Rapidly increasing need for water already has created serious problems in the Southwest and in other areas, and similar problems face the American people in all regions in the future, as evidenced by the landmark studies conducted during the 87th Congress by the Senate Select Committee on National Water Resources. As the later Senator Robert S. Kerr declared in transmitting the committee's report: "The nature, the immediacy, and the gravity of the water resources problems faced by the United States vary greatly from region to region, but it is clear that all parts of the country either have or will have problems. In some areas they could become quite painful, and have a far-reaching effect on the economy of the area." The Federal program of research and development has brought the desalting of water closer to economic feasibility. It is clear that an increase in the size of this program, of the magnitude proposed in S. 24, can well bring the breakthrough. that will make desalting an important source of water supply in many areas within a relatively short period. Maximum effort at this point in time will bring maximum benefits to the entire Nation. STATEMENT OF THOMAS K. SHERWOOD, PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Let me first identify myself. I am professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an engineering consultant to petroleum and chemical companies. For some years I was dean of engineering at MIT. I have followed the activities of the OSW since its formation in 1952, and currently supervise fundamental studies of the freezing process at MIT under a nonprofit grant from the OSW. I was chairman of the committee of the National Academy of Sciences which planned and organized the 1960 Woods Hole study of research needs for desalination. I have testified before congressional hearings on this subject on several previous occasions. I am concerned primarily with the needs for fundamental research. I am involved in this subject because I am convinced that the water problem. is very real and very serious, and not because I support research for the sake of research. The most significant water statistic is the rate of "consumptive" use of water. This refers to water withdrawn from streams, lakes, and aquifers, used once, and then lost by evaporation or in other ways so as not to be available for reuse. The consumptive use of water within the continental United States is not known accurately, but is evidently between 10 and 20 percent of the total fresh water which might sometime be obtained from natural sources by present technology. Not only are the demands increasing steadily, but water supplies vary enormously with time and place, so to me this is a frightening figure. I am further convinced that desalination is one of the several practical approaches to the problem. Two-thirds of the population lives in the 25 States which border on the oceans, and many of the other 25 States have large supplies of brackish water. Three desalination processes are now commercial in the sense that companies are prepared to build and guarantee plants. These involve distillation, electrodialysis, and freezing. Small plants having capacities of 1 million gallons per day produce water for $1 to $1.50 per 1,000 gallons. Larger plants designed to produce 50 to 100 million gallons per day-enough for the municipal water needs of perhaps 300,000 people can evidently be built to produce water for 25 to 50 cents per 1,000 gallons. Still larger plants employing nuclear reactors could perhaps produce still cheaper water if the electric power produced simultaneously could be sold at an attractive figure. These costs are high, though they are very much less than desalination costs at the time the OSW started in business. The desalination program would appear to have two objectives-first, to do better with the processes we have; and second, to discover and develop a new and much better process. The first will be accomplished by engineering-by simpler design concepts, inventions of process modifications, the use of cheaper materials of construction, and the development of more efficient system components. To accomplish these things the engineers will draw on the fruits of the basic research program devoted to materials, corrosion, scale, properties of brines, and on the supply of data basic to the design of the heat and mass transfer equipment which is involved. It is most important to do better with the processes we now have, if only for the reason that we may never find better ones. Even modest cost reductions would justify the expenditure of a great deal of money for research and development. A cost reduction of only 10 cents per 1,000 gallons would mean a saving of $73 million in the 20-year lifetime of a single 100-million-gallon-per-day plant. The second part of the desalination program encompasses the basic research which could lead to a really cheap process. Scientists, engineers, and inventors must be intrigued, stimulated, and supported. New ideas must be tested and promising leads pursued. It is a matter of faith that something enormously important will come of this, but research on similar problems in the petrochemical and chemical industries has shown an excellent payoff record. Research of this kind is a form of gambling, but the odds are excellent. The OSW receives three to four times as many basic research proposals as it is able to support. Among these could be what we are looking for. The budget of $4 to $5 million per year for research is some 40 percent of the total OSW budget for each of the last 3 years. It ought to be larger. But the real trouble is that from time to time it has been deemed necessary to divert research funds to meet the urgent needs of more-or-less crash programs in the area of engineering and development. One of the principal recommendations of the 1960 Woods Hole study by the National Academy of Sciences was that the research budget be protected against just such raids. In the light of these observations and convictions, I appeal to Congress to support the basic research program of the OSW, and to suggest ways to protect it against the financial drain of other short-term though doubtless important needs for funds. The current research program of the OSW is excellenta nice balance of research on fundamentals and the exploration of novel ideas as to new desalination methods. It is providing technical data needed in the design. of plants employing the known processes. It is actively pursuing the very promising new process called reverse osmosis. It is a program of the type and quality which justifies continuing support. I suspect that some Congressmen have felt that basic research was a wastethat the thing to do was to select the desalination process of greatest promise at the moment, and to spend money on its development. This approach will not get us the answer which is really needed. By analogy, we might have concluded 25 years ago that the best approach to the attainment of cheap power was the sophisticated engineering development of steam powerplants. Basic research in nuclear physics could then have been abandoned and we would not now have cheap nuclear energy. Fifteen years ago the Bell Telephone Laboratories might have diverted its funds from basic research to the development of better vacuum tubes-we would then not have transistors today. In summary, the desalination program has two objectives. The first is to improve the processes we know. The second is to learn enough about water and about separation techniques to devise a new and better process. Both are important. But the second, which depends on basic research, must have what someone has called patient money-a continuing stable budget on which to build a first-class research program. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, Hon. HENRY M. JACKSON, Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, DEAR SENATOR JACKSON: The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations wishes to convey its strong support of S. 24, a bill to expand and extend the Federal saline water conversion program by amending the Anderson-Aspinall Act of 1961. This legislation would provide for an increase of $200 million over the present $75 million authorization ceiling, and extend the duration of the program for 5 years to fiscal 1972. By means of this legislation $50 million would be authorized for the program each year beginning with fiscal 1967, as compared to $29 million requested by the President's budget for fiscal 1966. The 1963 policy resolution on conservation of natural resources passed by the AFL-CIO convention has this to say: "We call special attention to the Nation's water supply situation which is not only limited by natural conditions which require further storage and control as an answer, but is facing serious curtailment at the hands of man through pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams throughout the Nation and by impending regional shortages. Progress is being made through amendments to Federal water pollution control legislation. Further efforts will be required, particularly in strengthened Federal enforcement authority, expanded research, State and local action, Federal desalination programs, and national standards to determine presence of water pollution." The AFL-CIO policy resolution also calls for the use of nuclear energy for saline water conversion. In his saline water message of March 29, 1965, to the U.S. Senate, President Johnson wrote: "By pressing ahead with a vigorous program of economic desalting to meet our ever-growing domestic needs for water, we will at the same time provide the technology which can be shared with other nations. This technology could provide the key that will unlock the door to economic growth for many of these nations." Organized labor shares the President's hopes for the early fruition of this Nation's 12-year-old water desalination program. In 1961, in supporting the legislation which was to be enacted into law as the present desalting program, we urged that converted saline water be made competitive with other sources in cost before 1980. If such a goal is not achieved, we stated, "local and regional water shortages which already spot various sections of the Nation will seriously affect the national welfare." Since that time, although progress in saline water conversion technology has been made, much still needs to be done. The Federal program must have all necessary resources made available to it to carry out successfully "the substantial sustained effort necessary to achieve truly economical desalting of sea and brackish waters," in the words of the President's saline water message. We feel that it is questionable, however, that the increased authorizations asked for in this legislation are adequate to accelerate the Federal water desalting program to a point where decisive breakthroughs in the technology of conversion will take place within the next decade. It is the strong opinion of the AFL-CIO that the saline water conversion program must be expanded far beyond the increased authorizations provided by S. 24. We urge that this committee request the Secretary of the Interior to submit a report and recommendations for further acceleration of the program to the Congress for its review and action not later than January 31, 1966. We also respectfully request that this statement be included in the record of your committee's hearings on this bill. Sincerely yours, ANDREW J. BIEMILLER, Director, Department of Legislation. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, DEAR SENATOR JACKSON: In connection with your consideration of S. 24, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States supports Federal saline water conversion research, provided that it is limited to fundamental scientific research, technological exploration, and conceptual design. We have two major areas of concern about the saline water research program: (1) The manner and extent to which the program is implemented and (2) the amount of funds to be authorized. It is our position that the program should: 1. Be conducted by private enterprise insofar as possible. Government should only supplement private effort or perform such research as the private sector is unable or unwilling to perform. 2. Not include construction and operation of large-scale pilot plants capaable of commercial production of potable water. This activity should be conducted by private industry or by the level of government covering the area to be served by the facility-i.e., a town or city, a county or State, or perhaps a grouping of local and/or State governments in a regional compact. 3. Be compared on an economic basis with all other water research programs. This is essential to provide the most economical supply of water. 4. Ascertain the demand for desalinization in different areas of the Nation. A variety of water supply systems is indicated due to varying needs and supply sources. We do not have adequate information upon which to base an informed recommendation as to the appropriation authorization. In transmitting to the appropriate congressional committees our recommendations with respect to the fiscal year 1966 budget request of the Interior Department's Office of Saline Water, we emphasized that **** Any opposition to the enlargement of the saline water program stems from a concern about the feasibility of enlargement. It should be based on need and careful consideration must be given to the relation of cost to worth." We would appreciate your giving careful consideration to these views and hav ing them made part of the official record of your hearings on this legislation. Sincerely, Hon. CLINTON P. ANDERSON, THERON J. RICE, Legislative General Manager. BLAW-KNOX Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., May 20, 1965. Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. MY DEAR SENATOR ANDERSON: With the holding currently of House and Senate hearings on the President's goal to economically produce potable water from saline water, I should like our company's views to be known as favoring contin uation of the saline water program. Blaw-Knox Co. has been actively engaged since 1959 in the development of a freezing process for desalination of salt water. We know that through our 3-year operation of a pilot plant in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the support of the Office of Saline Water, that genuine progress has been made toward development of essential information on the freezing process. Conservative estimates of water costs based on pilot plant operations indicate that in commercial plants of selected capacities it will be possible to produce potable water from sea water more cheaply by the freezing process on which we have worked than by others. Additional pilot plant development work will, however, be required before the final design and sizes of component equipment for commercial size plants can be determined. It should be borne in mind that desalination of water by freezing processes is of comparativey recent origin. Yet, the progress that was made in the brief time the Blaw-Knox effort was maintained can be regarded as most encouraging. We see the deveolpment of economic methods for the utilization of sea water to supplement sources of natural water for general consumption as a highly important objective for this Nation. We believe the Congress should acknowledge the necessity of further and immediate development work to advance the remaining know-how required to permit the earliest possible move to commercial plant status in the desalination of water. In line with this view, we recommend strongly that the program for development work in saline water be continued and that the objective be supported in the current congressional hearings. Further, we should like you to know of our willingness to appear before any congressional committee hearings on this subject, and will await your request to us for such participation. Sincerely yours, W. CORDES SNYDER, JR., Chairman of the Board. Senator ANDERSON. This concludes the hearings. (Whereupon, at 1:10 p.m. the hearing in the above-entitled matter was concluded.) о |