The Fernwood Wastewater District-at the gentle insistence of both state and federal agencies-is changing methods of financing the operating and mainte- nance costs of its system. Presently, all users of the system (residential, com- mercial, agricultural, industrial, etc.) pay for the system by a property tax; payments to the district are assigned according to individual holdings of prop erty value. If a car wash constitutes 0.0001 of total property in the district, tem. The proposed effluent-charge system would assign cost on the basis of estimated toxic-waste quality and quantity introduced into the system. The structure could easily be applied because a federal agency has data on the amount and type of waste that production and consumption processes gener- ate annually, based on national data. These data would then be used to assign