letters Stagnation and degradation
DEAR SIR: What do you mean by “stagnate?” Your August editorial “Can degraded air be clean air?” includes the statement, “Of course, for Miles City, Mont., air that clean (you refer hcre to air meeting secondary standards) would indeed represent deterioration, but without the option t o let its air quality deteriorate a small amount, it is difficult to see how Miles City could d o anything but stagnate.” Do you mean that Miles City isn’t moving? Of course it isn’t-not like New York City or Washington, DC.but is anyone really alive in those two cities? People do live i n Eastern Montana, and they like it there. Perhaps someday you’ll understand that the cry for limits to growth is just the complement of the cry for quality of livingquality which will not be enhanced by increased fouling of the air. O r perhaps you’re already aware that
Miles City may soon have its air degraded whether it “progresses” or not. The present plans t o denude Eastern Montana with strip mines and to build the world’s largest coal-burning power plant directly upwind from Miles City may keep the tofin from stagnating. The power, of course, will be transmitted to the East where it will be used to aircondition those tombs you call office buildings.
Ron Erickson Dept. of Chemistry Unicersity of Montana Missoula, Mont. 59801 Power station water intakes
DEAR SIR: The letter from spokesmen for the British Central Electricity Generating Board, in your August 1972 issue, page 670, was very interesting because it again raised the question as to whether electric utilities, privately or publicly owned, are capable of planning ahead
either as t o design requirements or market developments. The long-anticipated biological revival of a river such as the Thames would certainly bring with it the small organisms that will, if not treated, grow i n cooling systems. The next question must be asked, I suppose: Were the intake cooling water screens enlarged to deal with larger numbers of larger fish ? Or had the newer power plants been “overdesigned,” using ancient fish quantity screening needs as a basis? The greater development of lower elements in the food chain ought to lead t o more fish, oughtn’t they? Similar questions can be asked about the potential foulers of condensers and the potential pluggers of water-intake, fish-rejecting systems. Benjamin Linsky Department of Ciail Enginpering West Virginia UniGersity Morgantown, W .Va. 26506
Solid WASTE WATER POhJTiON
WON COMPANY,32550 010 SOUTH MllES ROAO,ClEVELANO, OHO I 44139 Circle No. 17 on Readers’ Service Card
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Volume 6 , Number 10, October 1972 859
