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Show Women Voters League Works On Water Issue The League of Women Voters of Cedar City today called for expansion of the federal water pollution program. The League strongly endorses the bill now before Congress which would amend the existing law providing provid-ing funds to local communities for the building of sewage-treatment plants. TM proposed amendment is commonly called the Blatnik Bill. It was introduced intro-duced by Representative John Blatnik of Minnesota, and Is formally for-mally designated II. R. 3610. Mrs. L. V. Broadbent, president presi-dent of the local league, announced an-nounced that this agreement is shared throughout the league in all 50 states. The local league has been studying water problems prob-lems for four years; practically all of the other 1080 local leagues have taken part in the study All agree on the necessity cf controlling con-trolling pollution. "Stream pollution is Increasing Increas-ing at an alarming rate," said Mrs. Broadbent. "It is creating health hazards and reducing the amount of usable water. A speedup speed-up of building of sewage treatment treat-ment facilities is vciui;e. The existing law is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. The amendment would increase federal incentive payments pay-ments to the states for allocation to local communities on the basis ba-sis of their needs and ability to pay their share of the cost of the program. This is not a give-away federal feder-al program. The local community communi-ty must put up at least 70 per cent of the money spent. This usually means $3.00 of state-local funds 'jo every $1.00 of federal money. . . The present program calls for a limit of $50 million a year for the total federal program, with a ceiling of $250,000 of federal funds to any one community. The expanded program as proposed pro-posed in the Blatnik bill would double the federal contribution for a 10-year period the fft' o $100 million annually, and the local ceiling to $500,000. There 's a provision for municipalities to loin in a single project, with each participating community re reiving an allocation. The Blatnik bill is now in conference con-ference between the Senate an "President Elsenhower said in his January 1959 Budget Mes satje hat in fiscal 1960 the federal fed-eral grants should be reduced tc i A million ($15 million wai appropriated ap-propriated by Congress for the program in fiscal 1960). He sai that after fiscal 1960 the states should take over the program with the help of telephone-user taxes which he said Congres." should let the federal government govern-ment relinquish. However, Congress Con-gress has repealed the telephone excise tax. effective July 1, 1960, thus doing away with the suggested sug-gested source of funds. "The Public Health Service o the United States estimates the construction rate must hit $575 million annually for the next ei"ht years If the nation is to catch up and keep up with pollution pol-lution loads. U. S. Public Health surveys reveal that the states fool nn evert higher figure Is In-pirated In-pirated SG02 million annually" |
