B. The suspension of this fleet-replacement program during the war years after it had been in existence only 2 years.

The principal needs of the City Refuse Division for items of capital outlay are for disposal facilities and garage and shop facilities. These needs have been realized by the appropriation of funds for an incinerator and a refuse-transfer station and the item of $422,000 represents an increment required to bring the previous appropriations for these two projects more nearly in line with cost indexes. The Division has had no other funds for capital improvements since the installation of two incinerators in 1932. A capital-outlay item is included in the 1948 budget for a vitally needed garage-and-shops building.

Mr. XANTEN. Another point in connection with this chart is that the work load has been affected in direct proportion to the increase in the number of homes built, to a large degree by population increase, and by a large per capita increase in the amount of rubbish produced over the years.

In 1930 there were 201 pounds of rubbish per capita, and in 1947, 378 pounds per capita.

The absence of sufficient areas of low ground within the city for dumping purposes, the need for the city to engage upon a high standard of disposal practice, and the constantly increasing length of haul to available land fills have all tended to increase the costs.

Under the "Personal service" object, approximately 75 percent of the increase is attributable to wage benefits. The balance of the increase since the fiscal year 1937 is justified by the increased task performed, as follows:

The increase in the number of dwellings, 21,000, or approximately 22 percent; the increase of the number of apartments in Washington, 4,400, or 142 percent; the increase in the units collected by the municipality, garbage, ashes, and trash, 40 percent; the increase in street sweeping handled, 81 percent; the increase of combustible refuse disposed of, 270 percent; the increase in the mileage of paved streets, 29 percent.

In order to perform these essential services without interruption and to extend service to all new developments under the conditions above, and with the funds available, it was necessary to reduce service frequency as follows:

Ashes, from twice a week in winter to once a week in fiscal year 1938. Mr. BATES. When do you start double collections-doubling up in your collections, say, in the wintertime?

Mr. XANTEN. On ashes?

Mr. BATES. Yes.

Mr. XANTEN. That is dependent on the weather, particularly, but usually in November, the middle of November.

Garbage from three times a week in the summer to twice a week. That was done in the fiscal year 1942. All services on refuse are now considered at minimum frequency. We cannot reduce them any lower.

Mr. BATES. Let me ask you this question. Why, for instance, do you double up on ash collections in the wintertime? I know, of course, it is very much colder, but why do you double up on collections?

Mr. XANTEN. It is not so much a doubling up of collections as it is rendering the service in the winter. In the summer we did not render any, and in the winter we give once-a-week service.

Mr. BATES. I can understand doubling up for garbage, if there is a good deal of freezing going on, but for ashes it simply means that you must get two ashcans instead of one.

Mr. XANTEN. We are not considering going back to a doubled-up service, because we met that issue in 1938, and after the complaints from the public of having to get more receptacles, it simmered off and we are now on a sound once-a-week ash service.

Mr. BATES. The year around?

Mr. XANTEN. Year around.

Mr. BATES. I think that is enough.

Mr. XANTEN. It is enough.

Mr. BATES. Of course, you have conditions where there are a great many people turning to oil, say, from coal.

Mr. XANTEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATES. I presume that you have seen it fully reflected also. Mr. XANTEN. That has been reflected in the over-all quantities, which have stayed at an even level over the years because of the

conversion.

The increase in the "Materials and supplies" item can be attributed both to the increase in material costs as well as the proportionate increase in the amount of materials required for the expanding task. It is significant that the percentage of increase in this item exceeds the over-all budgetary increase.

The item for motor equipment has a twofold justification: Failure to appropriate any appreciable moneys for the replacement of obsolete motortrucks from the period of motorization of these services from 1927 to 1931 until the bulk of the fleet had become obsolete and the fleet-replacement program was instituted in fiscal year 1940.

What happened there, Mr. Chairman, was simply a new fleet of trucks, the need for no replacements for that fleet, and they all became old at the same time.

The suspension of this fleet-replacement program during the war years after it had been in existence only 2 years. We got two good years just before on the replacement, and then had to stop.

The principal needs of the City Refuse Division for items of capital outlay are for disposal facilities and garage and shop facilities. These needs have been realized by the appropriation of funds for an incinerator and a refuse transfer station, and the item of $122,000 represents an increment required to bring the previous appropriations for these two projects more nearly in line with cost indexes.

The Division has had no other funds for capital improvements since the installation of two incinerators in 1932. A capital outlay item is included in the 1948 budget for a vitally needed garage and shops building.

Mr. BATES. Tell us, in regard to these new large apartment houses and hotels that they will build in the future, are they contemplating burning oil or are they going to use coal? What is the practice? Mr. XANTEN. I believe, sir, that the practice is oil.

It has also been my hope that most of the large installations in the city will install incinerators for the reduction of this tremendous volume of rubbish. I do not know how to make it clear to you, sir, but we have two and a half million cubic yards a year of refuse produced in Washington, and during the war we attempted to get a priority to build an incinerator plant, and the suggestion came back from the War Production Board to ship out of town the overage by rail to a place out in Maryland or Virginia, and dump it in some valley, which is good refuse practice if you go to sanitary land fill.

Senator CAIN. To what extent are you building sanitary land fills, using garbage as a base?

Mr. XANTEN. We have a number of fills but not so-called sanitary land fills.

Senator CAIN. It is not the practice here?

Mr. XANTEN. It is not the practice, no, sir.

Senator CAIN. Many places in the West find it exceedingly practicable, and we are reclaiming actually a lot of tideland by that method.

Mr. XANTEN. We are dumping, Senator Cain, considerable quantities of refuse after it has been reduced in volume by burning. Our procedure here is not to dump raw refuse into the ground and create unstable ground and bad conditions of smoke and fire. Our procedure has been over the years to reduce the bulk of the refuse. We are confined here in Washington to this 10-mile area, and we know that we cannot put more than 5 percent of that two and a half million yards into the ground and not have to go way out into Maryland and Virginia ultimately to dispose of it.

The reason I brought that question up about the priority for the incinerator; it developed that we would need 250 or 260 cars a day to take care of the refuse. It was simpler and cheaper to build an incinerator and reduce it than to ship raw refuse.

Mr. BATES. Are there any provisions for building incinerators in these large apartment houses and new hotels?

Mr. XANTEN. That, sir, I believe, is what the building inspector is going along with in his permits to require an incinerator.

Senator CAIN. Do you have arrangements with adjoining, adjacent States, which permit you to come and dump refuse?

Mr. XANTEN. Senator Cain, in 1937 there was 270 percent of the combustible refuse that we had to dispose of, and that is simply because a lot of the material hauled by the private trash collectors, who must service all of the commercial establishments and the stores in the city-we do not collect refuse from anyone but private dwellings and small apartment houses-those private collectors were going over into Maryland and Virginia back in the old days. They have definitely barred them from going across the river into Maryland and Virginia, and we are faced with the problem now of providing a disposal facility within the District for all of the solid wastes produced in the District. We have had to accept that, and that accounts for the 270-percent increase in combustible refuse that we have had to deal with.

Mr. BATES. Have you ever worked out any program of dumping refuse at sea, taking it out on barges and scows?

Mr. XANTEN. That has been studied many times, Mr. Bates, and it has been found impractical.

Mr. BATES. How far would you have to go to deep water?

Mr. XANTEN. I judge we would have to go to Chesapeake Bay, first, and that is about 80 miles, and from there to the ocean presumably before we could really get to deep water; but in any event, the channel of the Potomac is very winding and very tortuous, and any long barge going down there with a heavy wind, the first thing you know you would be up on the shore.

Senator CAIN. Is garbage collection included in your tax rate or do you charge

Mr. XANTEN. It is included in the general fund.

Senator CAIN. There is no charge?

Mr. XANTEN. No charge.

You asked, Mr. Chairman, for a study of the cost of the services rendered the Federal Government, and I have prepared such a statement, and our total contribution to the Federal Government is approximately $134,000 a year.

Mr. BATES. Mr. Commissioner, I asked Mr. Young to provide such statements from every department of the city. We are anxious to get that as soon as we can so that we can work up a brochure on it, and have it all together, so that we can readily look it over and examine it. Commissioner MASON. The budget officer is getting that material. Mr. BATES. Then, I think, Mr. Young said also to the chairman that he would sum total the expenses involved in such a way that we could possibly estimate it. You are speaking about it, and make sure that you are getting it ready. That includes all of the departments of the District.

Commissioner MASON. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATES. That is all as far as I am concerned, Mr. Chairman. Have you inserted into the record the number of men employed here in 1937 and the number of men employed in 1947 in your testimony? Mr. XANTEN. This sheet does not show the number of men.

Mr. BATES. I wish you would put that in the record, the total number of men employed and the total expenditures of that year and the total in 1917, the same as all other witnesses have provided here.

Senator CAIN. I have two very brief questions. How many consumer, domestic householder accounts do you have?

Mr. XANTEN. About 120,000.

Senator CAIN. Your collection service employs closed or open trucks? Mr. XANTEN. Both, a combination of both.

Senator CAIN. Both. You are moving in the direction of all closed? Mr. XANTEN. All closed for garbage,

Senator CAIN. For garbage?

Mr. XANTEN. Yes; for street sweepings and ashes we have closed trucks.

Senator CAIN. What disposal do you make of the boxes, paper cartons, and so forth, that you pick up in your downtown area? Do you collect that?

Mr. XANTEN. That is not handled by the Refuse Division as such on collection. The commercial waste is collected privately, by contract. Senator CAIN. I see.

Mr. XANTEN. We handle primarily the household waste and ashes. Senator CAIN. All right.

Mr. XANTEN. But we must dispose of that; it is hauled to us for disposal.

Senator CAIN. They used to haul that to neighboring States which were neighborly then.

Mr. XANTEN. Let us say the neighboring States are still neighborly, Senator, with reference to innocuous refuse, such as incinerator ash and household ash. We have dumps in both Maryland and Virginia for those types of solid fill.

Senator CAIN. They can readily accept that; it serves a useful

purpose.

Mr. BATES. Now, you have the collection of garbage, trash, ashes, and what other divisions?

Mr. XANTEN. Street sweepings, dead animals, and the cleaning of privies.

Mr. BATES. That only refers to ashes and trash, that statement there? Mr. XANTEN. This statement refers to all.

Mr. BATES. Does that include street cleaning?

Mr. XANTEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATES. Street cleaning, the entire department?

Mr. XANTEN. Yes, sir, that is the entire department.

Mr. BATES. I wish you would write that in the top that it includes street cleaning, garbage, trash, street cleaning and privy cleaning. You have many privy cleanings around the District? Those are problems which are not collected by the sanitary sewers.

Mr. XANTEN. Yes, sir, they have been reduced in the last 5 years, to my knowledge, from about 3,100 to about 600.

Mr. BATES. 600 still in the District?

Mr. XANTEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATES. What plans have you made to connect them with sewers? Mr. XANTEN. Just as rapidly as possible; in some cases it is a very expensive thing to run a sewer to an isolated case, but in general it has been quite a dent which has been made.

(Statement later received for the record from the City Refuse Division.)

1939: Increase of $15,500. Increase of 25 per diem employees. Wo: k-loïd increase or decrease in quantities: Ashes, 1.6 percent; garbage, 9.4 percent; household trash collected, 13.9 percent; trash disposed of 13.5 percent; street sweepings. 1.0 percent.

1940: Increase of $67,700. Increase of 10 per diem and 2 classified employees (foremen). $65,000 additional for replacement to motortruck fleet. Work-load increase or decrease in quantities: Ashes, 5.4 percent; garbage, 3.7 percent; household trash collected, 8.5 percent; trash disposed of, 13.6 percent; street sweepings, 6.4 percent.

1941: Increase of $50,200. Increase of 37 per diem employees. Cost increase due to abolition of per diem "labor apprentice" grade. Work-load increase or decrease in quantities: Ashes, -8.0 percent; garbage, +5.4 percent; household trash collected, +8.9 percent; trash disposed of, +9.7 percent; street sweepings. +17.1 percent.

1942: Increase of $236,000. Increase of 44 per diem employees. $28,000 additional for replacements to motortruck fleet. Cost increase due to automatic within-grade promotions to per diem and classified employees. Work-load increase or decrease in quantities: Ashes, -1.2 percent; garbage, -5.1 percent: household trash collected, +5.1 percent; trash disposed of, 19.9 percent; street sweepings. 15.2 percent.

1943: Increase of $422,200. Increase of 104 per diem employees. Cost increase due to 20 percent increase in per diem wage scale (7 months of year), and 44-hour week for classified employees with resultant overtime pay. Work-load increase or decrease: Ashes, +11.4 percent; garbage, -0.2 percent; household trash collected, +3.7 percent; trash disposed of, 19.3 percent; street sweepings, +4.5 percent.