V?
Uranium Survey Will Help Navajos
EPA radiation monitoring experts
have started work to determine
whether the Navajo Indians can
safely make use of abandoned
buildings at old uranium ore-milling
sites on Indian lands.
The Navajos want to use the
buildings—most of which are in
good condition with plumbing and
electrical services intact—for schools
and workshops. The hitch is the
structures are close to or built on
piles of uranium mill "tailings." a
mining waste that looks like fine
sand and is slightly radioactive.
Tribal leaders asked EPA. the
Atomic Energy Commission, and the
Indian Health Service for assistance,
and the three agencies are
cooperating in a field study by the
Las Vegas facility of the Office of
Radiation Programs.
A mill site near Mexican Hat,
Utah, is being examined first,
according to Jon Yeagley of the
Region VIII Office. Denver. The
monitoring team has spent about 10
days at the site, gathering data on
radiation types and levels and
assessing possible methods of
controlling the hazard. The complete
analysis, including an engineering
evaluation and a cost estimate, will
take several months, Yeagley said,
and a report will be given the Navajo
Tribal Council in the fall.
3 Regions Involved
There are four abandoned
uranium mines on Navajo land in
three states. Arizona. New Mexico,
and Utah. Since each state is in a
different Federal Region. EPA
radiation representatives from
Region VI. Douglas Keefer, and
Region IX, James Channel!, will take
part in the project, as well as health
and radiation agencies of the three
States. The monitoring team from
Tom Sell, left, and Dan Lambdin use stakes to mark contours of
radioactivity blown from tailings pile, at Shiprock, N.1M.
NERC-Las Vegas will be headed by
Joseph Hans and will include
Gregory Eadie, Thomas Morton.
Donald Lambdin. Bruce Mann,
William Moore, Thomas Sell.
Robert Snelling, and Jack Thrall.
Uranium mill tailings were not
recognized as a radiation hazard
until several years ago. long after
many mines had slopped
production. In Grand Junction.
Colo., tailings were used as fill dirt
under houses. schools. and
commercial buildings. Colorado has
started a multi-million-dollar
corrective program—with 3-to-l
Federal aid—using a range of
remedial measures, according to
types of radiation found in
individual buildings. In some cases,
the tailings have to be dug out and
replaced.
In Salt Lake City last year a
private developer wanted to build an
auto race track on a 100-acre site
containing 1.7 million tons of
tailings. The Office of Radiation
Programs recommended to the State
of Utah that no structures be built
mi the tailings pile and warned that
occupancy of buildings within half a
mile might be hazardous.
However, the tailings occupy land
of great potential value to the
expanding city, value which could be
realized if a way were found to clean
up or seal off the tailings.
General Survey Urged
The kind of study under way at
Mexican Hat is essentially what Dr.
William D. Rowe. deputy assistant
administrator for radiation
programs, advocated at a
congressional hearing March 12 for
about 20 known tailings piles at
(Continued on ]>;IL>
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Field Tests Set This Summer
On Poisoning of Wildlife
The first comprehensive field
studies of the effects of rodent
poisoning on desirable wildlife will
be sponsored this year by EPA's
Office of Pesticides Programs.
The studies will be done by the
Interior Department's Bureau of
Sports Fisheries and Wildlife in the
Rocky Mountains, under an
interagency agreement with EPA.
Richard Tucker is EPA project
officer and Ivan Dodson of the
Region VIII Office, Denver, will help
in overseeing the work, which is
expected to take 22 months.
Bureau biologists will use two
kinds of compounds—"1080"
(sodium monofluorate) and
strychnine—both of which are
registered for use against rodents
such as rats, mice, moles and
gophers.
Such poisons are opposed by many
environmentalists, who contend that
desirable "non-target" animals and
birds may be killed by eating the
poisoned baits directly or by eating
the rodent victims.
EPA's laboratory studies have
shown that such unintentional
poisoning is possible, but reliable
information on the extent of such
poisoning under field conditions
does not exist. A series of informal
hearings last fall on whether to
continue or cancel the registration of
these rodenticides yielded little
"hard, scientific information," said
Tucker.
The Bureau's study will attempt to
answer three questions, he said: (1)
Can field use of compound 1080 for
rodent control kill other wildlife? (2)
What are the relative effects of
ground or aerial application of the
compound? and (3) Can grain baited
with strychnine in the customary
manner kill desirable wildlife?
Other studies are planned on the
field use of cyanide compounds,
which are also registered for use
against rodent pests.
Some of the information obtained
may possibly be applied to the
problem of controlling predators,
larger carnivorous animals like the
coyote, wolf, and bobcat, for which
these poisons and poisoned bait
cannot legally be used.
However, EPA has given
permission for limited tests of a
cyanide spring-gun device to control
coyotes on certain private lands in
Texas. Evidence of the effect of this
device on other wildlife will be
studied carefully before any further
relaxation of the ban on predator
poisoning.
Lighting, Heating, Cooling Policies
Will Save Energy at EPA Facilities
New measures to save energy at
EPA installations were announced
recently by Deputy Assistant
Administrator Howard M. Messner.
They have been put into effect at
Agency buildings in Washington and
are recommended for all regional
offices, research centers, and field
laboratories using Government-
owned or -leased space.
The guidelines reduce lighting and
heating levels and raise cooling levels
as follows:
Lighting—no more than 50 foot-
candles at work stations, 30 foot-
candles in work areas, and 10 foot-
candles in nonworking areas;
elimination of all exterior and off-
hour lighting except that necessary
for safety and security.
Cooling—not lower than 80 to 82
degrees during working hours.
Heating—thermostats set to
maintain 65 to 68 degrees during
working hours and 55 degrees at
other times. Window draperies and
blinds should be opened to augment
heating on sunny days and closed to
cut heat losses on cloudy days and at
night. Portable and threshold
heaters are banned.
Employee unions having exclusive
recognition should be consulted
before local managers put these rules
into effect, Messner said.
Elbert C. Tabor
Scientist at RTF
Wins Gold Medal
Elbert C. Tabor, assistant director
and senior technical advisor at the
Quality Assurance and
Environmental Monitoring
Laboratory, NERC-Research Tri-
angle Park, was recently awarded an
EPA Gold Medal for distinguished
service and for scientific contribu-
tions to air quality monitoring.
A 27-year veteran in the Federal
service. Tabor has been called the
"father of air pollution monitoring."
He was the first chief of the National
Air Sampling Network when it was
established in 1954 in one of EPA's
predecessor agencies. Under his
general direction a nationwide
network of air sampling stations was
developed. These have grown in size
and sophistication over the last two
decades and now provide most of the
background 'data for decisions by
Federal, State, and local
governments concerning air
pollution control.
The medal was presented by Dr.
Jack Thompson, NERC deputy
director, at a dinner in Tabor's
honor, in Raleigh. Tabor has held
several offices in the Air Pollution
Control Association and written
many technical papers in this field.
He is a member of the American
Chemical Society and the Society of
Applied Spectroscopy.
-------
Air, Water Programs Are Separated
EPA's air and water programs
have been separated under a
reorganization announced April 10
by Administrator Russell E. Train.
Under the new alignment—which
Train said in January he was
planning to make—there are two
offices, each headed by an assistant
administrator: the Office of Water
and Hazardous Materials and the
Office of Air and Waste
Management.
The former includes Water
Planning and Standards, Water
Program Operations, Pesticides, and
Toxic Substances. The latter
includes Air Quality Planning and
Standards, Mobile Source Pollution,
Noise Abatement and Control,
Radiation Programs, and Solid
Waste Management Programs.
The names of the nine program
offices have not been changed, and
each is still headed by its deputy
assistant administrator.
Train appointed James L. Agee,
regional administrator for Region X,
Seattle, as acting assistant
administrator for water and
hazardous materials and Roger
Strelow as acting assistant
administrator for air and waste
management.
"These changes, coupled with the
knowledge and leadership which
these men bring to their positions,"
Train said, "will improve our
capacity to deal with environmental
Inside EPA, published for all
employees of the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency, welcomes contributed
articles, photos, and letters of
general interest.
Printed on recycled paper.
Van V. TrumbuII, editor
Office of Public Affairs f A-107]
Room W211, EPA
Washington, D.C. 20460
Tel. (202) 755-0872
James L. Agee
problems."
Agee has been regional
administrator since 1970. and before
then had served ten years in EPA's
predecessor agencies holding senior
staff posts in water pollution control.
He is an officer in the Public Health
Service and holds a B.S. in sanitary
engineering from Oregon State
University and an M.S. from
Harvard University.
Strelow was executive assistant to
Train before being named acting
Roger Strelow
assistant administrator for air and
water programs in January. Before
joining EPA he had been staff
director of the Council on
Environmental Quality and an
assistant to the secretary and
director of the Office of
Environmental Affairs in the
Department of Health, Education.
and Welfare. He is a graduate of
Principia College, Elsah, 111., and
earned a law degree at the University
of California.
Uranium Tailings Survey
Will Help Navajo Indians
(Continued from page 1)
abandoned uranium mill sites in the
West.
Rowe said EPA opposed action
now on a bill sponsored by Sen.
Frank Moss of Utah to provide
Federal aid for the study and
cleanup of the Salt Lake City pile.
More should be learned about
remedial actions and costs, Rowe
said, not only for Salt Lake City but
also for other sites, so that any
legislation would apply to all such
sites. An AEC spokesman gave
similar testimony.
— 3 —
The Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy is expected to approve a two-
phase program, proposed by AEC,
under which EPA and AEC would:
• Make a preliminary survey of
all abandoned tailings piles to
define the problems, and
• Follow up with field studies,
engineering evaluations, and
cost estimates for any remedial
action necessary at each pile.
Thereafter, a general bill for joint
Federal-State remedial action on all
tailings piles may be proposed.
-------
EPA's Largest Computer
Is Installed in North Carolina
EPA's largest computer facility
started operations last month in
Research Triangle Park, N.C. The
$4.8-million Univac 1110 computer
system is the largest such facility in
the southeastern States.
Dr. Burton Levy, director of
administration, said the new unit
will accommodate the computing
and data storage needs of more than
100 scientists at NERC-RTP and will
also serve the Office of Air Quality
Planning and Standards and the
Office of Administration.
"Environmental research depends
upon prompt, accurate processing of
data," he said. "As EPA's North
Carolina research operations have
grown in the past two years, its
computer needs have grown
correspondingly, exceeding the
capacity of its former computer
system."
Harold Sauls, director of the Data
Processing Division, said the Univac
1110 system will increase the speed
and expand the division's data
handling capacity more than 12-fold.
It will be operated seven days a week
on two or more shifts a day.
The expanded computer operation
in North Carolina will provide a
larger data capacity for EPA's two
air pollution monitoring programs,
the National Emissions Data Base
(NEDS) and the Storage and
Retrieval of Air Quality Data
(SARQAD); increased use of
mathematical diffusion and
prediction modeling studies;
additional statistical and correlation
capacity for human health effects
studies; and increased "memory"
capacity for the Air Pollution
Technical Information Center's
bibliography and abstracts.
The new system will provide faster
turn-around service for users,
increased terminal plug-in capacity
for remote users, and a greater
flexibility to accommodate future
needs.
It can handle operator
instructions in billionths of a second,
permitting a multiple programming
capacity of millions of instructions
per second. It replaces an IBM
360/50 system.
Alvin L. Aim, assistant administrator for planning and management, cuts
the ribbon on the Agency's big new computer system at Research Triangle
Park, whfle Harold Sauls, director, Data Processing Division, lends a hand.
60 From Region II
Win Service Pins
Sixty employees at EPA's Region
II office in New York were honored
recently for government service
totaling about a thousand years.
Gerald M. Hansler, regional
administrator, presented pins and
certificates to ten employees having
30 or more years of service; 19
having 20 years or more, and 31
having served for 10 years.
The award for the longest
individual service—34 years—went
to Julian Grossman, grants
administrator, who began in 1940 as
an accountant at the Brooklyn Navy
Yard. By 1966 he had risen to
civilian-in-charge of the largest data
processing system in New York City.
That year Grossman transferred to
the Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration, one of EPA's
predecessor agencies.
The awards ceremony was the first
in the New York Regional Office,
accounting for the large number of
recipients.
Similar presentations are
scheduled for Region II field offices
at Edison, N.J.; Rochester, N.Y., and
San Juan, P.R. Employees at these
installations will get awards
representing 980 years of service.
Toastmasters
Seek Members
About 24 men and women at
EPA's Washington headquarters
meet every Tuesday noon to give,
and listen to, short speeches.
They constitute a new chapter of
the Toastmasters' Club, whose
purpose is to improve its members'
public speaking abilities. At each
session in conference room 3805, two
or three persons give formal talks
lasting 5 to 7 minutes. Each speech is
evaluated by another member, and
the evaluators are also evaluated.
"It's a lot of fun for a very little
investment of time and effort," says
John Settle, one of the organizers,
"and most of us have become better
speakers already." The club is
looking for about a dozen additional
members. Interested persons should
call Settle (ext. 58108) or Nina
Dougherty (ext. 64567).
-------
Group Weighs Vinyl Chloride Peril
A 21-member task force
representing many components of
EPA has been named to assess the
possible danger—to human health
and to the environment—of vinyl
chloride, a gas sometimes used as the
pressurized propellant for pesticides,
and of a widely used plastic made
from the gas.
Administrator Russell E. Train
suspended from further sale all
pesticides containing vinyl chloride
for use in enclosed areas and ordered
their recall from stores and
distributors.
Vinyl chloride, a synthetic organic
compound containing carbon,
hydrogen, and chlorine, is suspected
as being a causative factor in the
deaths of 12 plastics plant workers
from a rare form of liver cancer. The
gas is used to produce polyvinyl
chloride, a common plastic material.
In aerosol cans the gas has always
been regarded as an inert ingredient,
a carrier for the pesticide.
Although the toxicity, if any, of
vinyl chloride in ambient air is not
known, Train said, "the link
between the gas and the cancer is
suspected strongly enough to make it
prudent public policy to ban further
use of these products."
Glenn E. Schweitzer, director of
the Office of Toxic Substances,
heads the task force, which will
review all available data on toxicity,
measure levels of vinyl chloride in air
and water near plastics plants, and
investigate the ecological effects and
the impact of various methods of
disposal.
The task force has met with
various environmental and consumer
groups and with other interested
Federal agencies: the Departments
of Health, Education, and Welfare;
Labor; Commerce; the Consumer
Product Safety Commission, and the
Council on Environmental Quality.
The group plans to finish its work
and report by the end of June,
Schweitzer said. Preliminary
measurements of vinyl chloride levels
in air and water in the vicinity of the
B.F. Goodrich plastics plant in
Louisville, Ky., have already been
made by EPA experts in Region IV,
under George Moein, hazardous
materials control officer.
Task force members include Leslye
Arsht, Public Affairs, Nancy Be.ach,
Toxic Substances; David Becker,
Water Programs Operations; J.
Wesley Clayton Jr. and Henry Enos,
Research and Development; Joel
Jacknow, Planning and
Management; Bryan LaPlante,
Office of Legislation; Pope
Lawrence, Federal Activities; George
Marienthal, Regional Liaison;
George Moein, Region IV, Kansas
City; William Musser and John
Nardella, Water Planning and
Standards; Vaun Newill, Office of
the Administrator; Lester Otte, Solid
Waste Management; Will Reid,
Enforcement; John Ritch,
Pesticides; Richard Rhoden and
Frank Scaringelli, Air Quality
Planning and Standards; Oscar
Ramirez, Region VI, Dallas; and
William Upholt, Hazardous
Materials Control.
Women Urged to Combat Discrimination
For employers to hold women
back in status or pay because they
are women is not only inhuman and
wasteful, it's illegal, James
Robinson, senior budget examiner in
the Office of Management and
Budget, told a recent conference in
Dallas on "Today's Challenges for
Women in Government."
The conference, chaired by Diana
Dutton, assistant regional counsel
for EPA's Region VI, was the second
national meeting to be sponsored by
the Federal Executive Board's
Women's Program. The Dallas-Fort
Worth FEB was host for more than
100 women and men executives from
Federal, State, and local
governments.
Arthur W. Busch, EPA regional
administrator and chairman of the
Southwest Federal Regional Council,
greeted the conferees at the opening
of the three-day meeting.
Robinson, a keynote speaker, said
"occupational segregation,"—not
allowing women to work in certain
jobs because of their sex—is still a
real roadblock for women, although
it is generally illegal. But he said
women are not making full use of
existing rules against sexual
discrimination.
"To bring about change," he
advised, "women should know and
utilize the system, counteract
unfriendly acts and opinions, and
learn to marshal the facts and
statistics on each disputed case."
The greatest impact of the
women's movement will be to
improve the human condition, he
said.
Several projects involving EPA
regional leaders were reported at the
conference. For example, Cincinnati
FEB women had put on a Career
Day program for 200 managers,
heads of agencies and personnel
departments under the title, "It's
Your Move." Delores Platt, women's
program coordinator for NERC-
Cincinnati, was an activist in this
program, and Charlie K. Swift,
director of EPA's Woman's
Programs Division in Washington,
was a speaker.
The Federal agencies in Region VI
reported on six one-day conferences
for GS-1 through GS-7 employees.
More than 800 persons were involved
in "How to Move Up" counseling
sessions.
The Denver FEB Women's
Program held career counseling
sessions for 340 GS-8 and below
employees, sessions which lasted
three days and were conducted by a
management institute under
contract.
Other EPA representatives at the
Dallas meeting included Ruth
Sasaki, Region V, Chicago; Pat
Allbright, Region VI, Dallas; and
Kate Stahl, Women's Programs
Division, Washington.
-------
'Coughing' Fish May Spot Pollution
Polluted water makes some fish
"cough" in much the same way
polluted air makes people cough,
according to EPA's National Water
Quality Laboratory at Duluth, Minn.
These fish coughs may some day be
used to monitor water quality in
lakes and streams.
Robert A. Drummond, aquatic
biologist in charge, said the fish-
coughing study was begun more than
two years ago as part of the
laboratory's basic investigation of
how pollutants affect freshwater fish.
Clearing the Gills
When a fish coughs, it clears its
gills of debris in a manner analogous
to a person's coughing to clear his
throat. But the Duluth scientists do
not measure the gill clearing sound,
if any. They detect minute electrical
signals generated by the gill muscles
and record them on apparatus
similar to a lie detector or an
electrocardiogram.
Normal gill action is a continuous
rhythm, punctuated at regular
intervals by a "cough" that sends the
recording pen in several rapid swings
to form a heavy line on the chart.
Such coughing is natural in bluegill,
sunfish, fathead minnow, trout, and
salmon, Drummond said. "We don't
yet know whether all other species
cough, but we will try to answer this
question in later tests."
Coughs Rise Sharply
When pollutants are added to the
water the number of coughs per
minute rises sharply. In tests with
copper and mercury, Drummond
and his co-workers found the levels
that speeded up coughing were
about the same as those which other
studies had shown to be damaging to
fish growth and reproduction.
"We are now looking at the short-
term effects of 10 heavy metals and
pesticides," said Drummond, "to
compare the cough-test results with
already determined long-term
effects. If the comparisons are close,
we feel the cough frequency test may
be valid for other chemicals.
Seven-inch bluegill swims placidly in test tank between sensitive electrodes
that detect tiny, rhythmic electrical signals from its gill muscles.
CONTROL
FISH
TEST
FISH
Five-minute strip charts record the "coughing" signals (rapid fluctuations
that make a thick line) about once a minute for the control fish in clean water
and five times as frequently for the test fish in polluted water.
"Ultimately, we may have the treatment plants and industry. A
beginning of a new method of sudden increase in fish coughs in a
keeping tabs on wastes entering
lakes and streams from sewage
given body of water could trigger an
alarm."
-------
EPA Defines the Noise Levels
Required for Health, Welfare
Noise levels needed to protect
health and welfare were defined last
month by the Office of Noise
Abatement and Control after almost
a year of study in cooperation with
many other Federal agencies and
scores of expert consultants.
The final technical report defines
70 decibels as the maximum 24-hour
exposure level needed to protect
humans from hearing loss over a
lifetime. (A decibel is a physical
measure of sound, and 70 decibels is
about equivalent to freeway traffic
heard from a distance of 100 feet.)
To prevent annoyance and
interference with normal human
activity, an 8-hour exposure
averaging 55 decibels (light auto
traffic 100 feet away) was
recommended for outdoors and 45
decibels (a quiet living room) for
indoors.
The report, "Information on
Levels of Environmental Noise
Requisite to Protect Public Health
and Welfare with an Adequate
Margin of Safety," will be published
soon by the Government Printing
Office.
The first rough draft of the
document was made almost a year
ago by the Air Force Medical
Research Laboratory at Dayton,
Ohio, under an interagency
agreement. It was reviewed by more
than 30 persons representing various
scientific and environmental groups
and the National Academy of
Sciences, and redone at the Dayton
laboratory.
Alice Suter edited the final report.
Joseph Flanagan, of the Noise
Abatement Office, said: "We had
inputs from almost everybody,
including the Departments of HEW,
Commerce, Transportation, and
Labor; the National Academy of
Sciences; various environmental and
professional groups; and more than
40 individual reviewers."
The defined levels are not
standards. They are intended—with
the mass of technical data and
references—to help State and local
governments set standards for noise.
Such standards would take account
of local conditions and problems, the
means available for abatement, and
judgments concerning costs and
benefits.
The report deals only with
available scientific evidence of the
effects of noise on health and
welfare.
Defense Seeks EPA Advice
On Disposing of DDT Stocks
The Department of Defense
recently sought the advice of EPA on
how it can dispose of 100 million
pounds of pesticides, mostly DDT.
The military stocks of DDT
—banned by EPA for more than
two years for all but a few special
uses in the United States—are being
held by various Defense agencies,
which are seeking to dispose of them
in a legal and inexpensive way.
Eight EPA officials at the
interagency conference gave
informal approval of the Defense
Department's plan to export the
pesticide to foreign nations that need
it for controlling disease-carrying
insects. These nations include many
African, Middle Eastern, and Asian
countries, including Taiwan and the
Philippines. The State Department's
Agency for International
Development (AID) would assist in
disposing of the excess DDT stocks,
which exist in a score of different
formulations.
Harry Trask of the Office of Solid
Waste Management Programs, said
Defense would follow the procedures
for packaging and transport
required in the Federal Insecticide,
SHE HELPED
GET HER TOWN
$100,500 CHECK
It isn't often that a Federal civil
servant—all in the line of duty—
gets to help give her home town a
check for more than $100,000.
That thrill came recently to
Mary C. Leyland, grants
administration chief in EPA's
Region II, New York.
Mrs. Leyland's office processed
more than $624 million in
reimbursements to local
governments in Region II for
sewage plant construction work
done before 1972. Among them
was $100,500 to Hoosick Falls, a
village of about 4,000 people in
upstate New York near the
Vermont border.
As Mary Cahill, Mrs. Leyland
grew up in Hoosick Falls and was
a schoolmate of the present
mayor, Richard A. Severson, who
had corresponded with her over
the progress of the village's
reimbursement for part of the
cost of its sewage plant, pumping
station, and interceptor.
When the funds came through,
Don Bliss, acting director of
public affairs, had a photo taken
of Mrs. Leyland, with Deputy
Regional Administrator Eric
Cutwater signing the check. The
Standard-Press, Hoosick Falls
weekly newspaper, printed the
photo and a story about Mrs.
Leyland's happy coincidence.
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. and
that AID would certify the need and
willingness of the importing
countries. Final procedures were
published by EPA in the Federal
Register for May 1.
Other EPA people at the
conference were Henry Thomas,
Hazardous Materials Control;
Charles Sell and Pope Lawrence,
Federal Activities; William
Hoffman, Pesticide Programs; John
Neylan, Pesticides Enforcement; and
Anson Keller and George Robertson,
Office of General Counsel.
-------
Surplus Navy Shell Is Now Lab Apparatus
Battleship's big shell, left, now serves as a deep sea simulation chamber, right, at NERC-Corvallis.
A surplus 16-inch projectile for a
Navy battleship's biggest gun has
been recruited for peacetime duty at
EPA's Northwest Environmental
Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Ore.
The surplus projectile, minus its
explosives and fuse, was converted to
a pressure chamber to help EPA
scientists study what happens to
sewage sludge dumped into the
ocean.
William P. Muellenhoff, an
Oregon State University graduate
student who has been conducting
research for EPA, was responsible
for converting the heavy steel shell
into the principal component of a
system to simulate deep sea
conditions. Last year Moellenhoff
lived for a week in an underwater
laboratory on the Atlantic Ocean
floor near Grand Bahama Island
doing studies on sludge dispersal in
shallow water.
The deep sea simulator permits
Muellenhoff to create in the
laboratory the pressures encountered
on the ocean bottom, up to 10,000
pounds per square inch, equivalent
to a depth of nearly 4,500 feet.
Samples of sludge are placed in the
casing, the chamber is closed and
natural seawater under high
pressure is pumped slowly through
it. Both temperature and pressure
can be controlled and the effects of
bacteria and other forms of sea-
bottom life on the decomposition of
the sludge can be measured.
The simulator was built "at
relatively low cost," Muellenhoff
said. "1 started with the surplus
projectile casing, an air-hydraulic
pump from a State surplus facility,
two unused aquariums from a
storage shelf, and an existing
temperature-controlled room in the
laboratory." Machining and
modifications to the shell and
purchase of various items of
equipment cost about $2,000.
Muellenhoffs experiments will
continue until this summer, when he
will present some of his research
results as a doctoral dissertation in
civil engineering at Oregon State.
TAPED PROGRAMS EXPLAIN EPA ON RADIO AND TV
Stop, look, and listen for two
broadcast media features from
the Office of Public Affairs.
On radio, a series of short,
taped "spots" are being
distributed to about 1,000
commercial stations throughout
the country. Conducted by Anne
Blair, they feature interviews with
Agency experts on a variety of
environmental problems. Some
last 4 1/2 minutes and others 90
seconds.
Programs distributed so far
include Dr. Alvin F. Meyer on
noise pollution, Arsen Darnay on
trash and the consumer, Eric
Stork on "You and Your Car,"
and John R. Quarles Jr. on air
pollution and public utilities.
Future releases will cover
pesticides, low-lead gasoline, and
water pollution. All these tapes
have been supplied on recycled
reels.
The second media feature is a
series of videotaped programs for
Agency employees. Featured are
interviews with EPA officials for
use primarily by Regional Offices
and NERCs. They will be seen
and heard at employee meetings,
open house programs, and similar
sessions. The aim is to help ex-
plain Agency programs and
problems in a face-to-face format.
Already taped are interviews
with Administrator Russell Train
on the Clean Air Act
Amendments, Dr. Stanley M.
Greenfield on energy and the
environment, and Dr. Alvin
Meyer on the noise levels needed
to maintain human health.
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