The study is an examination of alternative possible approaches for providing incentives to industry to comply with the pollution abatement standards being created under the Water Quality Act of 1965 and the Clean Water Act of 1966. The study is limited chiefly to manufacturing industry, although there are significant water pollution problems associated with aspects of mining and agriculture as well. The primary focus of the technological analysis is on the problems of organic and inorganic wastes, rather than thermal pollution. Among industrial incentives, it proved impossible to limit consideration to only a few obvious alternatives. In addition to the more straight-forward devices like tax incentives, grants, and loans, less direct approaches were also examined, most notably the creation of treatment authorities for a whole area, river basin, or the part of such a basin within a single state. In addition, it became necessary to examine the problem of possible hardship cases, and the question of whether or not the existing supply of men and material is adequate to produce and maintain the expanded amount of treatment capacity planned under the law. Also included in the report is extensive consideration of the nature of river hydrology and of some aspects of waste abatement technology.