In an article entitled "When Sewer Plant?" and subtitled "Salt Lake Fiddles, Davis Burns," Bill Patrick shows that Davis County, to the north of Salt Lake County, has made great progress in pollution control. Davis has far less taxable property and a smaller population than Salt Lake County, but its progressive towns along the lake's edge have moved fast to meet their pollution responsibilities. By 1962 Davis will achieve the distinction of being the first county in the State to provide treatment for all of its collection systems.

Without taking more of the committee's time, I ask permission to place the four articles from the Salt Lake Tribune on water pollution in the record of the hearings, together with an editorial from the Tribune which sums up the series and the Utah problem.

Senator RANDOLPH. Without objection, that will be done.

Senator Moss. Most of the country looks with satisfaction today on the results produced by Public Law 660. By making Federal funds available, it has increased expenditures for sewage treatment facilities from an average $222 million annually to over $360 million-an increase of 5 percent. Federal grants in aid have helped finance 2,600 projects costing over $1.2 billion. Every Federal dollar has been matched by $4.80 in local funds.

Since December 1956, when Public Law 660 was enacted, 19 Utah cities and districts have received $2,935,945 in Federal grants to help build treatment plants costing a total of $14,272,586-13 of these projects have been completed.

I am confident that most of the country will look with satisfaction on the work we do here today and in the next few weeks in this committee if we report a bill that offers a realistic and well-balanced program for effective pollution control. Achieving abundant, clean supplies of water is a key aspect of our whole critical water resource problem.

(The articles referred to follow :)

[From the Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 25, 1961]

TIME FOR ACTION ON SEWAGE CLEANUP

The Salt Lake Tribune has just published a series of four articles on Salt Lake City's problem of sewage disposal.

Most interesting point about the entire series was the statement that a similar series was written more than 20 years ago. Great Salt Lake was described then as "the biggest open-ended cesspool in the country."

Which it still is.

This dramatically emphasizes not only the fact that there is a sewage disposal problem, long recognized, but that despite this recognition Salt Lake City has done nothing concrete about it.

Meanwhile other communities in the State have been moving progressively to solve their sewage problems. Utah's first treatment plant was built by the Government to serve the military camp at Kearns and now serves the community developed there. Nephi was the first Utah city to build its own plant, in 1949. Rapid progress has been made since and is continuing.

All the populous areas of Utah County have treatment plants except Payson. A Weber plant handles the sewage of 90 percent of that country's population. Davis County will be treating all of its collected sewage by 1962.

Most of the treatment plants are along the Wasatch front, but 10 cities elsewhere have them.

Total investment in plants built or building is in the neighborhood of $18 million.

Thanks to that effort much of the former pollution of Deer Creek Reservoir, Utah Lake, the Jordan River and the eastern part of Great Salt Lake has been ended.

Residents of Salt Lake City benefit from this cleanup, but they continue to do nothing to clean up their own pollution.

Oh, we have plans. We had them in embryonic form as long ago as 1943 when a master plan for Salt Lake City included a sewage treatment plant, which, it was then said, would pay for itself through the sale of reclaimed water.

Today the city engineer's office has detailed plans for a treatment plant. But it takes more than plans to build a plant. It takes money-some $9 millon of it.

This represents about a third of the estimated total cost of all the capital improvements projects approved by the special mayor's committee, under the chairmanship of Edward W. Jenkins, in 1959.

But it is doubtful if any single project is more important to the city's welfare and its status as a progressive metropolis.

There are many reasons why at long last this plant must be built. The economic value of reclaimed water, mentioned back in 1943, is one. The simple need to stop using the Nation's most unique body of water as a cesspool is another. The health hazard, emphasized by medical authorities again and again, could alone be sufficient reason. As one of the Tribune articles said, the open sewage canal flowing toward the lake and the half stagnant cesspool in an arm of the lake constitute an epidemic time bomb that health authorities say could explode at any time.

And as the State's leading city we owe something to those other communities which have led the way on sewage cleanup.

We've been talking about a sewage disposal plant for more than 20 years. We've been actively planning it for nearly 10. It is time to stop the talk and the planning and start doing.

[From the Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 19, 1961]

SPARKLING STREAMS POLLUTED GREAT SALT SEA OR CESSPOOL?

(By William C. Patrick, Tribune medical editor)

More than 20 years ago, Utahans were shocked to learn that many of the State's valleys-desolate but clean when first settled by the pioneers-had become almost literally soaked with sewage.

Lakes and streams, even those sparkling down the canyons, were dangerously polluted.

When the situation was made known by public health workers, The Salt Lake Tribune, in one of a series of articles called Great Salt Lake the “biggest openended cesspool in the country."

Unfortunately, it still is. And Salt Lake City, by continuing to pour raw sewage into the famous salt sea, is chiefly responsible.

The movement to clean up the sewage mess along the Wasatch Front quickly gained momentum right after the end of World War II. But Utah's largest city, known around the world for its beauty of planning and location, has lagged behind in this important march of progress.

Great Salt Lake can be relieved of its burden of pollution only by the building of a two-stage treatment plant to handle the stream of sewage constantly flowing out of the collection system and into an open channel that carries it to the lake.

Plans for such a plant, estimated to cost in excess of $8 million, have been drawn up and have received the approval of the Utah Water Pollution Control Board. A treatment plant is one of a number of projects being considered by the Citizen's Advisory Committee on Capital Improvements for Salt Lake City.

It costs money to keep one's house and yard clean. It costs money to keep the city itself clean. It also costs money to keep the whole environment clean. Some have argued that the city could have money and provide adequate treatment through the so-called lagoon method of sewage disposal. This would be money saved the dangerous way, even if the Water Pollution Control Board would give its approval which it will not.

The process involves running the sewage out into huge ponds and allowing it to stand until natural processes take care of everything, theoretically, at least. The board and health authorities say that for a city the size of Salt Lake this would create an impossible situation. It is estimated that an acre of land is required for sewage wasts of each 100 inhabitants.

The minimum needed for Salt Lake City thus would be 2,000 acres, and allowing for anticipated growth no less than 3,000 acres would have to be set aside. Covering this much acreage with contaminated material would be even worse than a long open canal and a polluted Great Salt Lake.

Dr. Lewis P. Gebbhardt, professor of bacteriology, University of Utah College of Medicine, said the only possible safe method of sewage disposal for Salt Lake City is an approved treatment plant, with at least primary and secondary stages.

At the present time the open canal flows for part of the distance through an area dotted with homes and farms.

There is nothing to stop livestock from wading in the filthy stream. Or people, either, for that matter.

The sewage canal is closed to the present pumping plant at 1500 North and 1100 West and a little beyond. The slimy, smelly stream emerges into an open canal after passing under Redwood Road (1700 West).

Although the pumping plant contains facilities for removing large particles, the liquid discharged is nauseous and loaded with contamination.

Whether a treatment plant is given a high priority for early construction depends on how important officials and citizens think this is. Cleanliness is more than a matter of aesthetics. It is necessary for public health in an area that is growing rapidly in both population and industrial activity.

Salt Lake City, by failing to provide for proper disposal of its sewage, is earning the scorn of many of its sister communities, all smaller in population, which already have built or let contracts for treatment plants.

By next year, every populous area with sewage collection systems from southern Utah County to Cache County will have treatment plants, with three notable exceptions. They are Payson, Salt Lake City, and Logan.

The first treatment plant in the State was placed in operation in 1944 at Kearns, then a military intsallation.

Nephi has the honor of being the first city to establish such a plan. It was put into operation in 1940, but will require the expenditure of an additional $1,142,000.

A breakdown of the estimated cost of the proposed Salt Lake City treatment plant, together with needed additions to the collection system, was presented recently by City Engineer Roy W. McLeese to G. L. Nelson, chairman of the sewage subcommittee of the Citizens Advisory Committee

It is as follows:

Treatment plant, $8,556,900; Redwood trunk line, $2559,128; interceptor line, $402,700. With other items, the total cost of the program would be $12,264,516.

[From the Salt Lake Tribune, Apr. 20, 1961]

SEWAGE HAZARD—A CANAL, OR TIME BOMB?

(EDITOR'S NOTE.-This is the second article in a series explaining the hazards of exposed raw sewage and the need for more treatment plants to eliminate the dangers.)

(By William C. Patrick, Tribune medical editor)

Does the running of raw sewage through an open canal into Great Salt Lake really create a health hazard? Doesn't the heavy brine of the lake provide 'effective sterilization of contaminated material?

The answer to the first question is, "Yes." To the second it is, "No."

The uncovered part of the canal extends for about 6 miles, and then the water fans out over a flat area left bare by the receding lake level. Sewage is known to be contaminated with many microorganisms capable of causing serious disease. These can be picked up and carried into Salt Lake City or nearby Davis County communities by seagulls, ducks or insects which have been floating on the surface of the foul water.

There are situations under which sewage from the canal may seep into marshy areas, thus increasing the hazard. Sewage-contaminated water is preferred by mosquitoes as a breeding place. And there is growing evidence these insects can carry many vicious types of disease organisms.

Dr. Louis P. Gebhardt, professor of bacteriology, University of Utah College of Medicine, said that high winds could carry bacteria either from sewage floating on a churning, choppy lake surface or from dried material on the lake shore. He declared these organisms definitely could survive a long, wind-borne ride into populated areas.

Some believe that since there has not yet been a serious epidemic proved to be directly traceable to exposed sewage, Salt Lake City can leave well enough alone. But the situation is a time bomb that could exploded unexpectedly unless the fuse is drawn through construction of a treatment plant.

It is the responsibility of health officials to anticipate such hazards and prevent them if they can. All too often the public cannot be aroused until the explosion has occurred.

One of the chief concerns of health agencies, as well as of officials, is the growing incidence of infectious hepatitis. This is a debilitating diease of the liver caused by a virus transmitted by filth and lack of proper sanitary measures. Salt Lake City also has its outbreaks of gastroenteritis, commonly known as intestinal flu, the origin of which has yet to be pegged down.

Again exposed sewage comes under suspicion. Widespread contamination on the shores of Great Salt Lake provides a breeding ground for flies as well as mosquitoes.

The citizens advisory committee in 1959, then under the chairmanship of Edward W. Jenkins, consulted a number of authorities on the health hazard created by the present sewage disposal situation and concluded:

"The committee feels that Salt Lake City is now faced with the decision of whether it will proceed to clear up what is at least a hazard situation, which is obnoxious in any event, or whether it will abide the present situation with complacency and await, with calm resignation, an event which might have dire consequences."

Dilworth S. Woolley, present chairman of the committee, said the committee will be unable to make any recommendation on the priority the sewage treatment plant should take in the overall civic improvement program until it has received a report from the sewage subcommittee, which is now studying the problem.

The committee's final report will list projects in order of priority, and suggest a method of financing, which may include a proposal for submission to the voters for issuance of bonds up to $21 million.

Perhaps one of the reasons Salt Lake residents have not been more concerned about disposal of their sewage lies in the mistaken belief held by many that Great Salt Lake acts as a decontaminating agent.

It might have some effect if the sewage mixed with the salt water, but as a rule it does not. Being lighter in weight it often floats on the surface, sometimes for long distances.

Instead of hastening the destruction of contaminated material, the brine actually may slow it up by preventing the operation of natural chemical processes that otherwise would take place.