James Oberstar: “Mr. Chairman, the very great significance of this legislation is underscored in many of the lakes and the communities…”

“Mr. Chairman, the very great significance of this legislation is underscored in many of the lakes and the communities throughout Minnesota. We are blessed, as other less fortunate communities across the country would like to be, in that many of our towns have a lake right in the town. Over the years, before the 1960s, before we had a clean water program, many towns just allowed their storm sewers to discharge into the lakes. Many even allowed their sanitary sewers, after primary treatment, to discharge into lakes. Then they began to realize what an important resource the lake is and diverted sewage away from it and diverted street runoff away from the lakes, although many in the northern tier continued to pile up snow from winter storms on the lake. Where else? It seemed sensible. Let it melt, add to the lake's waters. Now we know that there is pollution in winter as well as in summer. Cities now avoid that tragedy inflicted upon the Nation's lakes. So what we have is many lakes that should be great resources for swimming, for tourism, for boating, for fishing, that have substantial amounts of pollution embedded in the lake bottom. In the sediment under those waters, plants grow up, transmit the pollutants to the fish who feed on the plant life, and then humans consume the fish and in turn find embedded in their body cells the pollutants that we all know are so harmful. Why is this legislation so important?”