Week's Watch

The Federal Trade Commission last week proposed a regulation ordering a new label on packages of phosphate detergents. It would read, "Warning: Each recommended use level of this product contains _ grams of phosphorus, which contributes to water pollution." The Soap and Detergent Association immediately attacked the idea as "unnecessary and misleading." For one thing, the industry has already decided to list phosphorus levels on detergent packages. As a result, housewives who care may now have enough data to choose between leading brands. According to the industry's own figures, Dash contains 14.6% phosphorus, Tide 12.3%, Bold 11.4%, Drive 11.1%, Concentrated All 9.6% and Cold Power 8.7%.

When Illinois Attorney General William Scott started a legal crusade to protect his state's environment (TIME, Jan. 5, 1970), his biggest problem was to get industry to curb emissions from old factories. Now Scott has shown the way with a consent decree obtained in an Illinois circuit court. The case involved U.S. Steel's gigantic South Works in Chicago. Built in the 1880s, the plant pours 100 million gallons of diluted wastes into the Calumet River every day. Scott did not ask thecompany to stop all pollution immediately, an action that U.S. Steel could justly light as technically and economically impossible to obey. Instead, his special assistant, Joseph Karaganis, spent $25,000 to hire experts who first proved that the effluents end up in Lake Michigan, then developed a feasible recycling system for the ancient facility. Result: U.S. Steel readily agreed to recycle 95% of its wastes by 1975, following a court-enforced schedule. The cost, estimated at $12 million, will eventually be reflected in slightly higher steel prices.

New York's U.S. Attorney Whitney North Seymour Jr. recently irked conservationists across the country by firing a zealous aide, Lawyer John M. Burns III, for alleged unethical behavior in environmental cases. Burns contended that he was really ousted for leaning too hard on a polluting General Motors plant in Tarrytown, N.Y. (TIME, Jan. 25). Last week Seymour did some strong image-rebuilding by launching both civil and criminal actions against two upstate dye manufacturers. Using the long-neglected 1899 Refuse Act, as he has in many recent cases, Seymour charged each company with 50 violations, such as dumping thousands of pounds of dyes, ammonia and other noxious substances into two tributaries of the Hudson River over a period of a year. If found guilty, the companies could be permanently enjoined to quit polluting and fined up to $2,500 for each violation.

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