilities. We also have received word that the Long Island Railroad Co. is installing facilities with retention on many of their cars.

The Association of American Railroads has estimated the cost involved in the installation of retention equipment on existing locomotives, cabooses, and passenger carrying railroad conveyances, and the installation of necessary servicing facilities. Due to the many variables involved-for example, types of conveyances, the number of toilets per conveyance may vary from one to 17 or more; kinds and quality of materials used; quantities being purchased; time allowed for retrofitting; and the number, size, and location of servicing facilities estimating cost is extremely difficult. These cost estimates indicate that for retrofitting to full retention in railroad conveyances, the cost would exceed $42 million.

During the past 20 years, the population of our Nation has increased by about 35 percent and has concentrated more and more in urban areas. Today, as you know, there are urban areas where it is possible to travel over 100 miles without being outside of heavily populated areas, thus exposing people to the health hazards associated with the discharge of untreated human waste. Concurrently, with this demographic change, our standards of health and sanitation have changed markedly. The public's expectations in the field of waste management will no longer tolerate the practice of dumping waste onto the railroad trackbeds.

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I wish to emphasize that while the Food and Drug Administration is proposing steps to bring about the

elimination of this method of disposal, we cannot believe that responsible corporations will permit these practices to continue.

Mr. REUSS. Thank you, Dr. Edwards. You referred to the Maxcy study of 1946 as a study made by the Public Health Service.

Dr. EDWARDS. I do not think it was made by the Public Health Service. I think it was funded by them.

Mr. REUSS. It was funded by the railroads or made by the railroads. Dr. KOLBYE. I think part of the funding was by the railroads.

Mr. REUSS. I have a copy of the 1946 document in front of me. It says quite clearly on its title page: "Association of American Railroads, Operations and Maintenance Department," "Sanitary Research Project Joint Committee on Railway Sanitation," and the letter of transmittal, dated November 8, 1946, is addressed to the Association of American Railroads from Abel Wolman of Johns Hopkins University, the consultant director, who says :

I am enclosing herewith a report just received from Kenneth F. Maxcy * * *. It was prepared in accordance with my directive to Dr. Maxcy under date of January 27, 1946.

It makes quite a difference whether the railroads-which have been depositing these human wastes on our landscape for years were doing the study, or whether the Public Health Service was doing the study. So your testimony is very critical at that point.

Dr. EDWARDS. That was a mistake on my part, Mr. Chairman. I think, however, that Dr. Maxcy is a very reputable public health

Mr. REUSS. We will stipulate that he is reputable. The question is whether the culprits were doing the study or whether the public was doing the study. The fact is that the railroads were making the study. Dr. EDWARDs. You are correct. I stand corrected.

Mr. Hicks. I do not think I understand that, Mr. Chairman. I mean, who is paying is one thing, but if Dr. Maxcy is reputable, are we challenging his study at this point?

Mr. REUSS. Not at this point.

Mr. HICKS. What difference does it make who pays the money? I mean, unless you are saying that somebody is going to be influenced. Mr. REUSS. It makes a difference to me as to whether a study was made by the Government or whether

Mr. HICKS. I do not think your implications are called for at all. Mr. RECss (continuing). Or whether it was made by the railroads, the people who are depositing this matter.

Mr. HICKS. I resent your implications, Mr. Chairman. When we start off in a hearing like this, right off the bat we are accusing somebody of not acting properly; it is one thing to point out that money was paid by somebody, but I got very definite implications from you that there is some wrongdoing here.

Mr. REUSS. The implication which I meant to convey was that it is material who published this study.

Mr. HICKS. I agree with you.

Mr. REUSS. Dr. Edwards testified that the Public Health Service was responsible for the study. According to my information, that was a perfectly innocent mistake by the witness, but I wanted to correct it, and to me it is material who conducted the study.

Mr. HICKS. Very well.

[The report, "An Inquiry Into the Public Health Hazards of Sewage Disposal From Railway Conveyances," by Kenneth F. Maxcy, M.D., Association of American Railroads, Operations and Maintenance Department, Sanitation Research Project, Joint Committee. on Railway Sanitation, November 8, 1946, is printed in the appendix of this hearing record.]

Mr. REUSS. Dr. Edwards, you say on page 3 of your prepared statement that you: "reluctantly conclude that the evidence required under the Public Health Service Act to link discharge with introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease from State to State is not present at this time." Is that correct?

Dr. EDWARDS. That is correct.

Mr. REUSS. If it is so and that, of course, is the question before us-that there is no evidence linking the discharge of fecal matter and the spread of communicable disease, why have you prohibited, as you have, the discharge of waste from airplanes and buses?

[See Interstate Quarantine Regulations, 42 CFR 72.155 and 156, which are printed in appendix III of this hearing record.]

Dr. EDWARDS. Mr. Chairman, I think there is no question that certainly no one would argue the fact that there is a potential hazard. I do not think there is any question about that. There is a potential hazard, whether it be railroads, airplanes or buses.

We have not-and when I say "we," I am talking about the National Communicable Disease Center-been able to substantiate any specific cases in which this particular practice has resulted in a specific epidemic or a particular case; but there is no question about the potential hazard of it, and I think we have to act on the potential, rather than being able to specifically verify what has happened.

Mr. REUSS. Is there any evidence that the discharge of fecal matter from airplanes or buses has caused epidemics?

Dr. EDWARDS. As a matter of fact, fecal matter is not discharged from airplanes, at least to the best of my knowledge.

Mr. REUSS. It was in the early days.

Dr. EDWARDS. In the early days, I think the volume of air transportation was such that it really did not present a real hazard. I think today it would be a totally different matter. I think that is why perhaps it is a totally different matter, even so far as the railroads are concerned, because as I pointed out, our centers of population are becoming larger and larger, and as a result our railroad right-of-ways go through more and more populated areas. The potential is certainly greater today, in spite of the fact that railroad travel is less.

Mr. REUSS. The Public Health Service Act opposes the discharge of waste, which leads to the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease from State to State. What I cannot understand is why you have prohibited such discharge in the case of airplanes and buses, without having, so far as I am aware, any evidence that actual epidemics were caused; and yet you insist that this evidence is necessary to prohibit human waste discharge from trains.

Dr. EDWARDS. I do not think we said that we could not do it. I think we are moving in the direction of prohibiting this discharge. Let me say, too, that the Food and Drug Administration took over this program a little less than 2 years ago, and at that point buses and, as I

understand it airplanes, were included. So I do not know the background as to why one was and the other one was not included. I do not think that any of us at the Food and Drug Administration would argue the potential of this being a hazard.

Mr. REUSS. A hazard

Dr. EDWARDS. A health hazard.

Mr. REUSS (continuing). Related to the transmission, introduction, or spread of communicable disease from State to State?

Dr. EDWARDS. Right.

Mr. REUSS. We can take it as medically accepted that fecal matter is a very fertile source of the communication of disease; can we not? Dr. EDWARDS. I think it does, however, have to be put in proper perspective. I think we are allowing a number of things to contaminate the environment in this country that certainly far outweigh what the railroads are doing with human waste. Many of our cities, as you know, are discharging raw human waste into our rivers. I do not mean that two wrongs make a right; but I think it has to be placed in proper perspective, and we certainly categorize this as a very real potential health hazard.

Mr. REUSS. I am glad you said that two wrongs do not make a right, because, if we ever adopted that philosophy in the environmental decade, we would not be able to do anything; would we? For there is always somebody who is polluting something, and if we are prepared to say that if somebody is getting away with it and therefore everybody should get away with it everywhere, we would not make much progress. I sure do agree with you there.

We talked about airplanes and buses. It is a further fact, is it not, that the Government has prohibited the discharge of fecal matter from trains in stations or servicing areas?

Dr. EDWARDS. That is correct.

Mr. REUSS. Again, I think the regulation, timid as it is, is a good one. But if the Maxcy report way back in 1946 is right, and if, as you say on page 3:

The evidence required under the Public Health Service Act to link discharge with introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease from State to State is not present at this time.

How could the Government legally prohibit the discharge of fecal matter in stations or in servicing areas?

[See Interstate Quarantine Regulations 42 C.F.R. 72, 154, reprinted in the appendix of this hearing record.]

Fecal matter either causes communicable diseases or it does not. I frankly do not see how one can say that its discharge from airplanes and buses anywhere and from trains at stations and servicing areas should be prohibited and yet suggest that outside stations and servicing areas its discharge from trains is all right.

Dr. EDWARDS. I am not certain, Mr. Chairman, of the legality of this. I suspect that this particular regulation by the Public Health Service was never challenged by the railroads, and I suspect that the direction we are moving in will not be challenged, or I would hope it would not be, based, however, not on any specific evidence that we have to demonstrate this relationship, but rather based upon the potential of the particular problem.

Mr. REUSS. Do you have a copy of the 1946 Assocition of American Railroads Maxcy Report in front of you?

Dr. EDWARDS. I have one right here; yes.

Mr. REUSS. I have looked at the document, and it has 115 footnotes, ranging from Aldrich, J. F., Modern Railway Sanitation, to Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Statistik, Switzerland, 1865-1888, inclusive. It seems to me this study is maybe one of the Journal of the American Medical Association's literature studies.

Dr. EDWARDS. It is a review of the literature. I might ask Dr. Kolbye to comment. He has been very much involved in this particular project of the FDA.

Dr. KOLBYE. I believe largely it is review of the literature, but they made a specific effort to determine whether or not there were any epidemics or incidents that were attributable to the practice of discharging human excrement on railroads, and it is my recollection that they did not find anything incident to a particular epidemic.

Mr. REUSS. Is it necessary that we have epidemics and that hundreds of people die before we find that something presents, in the statutory phrase, a situation which can lead to the "introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease from State to State?"

Dr. KOLBYE. There is no question that what we have here is an undesirable practice from the public health viewpoint, and steps must be taken to effect some correction.

Mr. REUSS. Is it not also specifically a situation which can lead to the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease from State to State?

Dr. KOLBYE. Potentially, yes.

Mr. REUSS. Reading from Dr. Maxcy's report at page 12, it seems his main conclusion is as follows:

The disposition of feces on the ground or on a railroad creates a "nuisance" in proportion to the extent to which it becomes offensive to the sight of factory and aesthetic sensibilities of people. If there are no people around, it is not a nuisance.

That is a statement worthy of a metaphysician rather than a physician. It does not really go to the question of whether feces can cause the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease; does it?

Dr. KOLBYE. I think it is one thing to classify a problem as a nuisance, which I suspect speaks to the esthetics involved, and another aspect to consider the potential health problems involved. I would prefer not to speak for Dr. Maxcy in terms of how he was using words.

Mr. REUSS. The statute that is before us now does not talk about an aesthetic nuisance; it talks about matter which can lead to the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable disease; is that not so?

Dr. KOLBYE. That is correct.

Mr. REUSS. Therefore one's metaphysical ideas about whether it is an esthetic nuisance are not really relevant to that question, are they? Dr. KOLBYE. They are not relevant to the question directly, but certainly I think much of the concern also stems from the esthetics involved, and this is, of course, quite understandable.

Mr. REUSS. Dr. Edwards, in your statement you state: "The Na