A Survey of Industrial Waste Treatment
Costs and Charges
RALPH STONE, President
CURTIS SCHMIDT, Project Engineer
Ralph Stone and Company, Inc.
Los Angeles, California
INTRODUCTION
Henry Thoreau had a whimsical solution for making income and material desire meet -- eliminate desire! His description for wiping out poverty through a
personal interior adjustment of demand accompanied by a return to the simple
life failed to strike a spark in our vigorous, product-oriented society. Rather, industrial ingenuity, Madison Avenue expertise, and man's natural avarice have
continued to chase each other up the spiralling American economy of increasing
production, increasing demand, rising costs, and unprecedented affluence.
Part of the fallout from this productive explosion is the associated waste which, in
terms on quantity, may well be America's "number one" producer. Industrial waste
that increases constantly both in absolute quantity and the complexity of its treatment requirements, creates many problems for the concerned public official --
and far from the last of these problems is the just allocation of collection, treatment, and disposal costs. An affluent society will not tolerate the indefinite pollution of its environment; a democratic society should not tolerate an inequitable
distribution of cost. This study presents a preliminary analysis of the extent to
which the cities of America have met the challenge of providing industrial waste
disposal on an equitable cost basis.
HISTORY
The majority of the sewage collection systems in this country constructed prior
to World War II were combined systems. Since the emphasis was on waste collection and disposal into water courses, not treatment, it was logical to utilize storm
drain systems for conveying sanitary wastes. If the treatment plant had to be bypassed during storm flows, it was generally of no great concern.
As a result of this early association of sewage and storm drainage systems,
pipe sizes were generally oversized for the required sewage capacity, and little
consideration was given to initiating industrial sewer service charges. Those sanitation authorities who advocated charges based upon system usage often encountered political opposition and technical problems in flow quantity -- quality measurements.
During the past 20 years, we have seen a reversal of the earlier philosophy.
The public demand for increased pollution abatement, the magnitude of the in-
industrial wastes generated, and the soaring costs of sewage facility construction
and operation are causing municipal authorities to seek better means of placing
sewer services on an equitable cost-benefit basis. Some evidence of this accelerating trend is found in the large number of cities which, in answering a questionnaire (Appendix), indicated that sewer service charge programs were under con -
sideration.
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