Publication For Employees
November 1972
inside
EPA Women Seek Fair Job Treatment
The women of EPA—and quite a
few men— observed Women's Week
last month with a variety of meet-
ings and discussions, employment-
ratio reports and firm resolves to
make some progress before next
year's observance.
Administrator William Ruckel-
shaus, who attended a two-hour as-
sembly in Washington Oct. 19 open-
ing the first Annual Conference for
Women in EPA, said he was totally
committed to the drive for upgrad-
ing the status of women in the Agen-
cy, for expanding their representa-
tion in higher-grade positions, and
for equitable salaries and treatment.
He noted, however, several ob-
stacles, including the fact that
EPA's higher-grade positions are
predominantly in engineering and
the physical sciences for which he
said relatively few women are
trained.
Ruckelshaus also made a video-
tape for Women's Week that
was presented at assemblies in Cin-
cinnati, Ohio; Durham, N.C.; and
Montgomery, Ala. In other EPA
installations across the country, sim-
ilar meetings were held under the
leadership of women's program co-
ordinators organized by the Office
of Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
Women want to be "considered
as human beings, as individuals"
rather than stereotypes facing an
"invisible wall of resistance against
recognition of what we really are
and what we have the right to be-
come," said Ms. Charlie K. Swift,
head of the Women's Programs Di-
vision, who planned and presided
over the Washington meeting.
Ms. Swift acknowledged that
women are "biologically different,"
but she said, "I hope never to hear
again 'Vive la difference!''
"What is wrong is the assump-
tion that the traditional woman's
role is enough for all women, that
this satisfies all their needs, and
that in the profoundly changing
world, the contributions of their
minds and talents and skills are not
of equal importance to society."
Other speakers at the meeting in-
cluded Carol M. Thomas, director
of the Office of Civil Rights and Ur-
ban Affairs; Judy Kaufman, staff as-
sistant to the President; Anita Perl-
man, national chairman of the B'nai
B'rith Commission on Youth; and
James C. Spry, executive assistant
to the Civil Service Commission.
The meeting opened with music
by the Marine Band and presenta-
tion of the colors by a Marine Corps
color guard. The session closed with
an interpretive dance by a group of
women students from Gallaudet Col-
lege.
The morning assembly was fol-
lowed by small-group discussions,
which continued through the follow-
ing day, on "Job Statistics and
Counseling," "Hiring and Recruit-
ing Women," "Women in Leader-
ship Roles," and "Career Develop-
ment Programs for Women."
Panelists included Allie Latimer
Weeden, General Services Adminis-
tration; Barbara McKee, Atomic
(Continued on page 5)
—photo by Ernest Bucci
First Annual Conference on "Women in EPA," held Oct. 19 in the GSA
hall, highlighted the Washington staff's observance of Women's Week.
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Scuba Divers Work in Water Pollution
By John S. Farlow
Edison, NJ., Water Quality
Research Laboratory
Much has been written about the
romance of scuba diving, and who
has not watched Jacques Cousteau's
colorful TV documentaries of ma-
rine wonders? Yet how many peo-
ple know that the gear worn by a
diver weighs about 135 pounds in
air? How many know that within
the EPA a small group has been
diving to perform some of the dirty
and strenuous tasks associated with
water pollution abatement work?
As far back as the early 1960s it
was recognized by those in Region
V's Great Lakes—Illinois River Ba-
sins Project that their measurement
of water currents in the Great Lakes
could not be efficiently carried for-
ward unless divers" services were
available. From this beginning a
combination of in-house and com-
mercial divers have been used for a
whole variety of tasks.
In Lake Michigan, Frank Mc-
Gowan (now with the Corps of En-
gineers), Roscoe Libby, and I were
the first Public Health Service scuba
divers. Early in the Lake Michigan
water current study some of the
large marker buoys began to come
adrift. Diver inspection of the re-
mainder soon revealed that wave ac-
tion caused the 40-pound counter-
weights attached to the buoy bridle
10 feet below the water surface to
wear out critical cotter pins, whose
loss permitted the buoy line fasten-
ings to come apart. Once the prob-
lem was defined, a solution was
easily found to prevent further loss
of the $15,000 instrument clusters.
A number of the "lost" current-
meter stations, (i.e., stations whose
surface buoys had come adrift) were
recovered through the combined ef-
forts of USPHS and commercial
divers and the "sea scanner," a
high frequency sonar. The sonar
was used to locate the current-me-
ter string (suspended between an
anchor and a subsurface buoy) to
within about a 75-foot radius, and
—photo by Jack Farlow
Wet-suited scuba diver prepares to work on bottom of Boston Harbor,
checking current meter stations and other underwater equipment.
a marker buoy was anchored. Div-
ers descended the marker buoy line
to the bottom and swept a hundred
foot radius by swimming the outer
end of a piece of parachute cord in
a circle about the marker buoy an-
chor. If the marker had been an-
chored in the correct place, the cord
would wrap around the buoy line.
Visibility averaged about eight feet,
which prevented visual searches.
Having that cord hit the missing in-
strument string produced feelings
similar to winning the Irish sweep-
stakes!
Scuba divers were also used to
evaluate the influence of wind on
the surface marker of a submerged
current cross. The latter device was
used to measure diffusion to esti-
mate the "dilution of pollution," and
it was important that wind effects be
minimal. Divers released small
amounts of dye near the cross and
observed the motion of the cross
relative to the dye, which was influ-
enced only by water motion. These
observations confirmed the calcula-
tions for equipment used in Great
Lakes studies involving the simul-
taneous use of three vessels and an
airplane.
In EPA Region I scuba divers
Carl Eidam, Pete Nolan, Joe Di-
Cola, and I carried out a program
of current meter observations in
Boston Harbor in 1969 and 1970.
Divers attached marker lines be-
tween the current meter station an-
chors and the anchors of nearby
Coast Guard buoys. Divers later
scrubbed and scraped marine growth
off moving parts of the current me-
ters and helped retrieve the meters
at the close of the project.
In Region II Pete Douglas (now
with the National Marine Fisheries
Service) and I set and retrieved bi-
ological substrate samplers at a na-
tional water quality network sta-
tion in the Delaware River, cut
fouled lines from the propellers of
various EPA vessels and dug a
stubborn anchor out of the bottom
of Raritan Bay. In addition, a scuba
diver was employed to wash a tem-
perature recorder out of the bot-
tom of Barnegat Bay with a water
jet one windy February day. Vari-
ous biologic benthic (ocean bottom)
surveys have also been made.
This brief sampling lists only a
few of the jobs that scuba divers
have been doing to further the cause
of water pollution abatement. Other
divers in other regions have been
performing equally valuable tasks
under similarly difficult conditions.
Ask around; there are probably
some working near you!
— 2 —
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16 Awarded EPA Scholarships
Sixteen sons and daughters of
EPA employees have been awarded
scholarships totalling $5,550 for col-
lege study this year.
Checks for the scholarships, in
varying amounts up to $500, are
being individually presented to the
winners by the senior EPA officials
at the laboratories or offices near-
est their homes.
The EPA Scholarship Fund
comes primarily from honoraria and
fees offered to agency officials for
speeches and magazine articles.
Federal regulations forbid the ac-
ceptance of such payments when an
official is speaking or writing as an
EPA representative, but voluntary
charitable contributions may be re-
ceived instead of such fees. The
Fund also receives individual gifts,
mainly from agency officials, and
the Internal Revenue Service has
ruled that such gifts are tax deducti-
ble, according to Robert F. McDon-
ald, Fund manager.
Scholarship applicants must be
children of career employees hav-
ing at least three years of service,
and must be full-time students at
an accredited college or junior col-
lege. Children of deceased or dis-
abled employees are also eligible.
The scholarships are renewable,
depending upon the student's aca-
demic performance and the availa-
bility of funds.
The winners, their parents, and
colleges are as follows:
NERC—Research Triangle Park,
N.C.—Susan Margolin, 18, a soph-
omore at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, daughter of
the late Emanuel D. Margolin, su-
pervising chemical engineer, Office
of Air Programs.
NERC—Cincinnati, Ohio—Mar-
tha Piepmeyer, 20, sophomore at
the University of Cincinnati, daugh-
ter of Mrs. Virginia R. Piepmeyer,
personnel clerk.
Mary L. Wilson, 35, who is start-
ing her studies for a degree at the
University of Cincinnati, daughter
of Ward Fleshman, Sr., chemist in
the Odor Control Systems Division
at NERC-RTP.
Susan M. Kamphake, 17, and
Thomas F. Kamphake, 18, fresh-
men, and Jeffery L. Kamphake, 19,
sophomore, all at the University of
Cincinnati; their father is Lawrence
J. Kamphake, research chemist at
the Taft Water Research Division.
NERC—Las Vegas, Nev—Bar-
bara E. Rizzardi, 17, who will start
at the Univesity of Nevada, Las
Vegas, in January; she is the daugh-
ter of Charles J. Rizzardi, techni-
cal writer-editor.
Nina Dee Suter, 20, freshman at
the University of Nevada, daughter
of Mrs. Martha Lindsay, switch-
board operator.
Region IV EPA Office, Atlanta,
Ga.—Mary Jo Reid, 21, senior at
Georgia Southern College, States-
boro, daughter of Mrs. Hannah J.
Reid, secretary, Office of Economic
Analysis.
Indiana District Office, Evans-
ville, Ind—Philip Regalbuto, 20,
sophomore at the University of Wy-
oming, Laramie, son of Constan-
tino J. Regalbuto, chemist.
Eastern Environmental Radiation
Laboratory, Montgomery, Ala.—
Aleice F. Belser, 19, sophomore at
Alabama State University, Mont-
gomery, daughter of Charles J. Bel-
ser, biological laboratory technician.
Chamblee Toxicology Labora-
tory, Chamblee, Ga.—Susan Parks,
18, freshman at DeKalb Commu-
nity College, Clarkston, Ga., daugh-
ter of Mrs. Christine E. Parks,
clerk-stenographer.
Region VII EPA Office, Kansas
City, Mo.—Mary Jo Poskin, 18,
freshman at the University of Mis-
souri, Columbia, daughter of Joseph
D. Poskin, inspector in pesticides
regulation.
Northwestern Water Laboratory,
Gig Harbor, Wash.—Regina Anth-
ony, 18, freshman at Green River
Community College, T a c o m a,
daughter of Nathaniel C. Anthony,
laboratory technician.
Region IX EPA Office, San Fran-
cisco, Calif.—Linda L. Massie, 17,
freshman at the College of San Ma-
teo, daughter of Mrs. Shirley J.
Massie, administrative assistant.
Wheeling Field Office, Wheeling,
W. Va.—James Bradac, 20, sopho-
more at Ohio State University, Co-
lumbus, Ohio, son of Charles J.
Bradac, chemist.
Applications for next year's
scholarship awards may be made
any time before June 30. Applica-
tion forms are obtainable at any
EPA personnel office.
Fund trustees include Deputy
Administrator Robert W. Fri; As-
sistant Administrators Thomas E.
Carroll and John R. Quarles Jr.;
James Barnes, special assistant to
the administrator, and Mr. McDon-
ald.
Symposium Discusses Water Environment
More than 125 persons attended
a two-day symposium on "The
Aquatic Environment" at the Water
Programs Office in Arlington, Va.,
last month.
The conferees, about evenly di-
vided between EPA and university
scientists, discussed the latest re-
search on the role of water-borne
bacteria in the cycling of such
nutrients as nitrogen, carbon, phos-
phorus, and sulfur; the modeling of
aquatic ecosystems; and implications
for water quality management.
Among the EPA participants and
panelists were R. K. Ballentine, R.
C. Gentry, Dr. Leonard J. Guarraia,
Lowell E. Keup, Kenneth Mac-
kenthum, and Robert L. Sansom,
all of EPA's Washington headquar-
ters; and Dr. Donald Lear of Region
III.
Proceedings of the symposium
will be published.
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Remedial Work Starts
On 'Hot' Mine Tailings
The recent agreement between
the Federal Government and the
State of Colorado to take joint ac-
tion to protect the residents of
Grand Junction, Colo., from radio-
active mine tailings marks a new
phase of EPA's work on this envi-
ronmental radiation problem.
The Agency's responsibility is ex-
pected to shift from helping deline-
ate the problem to assisting in mon-
itoring progress in two- to three-year
program of remedial action.
The action program is based on
a series of EPA studies, made in co-
operation with the Atomic Energy
Commission and the Colorado State
Health Department, to measure the
extent of the hazard and to test
various protection techniques.
The tailings are a sand-like waste
material from uranium mining. Long
before anyone realized they might
be dangerous, the tailings were used
as fill material under homes and
other buildings and as a handy sub-
stitute for sand in concrete.
Hundreds of buildings in Grand
Junction were involved: homes,
schools, stores and offices. Uranium
tailings were also used in other min-
ing communities in Colorado and
other western states, but not on the
scale of Grand Junction.
Then scientists found that the
tailings were still emitting low levels
of radiation and small amounts of
radon, a radioactive gas. No case
of illness from this radiation has
been positively identified, but in
some of the Grand Junction build-
ings the radiation levels have ex-
ceeded the purposely conservative
Federal guidelines, and state health
officials are concerned about the
possibility of cumulative, long-term
effects.
EPA grants and technical assist-
ance in delineating the problem have
amounted to about $600.000, ac-
cording to Paul Smith, chief of the
Programs Support Branch in the
EPA Region VIII office in Denver.
The remedial work to start this
fall will include actual removal of
tailings, application of sealant coat-
ings and shielding material, and im-
proved ventilation systems. The
methods will vary according to the
types of structures and the local
levels of radiation. About 1,500
structures will be involved, one
state official said. Buildings with
the most radiation will be worked
on first.
Congress has authorized $5 mil-
lion as the Federal Government's
share, at a 75-25 split with the State.
This could bring the total cost to
$6.7 million. The AEC is the Fed-
eral agency in charge.
Whether and to what extent EPA
radiation experts will be involved
has not yet been determined.
Charles Weaver of the Office of Ra-
diation Programs in Washington is
EPA's representative on the Federal
State Advisory Board established by
the AEC under the contract.
EPA SEWER AID
TOPS $1.3 BILLION
In the first 19 months of EPA's
existence, the Agency disbursed
$1.3 billion to help States and cities
build sewage treatment facilities.
This figure was announced last
month to summarize the largest
budget category in EPA's pollution
control programs.
Waste water treatment has been
the object of Federal aid since the
passage of the Water Pollution Con-
trol Act of 1956. Amendments since
then have broadened the incentives
and benefits. Communities in every
State are now employing EPA's
construction grants to build new
sewer systems and upgrade exist-
ing ones.
The $1.3 billion includes all new
grants from December, 1970, when
the Agency was established, through
June, 1972. During this period an
additional $571 million was award-
ed for projects begun under the
Federal Water Quality Administra-
tion, an EPA predecessor agency.
The grants ranged from $1,310
for Grapeland, Texas, to $33 mil-
lion for Detroit. The average
amount was just under $640,000.
Lab Dedicated at Kansas City
More than 300 persons attended
the dedication of Region VII's new
laboratory in Kansas City, Kan.,
Oct. 25.
Rep. Larry Winn Jr., congress-
man from the third district of Kan-
sas, and Administrator William
Ruckelshaus were the principal
speakers. Ruckelshaus said the new
facility exemplified EPA's research
function, often overlooked by the
public in its concern over enforce-
ment of environmental laws.
The one-story building contain-
ing 25,000 square feet of working
space combines scattered laboratory
operations formerly carried out at
the University of Kansas Medical
Center, the Olathe Naval Air Base,
and a waste treatment plant in
Jackson County, Missouri.
Actual operations at the new
building started last summer for a
30-man staff of biologists, bacteri-
ologists, chemists, and engineers un-
der Garry Fisk, head of surveillance
and analysis for Region VII.
The lab equipment includes a gas
chromatograph mass spectrometer
for very precise detection and meas-
urement of pollutant substances, and
an electronic computer for rapid
and accurate data handling.
Storage is provided for the Re-
gion's truck-mounted mobile field
laboratory and several boats used
in obtaining water samples from riv-
ers and lakes.
— 4 —
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First Annual Conference on 'Women in EPA'
Speakers included, from left, Charlie K. Swift, Carol M. Thomas, and White House aide Judy Kaufman.
(Continued from page 1)
Energy Commission; Barbara Jones,
Civil Service Commission; Priscilla
Ranshoff, Department of Defense;
and Jean Lightfoot, Kate Stahl,
Howard Messner, Albert Dimcoff,
Ruth Mondschein, Marie Wilson,
Stanley R. Williams, and Harvey
Wiener, all of EPA.
A new publication, "Women in
EPA," was issued shortly before the
Women's Week observance and
served as an information resource
for many of the discussions. It gives
statistics on the employment of
women in the Agency by type of
position and grade. Data are given
for all EPA employees as of June,
1971, and for all regional employes
as of March, 1972.
photos by Ernest Bucci
Gallaudet College dancers ended the conference with an original ballet.
Many Agencies Involved in Environmental Study
Environmental protection can
benefit from the knowledge and
skills of dozens of Federal agencies
beside EPA, as well as from a va-
riety of national research labora-
tories, computer facilities, and other
"centers of excellence" in science
and technology.
This was the theme that domi-
nated a three-day interagency con-
ference held in Livermore, Calif.,
last month under the sponsorship
of EPA and the Atomic Energy
Commission.
A dozen EPA scientists described
the Agency's current research and
monitoring efforts, with emphasis on
the cutting edge of unsolved prob-
lems: better modeling of ecosystems,
bstter instrumentation, and means
for storing and using large quanti-
ties of complex data.
The modeling of ecosystems—
duplicating in the laboratory or on
a computer the changes that take
place in living systems as their en-
vironment changes—is a very useful
tool, said Dr. A. F. Bartsch, in a
paper co-authored by Dr. Norbert
A. Jaworski, both of EPA's NERC-
Corvallis. But no single "master
model" is likely to meet the needs of
all users, even if one could be con-
structed, he said.
EPA speakers included Stanley
M. Greenfield, Peter Johnson, Del-
bert S. Barth, A. W. Breidenbach,
William N. Fitch, Warren B. John-
son, Ronald A. Venezia, George
Morgan, Alphonse F. Forziati, John
D. Koutsandreas, Gaorge F. Wirth,
and James R. Hammerle.
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Strip Mines Serve Double Purpose
Strip-mined land with its open
trenches and piles of "spoil" mate-
rial often can be used as landfill
sites, serving a dual purpose of safe,
attractive solid waste disposal and
reclamation of the gutted land.
An EPA-sponsored demonstra-
tion of this technique at Frostburg,
in western Maryland, has attracted
wide attention from city planners
and engineers, according to Leonard
Lion of the National Environmen-
tal Research Center at Cincinnati,
EPA engineer for the project.
Visitors have come from South
America, Europe, and many States
to inspect the Frostburg project.
Charles Kenealy, chief of the State's
Division of Solid Waste Control,
said the State had held three con-
ducted tours of the area and issued
an illustrated brochure about it.
Waste from two cities, Cumber-
land and Frostburg, with a com-
bined population of 50,000, and
half a dozen industrial plants are
handled at the site, which is oper-
ated by Allegany County.
Since the project began five years
ago, aided by a grant from EPA's
predecessor agency in the Public
Health Service, another strip-mine
site near Westernport, Md., has
been opened to serve six smaller
communities in Allegany and Gar-
rett Counties, Maryland, and Min-
eral County, West Virginia.
These landfills replace scores of
scattered, burning dumps, Lion said,
including 33 in the two Maryland
counties alone. Nearly half of these
dumps have been permanently
closed, and the remaining ones are
being phased out.
The demonstration site has been
supported for five years by grants
totalling $293,000 from EPA and
its forerunner agencies. The State,
the County, and the two cities con-
tributed $207,000. Total costs of
the landfill, including capital invest-
ment, operation, and maintenance,
average $1.45 per ton of waste,
compared to the range for non-mine
sites of $1.50 to $4 per ton. An av-
—photo by Don Moran
Old strip mine near Frostburg, Md., a model landfill for five years, has
attracted visitors from many States and foreign countries.
erage of 270 tons per day is depos-
ited in the Frostburg trench, com-
pacted, and covered with earth from
the adjoining spoil pile.
EPA's interest in strip-mine land-
fills involves many other factors
than efficient waste disposal and
land reclamation. The Agency has
performed and supported research
at Frostburg, and at smaller sites in
the area, to determine how such
landfills affect ground and surface
water supplies and whether acidic
water from old mines can be filtered
by landfills.
Advantages of strip-mine sites
for landfills, Lion pointed out, in-
clude:
» No initial excavation required;
the trench or pit is already there.
• Cover material close at hand.
• Access roads already construct-
ed.
• Low costs for leasing or buy-
ing the land.
The United States has close to five
million acres of strip-mined land,
according to Ernest P. Hall, chief
of EPA's Mining Research Section.
Not all of this acreage is from coal
mining; many other minerals are
mined by surface methods, includ-
ing sand and gravel, limestone,
phosphates, copper, and zinc. Old
strip-mine sites are close to many
communities in most parts of the
country and within short rail-haul
distance from such large cities as
Chicago, Philadelphia, and New
York, where nearby landfill sites
are getting scarce.
The Frostburg demonstration site
is expected to take about 20 years
to fill up, but Allegany County
should have little trouble finding
another. Western Maryland and ad-
joining parts of West Virginia are
scarred by thousands of abandoned
mines.
Inside EPA, published month-
ly for all employees of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agen-
cy, welcomes contributed articles,
photos, and letters of general
interest.
Such contributions will be
printed and credited, but they
may be edited to fit space limits.
Van V. Trumbull, editor
Office of Public Affairs
Room W239, EPA
Washington, D.C. 20460
Tel. (202) 755-0883
— 6 —
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BANK ROBBERS
CUT TELEPHONES
TO EPA OFFICES
An attempted bank robbery in
Arlington, Va., last month cut off
telephone service to EPA's water
programs people in the Crystal Mall
complex for nearly a week.
The bandits entered an under-
ground vault and severed all the
cables in sight, presumably to crip-
ple the bank's protection systems
and enable them to enter the bank's
inner office posing as telephone re-
pairmen.
The cables contained 15,000 tel-
ephone lines to the high-rise office
and commercial center, including
600 lines serving EPA.
Agency officials rented a room
in a motel across the street,
where the phones were still work-
ing, and set up emergency radio
links to the phoneless building.
Walkie-talkie sets were used to re-
lay messages to and from the water
programs offices and the outside
world. Outgoing calls were made
from the rented room or from the
motel's pay-phone booths, which
were in continual use.
Using borrowed equipment, a
special radio-telephone link was es-
tablished between the Crystal Mall
office of Louis DeCamp, acting di-
rector of Water Programs Opera-
tions, and Robert Sansom, assist-
ant administrator for Air and Water
Programs, across the Potomac in
Washington.
The cables were cut at 10 o'clock
on a Wednesday morning. By Mon-
day, service had been restored in
60 to 70 percent of the EPA of-
fices, according to William Elder,
communications officer.
The bandits fled without any
money after shooting and killing
the bank manager and a policeman.
Four days later, men answering
their descriptions hijacked an air-
liner in Houston, Texas, and es-
caped to Cuba after killing an air-
line employee.
Two EPA Oil-Spill Workers
Injured in Helicopter Crash
Two EPA men were seriously in-
jured last month while working to
contain and clean up an oil spill in
southern Utah.
They are John Cunningham, 26,
of the Oil and Hazardous Materials
Division in Washington, and Mi-
chael Streiby, 27, of the Region
VIII office in Denver. Both were
passengers in a helicopter that
crashed near Kayenta, Ariz., on the
evening of Oct. 18.
Cunningham suffered fractures of
the legs and extensive back injuries,
with possible nerve damage, and
was reported in serious condition.
Streiby suffered a broken ankle, fa-
cial cuts, and other injuries. Both
are hospitalized in Albuquerque,
N.M.
The pilot of the Army Ranger
helicopter and a Coastguardman
passenger were also injured, but
less seriously. They were discharged
after several days in the hospital, ac-
cording to Kenneth Biglane, direc-
tor of the Oil and Hazardous Mate-
rials Division. Biglane said Cun-
ningham was in surgery for seven
hours on Oct. 24.
The men had been working on an
oil spill in the San Juan River val-
ley in the Glen Canyon Recreation
Area of southern Utah, resulting
from a pipeline break near Ship-
rock, N.M. More than 120,000 gal-
lons of crude oil poured down the
valley and into Lake Powell, an
empoundment of the Colorado Riv-
er. Emergency teams from many
government agencies were working
to contain the spill.
Before the crash, the men were
plucked by the helicopter from their
working posts—Cunningham at the
boom site and Streiby from a moun-
tain top where he was acting at a
radioman—and carried to the Mon-
ument Valley air strip, Biglane re-
ported. The crash occurred after
the pilot took off again to make
room for another aircraft coming in
for a landing. The men had stayed
in the helicopter because of the
darkness and pouring rain.
Auto Use Curbs Studied
EPA-supported studies now un-
der way in 16 cities will help State
and local officials determine how to
reduce air pollution from vehicles
by "alternative control strategies."
Such measures include various
schemes to reduce the use of cars
and trucks in congested urban areas,
where emission controls on the ve-
hicles are expected to be insuffi-
cient to achieve the national air
quality standards by 1975.
The studies will consider such al-
ternative strategies as parking bans
and other traffic controls, staggered
working hours, encouragement of
car pools, mass transit systems, and
vehicle inspection systems in relation
to each particular city.
Under the Clean Air Act of 1970,
each State last January submitted
to EPA a plan to implement the na-
tional air quality standards. States
with urban traffic problems were
given additional time, until Feb. 15,
1973, to come up with the technical
details and time schedules for the
alternative strategy portions of their
plans.
Two consulting engineering firms
are performing the studies under
EPA contracts: TRW, Inc., Mc-
Lean, Va., for $166,360; and GCA
Corporation, Bedford, Mass., for
$201,000.
Cities being studied by TRW are:
Dayton, Denver, Houston/Galves-
ton, Los Angeles, New York, Phil-
adelphia, and Phoenix; by GCA:
Boston, Baltimore, Minneapolis/
St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City,
Spokane, and Seattle.
— 7 —
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74 Labs Are Closed as Fire Hazards
More than one third of the labora-
tory operations in EPA's big new
building at Research Triangle Park,
N.C., were closed down for safety
reasons last month by Dr. John F.
Finklea, director.
All "high-hazard" operations—
chiefly those involving volatile gases
and chemicals—were halted in 74 of
the building's 200 laboratories fol-
lowing a month-long, inch-by-inch
inspection launched by Finklea when
he took over as director in Septem-
ber. Previous safety checks, both by
EPA officials and outside experts,
had indicated serious deficiencies in
the building, which has been in use
for about a year.
Center officials are looking for
other, nearby space in which to
house the displaced operations, Dep-
uty Director Jack Thompson esti-
mated in might take two months
before all of them can be resumed.
Meanwhile, work will continue on
the affected projects' non-laboratory
phases: collation of data, report
writing, and experimental planning.
The $10.5-million, 300,000-
square-foot building is leased by the
Federal government from a private
owner at an annual rent of $1.175
million. Some of its fire hazards
were noted in a study made last
spring: lack of fire walls in some
laboratories, single exits in others,
Typhoon Olga Halts Work
On Island Radiation Survey
A typhoon in the Pacific Ocean
last month interrupted the work of
five EPA radiation specialists on
Eniwetok atoll.
The men from the National Envi-
ronmental Research Center at Las
Vegas, Nev., were among more
than 100 persons from many Fed-
eral agencies and their contractors
laying the groundwork for the pos-
sible return of the native popula-
tion, evacuated 25 years ago so the
remote island could be used for nu-
clear weapons testing.
The NERC team—Charles F.
Costa, William E. Moore, James R.
Martin, Dwayne Rozell, and Jack
E. Thrall—had been making a ra-
diological survey of the main atoll
and about 40 nearby islands, test-
ing soils and structures and taking
environmental samples to help de-
termine what cleanup work should
be done. They were working for
the Atomic Energy Commission, in
cooperation with specialists from
AEC's Lawrence Livermore Labor-
atory and the University of Wash-
ington.
The team had been on Eniwetok
for about 10 days when Typhoon
Olga—15th in this year's series of
Pacific tropical storms—approached
the island. On the evening of Oct.
23 all were evacuated in an Air
Force cargo plane and taken to
Kwajalein atoll, about 400 miles
away.
Olga struck the next day, putting
the island's power plant out of com-
mission. The survey had to be post-
poned, and the five left Kwajelein
the next day.
The EPA team expects to return
early in January to complete the
survey, and Costa is looking for-
ward to it. "It's very hard work
there," he said, "lugging all that
heavy equipment . . . and hacking
through the jungle. The climate's
very hot and humid. A couple of
the guys came down with heat pros-
tration. But it's beautiful, the is-
lands and the lagoons."
The Eniwetok natives also want
to return, and the Federal govern-
ment hopes the island can be made
habitable by the end of next year.
The return of the natives is a
joint project of the AEC, the De-
partment of Defense, and the De-
partment of the Interior, which ad-
ministers the Pacific Trust Territo-
ries.
sealde windows, unprotected ceiling
beams that could buckle under in-
tense heat, and interconnected fume
ducts that could spread a fire rapid-
ly from one lab to another.
Corrective measures were initi-
ated immediately after the closing
order, and about 50 separate proj-
ects are completed or underway.
The building was designed for the
National Air Pollution Control Ad-
ministration before EPA was estab-
lished in December, 1970, and with-
out knowledge that EPA's expanded
air pollution research would involve
many high-risk operations.
Finklea listed three main difficul-
ties with the building:
• Location away from fire fight-
ing services.
• The Agency's need for "certain
analytical research procedures not
suitable for this facility."
• "Piecemeal consolidation" at
Research Triangle Park of research
projects that have increased the fire
hazard.
Plans had already been made,
Finklea said, to move most of these
operations next June. However, the
inspection revealed such imminent
danger that the shutdown was or-
dered immediately, before new space
could be found or the necessary
building alterations made.
Moving the high-risk operations
six months before the planned June
date, will entail only "marginal ad-
ditional cost" to the Government,
Finklea said.
Pressurized cylinders of hydro-
gen, acetylene, and other gases have
been moved out of the building, as
have storage drums of volatile
chemicals.
Burton Levy, director of admin-
istration, said the decision to limit
use of the building to low-risk
projects was deliberate, "based on
our own analysis of what the build-
ing could tolerate and not prompted
by an accident."
"There have been no personal
injuries or damage here because of
explosions or fire," he said.
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