investigating methods for removing the water from these slimes so that they can be disposed of in the worked-out mine pits. In addition, we are conducting research on processing methods that will permit. treating the phosphate ore without generating the slimes.

In 1972, over 1.8 billion tons of mining and minerals wastes were discarded. These wastes, generated from mines and smelters, are potential or active contributors to air and water pollution, and also detract from the beauty of our landscape.

The Bureau of Mines is a leading authority on chemical and vegetative methods for stabilizing mineral wastepiles that have no mineral or utilization value. Field tests using chemicals or plantings either separately or in combination have been conducted by the Bureau or under Bureau guidance at 12 sites in 8 States.

At Tuba City, Ariz., 34 acres of uranium leach-plant residues have been stabilized chemically. The surface is still 90 percent intact after 6 years. Only last month, June, we cooperated in treating an old copper tailings pile on property owned by the National Forest Service in the State of Washington.

Although the copper-mining operation was abandoned years ago, the tailings have been an irritant to the residents of the resort city of Holden Village because of air-pollution problems from the windblown dust. Our research is continuing on other waste piles that are distributed throughout the United States.

In a few years a new waste material will be accumulating at an enormous rate. Vast quantities of oil shales in Colorado and other Western States now are being considered seriously for commercial exploitation.

Once oil-shale production begins, millions of tons of mining and retorted shale wastes will be generated each year. Research now should be focused on determining if these wastes can be utilized as raw materials for the ceramic or other industries. Also, we must conduct extensive investigations to determine if there will be any serious problems associated with the storage and disposal of the waste materials.

Each year we generate about 30 million tons of fly ash from the combustion of coal in our steam-generating plants. The disposal of this fly ash, by and large, has been a problem and one which has only been partially solved in recent years.

As a result of the energy crisis there has been renewed interest in burning more coal to generate electricity during the next few decades with the resultant generation of more fly ash. New ways to use this fly ash must be found.

Waste accumulations over past vears from mining and processing of coal are estimated to be over 2 billion tons spread over 33 States. Effects of these coal-waste accumulations include air and water pollution, hazards to public safety, esthetic blights, and inhibition to community growth.

Bureau research on these coal-mine wastes dates back to 1910 when a study of hydraulic backfilling was started in the anthracite region. In more recent years our research has been concentrated upon development of improved waste-disposal methods, cost analyses of waste disposal, and refuse-bank fire extinguishment.

Currently we are conducting a demonstration project in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in which a hydraulic injection technique for pumping dilute slurries of wastes into flooded or otherwise inaccessible mine workings is being tested.

There still exists numerous new and old approaches and methods which need to be examined and improved upon in areas of refuse disposal. Among the areas which need to be examined are improvements in the designs and economics of underground disposal systems.

Research also is needed to provide methods and markets for utilizing the waste rather than merely disposing of it. The cost of extinguishing burning refuse banks is excessive and more practical methods need to be developed.

Continued research is needed to find economical means of improving reclamation and revegetation of existing wastebanks as well as the elimination of water pollution resulting from acid drainage at many refuse-bank sites.

In conclusion, although we agree with the intent of Senate bills 3560, 3549, and 3277, with regard to the effective disposal or recycling of valuable materials now lost in solid wastes, the broad scope of the bills is unnecessary to achieve this purpose.

We support enactment of the administration's proposed Hazardous Waste Management Act [S. 1086] which will assure proper disposition of hazardous wastes. We also support continuing outgoing research activities which will fully demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of recycling to private industry, and to State and local gov

ernments.

This concludes my statement. I will be glad to respond to any questions.

Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, Mr. Rampacek. I read your statement last night at my residence and I do know of the work of the Bureau of Mines and of the considerable contributions that are being made.

You are conducting an extensive research program on the use of fly ash. This is something that we understand in a State like West Virginia and other States is a problem that comes with the use of coal.

You are promoting the use of coal fly ash in building materials. I understand that you are doing that. Is that right?

Mr. RAMPACEK. Yes. Fly ash has been proposed for use in building materials and actually in past years and currently some fly ash is used in concrete. It has a pozzolanic effect and it works quite well.

Senator RANDOLPH. I understand the Corps of Engineers is using fly ash routinely.

I want to focus now on the Bureau of Mines Building. That is about a $14 million to $16 million energy research facility in Beckley, W. Va. I am not trying to put you on the spot at all, but are you using building materials that employ the recycling technologies that you have been developing in the program that was spoken of?

If you are not doing it, perhaps there is a reason why you were not doing it. Would you explain? I thought it would be a good spot, you know, to prove something.

Mr. RAMPACEK. It would have been a good spot to prove something. Unfortunately, in the construction of Federal buildings, once the decision has been made to construct the building, the matter is out of our hands. It rests with the GSA.

Senator RANDOLPH. Did you suggest to GSA that you might want to do a certain job there, the opportunity might be afforded to do a double job while doing the building in the way that I have indicated? Mr. RAMPACEK. No, we did not.

Senator RANDOLPH. I understand. It is the Bureau of Mines project. We understand.

We will check it out, naturally, ourselves. It is not a question that is overly critical, but only because of your work in this field and here with the opportunity hopefully to use the work that you have been doing.

What are you trying to do in connection with the fly ash for other purposes other than ones which you have designated? Let's say surface mining reclamation.

Mr. RAMPACEK. We did have a study on the use of fly ash to neutralize wastes from coal mining.

This worked rather well, but the quantities of fly ash required were excessive. We think that we should be looking at fly ash as also a possible source of alumina which is the basic material for the production of cements and also refractories.

We have done some work on that in the past. We demonstrated that alumina of different qualities can be recovered from fly ash, but at the time we made the tests-2 or 3 years ago-the process simply was not economical.

We will take another look at it, however, in the light of the potential increasing quantities of fly ash that are expected to be produced. Senator RANDOLPH. You can understand. Mr. Rampacek, when I mention these matters it is somewhat because of contacts that we continue to have. For example, the American Electric Power people, came in yesterday from West Virginia and talked with me about the powerplant ash problem with the electric utilities.

They talked about the larger plants as storage areas. The costs for ash disposal, ash handling equipment, and transportation, all of these increasing. In this rather brief booklet they speak of powerplant ash as a coal by-product, they say it can be changed from a liability into

an asset.

They ask this question: "Do you know that fly ash can be made into a low cost, high-grade building brick?" That is why I asked that question earlier.

“Do you know that a highway paved with boiler slag mixed with asphalt is more durable than other blacktop materials and provides exceptional resistance to skidding?

"Do you know that fly ash may be used to produce a concrete that is superior and less expensive than regular concrete?

"Do you know that fly ash contains several trace elements that are essential to plant growth and has been used to reclaim the strip mine spoil banks?"

These are the subjects that I have been discussing with you.

And on and on, they speak of this as not only intriguing and certainly it is, but a new era is coming into being. We will have a utilization of millions of tons of powerplant ash as we develop these programs.

I know that you are familiar with this information, but I am going to place it as a part of the record as I am also going to place an article from the Professional Engineer, the July issue, "Fly Ash Pioneers a Reclamation Economy as Energy/Resource Challenges Confront Engineering Community."

Mr. RAMPACEK. Apparently I missed that article, but I will look for it.

Senator RANDOLPH. We will thermofax it for you if you want to take it today with you, if that helps you. It will be placed in the record. [The material referred to follows:]

[From Professional Engineer, July 1974]

FLY ASH PIONEERS A RECLAMATION ECONOMY AS ENERGY/RESOURCE
CHALLENGES CONFRONT ENGINEERING COMMUNITY

The magnitude of global energy and natural resource problems has made it clear to a substantial and growing segment of the engineering community that development of what might best be termed a reclamation economy is essential if we are to come to grips with these problems in any meaningful way over the next several decades. In fact, the need to create technologies of conservation and reclamation becomes more apparent almost from month to month if we are to meet this challenge and live more in harmony with the fruits of the earth.

As we move into the cost-crisis aspect of these energy and resource problems, the need is growing for the development of new solutions to the disposal problem. We are probably already further into an era of recyclability than we realize. It is now quite obvious that many of the nation's problems of pollution and dwindling resources can be profitably solved through recycling of all materials. Recycling has not become a household word nor have its products been generally accepted. But significant progress has already been achieved. The benefits are virtually unlimited.

The ash industry, perhaps, pioneered the recycling movement as many constructive uses have been found for coal ashes since the Romans first used volcanic ash for building construction. Today the glass, steel, paper, aluminum, timber, and rubber industries, among others, are active in this rapidly expanding field. One of the most outstanding examples of waste resource utilization came into being last year when Reynolds Metals Company with the cooperation of 30 other firms constructed a house of the future-a modern four-bedroom, tri-level home made entirely of recycled components. The suburban residence was built to prove there are practical uses for recycled materials. Erected near Richmond, Virginia, the home is on the market for $65,750.

Besides the power plant fly ash which was used in the concrete, this unique house contains aluminum processed from beverage cans picked off a Florida beach, glass bottles from California parks, old newspapers from New Jersey, scrap fibers from North Carolina carpet plants, worn-out tires from Mississippi, fibers from a municipal waste separation plant in Ohio, wood scraps from mills in the area, steel mill furnace slag, and recycled copper and scrap cast iron.

Faced with increasingly stringent regulations for better control of environmental problems, the coal-burning electric utilities have discovered they can turn the ash fallout from the energy production cycle into profitable by-products. Ash disposal by the traditional method (dumping) is becoming less and less satisfactory

However, the utilities face an even more imposing problem as they move to comply with clean air emission control standards by mid-1975 and that is what to do with lime sludges that will result from the installation of scrubbing systems to remove sulphur dioxide from stack emissions. This gray, toothpaste-like residue could be even more of an ecological problem than the ashes, and technology presently available to cope with this situation is scarce. Aside from individual efforts no real impetus was employed to market power plant ash until the creation of the National Ash Association by a group of public utility, coal, and coal-related industries in 1968. Today, a host of interests—private, governmental, and academic-are concerned with ash production, sales, utilization, and research.

The many outlets for ash, however, consume only about 16 percent of the total amount being produced. In 1973, total ash production reached an all-time high approaching 50 million tons, and this figure is expected to be exceeded before 1980. It is clear new markets must be found, and there is ample evidence they do exist.

In terms of production, coal ash is the seventh most abundant solid mineral according to figures compiled for the U.S. Department of Interior's 1972 Minerals Yearbook. Ash ranks behind sand gravel, stone, coal, iron, portland cement, and clays. (See Table 1.) Thus, it is also appropriate to note that the General Assembly of Maryland, in an historic action, passed legislation in April 1974 classifying power plant ash as a natural resource and providing for the material to be stockpiled so it can be fully recovered. Other states are said to be considering similar legislation.

TABLE I.-Production of Minerals and Solid Mineral Fuels

Source: Mineral Yearbook, vol. I-II, Metals, Minerals, and Fuels, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1972.

Most of the ash production is centered east of the Mississippi River where the bulk of the fossil fuel is now mined. In 1973, almost 90 percent of the ash or about 40 million tons were collected there. And interestingly enough, approximately 50 percent of the total is available from twelve utility companies.

Considering all factors with regard to advancement in emission controls, nuclear power, and competition from oil and gas, it is estimated the 1980 consumption of coal will exceed 480 million tons with a resultant ash production of 52 million tons. (See Table 2). However, the characteristics of the ash may vary substantially from what they are today depending on the ash content of the lignite and low-sulphur coals that are being blended with the so-called highsulphur fuels and the types of processes employed to remove SO2 gases. The sup