Lake Erie Rehabilitated: Controlling Cultural Eutrophication 1960s-1990s

Chapter VIII: U.S. Opposition to Detergent Phosphate

because of their contribution to eutrophication, there was as much opposition in the United States as in Canada to detergent phosphates ; yet in contrast to the Canadian federal government’s regulatory response to the IJC’s recommendation for the reduction and elimination of phosphates, the United States federal government did not move to regulate them. Rather, in part because of concern about potential negative environmental effects of substitutes for phosphates, particularly NTA, it chose to encourage the detergent industry voluntarily to reduce and then eliminate phosphates. On January 11, 1968, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall had met again with representatives of the detergent industry and urged them to accelerate their efforts to find, test, and utilize replacements for phosphates in detergents.1 In a statement issued following the meeting, the Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) noted that the industry and the government were jointly supporting programs dealing with the removal of nutrients through sewage treatment and other means.2 The search for a phosphate substitute, which was being vigorously pursued by detergent manufacturers and their suppliers, was part of that broader effort. However, a considerable amount of work had as yet failed to produce a substitute which 11 U.S. Opposition to Detergent Phosphate C H A P T E R V I I I would yield detergents satisfying health, cleanliness, and sanitation requirements . Therefore, explained the SDA, the industry had concluded that removal of nutrients through sewage treatment and other means was the most important and would likely be the most fruitful approach in the overall effort to control eutrophication. Even if a replacement for phosphate were found, continued the SDA, the industry would have to “guard against actually worsening eutrophication by using a substitute which might have deleterious effects.” Key to this issue was the development of a test method to determine the algal growth potential of various chemicals in natural waters. The Joint Industry/Government Task Force on Eutrophication had, as noted in chapter 5, recently announced that it would develop such a procedure. That work was still ongoing when, on October 17, 1969, the president of the SDA, E. Scott Pattison, wrote to the commissioner of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (FWPCA), David D. Dominick, asking for his views on the recommendation of the IJC boards that the phosphate content of detergents be reduced immediately and eliminated completely no later than 1972. The FWPCA’s assistant commissioner for research and development, David G. Stephan, replied just over a month later, outlining its current thinking concerning the banning of phosphates in detergents.3 The FWPCA believed that the reduction or elimination of phosphorus from detergents was desirable in concept but inappropriate for implementation “at this time.” It was inappropriate primarily because reduction or elimination would require replacement by substitutes which could be equally stimulating to algal growth. It was even possible that substitutes or their degradation products could cause other, more severe pollutional effects than phosphorus in receiving waters. Specific substitutes would have to be identified and characterized, and careful predictions would have to be made as to whether or not conventional or proposed treatment systems would be capable of removing their pollutional effects. Moreover, there existed reasonably sound knowledge of the effects of phosphorus on water quality and the threshold concentrations at which these effects began. Also, technology capable of removing phosphorus at high efficiency from municipal wastes was now available. Given these considerations, the FWPCA did not believe that the introduction of a potential contami120 U.S. Opposition to Detergent Phosphate nant into municipal wastewaters “should be forced by legislative edict” until it could be assured that the step would lead to an improved, not a worse, water environment. Once this could be shown—and the FWPCA was working with a real sense of urgency on developing the needed evaluative tests—the FWPCA believed that reducing phosphorus in detergents or even eliminating it altogether would make a real contribution to pollution control in the United States. The FWPCA hoped and expected that the industry was working intensively on the development and characterization of phosphate substitutes. The FWPCA, continued Stephan, was convinced that drastic reductions in the discharges of nutrients to many of the nation’s waters were required at the earliest possible date. Control of nutrients from all sources—municipal , industrial, and agricultural—must be achieved, and all...