Water pollution abatement costs are relatively high for small, isolated industrial plants. The authorities in Germany's Ruhr Valley have adopted a system wherein each discharger participates in economies of scale throughout the valley. The feasibility of a similar plan for the Kanawha River of West Virginia was studied using a separable programming computer model which produced optimal solutions under appropriate constraints. Depending on how costs are distributed, small industrial firms save between 12 and 61 per cent of the cost accruing under the typical non-optimal plan. New governmental regulations are needed to implement such a systems approach.
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