Legislators reluctant to pass laws
By VICKI PHILLIPS
By VICKI PHILLEN
Kansan Staff Writer
The Apollo 10 astronauts looking down on earth quickly spotted Los Angeles. Even from orbit, they recognized the thick, brown smog that surrounds the California city.
The technological geniuses that created the perfect crafts that circled our planet, highlighting the sixties decade, are beginning to question whether we can survive our success. Biologists, hydrologists, geologists and demographers are warning that air pollution may be our ultimate executioner.
Suddenly Americans are beginning to understand what Adlai Stevenson meant when he said, "We travel together, passengers on a little space-ship; dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft."
CARS CONTINUE to spew unburned hydrocarbons, tetraethyl lead and cancer-causing nickel additives, rubber tires vaporize on the streets, deadly asbestos particles are shed from brake linings and sewage plants continue to send pollutants into the atmosphere.
Still with all of the accumulating evidence and the grim conclusions ecologists are drawing, Kansas has no air pollution regulations.
The Kansas legislature passed the Air Quality Control Act in 1967.
"This bill, however, is simply an enabling type of law; it does not provide for any air pollution laws on the books," said Howard Saiger, director of Kansas air quality control.
SAIGER SAID this act provides for a regulatory body, the Kansas Air Quality Conservation Commission. This eight-man commission will include four directors representing health, agriculture, labor, and economic development departments and four members appointed by the governor, including representatives from industry, a local health agency, the general public and one unspecified.
At the same time Kansas passed this bill, 25 other states adopted similar air control bills, Saiger said.
Saiger said very little had been done to control air pollution in Kansas up until 1967 because until the adoption of the Air Quality Control Act, air pollution was handled through the Kansas Department of Health. The Department of Health was not able to establish an air pollution control program, nor could it provide the necessary staff.
The 1967 bill, in addition to establishing the policy-making body, also provides for a new division in the health department and allotts funds for staff members and laboratories. Saiger said.
THE COMMISSION'S first job was to develop an air pollution control program. Basically this involved three steps, Saiger said.
The commission had to first decide the magnitude of the problem as it existed in Kansas. Prior to 1967, there was no information concerning air quality in Kansas. Secondly, the commission had to decide the improvements that were needed and establish air quality standards and goals. Thirdly, the body had to establish where the sources of pollution were coming from and decide which ones were controllable.
To establish guidelines, the commission sent questionnaires to various industries in the state inquiring about the type of control equipment they have and comparing this information to the measurable pollution.
IDEALLY THE COMMISSION would not establish any air pollution regulations until all of the necessary information had been analyzed. But in order to be eligible for federal grants, Kansas must have some effective regulations by June of this year, so the commission must pass some statewide regulations with only partial information.
The regulations to be passed will involve three things—a particular control, visible emission control requirements and the prohibiting of open burning of trash.
Kansas is still burning 90 per cent of its cities' refuse. But the necessary funds for the correct dispensary equipment are not available. Saiger said part of the commission's plan was to make these funds available.
Although the Air Quality Control Act was passed two years ago, there are still no air pollution regulations in Kansas today. Saiger said there were several factors which contributed to this delay. There were administrative delays, the members of the Senate Finance Committee were reluctant to cooperate and there was a lack of enthusiasm from rural congressmen who could not see that there was an air pollution problem in Kansas.
THE CO-OP FERTILIZER PLANT in Lawrence
has had no regulations concerning air pollutants because health department officials felt the pollution from that plant was not enough to endanger the health of Lawrence citizens. But, the Co-op Plant installed air pollution control equipment on their own in an effort to develop a reasonable amount of air pollution control.
From this information, Kansas appears to be on a progressive course in controlling the state's air pollution. However, Kansas has only three full-time employees to handle more than 1,000 Kansas industries.
Saiger has been unable to fill one of the three positions because the Senate Finance Committee provides salaries for air quality control officials which are in the bottom quarter of the United States.
IN CONTRAST TO virtually no laws governing air pollution. Kansas has the longest history of effective water pollution laws in the United States, said Melville Gray, head of the Kansas Department of Public Health.
The Kansas water pollution regulations are an excellent set of laws, Gray said. They cover a broad latitude of authority and are designed to cover any foreseeable problem, he said.
GRAY EXPLAINED there were two procedures for controlling water quality. A primary treatment removes only 30 per cent of water pollutants and a secondary treatment removes 85 per cent.
Although the Kaw River in Lawrence which has been receiving primary treatment is not badly polluted, Lawrence is rapidly approaching the point which will make secondary treatment necessary, Gray said.
"But the installation of secondary treatment in Lawrence will still not make the Kaw River satisfactory for swimming, so no more sandbar parties for KU students," Gray said.
Even though water pollution control is much more satisfactory than air pollution control in Kansas, problems concerning water quality control do exist.
"We have an inadequate staff. Also there is a problem with commercial feed lots in Kansas and specific streams in the state are in danger of being polluted," Gray said.
Politics plays role in birth control
By VICKI PHILLIPS Kansan Staff Writer
Genesis 1:28
Be fruitful and multiply.. Genesis 1:28
Man has multiplied in a way Old Testament scholars could never have imagined.
Unless an immediate commitment to a program of birth control is put into effect, the underdeveloped world is doomed to death by famine and the affluent world to social chaos.
IF PRESENT TRENDS continue, there will be an additional one billion persons to the world population every five years or less in the 21st century.
On July 21, one day after man set foot on the moon, President Nixon sent to Congress a message on population growth, the first such message ever submitted by an American president.
In his message on population, President Nixon clearly expressed his concern about the population growth in this country and abroad. He noted that the present U.S. growth rate of about one per cent was not as high as that of other nations, but presented a serious challenge for our society.
President Nixon said social institutions must keep pace with the demands of a steadily increasing population. Program planning in vital areas of education, housing, urban development and health must receive increased emphasis. The President recognized family planning as one of the surest and least costly ways of breaking the poverty cycle. He pointed out the necessity of making family planning services available to all who desire it.
DR. PATRICIA SCHOLESSER, head of maternal child care in the Kansas Health Department, said:
"Our country is grasping at family planning as a solution for other problems besides overpopulation, such as housing and social welfare."
"We are just beginning to realize that the population explosion must be stopped for economic survival," said Dr. Scholeser.
In 1870, Kansas passed a law prohibiting any public agency from distributing information on how to prevent pregnancy. This law was not repealed until 1963.
Dr. Scholesser said that when this law was
repealed in 1963 there was no money to develop an effective family planning program. But, in 1965, the Kansas legislature passed a bill allocating funds for the Kansas Board of Health to establish family planning centers throughout the state in conjunction with county welfare agencies.
"Of course, there is the ongoing problem of not enough money to maintain the family planning centers," Dr. Scholesser said. But in 1967, the federal government under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, allocated funds for special grants to states to maintain family planning services. The Office of Economic Opportunity also earmarks funds for family planning programs.
Dr. Scholesser said Kansas spent $70,000 of state, local and federal funds on family planning services last year. This year Kansas will spend $350,000.
All state, local and federal funds granted for family planning centers in Kansas are directed to the maternal child care department in the Kansas health department. Specific grants are given to areas throughout the state through the maternal child care department.
FOR YEARS A PRIVATE agency, Plan Parenthood World Population, offered family planning services. But as the threat of overpopulation became more apparent, the agency began to direct its efforts toward politics. Realizing that they could no longer handle the program alone, an effort to influence public institutions, legislators and doctors was initiated.
An advocate of legalized abortion, Dr. Scholesser feels the present abortion laws violate women's rights.
"Does the law have the right to say a woman must give birth to a child she doesn't want simply because she possesses reproductive organs?" Dr. Scholesser said.
"When I became head of maternal child care, I decided three laws must go in Kansas; the law prohibiting the distribution of birth control information, the abortion law and the law prohibiting sterilization." Dr. Scholesher said.
"WE IN THE HEALTH field do not feel abortion is the answer to population growth, but a mere backstop to family planning." Dr. Scholesser said.
Male birth control pills and the "morning-after pill" are new developments in birth control, but there is still not a perfect birth control method, said Dr. Scholesser.
Politics and population have been working together for years in other nations. Women in China are offered a bonus if they have no more than two children. They are told that their refusal to become pregnant is a service to the state. Japan has legalized abortion in an effort to stop its population growth.
Within the next generation, if U.S. citizens don't volunteer to curb the population growth, the federal government may have to take measures. One method that has been suggested is to add birth control preventatives to the drinking water supply, and when a couple wants to have a baby, they must petition.
AS FRIGHTENING AS this proposal sounds, even more frightening is the fact that at the present rate there will be 300 million people in the United States by the year 2000.
Where will the next 100 million Americans live? If the pattern of the last few decades holds for the rest of the century, three quarters of the next 100 million Americans will live in urban areas. Add 75 million people to our urban population in the next 30 years and we will have to build the equivalent of one new city of 250,000 inhabitants every 40 days for the rest of the century.
How will we educate and employ such a large number of people? Will we be able to provide for their health needs? Can we maintain a political and economic framework that offers 300 million people the chance to participate in that which this country has to offer its citizens?
What should be the role of government in this area?
There are countries in the world that are educating their citizens on population growth as a matter of national policy, just as there are countries whose policies are aimed at increasing population. It is time for the United States to assess its national policy toward population and to question whether the methods we have employed and the goals we have set are adequate to meet the challenge we face.