letters Industry under attack
DEARSIR: I believe the idea espoused by Mr. Speer in his Viewpoint article, “Punitive legislation is not needed” (ES&T, October 1970, page 791), that government is totally responsible for “inadequately treated or untreated sewage,” and that “pollution-producing disposal of solid wastes” is wrong. It is industry which, through advertising, creates a market for all kinds of products from food to automobiles. In terms of food, so much “junk” is consumed and eliminated by the expanding population that it is no wonder that treatment cannot keep pace with increased load. Some industries also take little notice of their own waste treatment methods. When I worked for an industrial corporation, we had 16 pipes that conveyed untreated human waste from 20,000 employees directly into a local estuary. Further, it is industry that creates the product that becomes ob-
solete and is discarded to become a government disposal problem. I believe Mr. Speer’s article was worth reading, however, as it espoused a philosophy that must undergo change if pollution abatement and control of environmental degradation are ever to be successful. I agree with Mr. Speer that we must have government and industry working together, not in collusion, but in a responsible manner to effect these controls. John W. Foerster Department of Biological Sciences Goucher College Towson, M d . 21204
DEARSIR: Mr. Speer suggests that industry be allowed accelerated write-off of all air and water quality control expenditures; he states that this is not a tax giveaway and does not involve the principle of subsidy. The accelerated write-off will reduce the amount of taxes paid by industry and increase its profits. What name shall we call this? Furthermore, accelerated writeoff would favor capital-intensive pol-
lution control measures while the efficient solution to society may not be capital-intensive. If one wants to advocate the profit incentive as a means for solving the pollution problem, then all costs of production should be incurred by the industry, as free-market economics assumes. Pi0 Lombard0 Department of Civil Engineering University of Washington Seattle, Wash. 981 05
Incinerator emissions..
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DEARSIR: In the Environmental Currents por. tion of your September 1970 issue (page 718), you presented a brief review of our recent report to NAPCA on municipal incinerator air pollution. I am concerned in that the textual material presented our conclusions regarding the increases in stack emissions (after the air pollution control device), whereas the tabular material concerns furnace emissions (before the control device). Confusion of these two measures of air pollution problems
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a 1970, 1971 by Whitey Cornpany/all SWAGELOK-Rea.
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T. M. Crawford F i t t i n g COmDanY
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