Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas. Page: 19
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deficiencies reported by the Conference of State Sanitary Engineers
are in communities of less than 10,000. 16/
The unwillingness to increase local expenditures to provide
for water and sewer utilities is the crux of the problem of inadequate
investment. However, there is much less resistance to investing
local funds in water supply. The investment lag in water storage and
distribution facilities is more a product of the lack of construction
during World War II and the Korean War, rising costs, material
shortages and rapid population growth, than voter resistance. The
story is quite different with respect to sewage treatment works;
but as William L. Rivers recently noted in the historical context
of urban water and sewer development, the tale is familiar:
Much of the foot dragging by municipalities can
be explained by an axiom of local politics: building
a water treatment plant to clean up the water used by
voting citizens is almost always easy to accomplish;
however, a sewage plant that will treat a community's
wastes benefits only the neighboring communities
downstream. 17/
The growth of water recreation has heightened public concern
somewhat, but its impact is far from universal. For example, last
year Peter F. Mattei, executive director of the Metropolitan St. Louis
Sewer District, told the Committee on Public Works of the U.S. House
of Representatives that the crux of the problem in St. Louis was in
securing the two-thirds majority needed for a general obligation bond
issue or the four-sevenths majority required for a revenue bond
issue. A large percentage of St. Louis' population is not bothered
by the pollution of the Mississippi. No one swims in it, and boating
occurs north of the city's discharge points. The only people who
suffer are downstream. Under these not uncommon conditions it is a
difficult proposition to sell a $100 million bond issue. 18/ Quite
16/ U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health
Service, Problems in Financing Sewage Treatment Facilities
(Washington, 1962), p. 1.
17/ William L. Rivers, "The Politics of Pollution," Reporter, XIV
(March 30, 1961), p. 34.
18/ U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Public
Works, Federal Water Pollution Control Hearings, 87th Cong.,
1st Sess., 1961, pp. 43, 48.
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United States. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Intergovernmental responsibilities for water supply and sewage disposal in metropolitan areas., book, October 1962; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1424/m1/31/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.