Nearly half of chem ical gifts go

— — — — — — • — — M J I I I

to schools

[ Type of business and number reporting

Contributions 1964 (% of pretax income)

Education Welfare & other

CHEMICALS (41) 0.46% 0.50% Banks (70) 0.23 0.64 Engineering (7) 0.15 0.15 Finance (6) 0.33 0.54 Insurance (67) 0.27 0.51 Manufacturing (339) 0.40 0.51

Primary metals (39) 0.52 0.68 Printing (12) 0.81 0.79 Textiles (10) 0.58 0.57

Merchandising (7) 0.27' 1.06 Telecommunications (16) 0.06 0.23 Transportation (8) 0.25 0.36 Utilities (60) 0.16 0.37 TOTAL (580) 0.31 0.48 Source: Council for Financial Aid to Education

But CFAE notes that, from 1956 to 1965, college enrollments rose from 2.6 million to more than 5 million. At the same time, school budgets climbed from $4.8 billion to about $10 billion. Thus, though support by business has grown, higher education's need for voluntary support has also risen dra­matically.

Of the chemical industry's total gift dollars for all purposes in 1964, 48.3% went to education and 51.7% to "wel­fare and other" categories. In gen­eral, 43.8% of manufacturing compa­nies' giving and 39.5% of all 580 com­panies' contributions went to educa­tion. The printing segment gave the highest percentage. The 12 printing firms who reported in the survey gave 0.81% of their pretax income to educa­tion (50.6%) and to welfare and other causes.

CFAE believes that "business con­tributions have proved sound business investments." Specifically, it believes that business, including the chemical industry, serves its own interests by supporting higher education because:

• Higher education supplies a steady flow of educated manpower for business.

• All of business today depends in one way or another on basic research, of which a considerable part is done at colleges and universities.

• Contributions to education help firms meet community responsibilities.

Union Carbide president Birny Mason, Jr., has sent a copy of the study with a personal letter to the chief executives of about 300 chemical companies. In his letter, he says that "Greater commitment from more com­panies in our field is imperative."

Diamond, Nopco good friends The more than 400,000 common shares of Nopco Chemical bought by Diamond Alkali give president Arthur B. Tillman's Cleveland-based com­pany about 30% ownership in Nopco. Diamond has thus accomplished in part what General Aniline & Film tried, and failed, to accomplish in toto. Only last month, Nopco rejected an acquisition offer by GAF (C&EN, March 28, page 21) . Diamond bought its shares in the Newark, N.J., company from Madison Fund, Inc., at about $45.

Diamond is strong in basic inorgan­ics such as carbonates, sodium sili­cates, and sodium sulfate. The com­

pany also produces ethylene dichlo-ride, DDT, and other chlorinated or-ganics. Among other products, Nopco produces cosmetics, methionine, a line of animal multivitamins-antibiotics, and other fine chemicals.

In addition, Diamond has interests in leather-tanning chemicals and, more specifically, in chrome tanning. Nopco also is involved in leather tan­ning, but vegetable oils form the basis for its products.

Nopco is in water-based paints, and Diamond is trying to use a polyvinyl fluoride resin in the protective coat­ings market (which would put it in competition with Pennsalt and Du Pont) . Diamond's plastics division may also be supplemented by Nopco's polyurethane foam and its ethylene oxide adducts (which are used to make foams ) .

Diamond has no immediate plans to put a man on the Nopco board. All the officers at Nopco, including presi­dent George G. Stier, were recently re-elected.

Nopco netted $3.6 million in 1965 on record sales of $65.7 million; com­parable figures for 1964 were $2.1 million and $62.5 million. Diamond had sales of more than $208 million last year and netted more than $16 million. Its sales in 1964 were $190 million and earnings were $13.8 mil­lion.

Diamond opened a new chlorine-caustic plant in 1965 in Delaware City, Del.; a polyvinyl chloride resin plant near the site is near completion. The company recently acquired a fa­cility for sodium silicates near Oxnard, Calif. A jointly owned (with Colom­bian partners) PVC plant started op­erating in Cartegena, Colombia.

In 1965, Nopco acquired a lard-oil and fatty-chemical plant from Marcus

Diamond's Tillman Nopco's Stier 400,000 shares at $45 No change in his board

APRIL 18, 1966 C&EN 29

Ruth Jerome. The company also ac­quired Superior Zinc Co., which pro­duces zinc dust and secondary zinc oxide. A modernization of its foam plastics plant in Plainfield, N.J., will be completed this year. Nopco added two foreign affiliates last year: Nopco Venezolana, S.A., Caracas, Venezuela, and Nopco (India) Private, Ltd., Bombay. The company has also ap­plied to the Japanese government for the establishment of an affiliate near Kyoto.

Water pollution helm apt to move President Johnson's plan to transfer the Water Pollution Control Adminis­tration to the Interior Department from the Department of Health, Edu­cation, and Welfare seems likely to take place despite the sharp criticism that it drew at hearings before a sub­committee of the Senate Government Operations Committee.

Water man Muskie A dollar to a penny

Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D.-Conn.), chairman of the subcommittee, charged that the proposal would not improve control of water pollution but was merely an example of "bureau­cratic infighting." Sen. RibicofFs sen­timents were echoed by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D.-Me.), principal archi­tect of last year's new water pollution control law, which established the Water Pollution Control Administra­tion. Sen. Muskie claimed also that the proposed transfer would delay en­forcement of the new water pollution control laws.

The transfer is the subject of Reor­ganization Plan No. 2 of 1966, sent to Congress late in February by the President; unless Congress rejects the plan, it will take effect automatically

April 28. Senators Ribicoff and Mus­kie may be able to persuade the Gov­ernment Operations Committee to vote a resolution of disapproval, but in a floor fight the Administration should be able to muster enough votes to win.

Reorganization Plan No. 2 would transfer to Interior from HEW the Federal Water Pollution Control Ad­ministration, the Water Pollution Con­trol Advisory Board, and the hearings boards provided for under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. HEW would continue to be responsible for the public health aspects of water pol­lution. The Administration expects the reorganization to strengthen the national effort by making Interior re­sponsible for the general management and use of the nation's water re­sources. It expects the move also to reduce the number of agencies in­volved in pollution control in river basins and consolidate programs con­cerned with water quality.

Sen. Ribicoff says the proposed changes don't go far enough. He thinks the proposal should make Inte­rior responsible for the health aspects of pollution; HEW experts could be transferred to Interior for this pur­pose. He also believes that all other aspects of pollution control, such as grants for municipal sewer systems and waste disposal plants, should be tranferred to Interior.

Sen. Muskie is concerned with these problems, too, but is more concerned that the transfer would delay present efforts to step up pollution control. The law passed last October gives states until July 1967 to set standards for water quality. These standards would be subject to approval by the pollution control agency about to be transferred to Interior.

So far the new control agency has had no time to help states develop suitable standards; the transfer to In­terior would just introduce more de­lay, Sen. Muskie said. "I'm willing to bet a dollar to a penny," he says, "that state officials will be in here asking for an extension of the deadline. If they get it, the whole program will be de­layed." He believes that the agency should stay in HEW until water stand­ards have been set in all states.

Fertilizer prices stable Prices fanners pay for fertilizer will probably remain fairly stable during the heavy buying season now ap­proaching. This is the assessment of several producers and other experts, who see the increases in phosphate prices (C&EN, April 4, page 17) and the more recent reduction in potash prices by all but one of the nation's 10 producers as canceling out one another

at the retail level. Prices for ammo­nia, source of the third essential plant nutrient, are firm at about $92 a ton, f.o.b.

Potash prices started down in late March when Southwest Potash, part of American Metal Climax, announced 7% cash discounts on the price of standard and coarse grades and a 5% cash discount on the granular grade. By last week, as other producers re­acted, the downward trend seemed to have come to a halt. What evolved was 10% cash discounts on standard and coarse grades. The 5% discount on granular held. The effect is lower prices, with standard-grade potash now selling for 38.7 cents per 20-pound unit of K 2 0 instead of 43 cents. Southwest says it offered the discounts because other producers were giving similar discounts to some customers.

The one producer that refuses to lower its price is International Miner­als & Chemical; its more than 3 mil­lion tons of annual capacity in the U.S. and Canada is the largest. A. E. Cascino, IMC vice president, believes his company can maintain its price position throughout the season be­cause fertilizer producers' problem this year will be getting enough pot­ash, not what they pay for it. The shortage of railroad cars, he says (and other producers agree), is severe and getting more so. But Mr. Cascino believes his company will be better able to deliver than its competitors because it has 2000 leased hopper cars exclusively at its disposal.

In Mr. Cascino's view, price reduc­tion is unwarranted now. This year, he expects the potash industry in North America to ship at least 1 mil­lion tons more than it shipped in the 1964-65 year. (In the U.S. and Canadian market, he anticipates a 600,000 ton increase over last year's 5 million tons. The other 400,000 tons of increase will go to export markets.) Capacity increases so far this year have added about 1 million tons to the annual production in North America. He admits there are worries about impending over-capacity due to the Canadian potash boom. But, he ar­gues, price reduction is not the an­swer. He refuses to say what his answer would be.

The price changes in potash and phosphates came too late to be re­flected in the Bureau of Labor Statis­tics' March indexes of wholesale prices for fertilizer materials and mixed ferti­lizers. BLS compiles its index on the basis of prices on the Friday of the week that includes the 15th day of the month.

Both indexes remained stable be­tween the February and March read­ings, with the index for fertilizer mate­rials at 104.7% and that for mixed fer-

30 C&EN APRIL 18, 1966