THERMAL WATER IN CHESAPEAKE BAY 733

The study would be similar to one that the Department of Interior
and the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration are plan-
ning in the Northwest on the Columbia River.

Such a study, Governor Agnew noted, would coincide with the
State's greatly intensified attack on water pollution. The General
Assembly approved this week a $129 million bond issue to combat
water pollution on a massive scale.

The Governor made public a letter he has written to chairman of
the Senate subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, Senator Ed-
mund S. Muskie, D-Me., requesting the study of thermal effects. He
also released a report he has received from the Maryland Water Pol-
lution Control Commission on thermal discharges into the Patuxent
River from a coal-powered generating plant with 710-megawatt ca-
pacity on the Patuxent River.

The Governor said it is the opinion of his advisers that the study
on the Patuxent River, since 1962, and a similar study conducted by
the power company, "yielded no credible evidence of significant dam-
age to the natural resources of the area. "

But, he added, "both studies leave many critical questions un-
answered. "

"It is now evident that Maryland and other States will be called
upon more and more frequently to issue permits for the use of water
to cool the generators and steam electric stations, and some of these
will be of capacities ranging to 3, 000 megawatts or more, " Governor
Agnew said in the letter to Muskie.

"The time has arrived when we must have more and better in-
formation to guide us in the critical judgments that must be made
in relation to such permits.

"I believe that it is time for the Federal government and industry
to join forces in a comprehensive effort to (1) assess the effects of
thermal additions to estuaries and (2) exhaustively explore means
by which the energy of thermal additions might be put to construc-
tive use.

"I believe it is time that piecemeal efforts by individual states and
power companies should be abandoned in favor of a unified and in-
tensified Federally-directed study of the broadest scope. "

The Governor said he was encouraged by the recent announcement
by the Department of the Interior and the Federal Water Pollution