70-03: Trends in Thermal Pollution Control Requirements

The guidelines of equal treatment for various beneficial uses would appear to be simple, but they generally have not been followed. When the water quality standards-setting exercises began, the states tended to set standards that favored existing uses, and particularly industry. The propagation of fish and wildlife was a secondary factor. Today, the pendulum has swung completely in the other direction. One often gets the impression that the propagation of fish and wildlife is the sole purpose of the water quality standards. Standards are being proposed, primarily by the Federal Government to the states that would turn our rivers into gigantic fisheries and close down the industries on their banks. Neither the earlier approach nor the present one is correct. The pendulum must come back to the middle of the arc. In almost any event, regardless of whether the pendulum is at one end or the other, or back in the middle where it belongs, the cooling tower industry is going to boom as a result of the imposition of temperature standards.