Environmental Information
April 1975
The time has come to explore the possibility of
enforcement machinery, such as an international coast
guard, to deal with the exploitation of the seas,
according to EPA Administrator Russell E. Train.
In a speech to the National Audubon Society in
New Orleans, Louisiana on April 19, Mr. Train declared:
"We have seen in the case of strip mining what
can happen to the land when technology outpaces legis-
lation and environmental controls. The repercussions
from undersea mining could resound throughout the world."
The EPA Administrator, noting that a second Law of
Sea Conference was underway in Geneva to explore methods
for control of seabed mining, said the UN must reach
agreement before such mining becomes widespread.
"It seems to me," he said, "that the time has come
to match our assumption of unlimited rights to the oceans
with the assumption of duties and obligations also held
in common and enforceable."
Mr. Train added that oil from the Outer Continental
Shelf can be produced in an environmentally acceptable
manner if done in the right places and under vigorous
regulation. But he warned that the effort must be
preceded by careful planning to avoid not only disruption
of fishing but social and cultural patterns in coastal
areas.
The speech 1s attached for your information and use.
Office of Public Affairs
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REMARKS BY THE HONORABLE RUSSELL E. TRAIN
ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIROMIENrALPRaiECTION AGENCY
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BEFORE THE
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
THE FAIRMONT-ROOSEVELT HOTEL, NEW ORLEANS, IA.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1975
THE ENDANGERED SEA
It is a pleasure to be once again with my friends in the
National Audubon Society as vie observe not only the beginning of
Earth Week but also the 70th year since this distinguished organization
was fanted.
There is sane kind of impression afoot that the environmental
effort was born yesterday, that it sprang up overnight and out of
nowhere seme six or seven years ago. You and I know better. The
Audubon Society very early in its history led successful battles
to halt the killing of shorebirds for the restaurant trade and the
slaughter of egrets to decorate women's hats. And it was five
decades ago when T. Gilbert Pearson, a president of National Audubon,
urged the creation of an international treaty to halt environmental
damage from oil spills. Even the word "environmentalist" is scarcely
new. Robert Frost used it to describe himself in the poem "New
Hampshire" written 52 years ago.
It was Frost who once voiced this warning which has a very
contemporary ring in our ears:
"How many times it thundered before Franklin took the hint!
How many apples fell on Newton's head before he took the hint! Nature
is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly
we take the hint."
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And nature does indeed have to hit us on the head over and over
again before we begin to take the hint. It wasn't until the pollutants
and poisons in our air and earth and water had piled up to the point
where they posed a clear and present danger to human life and health
that we began to take then seriously. And while, as you know, we
have made real strides toward curbing and controlling these environ-
mental hazards, the going has been a lot rough/a: than some, at least,
had originally imagined. None of us here, I think, is terribly
surprised at the fact that it has not proven possible within a few
years to make up for decades — even centuries — of environmental
damage and degradation or, what is even more difficult, to change
the ingrained and accustomed patterns of behavior, public and private
policies and processes, lifestyles and the like that are responsible
for our environmental ills in the first place.
Here on the Gulf of Mexico we stand face to face with both the
familiar problems of technology and an extraordinary opportunity
to deal with those problems before they happen and before they
get out of hand.
Here, at the juncture of ocean and land, lie those productive
but delicately balanced estuaries upon which marine life is still
so dependent. The elaborate system of marshes and shallow bays
have made the Gulf an immensely important natural environment, an
enormous nursery where fish grow to near maturity and where
waterfowl find shelter and food during winter months.
Indeed, in a broader sense we stand at the edge of that vast
domain where life itself first began. It was in the oceans and
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the estuaries of the world that primitive one-celled life originated.
It came from the sea, not — like Aphrodite in Greek legend — at a
single miraculous instant, but over aeons of time. As the earth
cooled, traces of oxygen were produced. Then cane the photosynthetic
cells in water, creating more oxygen which built up a shield against
the deadly ultraviolet radiation from outer space. That in turn
made more life possible, until creatures were able to crawl out
onto the land and evolution began its long upward course to the
creation of nan.
Knowing these things, we cannot help but feel a swirling sense of
awe and anguish as we stand at the sea's edge. For this birthplace,
this original nursery of us all is endangered. Dredging and develop-
ment is destroying the marshes. Filling and dredging have wiped out
sane 200,000 acres of shallow coastal bays in the Gulf and south Atlantic
areas over the past two decades. Chemicals and sewage and oil spills are
slowly and steadily sapping the oceans' ability to serve as a well of life.
The oceanographer Jacques Cousteau tells us that the floor of the
Mediterranean is littered with the debris and waste of modern tech-
nology. Ecologists warn us that it is a dying sea and that unless
nations act to protect it, it will scon be a dead one.
All over the world, the seas are serving as a receptacle for
wastes. They have become a sink for enormous quantities of chemicals
fron fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides used in agriculture
far inland. It is this kind of disjointed activity in our society,
this process of action in one area leading to ecological shock
waves far from the original source of pollution, that now threatens
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the sea. One of our major problems is that we don't really know
what we're doing to our environment and, ultimately, to ourselves.
Lite children with a new toy, we have believed that just because a
thing is technologically dazzling, it is good. We have worshiped at
the altar of "cost efficiency" without knowing the true cost to society
of dumping untreated pollutants into the air and water. We have follow-
ed a policy of plunder-now-and-pay-later whose price tag most all too
often be paid by victims far from the scene of the crime.
Indeed, compared with our skill and sophistication in creating
pollution, our ability and instruments for coiprehending and control-
ling it must rank somewhere at the level of the Stone Age.
With each passing year the need to control the increasing
quantity of toxic substances in our environment intensifies. An
estimated 500 to 700 new chemicals enter commerce in significant
quantities every year. Substances once considered safe for wide-
spread use are suddenly suspect and pulled off the market. In too
many cases, the public and the environment continue to serve as
testing grounds for such products. The more we learn about the health
effects of pollutants, the worse things look. Researchers at the
National Cancer Institute are reported to have estimated that 60
to 90 percent of all human cancers are caused by environmental
factors — front ultraviolet rays to plastics and pesticides* And
while progress has been made in treating this disease, it is
obvious that the most sensible course lies in prevention, in control-
ling carcinogens before they enter man's environment.
One of the things I find most alarming is that our attitude
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toward the ocean is a carry-over from our earlier attitude toward
the land. Increasingly the seas are regarded as a place to put
unwanted things, a place where accidental or deliberate spillage
doesn't matter because the ocean is vast and nobody is around to
protest. Having polluted the land, we are now starting to lavish
our attentions upon the last clean place on the globe, trusting that
the self-cleansing powers of the oceans will somehow solve matters.
But freedom of the seas does not mean freedom to pollute. The globe
has become too small and too crowded for that.
The growing and serious problem of ocean spills and dumping
has become a matter of special concern. Here, in the Gulf, the National
Audubon Society has been a strong and effective fighting force for
the reduction and control of dumping. Your continued vigilance is
vitally needed. According to United States Coast Guard figures, the
number of all types of polluting discharges into navigable waters
rose from about 8,700 in 1971 to nearly 14,000 in 1973, and the
total is expected to be higher for 1974. By one estimate the
amount of oil moving around the world in limes of omtueicje will
double each decade. This means that by the year 2,000 we can expect
six times as much traffic, with an obviously greater risk of oil
spills and hazards to the environment. I need not tell this audience
ttoat an oil slick can do to a coastline, an estuarine system, or to
waterfowl. Supertanker traffic is giving rise to increasing spills
of oil in remote areas of the globe such as off the Cape of Good
Hope and in the Straits of Magellan. Some of the spills have been
catastrophic to important seabird populations. I believe that
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international action is urgently needed to find ways to protect
the valuable and highly vulnerable seabirds of the world from
destruction by oil.
One of the most pressing matters with respect to the oceans
still lies in the future. This is the exploitation of mineral
resources on seabeds around the world.
Lying on the floors of many oceans are some rather odd,
black, potato-shaped Imps known as manganese nodules. No one
really knows how they were formed, but scientists have found them
rich in useful metals such as copper, nickel and cobalt. Already
several companies are trying to devise ways of mining them, and
that's where the environmentalists have begun to worry.
Few companies have any real experience in deep water mining of
this type, and we can anticipate problems. The pace of life at
profound depths of the sea is exceedingly slow. The life cycles
of creatures there do not occur at the same rate as on the surface,
and it would require a long time to restore the ecology after it
had been disturbed by mining. Very large quantities of seabed mud
and debris would undoubtedly be churned up to the surface. This
sediment could shut out sunlight and prevent it from reaching
life at lower depths, it could threaten commercial fishing and
recreation, for the sediment might be carried by currents to
distant beaches. Whether refining is done at sea or at the coast,
the mine tailings and waste chemicals could pose another environ-
mental hazard.
We have seen in the case of strip mining what can happen
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to the land when technology outpaces legislation and environmental
controls. The repercussions from undersea mining could resound
throughout the world.
Under the auspices of the United Nations, a second Law of
the Sea Conference is now underway in Geneva to explore methods
for controls over seabed mining. There is widespread support
among nations for establishment of an international Seabed tesources
Authority to deal with such matters. The UN must trove forward and
reach agreement in this area before such mining becomes widespread,
for time is growing short.
Speaking more generally, the oceans represent not only a
critical environmental problem area but a major opportunity for
mare effective international cooperation in the management of
cannon resources. Beyond the disputed limits of national juris-
diction, the oceans are not subject to national sovereignty but
are, indeed, part of the conmon heritage of all mankind. This
has meant, in practice, that the open enae are open to unlimited
exploitation on a first come — first serve basis. It seems to
me that the tine has come to match our assumption of unlimited
rights to the oceans with the assumption of duties and obligations
also held in cannon and enforceable.
need for improved international cooperation to protect
the oceans is increasingly recognized, as evidenced by the ocean
dumping convention adopted at London in 1972, and the 1973 London
convention for the prevention of pollution of the seas by ships,
anong other such efforts. At the same time, the mechanisms for
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enforcing suc±t agreements are limited, to say the least, dependent
in the usual case on the voluntary cooperation of individual nations.
We have seen how ineffectual such agreements can be as in the
case of the international protection of whales. At a time when the
principle of national sovereignty seems stronger than ever — among
great and snail nations alike — it nay be unrealistic to propose
limitations on that principle. But in the face of growing frustration
with existing procedures and the growing likelihood that freely
competitive exploitation is simply 4odng to lead to the ultimate
exhaustion of the ocean resource, it seems to me that the time
has cone to explore the possibility of international enforcement
machinery, such as could be represented by an international
coast guard or similar capability. I know this is a radical
suggestion, but the times and the problems call for fresh and,
if you will, radical initiatives.
Last year the President directed the Secretary of interior
to undertake a major expansion of leasing on the Outer Continental
Shelf to help increase oil supplies because of the energy problem.
This policy involves a number of important environmental consider-
ations.
As we move to improve the country's energy situation, it is
important that we act effectively to reduce cur energy demand. A
recent study by the National Industrial Conference Board showed
that the Nation could make sizeable cutbacks in the growth rate
of energy use without impairing economic expansion, m this
connection, it is instructive to note that both West Germany and
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Sweden have per capita energy consunption rates about half that
of the United States and both countries maintain high standards
of living. The introduction of new plants and equipment in the
U.S. already has reduced energy vise and has achieved new economies.
However, a sustained reduction in the energy growth rate will re-
quire a concentrated, long-term movement to more recycling, more
fuel-efficient autos, more mass transit, and less waste across-
the-board. Indeed, we need nothing less than a national War on
Waste.
At the same time, we must move with determination to improve
our energy supply, with scrupulous regard for environmental factors.
There most be a parallel effort to develop clean, renewable sources
of energy such as solar power that do not exhaust finite fuel
supplies*
I believe that oil from the Outer Continental Shelf can be
produced in an environmentally acceptable manner if done in the
right places and under vigorous regulation.
Cue cause for environmental concern is the very magnitude
of the new OCS development effort. It would more than double
the total offshore acreage leased since the program began 22 years
ago. Since drilling rigs necessary for exploration are already
in short supply, it makes sense to me that we focus on areas
where the resource potential is high and where: the adverse environ-
mental effects would be low. The State and local governments
should be informed well in advance about nrmgj-jo fy!-iT<'Heg likely
to be needed. Without careful planning, new shipyards, platform
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construction sites, refineries and other developments at the coast
could disrupt local fishing, recreation and agriculture; make
massive changes in regional, social, economic and cultural patterns;
and overwhelm the capacity of impacted areas to provide essential
services such as housing, transportation, education, waste treat-
ment, health and police protection. Comprehensive land use planning
— with the necessary authority to implement and enforce land use
controls and carried out in advance of development activity —
is critically important to the wise development of coastal energy
I have spoken at length about various environmental dangers
with respect to the oceans and coastal areas because here we
still have time to act. But I do not wish to devote all my time
to a jeremiad, for the Nation has made a beginning in dealing
with the problem, and I would like to describe briefly sane
positive steps.
We are making progress in cleaning up cur waterways. The
Federal government is putting massive amounts of money into this.
Compared with the $1 million in Federal funds earmarked back in
1948 for construction loans, a total of nearly $18 billion is now
being spent by the Federal government for wastewater treatment
plants under the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act, and will be
almost entirely obligated by the end of fiscal 1977.
This program will help to build treatment plants in the Gulf
states, as in all coastal regions, and represents a major
national investment in cleaner water with resulting benefits to
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freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems. It will also create
hundreds of thousands of jobs at a tine when our economy needs them.
At EPA we also have been active in the area of pesticide
control. Last month I rejected a request by the State of Louisiana
for emergency permission to use EOT on cotton crops. I also acted
last fall to suspend the registrations of Aldrin and Dieldrin,
which are in the sane chemical family as EOT, based on evidence
that the two cause cancer.
The Agency is now registering, re-registering and classifying
all pesticide products, and we are involved in a large program
to certify those who apply potentially hazardous pesticides,
which will impose new controls on handling of these products. EPA
also has joined with two other agenices in a $20 million research
program to use natural enemies and biological controls of farm
pests, which would lessen our dependence on use of chemical
pesticides.
Finally, I have supported for several years a Toxic Substances
Control Act now before Congress, which would require pre-narket
testing of new potentially hazardous chemicals before they are
marketed, and would give EPA the authority to ban or otherwise restrict
the use of substances found harmful to either human health or the
environment. This would be the kind of preventive medicine that
would help safeguard the environment against serving as a testing
laboratory for such chemicals.
The EPA, and the environmental effort as a whole, continue to
enjoy strong public support. A poll by Louis Harris last month
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showed that three cut of four Americans are unconvinced that a
temporary slow-down of water and air pollution controls will help
ease the energy shortage or ease unemployment. Americans rank
water and air pollution as the Nation's third and fourth greatest
problems, respectively, above the energy shortage and second
only to inflation and unemployment.
Despite the talk about an environmental backlash, and the
hand wringing about the loss of momentum, I find no evidence of
any erosion in the environmental movement. Organizations such
as yours and the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society report that
their enrollments and donations are increasing. In a recent
survey of middle-class attitudes, Business Week declared that
a "new conservation ethic is taking hold," reflecting a changing
public attitude toward economic growth. Ihe magazine quoted
another Harris poll which found that citizens' groups enjoyed
the highest support in environmental matters. As Harris observed,
people "want to be involved, and they want to be part of the solu-
tion."
Mankind has made enormous strides in science and technology
in this century. We have made the dreams of science-fiction
writers seem pale against the reality of cur achievements — in
space, in medicine, in the creation of labor-saving machinery. But
cur knowledge has also made us arrogant, and too often careless
of the side-effects of this technology.
Before we degrade the seas with cur pollutants, before we
lay down any more new carcinogens or wipe out any more species.
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MB should remember that we are connected to all life. Man also
is a fragile, endangered species, still dependent ultimately after
millions of years for the very air he breathes on siirple cellular
plant life in the sea. We oust keep in mind what Sir Francis Bacon
said nearly four Gentries ago: "We cannot ocnnand nature except
by obeying her."
The Gulf and the oceans beyond have enriched our lives by
their abundance and their beauty. May we continue to respect
these vast waters, this vibrant sea to which all life on earth
is bound. With care and planning and foresight we can meet the
needs of our society and still protect the web of life between
sea and land. If nothing else, our instinct for self-preservation
ccimandg us to do so.
With the increasing understanding of environmental problems
and with the very real progress we have made and are continuing
to make in dealing with those problems, there is considerable room
for optimism. Yet I would be less than honest if I did not admit
to a very real sense of concern for the future. I see ahead con-
tinued population growth in the world, energy shortages and growing
imbalances in the allocation of resources. Mankind's efforts to
solve his resource problems — whether of energy or food or other-
wise — will inevitably increase the stresses on the natural
environment. Economic problems of unemployment and inflation add
significantly to the difficulty of dealing with these problems.
Moreover, the more critical our immediate needs appear to be,
the greater the likelihood that decisions will emphasize short-
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term benefits at the expense of long-term costs.
Thus, for the foreseeable future, the conflicts — both real
and apparent — between environmental protection and economic
benefits are going to worsen. In government, vie need political
leaders who are sensitive to the broad range of values — economic,
environmental and social — which are implicit in resource manage-
ment issues. Thus, increasingly it seems to me that, as we deal with
issues such as surface mining, we must take into account not only
the more obvious environmental and econonic concerns but also the
human concerns — the impacts on people themselves — their culture,
their way of life, and the quality of that life. In the private
sector, we need more than ever before informed, vigilant, and
vigorous citizen involvement in planning and decision-making.
In this 70th year of the National Audubon Society, it is good
to be proud of what you have accomplished over the years. But
just remember — the next 30 years are going to be the most important
and the toughest. And we are going to need, more than ever, all
the wisdom and the skill and the vigor that, for 70 years, have
kept you growing younger and stronger by the year.
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