The Dry Society

Of more than 40 major bills that Lyndon Johnson has signed recently, "the most historical of all," he assured visitors last week, is one that will cost only some $37 million annually for the next five years. Since the aim of the measure is to develop economical, large-scale desalinization plants so that cities may drink from the sea, it may at least ensure that Johnson's Great Society will not be dry. As it happened, the President had the bill ready to sign during a White House "water emergency conference" to survey the immediate and long-term problems of the drought-stricken Northeast Addressing Governors, mayors and others from the region, Johnson said that the nation has "lingered too long under the impression that desalting sea water is a far-out and a far-distant goal," announced his determination "to make the great breakthrough before 1970." The Administration's target is to build plants, within five years, with a daily capacity of 100 million gallons each for the nation's biggest cities, as well as 10 million-gallon plants for smaller communities by 1968. "Edge of Disaster." The President also announced a $4,000,000 water-resources study to cover the area from Maine to Virginia, which has been increasingly short of water for the past four years. And he promised additional federal aid to speed construction of three reservoirs, expand a fourth and start a fifth in the area. To help ease the northeast's immediate problem, Johnson dispatched a "water-crisis team" headed by Interior Secretary Stewart Udall to the five most parched cities--New York, Philadelphia, Newark, Jersey City, Camden, N.J.--with orders to "make hard and fast decisions on the spot to assist each affected community." During his tour, Udall warned New York Mayor Robert Wagner that his city was "on the edge of disaster." New York, is one of the nation's few major cities that does not meter water consumption in residences. It has also failed to tap its biggest potential source, the Hudson River. Johnson reminisced privately that "from earliest memory" of his arid birthplace, he regarded water as the "determining factor in our happiness or sorrow." He had some plain-spoken hill-country advice for his visitors: cut down on waste. And in fact, Northeasterners may ultimately benefit from the drought if it teaches them some of the Westerner's reverence for water. One sign of change came at week's end when five states and the Federal Government reached an agreement to clean up polluted Lake Erie (see SCIENCE). Johnson's final exhortation to the conferees was to stop manufacturers from dumping industrial waste in rivers and the sea. "Say to these giants and titans," urged the President, " 'You take a new look at what you are doing. It is not your private water to do what you want with.' "

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