Week's Watch

After weighing the needs of ecology and economy, the Interior Department last week issued a long-awaited report approving the proposed 800-mile oil pipeline running from Alaska's North Slope (estimated reserves: up to 10 billion bbl.) to Valdez on the state's southern coast. Compiled by Interior geologists, ecologists and engineers, the report called the oil "essential" to U.S. security, especially in light of the Middle East's political instability, and concluded that stiff regulations on the pipeline can "reduce foreseeable environmental costs to acceptable levels."

To prevent the $1 billion line's 180DEG oil from melting Alaska's permafrost, the report urged that only 52% of the pipe be buried underground, the rest to run aboveground with crossings for big game animals and protection for fish spawning grounds. Oil companies would be liable for all damage caused by oil spills. Because a federal court has enjoined the pipeline builders, and final approval awaits various public hearings in Alaska next month, the Interior report is still "tentative."

In December, the Akron city council ordered local stores to quit selling detergents containing phosphates by June 30, 1972. Reason: phosphates, a prime source of water pollution, are forcing cities like Akron to build more and more costly sewage-treatment plants. Last week the Soap and Detergent Association, whose members produce 90% of the nation's cleaning agents, asked Akron's Summit County common pleas court in effect to void the ban. In the first such industry suit in the U.S., the plaintiffs not only called the Akron deadline "impossible" but also claimed that it will force soap manufacturers to replace phosphates with other chemicals that may be even more harmful.

Alarmists claim that saving the U.S. environment requires "zero population growth," but last week the Government's chief demographer countered with a telling argument of his own. The key to pollution, said the Census Bureau's Conrad Taeuber, is "changing standards and habits," not excess people. While the U.S. population rose 13% in the 1960s, for example, national consumption of goods and services jumped 60%, thus loading the landscape with more and more beer cans, junked autos and other garbage. Even if "Z.P.G." were achieved overnight, said Taeuber, the U.S. population would not stabilize until the year 2037. Not only would such a freeze produce an older nation, he added, but "the age at which a person is no longer to be trusted would have to move up to 40 rather than 30."

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