United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Awareness (A-107)
Washington, DC 20460
Volume 7
Number 1
January 1981
Education and the Environment
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Understanding
the Environment
In this issue EPA Journal takes
a look at the myriad efforts
being made to educate peo-
ple about the natural water, air,
and land systems upon which
all life is utterly dependent.
The magazine includes re-
ports on approaches to environ-
mental education and ecology
—the study of the relationship
of living things to each other
and their environment—at some
universities and institutions.
The issue also includes ar-
ticles on the activities of various
environmental organizations
since so much of our informa-
tion and understanding of the
world's troubles and needs are
learned outside the school
system.
Some of the most eloquent
and blunt writing about the
principles of ecology was pro-
duced by Shakespeare in
Hamlet when he wrote lines
like the following:
"A man may fish with the
worm that hath eat of a king,
and eat of the fish that hath fed
of that worm."
"We fat all creatures else to
fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots."
"Imperious Caesar, dead and
turned to clay, might stop a
hole to keep the wind away."
Failure to have a firm grasp
of the basic principles of
ecology has led to the destruc-
tion of some civilizations and
the impoverishment of others.
One of the problems today
in this era of highly trained biol-
ogists is that there has been a
tendency to focus, almost myo-
pically, on too narrow segments
of the environment.
An unfortunate result is that
we risk losing our sense of the
naturalworldasawholewith
all its combatand blood,
disease and death, and beauty
and glory.
A distinguished ecologist,
Eugene P. Odum, in an article
in this issue, warns that environ-
mental education has become
too fragmented. Noting that
energy and environmental prob-
lems appear hopelessly com-
plicated when viewed piece-
meal, Odum emphasizes the
need for taking an overview so
that humans and nature can be
recoupled in a more harmonious
whole.
One of the more provocative
articles is by Lord Eric Ashby,
a noted British scientist who
observes that it is sometimes
necessary to use "shock
tactics" to get corrective action
for environmental ills.
Commenting on the failure of
some authoritative and meticu-
lously accurate scientific
reports to arouse public action,
Ashby notes that the philos-
opher Alfred North Whitehead
stated that "it is more impor-
tant that a proposition be inter-
esting than that it be true."
While we recognize the
enormous value of being inter-
esting, we pursue the elusive
goal of being both readable
and accurate. D
Youngsters examining marine life at Outreach Program in Baltimore public school as part of environmental studies.
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Awareness (A-107)
Washington DC 20460
Volume 7
Number 1
January 1981
SEPA JOURNAL
Douglas M. Costle, Administrator
Joan Martin Nicholson, Director, Office of Public Awareness
Charles D. Pierce, Editor
Truman Temple, Associate Editor
John Heritage, Managing Editor
Chris Perham, Assistant Editor
Articles
EPA is charged by Congress to
protect the Nation's land, air and
water systems. Under a mandate
of national environmental laws
focused on air and water quali-
ty, solid waste management and
the control of toxic substances,
pesticides, noise and radiation,
the Agency strives to formulate
and implement actions which
lead to a compatible balance be-
tween human activities and the
ability of natural systems to sup-
port and nurture life.
Photo credits:
National Park Service; Docu-
merica; U.S. Department of
Energy, Jack Schneider; Sandia
Laboratories; U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Soil Conservation
Service, John 0. Dean; Smith-
sonian Institution, Chesapeake Bay
Center for Environmental Studies,
Anneke Davis; World Health
Organization, T. S. Santyan;
National Aquarium In Baltimore;
Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences; Center for Environ-
mental Education; Mike Cohen;
Agency for International Develop-
ment; United Nations/Food and
Agriculture Organization; Jane
and Don Kellogg; Philadelphia
Inquirer/Gerard C. Benene.
Front and Back Covers: Illustration
by Betty Fraser for National Park
Service publication "Everglades
Wildguide" about the wonders of
Everglades National Park in
Florida. Made available by the
Park Service's Division of
Publications. (See P. 29)'
Design Credits: Robert Flanagan,
Donna Kazaniwsky and Ron Farrah
Environment
Education, And
Technology
EPA Administrator Douglas
Costle discusses the need for
a better education in environ-
mental management.
Looking
At The Whole 4
A distinguished ecologist,
Eugene P. Odum, deplores the
fragmentation of environmental
education and urges a broader
approach.
An Earth Ethic 6
Thomas L. Kimball of the
National Wildlife Federation
suggests ways that private
organizations can popularize
environmental information.
UNESCO's Efforts
In Environmental
Education 8
William B. Stapp discusses
measures taken to help people
around the world understand
environment.
Considering
The Connections
11
Joan Nicholson, Director of
the EPA Office of Public
Awareness, warns that society
must relate environmental
quality to other questions or
suffer grave consequences.
Departments
Training And Manpower
In Environmental
Quality 14
Don Cook of EPA's Office of
Exploratory Research discusses
the workforce needed to man-
age environmental problems.
Learning On
The Chesapeake
16
The Chesapeake Bay Center
for Environmental Studies is
using novel methods to teach
ecology.
A New Approach
To Environmental
Education 19
Edward W. Weidner, Chan-
cellor of the University of
Wisconsin—Green Bay, de-
scribes the problem-oriented
approach to studies at his
institution.
Igniting The Public
Conscience
Lord Eric Ashby, world-famous
British scientist, asks if it is
morally defensible to use
"shock tactics" to alert the
public to environmental
dangers, and comes up with a
provocative answer.
Wild In
Philadelphia
Eco-shows produced by the
Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Sciences help students
learn the fundamentals of
ecology.
EPA's Role In
Educating Youth
26
Mattie Montgomery describes
how EPA informs youth about
environmental problems.
Alligators
And the World
A brief survey of the ways that
various nature centers are
helping the public to understand
the intricate web of life.
EPA, Guam
And Environmental
Education
A report on how EPA is work-
ing to keep this beautiful
Pacific island free of pollution.
The Greening Of The
Gray Panthers
Recycling the talents of older
Americans into public interest
work, including environmental
awareness, is the mission of
an outstanding woman,
Maggie Kuhn.
Almanac 33
People 34
Update 36
Around the Nation
News Briefs 40
38
The EPA Journal is published
monthly, with combined issues
July August and November-Decem-
ber, by the U S Environmental
Protection Agency Use of funds for
printing this periodical has been
approved by the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget
Views expressed by authors do not
necessarily reflect EPA policy Con-
tributions and inquiries should be
addressed to the Editor (A-107),
Waterside Mali. 401 M St , S W .
Washington, DC 20460 No per
mission necessary to reproduce
contents except copyrighted photos
and other materials Subscription
S1 2 00 a year, SI 20 for single
copy, domestic, S15 00 if mailed to
a foreign address No charge to
employees Send check or money
order to Superintendent of Docu-
ments. U S Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C 20402
Text printed on recycled paper
-------
Environmentally Speaking
Environrnjen^
Ten years ago, I doubt that one Ameri-
can in 500 knew what "ecology"
meant. If pressed to define it, I sus-
pect many Americans would have guessed
it had something do with where you go after
graduating from high school.
Today, by contrast, probably one in three
of us knows what "ecology" means.
Or, at least, we think we do. The word
"ecology" has a precise meaning. It refers
to an intellectual discipline that is one
branch of the physical sciences, in exactly
the same sense as are physics and chemis-
try. But most Americans use "ecology" as
a synonym for "environment." We must,
they believe, "clean up our ecology." This
is roughly equivalent to arguing that, before
expanding the use of nuclear power, we
must protect our physics ... or, in another
sphere, that precinct captains are vital to
our political science.
Whether they use the word properly or
not, most Americans are aware, in a general
way, of the relationship between them-
selves and their habitat . . . and they want
their home cleaned up. Congress and
various Administrations have translated
that desire into laws, and these laws retain
broad public support.
Expanded Definitions
But there is harm in the imprecise use of
the term "ecology" by both the most mili-
tant advocates of environmental protection,
and its most militant opponents. In a
paradoxical way, bitter as these two groups
can be toward each other, their definitions
of "ecology" go full circle and meet in
common agreement.
To some executives in industry, for
example, "ecology" means environmental
impact statements, protesters being hauled
away from nuclear plants, and endless liti-
gation against industrial projects by the
Friends of the Raccoon. And to some envi-
ronmentalists "ecology" seems to mean a
passionate desire to make America a place
Scientists examine sorghum grown with aid of
irradiated sludge at Department of Energy's
Sandia Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Education And Technology
By Douglas M. Costle,
EPA Administrator
where the deer and the antelope roam, and
no factory ever rears its ugly smokestack.
They agree on only one thing: that ecology
and technology are opposed to each other.
The result, on one side, is that a con-
siderable amount of corporate ingenuity is
devoted to circumventing environmental
regulation, rather than seeking better, more
efficient ways to comply with it; and on the
other, that a considerable amount of envi-
ronmental rhetoric is directed at the man-
agers, engineers, and producers who are
our best hope for resolving our environmen-
tal problems. What is needed is a better
educated society—in the broadest sense of
the word—in environmental management.
Let me emphasize that this is not a hymn
of praise for American industry. Left to its
own devices—left only to regulation by the
market system, with no intervention by our
political system—industry would have
pursued its damaging ways, and presented
us with a Nation vastly more polluted than
it is now. And our political system would
not have been moved to act without pres-
sure from those early environmentalists
who were invariably regarded as kooks and
radicals. That first Earth Day was labeled
"subversive" by the Daughters of the
American Revolution, and its dangerous
goings-on were closely monitored by the
FBI.
Some people are caught in the middle of
this dispute. They deal in technology—
but apply it to ecology. They symbolize
what we need: a marriage between these
two "ologies." Part of our environmental
education must be an awareness that we
cannot solve some of our most pressing
ecological problems without technology.
Using Energy Wisely
Energy, for example, is probably our great-
est single environmental and economic
problem. Its production and combustion
present hazards to our waters, our fishery
resources, our air quality, and—in the form
of acid rain—to the productivity of forests
and soil. The increase in atmospheric car-
bon dioxide, many scientists believe, could
result in a disastrous elevation of tempera-
tures around the globe.
There is no question in my mind that
energy conservation in this and other
developed countries is our best, cheapest,
and most quickly available "source" of
energy. But there is also no question that—
though conservation must become a way of
life in a crowded, resource-limited world—
we must also develop new sources to
replace our dwindling stock of petroleum.
Developing those sources will require the
most skillful applications of technology.
For example:
• The photovoltaic cell, which transforms
sunlight into electrical current, is not yet
economically competitive with traditional
methods of generating electricity. However,
it is rapidly becoming more so. When these
cells were first employed, mainly on space
satellites, they produced electricity at the
rate of $1 million per peak kilowatt. Today
the cost is down to about $6,000. It will be
competitive when we further reduce that
cost to $1,000. In order to do that, we need
breakthroughs in the technology of produc-
ing and processing silicon. Further, to make
these cells as versatile an energy source as
possible—to make sure the electricity
doesn't stop flowing when the sun goes
down—we need major improvements in
the technologies for energy storage.
• The municipal refuse that we now dump
in landfills and burn in incinerators con-
tains a tremendous amount of energy—
enough to meet the lighting needs of every
residential and commercial building in the
country. Yet today, we make use of but one
percent of that energy. To better that record
substantially, we will need to improve
current technologies, in addition to over-
corning political and institutional barriers
to resource recovery.
• The energy potential of crop and forest
wastes is more massive yet: by one recent
estimate, forest wastes alone could supply
seven to eight percent of the Nation's en-
ergy needs. Yet to harness more than a frac-
tion of that potential will require a series of
technological breakthroughs. Identifying
new enzymes to speed the breakdown of
cellulose, for example, could substantially
cut the costs of producing methanol from
these wastes; and inventing better methods
for distilling the fuel would likewise add to
its economic attractiveness.
Needed: Managerial Innovation
There are other ways in which we must rely
on technology to help us resolve ecological
problems. Among the specific tasks that
might be cited are these:
• The problem of disposing of sludge from
wastewater treatment would be vastly sim-
plified if we could apply more of the mate-
rial to farmland—and thereby reclaim its
value as a plant nutrient. However, this
requires removing some of the water, as
well as the small quantities of toxic sub-
stances often found in the sludge. With
current technology, it can be done, but it's
a cumbersome and expensive process.
Here again, simpler and cheaper tech-
nologies are needed.
• Small communities today cannot afford
the systems that would safeguard their
water supplies from a variety of contami-
nants—especially the toxic substances that
pose a long-term risk of cancer, genetic
mutation, and a range of other health
impacts. Thus, there is an urgent need for
inexpensive technologies that fit the
budgets of our smaller cities and towns.
• This country generates roughly 50 million
tons of hazardous waste each year. Much
of that will have to be disposed of in land-
fills or impoundments. But certain common
constituents of hazardous waste—such as
RGB's—retain their toxicity for literally
centuries. Thus we need technologies that
will make disposal sites secure for at least
several human generations.
This would be a tough agenda to handle
even in economically easy times. It is vastly
more so in a period of high inflation and
Continued to inside back cover
JANUARY 1981
-------
Looking At
The Whole
By Eugene P. Odum
Evironmental education has become
excessively •fragmented into bits and
pieces as has the education profession
in general. There are literally dozens of
well-meaning special interest groups such
as foresters, soil conservationists, hunters
and fishermen, recreationists, nature pres-
ervationists, industrial engineers, govern-
ment bureaus and so on, each bombarding
the public and the schools with their care-
fully slanted or stratified facts and figures
regarding the environment. It would seem
that there is too much attention being given
to the trees and not enough emphasis on
the forest, to cite an all-too-common
complaint.
The new science of ecosystem ecology
that has emerged during the past decade
provides a basis for a more holistic
approach to environmental education.
Surprisingly, application of basic principles
of the ecosystem is easy to teach because
they correspond to common-sense wisdom
embodied in our traditional culture as is so
admirably reflected in its proverbs. A
couple of examples will suffice to illustrate.
Haste Makes Waste
This familiar admonition makes a good
heading for a chapter on energy in eco-
systems, since it expresses an important
aspect of the entropy law, also known as
the second law of thermodynamics, one of
the most important natural laws. The
success of any system, whether man-made
or natural, depends not only on the quantity
and quality of its energy source but also on
how efficiently the source is converted into
useful work capable of maintaining the
system as a whole. As energy is converted
from one form to another to accomplish
a useful function or transformation, the
quantity is reduced by an inevitable heat
loss, but the quality of that which is passed
on may be increased. Thus, in the well-
known food chain conversions it takes
about 500-1,000 units (calories, for
example) of low quality sun energy to make
10 units of higher quality plant material
which in turn can be converted into 1-2
units of still higher quality meat.
When easily convertible energy is plen-
tiful, then both man and nature tend to
haste and make waste, which in turn re-
quires additional energy to cope with the
disorder created by the growth in size and
by the waste products produced. In theory,
negative feedback then acts to slow down
the haste and increase efficiency. We do
observe that in natural ecosystems growth
slows down, energy is used more efficiently
and stores of high quality energy are estab-
lished in the biomass as the ecosystem
develops from a pioneer stage to maturity.
The same things happen if the inflow of
energy or its quality is reduced for what-
ever reason. The common sense notion of
saving for a rainy day becomes appropriate
when saturation levels of use are
approached since energy and resources are
always subject to periodic fluctuations in
the real world.
Both common sense and the entropy law
dictate that man should respond to an
energy crisis in the same general way as
does nature, but energy conservation as a
public policy does not have the appeal that
the search for glamorous new sources
provides. Unfortunately, finding new
sources does not necessarily resolve an
energy crisis if a lot of the new-found
energy has to be used to develop and
maintain the new flow and to deal with new
and perhaps more toxic waste products.
For example, fusion atomic energy might
not prove to be the bonanza we expect
since much energy will be needed to cool
EPA JOURNAL
-------
down the reaction from millions of degrees
to a usable level. So far in fusion research
the break-even point, where as much energy
is produced as is required to produce it,
has not yet been achieved even on a small
scale.
Quantity vs. Quality
Not only do natural laws rule against having
speed and efficiency at the same time but
they also make it difficult to have high
quality and large quantity simultaneously.
Increasing the quantity of resources in-
creases the potential for rapid growth, but
such growth may come at the expense of
the quality of the individual and/or the
quality of life for the individual. In the
extreme, fast growth can become dis-
orderly like cancer and threaten survival of
life itself. The eutrophication or enrichment
by pollutants of natural lakes provides an
illustration of the quantity-quality dilemma.
When nutrients from sewage are put into
the lake, the number of organisms and the
rate of organic production increases but
weed-type organisms such as small,
scummy algae and trash fish replace the
diatoms, attractive water plants, and game
fish. If enrichment is intensified more and
more kinds of organisms are eliminated,
even as those which remain multiply like
the out-of-control cells in a cancerous
organ. One cannot be certain that the dis-
covery of a new unlimited and cheap energy
source, granting it's possible, would really
be a boon for humankind. It might just be
too much of a good thing that would con-
vert the world into one big, overpopulated
cesspool, an undesirable "whole earth" if
ever there was onel
All in all, then, the judicious solution to
the energy, food, water or other similar
crises is to cut down on haste in order to
reduce waste, increase efficiency and buy
time to improve the quality of human life;
at the same time, without undue haste, we
can look into our options for adjusting
supply and demand. To act on such com-
mon sense judgment requires not only
science and technology dedicated to such
goals, but reordered political and economic
objectives, which are more difficult to
achieve and today are much too strongly
geared to promote growth and waste. Here
is where environmental education needs
to focus: on the benefits of promoting
quality over quantity.
The Need For Diversity
Two common sayings, "Don't put all your
eggs in one basket," and "Variety is the
spice of life," would make a good base for
future design that can couple man and
nature more harmoniously. Few of us
would disagree that it is unwise, and
usually downright foolhardy, to put all
one's money, or whatever, into only one
venture. Naturalists for centuries have
marveled at the diversity of life in natural
systems, and modern ecologists have gen-
erally agreed that there is efficiency and
safety in diversity, although they are not
sure just why and how diversification
evolves. The idea is that a diverse eco-
system is better able to use the energy and
resources available and better able to resist
adversity. However, it is also clear that
diversity has an energy cost of its own so
that one can have too much as well as too
little variety. Right now our concern in
human society is with too little. Industrial
societies have often thrived on the short-
term basis by putting all the eggs in one
basket. Thus, in the U.S.A. we put most of
our transportation eggs in the auto basket,
a lot of the energy eggs in the oil basket,
too much of our hair spray in aerosol cans,
and so on. Also, more and more we concen-
trate on one or a very few kinds of grain,
or species of trees, for the food and forest
baskets. All the while we seem fully aware
that this sort of strategy invites the over-
shoot, the boom and the bust, as it were.
One reason we do it is that high profits and
rapid growth come when we concentrate
on promoting single products. We assume
that when the diminishing returns set in we
can quickly and easily shift to another
basket. But what if we do not have another
basket ready when the one we have been
using breaks, or what if the eggs we lost
have not been paid for? Then there will be
serious transition losses including perhaps
economic depressions and social disorders
as we struggle to recoup losses and organ-
ize another basket as is so evident in the
financial losses suffered by the American
automobile industry as it belatedly retools
for production of fuel-efficient cars. If we
can only heed the common sense warning
in these matters and recognize and act on
the premise that variety is not only the
spice of life (quality factor) but also a
valuable stabilizing factor, then we should
be able to devise the means to promote
diversification. As already noted there
would be a cost to such a strategy, and we
would have to be convinced that this cost
is less than the transition losses inherent
in the boom and bust model. The evolu-
tionary success of diversification in nature
would seem to indicate that this is indeed
the case.
The Bottom Line
My theme has been that common sense
notions representing human wisdom of the
ages provide a basis for seeking holistic
solutions of problems of energy and envi-
ronment which appear hopelessly compli-
cated when viewed piecemeal. Accordingly,
environmental education should focus on
holism. I cited several examples to show
how the principles of ecosystem ecology
can be expressed and easily taught in terms
of this common sense wisdom. When we
do take an overview of problems related
directly or indirectly to environment it
becomes clear that the time has come to
recouple the two "houses" of man, the
man-made urban-industrial system and the
natural environment life support system.
During the industrial age these two vital
parts of our total existence have become
too far separated in our minds and actions,
leading to dangerous inequities of value
and performance. To recouple man and
nature into a more harmonious whole
requires that science and technology be
integrated with reordered social, economic
and political goals—a most difficult task.
Particularly difficult is getting value of
goods and services of nature into the eco-
nomic system which now deals almost
exclusively with man-made values. It is
tempting to wish for a benevolent dictator
who could act for the good of the whole so
as to prevent, or at least blunt, the over-
shoot that comes with going too fast, too
far. But we are immediately reminded of an-
other wise saying that power corrupts!
Benevolent dictators do not remain bene-
volent for very long; being human they are
likely to abuse their power to the detriment
of basic human rights. The best we can
hope for is a massive educational effort at
all levels of the media so that an informed
public can select leaders who see the whole
as well as the parts; and who, we might
add, can be recalled if they abuse their
political power. In the meantime, there is
much to be learned from study of how
natural ecosystems survive the same kind
of growth problems now facing
civilization. Q
Eugene P. Odum has been Director of the
Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia
since 1960. He is author of several books on
ecology and wildlife.
Algae caused by eutrophication in Lake
Tahoe, Calif.
JANUARY 1981
-------
By Thomas M. Kimball
An Earth Ethic
A citizens we know that the quality of
our life in the future will be deter-
mined in large measure by how
environmentally aware the world's popula-
tion can become. As educators we know
that two things are necessary to develop
that awareness: caring and knowledge.
Together, care and knowledge can be
translated into the understanding we need
to solve our environmental problems.
We need people in the environmental
movement who care about the condition of
the Earth, because as the American poet
e. e. cummings would say, "feeling is
first." If people care about streams and
rivers, about oceans, and air, soil, and
water, about people and, of course, about
wildlife, they are ready to learn how they
can help. Only after they have been awak-
ened to the beauties of the natural world
can they be enlisted in the struggle to
protect it. And protect it we must. That is
a matter of survival, and environmental
education is survival education.
We also need people with knowledge.
We can't expect everyone to become a
pollution expert, but we can expect them
to know that to preserve our natural re-
sources we must clean up pollution by
controlling the sources of pollution. We
can't expect everyone to become an expert
on estuarlne ecology, but we can expect
them to know why wetland areas constitute
some of our richest and most productive
wildlife habitat. We know that it took
professional researchers to discover the
insidious effects of DDT on wildlife, but
we know that it took informed citizens and
lawmakers with a love for wildlife to call
a halt to the depredation by banning the
use of DDT. So, we know that when people
who care are given the facts they will stand
up for a better world environment.
Care and knowledge are, therefore, the
two keys to a quality environment.
How do we use those keys? How do
organizations like the National Wildlife
Federation, the National Audubon Society,
and the Wildlife Management Institute
fit in?
I see two specific areas where I feel
non-governmental groups can have a major
impact on the enhancement and protec-
tion of environmental quality. First, we can
interpret scientific data as it is developed.
Second, we can communicate this infor-
mation to the public. If we are not now
fulfilling these functions, if we a re not
serving as the leading edge of the environ-
mental movement, we should be. We
should and we must work toward the
development of an informed citizenry that
is willing to make its voice heard, and we
must do this by shouldering a major share
of the responsibility for popularizing infor-
mation about the environment.
Creating An 'Earth Ethic'
I think we have already made important
contributions in these areas. There already
has been a tremendous increase in the
public's awareness of environmental
matters and I believe that non-govern-
mental environmental education groups can
take a great deal of credit for this wide-
spread awakening to the needs of our
world. Before the late 1960's, the media
made little mention of environmental
problems. Then, in the period leading up to
the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, we
began to see more and more features
dealing with the environment. Today, we
find accounts of environmental issues
appearing regularly in most major news-
papers and magazines. We also notice that
those who write these articles have a more
comprehensive understanding of the
ramifications of an oil spill, or the con-
struction of a new dam or shopping center.
I think this new awareness is due in great
measure to the efforts of the environmental
education community. I think we have
already begun to establish an Earth ethic
in which ail people see themselves as a
part of the Earth, and not apart from it.
We must develop educational materials
for the schools—materials that will be
used by them. We also must develop
materials for the general public that will
make the best possible use of available
data. And we must improve the distribution
of the materials we develop; information
that stays on warehouse shelves educates
no one.
Helping The Teachers
How can we be sure that the materials we
prepare for use in the schools will meet
the actual needs of teachers and students?
Let me tell you of a recent National
Wildlife Federation experience.
For more than four decades, the Federa-
tion has sponsored an annual National
Wildlife Week. Each year we attempt to
improve the materials we provide teachers
for the observance of this event. Recently
we sen; a questionnaire to 200 teachers
who had responded to a notice in Instructor
magazine offering free Wildlife Week
Education Kits for classroom use. We
asked for ideas for improving the packet
and replies poured in from teachers of
young students telling us they would like
more materials that could be used to
awaken environmental awareness in the
early grades. So we visited teachers in
nearby Fairfax County, Va., to determine
how we could meet this need. The answer
amazed us; these teachers all said they
wanted pictures of wildlife. We were non-
plussed to realize that although we publish
pictures of wildlife in our magazines all
the time, we had not been using them to
best advantage in our Wildlife Week Kits.
We had been too close to the trees to see
the forest.
So, we subsequently included a special
poster composed of 1 6 small pictures of
animals with information about each of
them on the reverse of the poster, and
added two and one-half pages of ideas
for using the pictures.
My point is that we went to the teachers
themselves for ideas about their needs
and then developed our materials to fill
that need. By doing that we have helped
them to help their students discover new
aspects of the world around them.
Still, thai is not enough. It would be,
if every teacher had a background in
ecology and the interrelationships in the
EPA JOURNAL
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I f<
volunteer youth group collecting litter nt Fort Smith Ark.
natural world. Unfortunately, that is not
the case. So we must also provide the
schools with information that will train
teachers in using the data we prepare for
the classroom.
I believe that education of our children
is the major, long-term answer to a healthy
environment for the future, but it is obvious
that most of the current population is no
longer in school. If we are to win today's
battle for the environment, we must also
reach the adults who are voting now,
making decisions that will have a significant
effect on our world for the next few years.
If we do not meet that educational chal-
lenge, we are all in very serious trouble.
How do we meet the challenge? First,
we must increase our efforts to spread the
word through printed materials, news
releases, films, radio and television
announcements, seminars, and continuing
education programs. We must develop
the public's awareness that there are
acceptable solutions to nearly every prob-
lem, whether it involves the diversion of a
road around an important wildlife habitat
area, the consideration of alternate forms
of energy, or the control of pests by meth-
ods that will not poison the environment.
Having thus engaged the public's atten-
tion and proposed solutions to the problems
facing them, we have a further responsi-
bility to expand the general understanding
of the issues involved. To do that, we
must provide for widespread distribution
of materials that define the immediate and
long-term costs and benefits of actions that
affect the environment. To assure broad
dissemination of the facts, we must keep
our materials simple and inexpensive.
National Wildlife Federation, for instance,
limits most of its educational publications
to a single topic and offers them free to
the public on a single copy basis. The
growing demand for these publications
has convinced us that more impressive,
highly technical materials which the
average person could neither understand
nor afford would be a waste of our limited
time and money.
Finally, we must encourage the public's
participation in the environmental debate
by helping them to understand the methods
that are available to them for making their
opinions known. It is, as we have all had
occasion to learn, sad to lose a battle
because we did not have sufficient infor-
mation; it is tragic to lose because our
voices were not heard.
To avoid that tragedy, our organizations
must be effective in guiding the population
along the path from a first consciousness
of the value of nature because of the beauty
it adds to their lives, toward a search for
knowledge that will reveal the power
humankind has to manipulate nature. It is
up to us, as environmental educators, to see
that all citizens then come to understand
their proper role as stewards of the Earth
and exercise their power responsibly.
Then we shall see how care and knowl-
edge can be used to unlock a healthy
future for the environment, n
Thomas Kimball is Executive Vice President of
the National Wildlife Federation
JANUARY 1981
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By William B. Stapp
UNESCO's Efforts
In Environmental Education
Environmental problems exist in all
countries of the world and at every
stage of economic development and
political ideology. Developing countries
frequently experience problems associated
with underdevelopment or poorly planned
development. These include poor farming
techniques leading to soil erosion and
depletion, improper management of forest
resources, inadequate health and nutrition
practices, and the lack of educational
programs to help resolve these problems.
Other developing countries have adopted
inappropriate measures based upon short-
term gains not suited to existing situations.
These strategies have led to the rapid
depletion of resources, increased pollution,
and in some instances, the spread of
disease.
Many developed countries also face
severe environmental problems. Some of
their more critical problems are industrial
pollution, overoxploitation of resources,
and a variety of social and physical prob-
lems confronting metropolitan areas.
When development programs are not
planned adequately, they may result in
resource deterioration, such as the reduc-
tion in quantity and quality of minerals,
land, forests, or aquatic sites; biological
pollution by organisms that cause disease
in humans; chemical contamination result-
ing from effluents, pesticides, or other
materials; and physical pollution, such as
noise, silting, thermal wastes, or visual
blight.
Such environmental problems cannot be
resolved only through technological
means. Consideration must also be given to
their social and economic roots. We will
be facing the same environmental prob-
lems in the future and breeding new ones,
until we identify their causes and develop
programs to help resolve them.
It is evident that there can be no hope
of finding workable solutions to environ-
mental problems unless we modify educa-
tion so that people from all walks of life can
comprehend the fundamental interaction
between humans and their environment.
Within the attitudes of our population lie
the behavioral roots of such problems as
pollution, wasted energy, and the de-
struction of the environment. There is a
general lack of a global ethic encom-
passing the world environment, an ethic
that helps individuals and societies think
and act in a way that recognizes humanity's
place and critical role in the biosphere.
The Stockholm Resolution
The United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
became involved in environmental educa-
tion as a direct result of a recommendation
at the United Nations Conference on the
Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972.
The recommendation stated that "organiza-
tions of the United Nations system,
especially UNESCO, should establish an
international program in environmental
education, interdisciplinary in approach,
in-school and out-of-school, encompassing
all levels of education and directed toward
the general public, in particular the
ordinary citizen living in rural and urban
areas, youth and adult alike, with a view
to educating people as to simple steps one
might take to manage and control one's
environment." Furthermore, the Confer-
ence called for UNESCO to work with
all appropriate United Nations agencies,
international non-governmental organiza-
tions, and the 148 member nations to
develop a framework for furthering environ-
mental education internationally. A direct
result was the intergovernmental con-
ference on environmental education held
in Tbilisi, U.S.S.R., in October 1977, to
formulate and adopt international, regional,
and national policies on environmental
education.
In September of 1974, I accepted the
position as the first director of UNESCO's
international environmental education
program. I served in this category for
two years and have since continued to
work with the program on a consulting
basis.
In October of 1974, UNESCO convened
a consultation meeting with representa-
tives from many United Nations Agencies,
international government environmental
education organizations, and experts in
environmental education from each region
of the world.
An outcome of this meeting was a
UNESCO proposal, later approved, to the
United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) for a $2 million grant for a period
of three years. The resulting UNESCO-
UNEP effort would help develop an inter-
national program in environmental educa-
tion; promote the international exchange of
information on this subject; coordinate
research in teaching and learning; and
formulate and assess new methods,
materials, and programs.
Four-Year Plan
The strategy consisted of four phases,
each requiring about one year of prepara-
tion and execution. The first phase was to
develop a comprehensive bibliography and
working documents for an international
workshop held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia;
to assess needs and priorities of UNESCO
member nations; and to establish a network
^ystem for environmental education. The
second consisted of a series of regional
workshops that revised the Belgrade
recommendations to meet regional needs
better and the funding of twenty-five pifot
environmental education projects. The
third phase was the convening of the
conference in Tbilisi. The fourth was to
help carry out recommendations adopted
at the intergovernmental conference,
assign environmental education experts to
each of the UNESCO regional offices,
encourage development of national en-
vironmental education plans, and build a
stronger financial commitment for environ-
mental education with UNESCO.
Asa result of the UNEP grant, UNESCO
was able to increase its staff and consul-
tants in the environmental education
program.
The first year of the program {1 975)
laid out a four-year strategy: to prepare a
funding proposal for UNEP; to survey the
world literature in environmental educa-
8
EPA JOURNAL
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tion; to prepare a series of "State of the
Art" papers in environmental education;
to undertake a world-wide assessment of
requirements in environmental education;
to arrange for consultant missions to every
developing country; to start a network
system in environmental education; and
to prepare for an international meeting in
Belgrade that October.
Dr. David Lockard of the University of
Maryland reviewed and abstracted world
environmental education literature for the
"State of the Art" papers. He covered
such areas as philosophy, early childhood,
elementary and secondary level education,
tertiary level education, training of
specialists and teachers, youth and adult
programs, methodologies, learning environ-
ments, instructional materials, evaluations,
and national, regional, and international
programs. Environmental education ex-
perts from around the world were con-
tracted to prepare papers on these topics.
We drew up and sent to every UNESCO
member nation a questionnaire to identify
national needs and priorities within seven
areas of environmental education: pro-
grams, instructional materials, training of
personnel, physical facilities, funding,
organizations, and legislation.
Resulting papers identified programs,
materials, individuals, organizations, and
institutions active in the field of environ-
mental education around the world. This
material proved invaluable in developing
environmental education documentation
centers at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris
and in the various UNESCO Regional
Offices. The information also contributed
to the establishment of a computerized
world-wide directory of individuals,
organizations, and institutions active in
environmental education. This network
presently has over 10,000 names and is
available in print through UNESCO.
The above material provided a series of
valuable working documents for the
Belgrade Workshop, as well as an impor-
tant base on which to continue to build the
UNESCO-UNEP program.
The 1975 Belgrade Workshop brought
together twenty environmental education
experts from various regions of the world
ental
to refine the "State of the Art" papers,
which were subsequently published as a
UNESCO book in five languages. These
experts identified additional resources for
the international bibliography on environ-
mental education, which was later pub-
lished in three languages by the Interna-
tional Bureau of Education. The workshop
provided a framework for environmental
education, including its objectives and
made recommendations for the promo-
tion of world-wide environmental educa-
tion. Each region promised to convene a
local environmental education meeting
to revise the recommendations of the
Belgrade Workshop to meet their own
needs.
About one year after the Belgrade
workshop, regional environmental educa-
tion meetings were held in each of five
UNESCO regions: Bogota, Colombia;
Brazzaville, the Federal Republic of the
Congo; Kuwait; Bangkok, Thailand; and
Helsinki, Finland. A subregional meeting
was also held in St. Louis, Mo.
Following Belgrade, we published the
first issue of Connect, a quarterly inter-
national newsletter distributed to over
10,000 individuals and organizations that
form the international environmental edu-
cation network. Printed in five languages,
the newsletter has linked people and
programs in this subject throughout the
world. The Tbilisi conference in October
1977, attracted delegations from approxi-
mately 70 countries, eight organizations,
and 20 international non-governmental
organizations. There were over 265 dele-
gates and an additional 65 representatives
and observers in all.
Carefully prepared working documents
were developed by UNESCO and dis-
tributed to each delegation three months in
advance of the conference. In addition,
most delegations arrived at the conference
with documents regarding environmental
education activities in their nations. As a
result of ten full days of presentations and
dialogue, we discussed resolutions to
promote environmental education at the
global, regional, or national levels. Eventu-
JANUARY1981
-------
ally the conference adopted 41 recom-
mendations.
One of the most important recommen-
dations endorsed world-wide goals, objec-
tives, guiding principles, and targets for
environmental education.
Some other major recommendations of
the conference addressed the following
themes: the role and general scheme of
environmental education; consumption
behavior and the wasteful use of consumer
goods; pre-service teacher education;
in-service training of teachers; initial edu-
cation of professionals; vocational
training; teaching aids and materials. They
also included: research and evaluation;
dissemination of information; environ-
mental education at colleges and universi-
ties; improving the existing methods for
information exchange; social, economic,
cultural, and psychological factors relevant
for environmental education, and coopera-
tion with non-governmental organizations,
as well as specific regional concerns.
There was a strong commitment by both
UNESCO and UNEP at the conference to
integrate environmental education in their
middle-range and long-term plans for
education and to assist member states in
carrying out the 41 major recommenda-
tions adopted at the conference. There was
a remarkable amount of agreement in the
conference at both the conceptual and
strategy levels between the developing and
developed countries and the Eastern and
Western European countries.
The conference ended with the adoption
of a strong report and a commitment from
each delegation to work with its govern-
ment in implementing the recommen-
dations.
UNESCO is currently working with
United Nations agencies, international,
intergovernmental and non-governmental
organizations, regional groups, and na-
tional governments to assist in the imple-
mentation of each recommendation.
Each region has either held or is in the
process of holding regional meetings dedi-
cated to the implementation of the Tbilisi
recommendations. In addition, many na-
tions have convened meetings for a similar
purpose. Some of these nations are:
Czechoslovakia, the Federal Republic of
Germany, Great Britain, Poland, Vene-
zuela, and the United States.
In the United States, a National Leader-
ship Conference organized by the Alliance
for Environmental Education met in
Washington, D.C. in 1978. Conferees re-
viewed recommendations of past national
and international conferences, assessed
the present national situation in this field in
light of recommendations approved at
Tbilisi, and developed a set of recommen-
dations to further environmental education
in the U.S.
Another major event since the Tbilisi
conference was a move to decentralize
UNESCO leadership in environmental edu-
cation. Recently an Environmental Educa-
tion Specialist has been added to each
of the UNESCO Regional Offices in Latin
America, Africa, the Middle East, and
Asia. The responsibilities of these special-
ists vary, but in general they serve to
promote environmental education within
the region by integrating it with all appro-
priate activities sponsored by the regional
office. They also assist nations in
developing environmental education plans
and fostering such programs in other ways.
Future Plans
In addition, UNESCO has integrated
environmental education into its middle-
range plan (covering the period 1977-
1982), increased the Paris Headquarters
staff, and increased the UNESCO budget
for environmental education by over 100
percent in the past four years during an
austerity period.
The United Nations Environment Pro-
gram also has established an Environ-
mental Education post to help coordinate
environmental education and to provide
greater leadership. UNEP continues to
contribute around $800,000 a year to its
environmental education program.
At the 20th General Conference of
UNESCO held in October and November
of 1978, the delegates approved a plan
aimed at helping member nations to incor-
porate environmental education into formal
and non-formal public education with a
view to providing a better understanding
of environmental problems and teaching
people how to foster the preservation and
improvement of the environment. Priorities
during 1979-1980 were given to the
development of environmental education,
training of personnel, and research on
interdisciplinary approaches to environ-
mental education. We also gave support
to innovative activities for the development
of teaching and learning methods and
materials, including the use of mass media
and establishment of national and regional
mechanisms for concerted action for the
development of environmental education.
Although steady progress is being made
in environmental education internationally,
some major challenges still lie ahead.
Greater effort is needed to help agencies
in the United Nations system and other
international organizations identify ways
to further such education. We must remem-
ber that very little action may occur in
environmental education unless nations
plan to help establish and operate environ-
mental education programs and activities.
A great deal has happened since the
1972 Stockholm conference, but much
more still needs to occur. Plans are
already under way to convene a second
Intergovernmental Conference on Environ-
mental Education in 1982 to review the
progress since Tbilisi and to recommend
adjustments as necessary.
Environmental education can lay a
foundation for an environmentally literate
citizenry. This foundation, and continued
environmental education programs, should
make it possible to develop new knowledge
and skills, values and attitudes, in a drive
toward a better quality of environment
and, indeed, toward a higher quality of
life for present and future generations. Q
Dr. Stapp served as UNESCO's first Director
of Environmental Education and is currently
Program Chairperson, Behavior and Environ-
mental Program, School of Natural Re-
sources, University of Michigan.
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EPA JOURNAL
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By Joan M. Nicholson
Considering The Connections
Since the fundamental components of
the environment—land, air, and
water—are the basis of all life and
of human activity, protection of the environ-
ment bears heavily on virtually all the other
human activities, which traditionally we
have considered separately. For the greater
part of human history, populations have
been small and the scope of our technology
limited. Hence, the failure to relate quality
of the environment to such matters as
economics, energy, transportation, and
urban growth did not necessarily lead to
disastrous consequences. Today, this is no
longer true. The pressures of human pop-
ulations and the helter-skelter application
of technology are quite capable of severely
altering the life-supporting capacities of
ecological systems. This means, quite
simply, that the people of this planet must
consider the connections, or perish.
Natural systems are bound together in
complex ways. Waters flow from one body
to another and the air knows no boundaries.
Chemical compounds, both those devel-
oped in natural systems and those created
in recent decades outside the time-tested
boundaries of nature, move up and down
through food chains permeating eco-
systems and affecting plants and animals,
including human beings, in unanticipated
ways. Through the recently recognized
phenomenon of acid rain, air pollution
adversely affects water and aquatic life
hundreds of miles from the sources.
Pollutants applied to the land wash into
surface waters and sink into ground-
waters. Hazardous wastes dumped on the
land contaminate groundwater supplies
with substances that do not degrade and
will maintain their potential for harm far
longer than any human civilization has
endured.
A clear view of the connections between
environmental protection and other social
endeavors would help us avoid or diminish
the unanticipated by-product problems
which have accompanied the application
of science and technology in the past.
It would help us learn to satisfy our basic
needs for food, clothing, sanitation, and
shelter through the optimum use of
resources without paying an unforeseen
cost in pollution and other forms of envi-
ronmental degradation that may threaten
our health and well-being.
In this country we are much farther down
the road toward environmental respon-
sibility than we were a decade ago. The
environmental legislation created or dras-
tically amended in the last decade indicates
that our society realizes that environmental
goals cannot be achieved by pollution con-
trol alone, but must rely also on fore-
sighted environmental policies. We have
already lessened the gross impact of air
and water pollution. Even more important-
ly, on the firm foundation of the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969, we have
begun at last to look before we leap. We
no longer build bridges, power plants,
airports, or darns without first considering
the environmental consequences. Our
society has begun to consider the connec-
tions—a tendency which we must intensify
and expand until we habitually take appro-
priate account of ecological considerations
in our pursuit of critical national and
international goals.
The Environment and Health
Too often, when we hear the word
"environment" we think it's "out there,"
that we are separate from it. In reality,
however, we are associated with the envi-
ronment in numerous complex ways. The
human body is about 60 percent water,
adults breathe a minimum of 1 2,000 quarts
of air every 24 hours, and in many less
obvious ways we are clearly creatures of
this planet. As our physical and social envi-
ronment changes, the physical and chem-
ical make-up of our bodies is altered. As
we consume air, water and food, our bodies
absorb and react to their contents. Noise
and radiation also affect us. The breakdown
of ecological systems mirrors our own
destiny: as land, air, water and living crea-
tures are affected by environmental mis-
management, our lives are diminished.
The most important objective of environ-
mental protection is the prevention of
disease and death. When we overload
natural systems with pollutants and cause
illness and death through acute air pollution
episodes or cause massive fish kills and
threaten drinking water supplies, the rela-
tionship between cause and effect is easy to
see and understand. But in the last decade
we have become acutely aware of the fact
that environmentally-caused death and
disease can occur under much less dramat-
ic and obvious circumstances. Moreover,
since World War II our technological skill
has introduced into the world new sub-
stances which are utterly alien to the
natural processes of the Earth. We no
longer derive the chemicals we use from
naturally-occurring materials only—plants,
animats, and minerals that evolved in the
same environment in which people have
always lived. Through three million years
of trial and error we have learned which of
these substances were edible, which were
useful, and which were dangerous.
Through the chemical revolution we have
created about five million synthetic com-
pounds—three million since 1971 alone.
About 65,000 are in commercial distribu-
tion. Most serve us well, but some pose a
serious threat when used improperly, or
particularly when they enter the environ-
ment in ways that were not intended or
anticipated. Some are dangerous in quanti-
ties so small that they can be detected only
with sophisticated instruments capable of
detecting chemicals present in parts-per-
billion or even parts-per-trillion. Some
cause health problems many years after
exposure. They provide the coup de grace
to the obsolete view that land, air, and
water have an almost unlimited capacity
to absorb pollution. Neither our bodies nor
the natural environment can safely process
the quantities and varieties of pollutants
produced today.
Health effects related to the environment
are not limited to such well-known and
serious ailments as cancer, neurological
damage, or heart and lung diseases.
Environmental pollution also diminishes
well-being, lowers human vitality, contrib-
utes to lost work time, and aggravates
chronic illness.
JANUARY 198'
11
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The economic benefits of environmental
protection are many and varied. The higher
the degree of protection, the greater the
opportunity for individuals and their fami-
lies to lead iull and productive lives.
Society benefits from greater productivity
among workers and from lowered public
health costs. The prevention of environ-
mentally-related diseases is not cheap.
But compared to the costs of the illness and
deaths that protection efforts allow us to
diminish or avoid, the price is surely smali.
The Environment and The Economy
Intense interactions between environmental
and economic goals—each vital to a
healthy society—characterize the current
era of transition, with its changing values
and new views of "costs" and "benefits."
The practice of democracy has stimulated
widespread public involvement in the
day-to-day actions of business. This
involvement occurs both directly and in-
directly, through group pressures and
formal regulations. Environmental qual-
ity is one of the most universal aspects of
increased public involvement.
The link between environment and eco-
nomic activity is obvious. The availability
of natural resources has always been a
basic ingredient of production. Environ-
mental regulation—while rooted in public
health concerns—also helps protect the
economic value of clean air, water, and
land. Contamination of these resources can
result in both physical and economic dis-
asters. Unfortunately, the sometimes
acrimonious debate over how and how
much to regulate sometimes obscures this
longstanding interdependence.
Are unpolluted water resources adequate
for primary industry? Is acid rain damaging
trees and other crops? Are fishing
grounds being despoiled by oil spills?
Concerns such as these illustrate the fact
that traditional economic activity has an
immense stake in the health of the
environment.
Once, it was considered sound business
to maximize the production of goods no
matter what the cost to the environment.
The Gross National Product (GNP) reflects
this view by including the market value of
products regardless of any adverse effects
upon health or the environment. Ironically,
while protection of the environment
receives little or no value in this calcula-
tion, the costs of illness imposed by pollu-
tion are assigned positive vaJues in the
GNP. Such reasoning would suggest that
it is economically beneficial to produce
more carcinogenic substances.
A better understanding of our total eco-
nomic welfare would recognize that envi-
ronmental quality can mean fewer illnesses,
greater worker productivity, more purchas-
ing power available for non-medical goods
and services, and greater efficiency in
industrial operations.
The recreational values of clean air,
land, and water are also economic values.
Millions of Americans provide services to
those seeking outdoor recreation—fishing
and sightseeing, swimming and hiking—
which is enhanced by a clean environment.
As opportunities increase, the benefits of
these activities will increase as well, often
in some of the Nation's most depressed
areas. The recreational needs of congested
metropolitan centers can be partially met
by reclaimed waterfronts and urban lakes,
landfills recycled as parks and playgrounds,
and effective transportation planning.
Clearly, environmental protection not
only maintains today's economy but also
permits future growth. Billions of dollars
spent for air pollution control and for sew-
age treatment plants provide thousands of
jobs not only in construction but in the
manufacture, installation, and operation of
this complex equipment. Pollution control
regulations have led directly to increased
overall employment in America. The resur-
gence of the Nation's huge coal industry
also may be anticipated, thanks to advanced
technology which can make coal use
environmentally acceptable.
Throughout the past decade, environ-
mental concerns have shifted the outlook
of many business and industrial leaders.
They have continued to seek opportunities
for expansion and innovation while at the
same time showing more care for the long-
term costs of their products and waste
streams. They have adopted a conserving
attitude, which recognizes the direct rela-
tionship between energy costs, use of waste
products for industrial energy, markets for
innovative technology, and the broad
environmental imperative.
Gully erosion in Santa Fe Vineyards, River-
side County. Calif, caused by mountain
runoff.
12
EPA JOURNAL
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This attitude, if widely adopted, will
help ensure environmental conditions that
can sustain future economic activity. The
goal of industries drawing on America's
resource abundance in a responsible
manner is one that is shared by environ-
mentalists, businessmen, government
officials, and the public as a whole.
The Environment and Agriculture
America's productive farmland is one of
our most valuable natural resources, and a
critical element in our foreign balance of
payments. An effective environmental pro-
tection program helps ensure the continued
value of this resource because well-
managed land, clean water, and clean air
all contribute to the quality and quantity of
agricultural products.
Numerous vital connections exist be-
tween water quality and agriculture. Farm-
ers need suitable water for the irrigation of
crops and for livestock. Farm families
commonly rely upon wells for safe drinking
water. Rural ponds and lakes provide
reereational opportunities such as swim-
ming and fishing. Maintenance of water
supplies suitable for many uses, including
those of agriculture, is a major objective of
State and Federal water pollution control
legislation.
Pollution control measures are essential
because agricultural runoff seriously affects
water quality in two-thirds of our river
basins. Important water supplies—the
Lower Colorado, for example—have been
polluted by salts washed out of the soil
through irrigation.
Runoff also accounts for over half of the
Nation's man-made sediment load. An
estimated 1.8 billion tons of topsoil from
agricultural croplands erode into America's
streams, lakes, and waterways each year.
Attached to the soil particles reaching-the
water are insecticides, weed killers, fung-
icides, nitrates and phosphates from fertili-
zers, and the bacteria of animal wastes
from barnyards and animal feedlots.
Excessive sediment in water harms
fish populations. The United States pays
one half billion dollars annually to remove
sediment (both natural and man-made)
from waterways. We pay still more to clean
up drinking water supplies for both people
and animals.
Protecting rivers and streams from sedi-
ment also contributes to maintaining top-
soil on the land. Farmers are losing pre-
cious soil at a rate faster than that of the
"dustbowl" days of the Depression. Since
1935, agricultural practices have so severe-
ly damaged farmland that one hundred
million acres of land can no longer be
cultivated and over half the topsoil on yet
another hundred million acres has been
lost. Natural processes replenish some of
this topsoil, but not nearly fast enough and
not on a uniform basis.
Farmers must also be concerned about
air pollution. Current research indicates
that air pollution may adversely affect plant
growth and reduce production, particularly
near large urban centers. A potentially
more serious problem is posed by acid rain,
which is formed when nitrous oxides and
sulfur oxides, produced by burning fossil
fuels, increase the acidity of precipitation.
Because air pollution is carried hundreds
of miles, acid rain may be a threat to crops
far distant from pollution sources.
Pesticides can pose a problem not only
to water quality, but to crops and even to
farmers themselves. Long-term use of pesti-
cides often leads to the development of
resistant strains of pests for which alterna-
tive chemical controls are not always
available. Natural predators of pests often
are unwittingly destroyed by the use of
pesticides and once-secondary pests then
become primary, moving unchecked
through crops. Improperly applied, pesti-
cides have poisoned farmers during the
process of spraying, and have seriously
affected the health of some farmworkers
and their families, as well as nearby resi-
dents. Pesticides can affect drinking water
supplies if sprayed near waterways or kill
fish and other wildlife. New management
practices to control pests, together with
greater care in the use of pesticides by
trained applicators, will help protect
against some of these problems.
Residential, industrial, and shopping
center developments near urban areas
gobbled up nearly 17 million acres of farm-
land between 1967 and 1977. Loss of farm-
land means a smaller base for food and
fiber production as well as the loss of
needed environmental benefits. One acre
of agricultural woodland can trap the smog
produced by eight automobiles—or the
carbon monoxide from fifty. Additionally,
urban sprawl increases energy cost. Food
must be transported greater distances, and
food production may be forced on to less
suitable and more easily eroded land. The
new drive for massive energy development
and expanded mining of fossil fuels
threatens increased diversions from the
agricultural use of land and water.
The multiple factors that affect food and
fiber agricultural production, so vital to
public welfare and the national economy,
illustrate in a compelling way the complex
connections that link agriculture and
environmental issues.
The Environment; The Global
Connection
Environmental pollution occurs as a result
of the actions and choices of individuals.
These individual decisions affecting the
environment—whether they are made
carefully or carelessly, whether they
pertain to a single household or extend
throughout a giant corporation—ultimately
become part of the conglomerate of similar
actions and choices by millions of other
individuals around the globe. The environ-
mental effects of these many decisions,
naturally enough, are felt worldwide as
well.
It is local governments, however, that are
usually the first to learn about a pollution
problem, and the first to try to solve it. But
pollution knows no boundaries. One com-
munity's environmental problems may
orginate in an area quite apart, upstream or
upwind, and beyond the regulatory reach of
the jurisidiction that bears the burden of
pollution.
Because of such jurisdictional
limitations, local governments in our
country of necessity sought State action to
control the sources of pollution. But State
boundaries do not inhibit the movement of
pollutants any more than city or county
lines. Many of the more serious environ-
mental problems that arose the United
States were regional in nature; States
could not act alone to deal with them.
Moreover, conflicting State environmental
demands posed special difficulties for many
industries and underscored the need for
national environmental laws. Recognition
of the national implications of pollution
control led to the major environmental
legislation of the past two decades.
As we begin the decade of the 80's, we
are confronted almost daily with evidence
that even nation-wide pollution control
programs cannot contain some
environmental problems.
International measures are increasingly
necessary so that we may cope with
problems such as acid rain and the release
of chlorof luorcarbons which deplete the
atmosphere's ozone layer which protects
us from excessive radiation from the sun.
To solve environmental problems it is
necessary to "think globally, but act
locally." If we do so we may better
comprehend the global implications of local
actions affecting such matters as the long-
term storage or disposal of nuclear and
other hazardous wastes and the types and
degree of control placed on local sources of
air or water pollution.
The better we see environmental
problems in their global context, the more
we appreciate the importance of remedial
action in our own communities. The global
commons are shared by the world's people
and the universal need for clean air, potable
water and fertile land connects us all. D
This article by Joan Nicholson, Director of
EPA's Office of Public Awareness, is an
excerpt from a new EPA brochure with the
same title which will be published shortly.
JANUARY 1981
13
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By Don Cook
Training And Manpower
In Environmental Quality
The talents of approximately a million
people are needed to manage environ-
mental quality in the United States.
It is a rapidly-expanding field; the work-
force covers more than 1 20 occupations,
many of which did not even exist five years
ago. That fact underscores the need for
environmental education to prepare a
skilled workforce.
Only about one percent of the current
workforce is employed directly by EPA
which by itself cannot carry the burden of
maintaining environmental quality in the
Nation. The training and education of the
other 99 percent is carried out by organiza-
tions such as labor unions, community
colleges and universities, as well as by
on-the-job training. Thus the purpose of
environmental education is not only to
inform the general public in environmental
concerns, but also to prepare a skilled
workforce to deal with problems in this
field.
Some of the groups that make up the
environmental workforce are:
Wastewater treatment plant
operators 90,000
Solid waste workers
(public & private) 275,000
Professional engineers in
wastewater treatment 6,000
State and local air pollution
control workers 7,300
Federal EPA employees 11,000
Drinking water plant operators 60,000
Scientists & engineers who describe
their jobs as pollution control
related 130,000
Toxicologists, doctorate level 1,200
State environmental employment,
all programs 25,000"
'Source: "Manpower for Environmental
Pollution Control," National Academy of
Sciences, 1977.
The environmental workforce uses the
talents of many different occupations. The
skills of the scientist are used to detect
trends and limits in ecosystems. The
talents of the engineer are used to design
environmentally sound technology. The
tools of the social scientist are used to
study and recommend choices. The talents
of the lawyer are used to obtain com-
pliance with environmental laws.
The Environmental Protection Careers
Guidebook, a joint publication of the U.S.
Department of Labor and EPA, describes
occupations in the environmental field. It is
estimated that 40 or more of the 1 20
occupations were not in existence as
recently as 5 years ago.
Some emerging occupations which are
expected to be difficult to fill in the first
half of the 1980's are:
Integrated Pest Management Specialists—
workers who can recommend a variety of
chemical and non-chemical options for
pest control.
Toxicologists—those who have knowledge
and ability in defining the toxic properties
of chemicals and their movement through
ecosystems.
Veterinary pathologists—veterinarians who
are certified by a State board to evaluate
diseases in test animals and other
organisms.
Ground water protection specialists—those
who can predict the movement of chem-
icals through the ground and recommend
safe disposal sites and methods.
Land reclamation specialists—those who
can devise and carry out plans to restore
damaged landscapes (e.g. strip mine spoil)
to stable ecosystems.
Hazardous waste workers—professionals
and technicians who handle, store, incine-
rate and manage waste materials which
are toxic, corrosive, explosive and persist-
ent in the environment.
EPA JOURNAL
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EPA's role in promoting the development
of the environmental workforce consists
of several major activities:
• Direct training through short courses:
EPA sponsors over 14,000 training days
each year and reaches more than 4,000
individuals with its technical short courses.
• Academic training support and training
grants: More than 200 individuals receive
fellowships or traineeships annually to
pursue graduate degrees. Training grants
are intended to develop skills for effecting
pollution abatement.
• Interagency agreements with Depart-
ments of Labor and Education: EPA uses
agreements with agencies having a primary
mission in education and training to obtain
commitments to carry a share of training
and education development.
• Promoting regional linkages: EPA has
worked through regional offices to get
environmental education and training
established in professional associations,
State education plans, certification
standards and at universities.
The content of environmental learning
tends to fall into three broad categories:
the impact of human culture on eco-
systems; fundamentals of ecology, and
corrective steps for human activities.
Learning the corrective steps almost
always requires a mu/f/'-disciplinary
approach. Devising and implementing a
single corrective step often involves
political science, law, economics, engi-
neering, statistics, and life sciences.
Actions to protect the whole system tend
to involve various parts of the whole of
human knowledge, requiring environ-
mental education to be interdisciplinary. Q
Don Cook is Senior Technical Advisor, EPA
Office of Research and Development.
For further information on EPA courses, here
are additions/ sources:
Water Training
Registrar
National Training and Operational
Technology Center
U.S. Environmenta! Protection Agency
Cincinnati, Ohio 45268
Telephone: 513/684-7501
Air Pollution Training
Manpower and Technical Information
Branch
Air Pollution Training Institute, MD 17
Environmental Research Center
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
27711
Telephone: 919/541-2401
The 205-page "Environmental Protection
Careers Guidebook" mentioned in this
article may be obtained for $6.50 per copy
(Stock number 029-014-00205-4) from
the Superintendent of Documents, U.S.
Government Printing Office, Washington.
D.C.20402.
A sanitary engineer checks controls at fi
modern wastewater treatment plant.
JANUARY 1981
15
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m
•-*• ••
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By Suzanne Miller Pogell
Learning On The Chesapeake
Chesapeake Bay boaters in Maryland
who have sailed past "No Tres-
passing—Smithsonian Institution"
signs on Rhode River and the Bay around
the Poplar Islands, may wonder what is
really behind the signs and why unlimited
public access is prohibited.
Behind the signs is a 2,600 acre labora-
tory for research and education—a site
of critical environmental studies that
have meaning for all of us and for the
ultimate health of the Bay. The "No
Trespassing" signs have a serious purpose:
they are there to protect study sites, deli-
cate instrumentation, and animal popula-
tions, which are the subjects of Center staff
investigations.
While the facility as a whole is off limits
to public access, it carries on a very active
education and public outreach program.
Emphasizing "learning while doing," the
study of various environmental concepts
begins with sessions for pre-schoolers and
their parents and includes teacher-led ac-
tivities for children in school, after school,
and summer programs, and regularly
scheduled trail walks. Two years ago,
group boat tours were added.
The Chesapeake Bay Center for Environ-
mental Studies was established in 1 965.
Java Dairy Farm, the original 368 acre
tract, was left to the Smithsonian in 1 962,
by Robert Lee Forrest, who operated the
farm from 1915 to 1946.
The Center is located seven miles south
of Annapolis, Md., on the Rhode River, a
tidal arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Within
its boundaries are forests, abandoned
fields, marshlands and active farms—a
full range of southern Maryland habitats
and animal populations for study. Research
also is conducted on the Smithsonian-
owned and Center-administrated Poplar
Islands near Talbot County on the Eastern
Shore of the Bay.
The research program focuses on the
dynamics of an estuarine-watershed eco-
system, land use effects, and man's inter-
actions with his environment. The program
includes a broad range of long term, in-
tegrated studies on the Center's uplands,
watershed, the two-square mile Rhode
River estuary, and the effects of environ-
ment on people's attitudes and behavior.
Fragmented Habitats
Two Center researchers, Dennis Whigham
and James Lynch, have been exploring the
effects of fragmentation of habitat on plant
and bird species. Earlier studies by Lynch in
Washington's Rock Creek Park revealed
sharp declines in certain bird populations
with the increase in isolation and frag-
mentation of their natural habitat. The
two ecologists are also studying the impact
of deer on one of the small Poplar Islands
and the factors of competition and com-
patability in different plant and animal
communities.
Dr. David Correll's group has mapped
small basins of the watershed according
to their land use, such as cropland, pasture,
and forest. They are monitoring and
analyzing samples of the stormwater runoff
from each basin through a series of in-
strumented sampling stations and gauges.
Nutrients, pathogens, sediments, pesti-
cides, and herbicides are among the com-
ponents of runoff being analyzed in
Center Laboratories.
The Rhode River estuary receives fresh
water from small creeks, runoff from the
land, and materials entering from the
atmosphere through drainage and rain-
water. Microbiologists and chemists at the
Chesapeake Bay Center are studying how
materials from land runoff are distributed
in the estuary and the effects of these
materials on the estuarine environment. In
another current estuarine study, white and
yellow perch are being studied for
spawning success, growth, and abundance.
Many of the Center's public programs
are made possible by the dedicated and
able assistance of a corps of volunteer
guides. The group boat tours, for example,
have been under the direction of two
volunteer Coast Guard Auxiliary captains.
The Center publishes a quarterly news-
letter, the Rhode River Review, which
features articles on current staff research,
curriculum development, and public pro-
grams. A meeting facility, completed in
1975, is the site of frequent presentations
by guides and Center staff to visiting
groups.
In keeping with the Smithsonian tradi-
tion, the Center is committed to the
increase and diffusion of knowledge and
careful preservation. Its focus is data base
for wise management of its valuable nat-
ural resources.
People and Landscapes
One unusual research program at the
Center is concerned with environmental
influences on human behavior and ways in
which human preferences for various land-
scapes are formed. John Balling and John
Falk have been exploring the effects that
man's evolutionary history may have on
these preferences. Underlying much of
their work is the hypothesis that human
evolution, in large part, took place along
or near river courses in the East African
savanna. Preferences for natural settings
with scattered trees, short grass, and some
type of water body may, therefore, reflect
an innate preference for the environment
in which much of our biological (and
psychological) apparatus evolved.
A two-part theory of the development of
environmental preferences was tested in a
series of studies in which participants
"rated" photographic slides of different
natural environments—tropical rain forest,
temperate deciduous forest, coniferous
forest, savanna, and desert. First, it was
proposed that there is innate predisposi-
tion towards savanna-like settings that
expresses itself most clearly in childhood.
Recently completed research by Balling and
Falk has shown that children as young as
three to five years of age show a strong
preference for savanna environments.
Earlier data revealed that the preference
for savanna persists throughout the ele-
mentary school years. Second, with
increasing age and experience, familiarity
JANUARY 1981
17
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with environment comes into play.
Preference for savanna can be seen to
decline while preference for those environ-
ments with which people are most familiar
rises. Participants in studies completed to
date have been most familiar with de-
ciduous and coniferous forests. Thus, the
ratings of those from the ages of mid-
adolescence through adulthood indicate
an equal preference for these forested
settings and savanna.
Last year, research on landscape
preference was extended through use of an
experimental overlay procedure, developed
by Falk and Balling. This device allows an
individual to "construct" the landscape
which he or she most prefers by selecting,
in turn, a preferred background and a
preferred foreground. The results of
studies using this apparatus tend to con-
firm earlier investigations. Overall, partici-
pants selected foreground scenes con-
taining low, even ground cover and a few
scattered trees. Preferred backgrounds
tended to be hilly, with tree density some-
what higher than that of the foreground.
Almost ail subjects who added additional
elements drew in water of some type
(streams, lakes, etc.). In general, the
highly preferred scenes could be described
as "parkland" adjacent to or surrounding
some body of water. The natural environ-
ment that most closely approximates such
scenes is the savanna. Thus, results from
studies using techniques with very differ-
ent types of experimental biases—judg-
ments of slides and the overlay—have
tended to support the hypothesis that there
is some innate component to landscape
preference.
The Center is also concerned with the
development of educational materials for
out-of-school, or informal audiences. In
1979, a series of estuarine ecology
materials entitled SEA (Smithsonian
Estuarine Activities) was produced, which
was targeted for early adolescents in
informal settings such as nature centers.
Starting last year, the Center began work
on two other materials development
projects aimed at different audiences—
families and parents with preschoolers.
Parents As Teachers
A goal of the Center is to develop ways
to help today's parents function effectively
in their role as educators of their children.
While a child may spend some twenty-five
hours per week involved in classroom
learning, the majority of the child's waking
hours are spent away from the school
grounds. Parents, then, have a substantial
opportunity to explore with their children
the world around them, to teach them how
to make decisions, and to help them make
the connections between what they learn
in the classroom and what happens in their
everyday world. However, the rapid scien-
tific and technological change of today's
world often severely limits this opportunity,
leaving an ever-widening gap between
what most parents can impart to their
children and the science in actual use
around them.
The Smithsonian Family Learning Project
is an effort to strengthen the family as a
significant teaching-learning unit. Under
the direction of John Falk, staff members
Jamie Harms, Sharon Maves, and Laurie
Greenberg are developing a series of
learning activities for families to do
together at home, which focus on the home
-
environment as a functioning ecosystem.
To date, packets have been developed and
tested in three areas: home energy use,
houseplants, and lawns. Included in each
packet are games, experiments, and
exploratory projects that provide the tools
for families to discover the dynamics of
these systems in their home environment.
In one of the activities, families learn about
solar energy by constructing a solar green-
house. In another, families explore the
critical variables of heat, light, water, and
other environmental requirements in the
growth and productivity of individual
houseplants.
A complementary project is the Parent
and Preschooler Ecology Series. In a pre-
liminary stage of development, the series
is being designed by Ann Coren to help
families and their young children work in
partnership to learn basic ecological prin-
ciples. Materials are being developed which
will enable parents to capitalize on the
preschool child's natural curiosity. An
essential element of the process of testing
the materials is a pilot workshop format
where small groups of parents and chil-
dren work as a family team using "hands
on" exploratory activities as a framework
for discovery. Two outcomes have been
identified in sessions conducted to date:
children learn ecological concepts through
exploration and manipulation of the envi-
ronment; and the experience of shared
discovery reinforces the teaching/learning
process for both parents and children.
These results suggest that family-based
activities such as these can initiate a life-
long pattern of family learning. D
Suzanne Pogell is a public information officer
with the Chesapeake Bay Center.
EPA JOURNAL
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By Edward W. Weidner
Chancellor,
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
A New Approach
To Environmental Education
The search for an effective means of
providing a broad education has gone
on for hundreds—even thousands—
of years. This was, of course, a concern of
Aristotle and Plato. This was also a concern
of scholars at the time of the Renaissance,
when the "well-rounded man" was an
objective. The last hundred years have
been no exception. Western countries have
shown great interest in trying to define
liberal education over this period. And
increasingly during the last 30 years, the
search for an appropriate approach to the
subject and an appropriate role for liberal
education has spread throughout the
world.
In recent years, the effort has en-
countered at least four major problems.
There has been a difficulty in defining
liberal education, in appropriately relating
it to the disciplines, in relating it to pro-
fessional areas or to professional schools
and colleges, and finally, liberal education
has been under attack recently from the
proponents of technical-vocational edu-
cation and, especially in the United States,
of what is called career education. In brief,
some consider liberal education as im-
practical and theoretical.
Environmental Focus
It is against this background that applied
liberal education at the University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay may find its signifi-
cance. Ours is one of the few universities
in the United States that has adopted a
rather specific educational philosophy for
all its activities, using a particular theme
or focus. Its approach is one of problem-
oriented higher education, focused on the
problems associated with people and the
environment. We define the environment
very broadly as the context in which life
takes place—including the socio-cultural as
well as the bio-physical environment.
While we place emphasis upon such prob-
lems, the same educational principles we
use could apply equally to the study of
any other set of problems.
Marcia Nylund, student at the University of Wisconsin — Green Bay, extracting PCB's
from liver tissue of rats.
This approach immediately gives some
clues as to how to avoid the four difficul-
ties that face liberal education. First of
all, a university following this course has
fewer problems with the definition of
liberal education. Such a university is not
just concerned abstractly with the whole
person or with broadening or liberalizing
a person through higher education, or with
developing the capacity to think, to reason,
or to make decisions. A problem-oriented
approach emphasizes application of all
disciplines and professions to the world
in which we live now and in the future.
More specifically, it relates the whole
person and the liberalizing thinking,
reasoning, and decision-making process to
human affairs in an integrated manner. It is
JANUARY 1981
19
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concerned with problem analysis, and this
provides substantial guidelines for liberal
education. It therefore makes some of the
abstract aspects of liberal education very
concrete and tangible.
Furthermore, a problem-oriented
approach provides an appropriate educa-
tional role for the various disciplines and
professions, which can gain their signifi-
cance from concentrating together on a
problem at hand, rather than from autono-
mous or theoretical systems. By this means
one discipline becomes meaningfully re-
lated to another, and one profession to an-
other, when applied to a particular problem.
Finally, in regard to making liberal
education marketable, a problem-oriented
approach provides an education with a
variety of job applications. In order to
analyze problems, students must acquire
both general knowledge and specific skills
in those areas, and apply them outside
the walls of a university. They must learn
to work cooperatively with others. They
must learn to anticipate the future. An
education such as this produces students
who are in high demand on graduation, and
who will continue to be so in the years
ahead.
Other Advantages
But there is more to the subject than this.
There are important advantages for the
student. For example, a problem approach
provides a very substantial motivation to
learn and may enhance his or her ability
to learn. Thus, chemistry comes alive in its
application to problems, as the student
perceives that it is closely related to other
disciplines such as sociology, literature,
mathematics, and biology. A student who
focuses attention on chemistry can actually
perform better in this field if he or she
follows a problem approach to learning,
becomes motivated to apply the discipline,
and finds that this specialty cannot stand
alone, but must be interwoven with many
other disciplines and professions. And it
may well be that fewer credits of chemistry,
and more of related subjects also will
give the student more knowledge of
chemistry.
There are important advantages for the
faculty member. Professors commonly
become more and more specialized over
the years. The range of their coursework is
restricted. Extensive contacts with other
professionals often are limited to those
whose fields are similar. The institution
groups their offices, classrooms, labora-
tories, and studios together by discipline.
A problem-oriented university can provide
a far wider range of stimuli both inside
and outside the classroom. Team teaching,
interdisciplinary departments, and varying
problems encourage faculty members to
consider new and broader perspectives. It
is an atmosphere conducive to innovative
thinking.
There are important advantages for
research and community outreach. Most
traditional universities have a difficult time
organizing for problem-oriented research.
Typically, they create many institutes or
centers, which are rather odd appendages,
separate from the mainstream of the
university. The faculty member may or may
not be rewarded for his or her work in them.
A problem approach places problem-
oriented research in the mainstream.
Whether the topic is local or worldwide,
whether it involves few or many disciplines
or professions, whether it is marked by
many community complications or not, the
problem-oriented university is in an excel-
lent position to make a contribution to
knowledge and to help solve community
problems at the same time.
At a conventional university a student
fundamentally chooses subject matter—
such as biology, chemistry, sociology, or
psychology—or a profession—engineer-
ing, medicine, business administration,
socia I work, and so on. At the University
of Wisconsin-Green Bay, these two choices
are open to students. They can decide to
emphasize any of the traditional disciplines
or subjects, and they can decide to
emphasize any of the appropriate profes-
sions. The difference is that students have
a third choice—one which they are re-
quired to exercise. They must choose a
problem of some socia! significance on
which to concentrate. If they also choose
a subject matter and/or a profession, it is
their responsibility to apply the subject
matter and/or profession to the problem
they have selected for understanding and
analysis—in cooperation with other disci-
plines and professions and other students
and professors. Thus, they do not study
chemistry for chemistry's sake alone, but
in regard to its application to the world
outside the university. Similarly, they do
not study business administration alone,
but in regard to the way in which business
structures can constructively relate to the
problem selected.
A conventional university organizes
faculty members either on the basis of
disciplines or on the basis of professional
areas. At our Green Bay institution, the
faculty is organized into multidisciplinary
problem-oriented units called concentra-
tions. This encourages faculty members
to think in multidisciplinary, problem-
oriented ways. We hire and evaluate them
on this basis, and determine academic
policies on this basis.
Thus, neither from a faculty nor a
student point of view are disciplines or
professions predominant. Students select
their major in one of the concentrations.
Of course, they need to have backgrounds
in disciplinary and professional subjects
as well as interdisciplinary and problem-
oriented areas. The great majority of
students, therefore, select a co-major or a
minor in a discipline or a profession, to
go along with the concentration major that
focuses on a problem. This permits or
encourages a student to consider the
discipline or profession as a useful means
20
EPA JOURNAL
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to a social end, rather than as a means or
an end in and of itself. About one-third of
the teaching at the University is in broad
interdisciplinary or problem-oriented
courses, and about two-thirds in the dis-
ciplines or professions. However, in regard
to this latter component of courses, much
of it is specifically problem oriented as
well, although within the confines of a
single discipline or profession.
A Moral Imperative
To put the matter in a different way, we
base our academic plan upon the idea of
social responsibility. Each student must opt
for the world, not out of the world. Each
has a responsibility to help make the world
a better place in which to live. We ask each
student to consider the social importance
and social application of his or her intellec-
tual interest. In this world, those persons
who are particularly gifted intellectually
have a special responsibility to apply their
talents so that they benefit many people.
Students should begin this application at
the university, to place learning in a social
context. In this manner, they will under-
stand more fully that each person obtains
much of his or her identity by relating to
other human beings, and indeed has a
sacred responsibility to do so.
At our institution each student has a wide
range of problems from which to select.
A number of students focus upon urban
areas, and environmental questions associ-
ated with them. Others take a larger geo-
graphical perspective and focus on the
region. Some students are primarily con-
cerned with ecosystems. Others are con-
cerned with more specific matters of nat-
ural resource management, or with water,
air, and soil quality. Attention to population
pressure and hunger is common. And
questions associated with modernity or
with the cultural and aesthetic environ-
ments are among other areas of concern.
Whatever the problem selected—and
students have a considerable freedom in
identifying a particu lar one of interest to
them—the emphasis is on an area or topic
that affects many people—one that is a
truly social problem.
This approach to higher education re-
quires training in problem analysis. It
begins with the identification of what con-
stitutes a problem, and proceeds to an
examination of its various ramifications,
the development of alternative solutions,
and a study of the different ways that these
solutions can be reached most effectively.
This is not a value-free process, of course.
A student needs to understand that differ-
ent communities, different groups of peo-
ple, and different individuals will vary
widely in terms of their value preferences.
Therefore, requiring a student to consider
values, be sensitive to them, and under-
stand priorities among values are important
parts of such a University of Wisconsin-
Green Bay education.
One important element in a problem-
oriented approach to higher education is to
avoid elitism on the part of individual
students, faculty members, or the univer-
sity itself. Working with people at each step
involved in a problem analysis is essential
to identifying a workable solution. This
includes people of all walks of life, in all
geographical areas, in any way related to
the problem. We cannot carry out problem
analysis completely within an educational
or research institution. It must involve
collaboration with the people responsible
for achieving a solution. And in most cases,
problems are not "theirs" but rather
"ours." The researcher or analyst is a
citizen and also a part of the problem. We
hope that at our institution there is not a
we/they or a devil/angel situation. Problem
analysis requires the talents of many differ-
ent kinds of specialists, persons from many
professions and disciplines and persons
who fulfill many roles in the community.
It is overall a humbling and collegia! experi-
ence, not an elitist one.
A university with a program such as this
becomes far more interdisciplinary since
problems do not confine themselves to the
artificial boundaries of particular disci-
plines. All aspects of the educational enter-
prise can be related or integrated—both
the more general subjects and the more
specialized subjects. A special emphasis
on future time is appropriate to problem-
oriented universities. A comparison among
different cultures becomes important in
order for students to understand how
similar problems are affected by cultural
variables. A merger of university and com-
munity resources becomes useful in com-
bining teaching, research, and community
outreach. Students need to have a substan-
tial amount of learning through experience,
and the student/professor relationship
must be one that is both close and heavily
biased in the direction of the "co-learner's"
principle. If students are going to learn to
solve problems, they must have consider-
able freedom in their own education.
Student-initiated education and a choice
among many different alternatives in secur-
ing one's education become requisites.
This is the kind of institution that the
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay aspires
to be. I say aspires because it is probably
impossible for any institution to embrace
completely the principles just outlined,
much less carry them out faithfully. Rather,
these are goals of direction, goals that we
can extend and enlarge, as we accumulate
experience and new knowledge.
Nonetheless, we have made an encour-
aging beginning. Our institution illustrates
that education and social responsibility can
go hand in hand, while academic freedom
is preserved. We remain optimistic for the
future.O
JANUARY 1981
21
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Igniting
The Public
Conscience
By Eric Ashby
(The following excerpt is from a book
"Reconciling Man with (h<; Environment" by
Lord Eric Ashby, one of the world's distin-
guished scientists. A Fellow of Britain's Royal
Society, he has received 21 honorary degrees
recognizing his contributions both as a scientist
and as a leader in higher education.
Reprinted with the permission of the pub-
lisher, Stanford University Press. 1978 by
the Board (if ••»{ the Loland Stanford
Junior University.
In the summer of 1963, on a couple of
farms in southeast England, some sheep
and cattle and a foxhound died. The
postmortem showed that they had been
poisoned by fluorocetamide, which was
traced to a field next to a factory that pro-
duced pesticides. The factory dumped
drums and canisters and allowed them to
rust away in this field, which drained into
some ponds on the farms where the animals
were likely to drink.
The incident caused no great stir, but it
did lead the Minister of Housing and Local
Government to appoint a Technical Com-
mittee on the Disposal of Toxic Solid
Wastes to advise what changes were desir-
able in order to ensure safe disposal with-
out risk of polluting water supplies and
rivers. The committee set to work in a
leisurely manner: it met 20 times over a
stretch of six years and produced in the
spring of 1 970 a lifeless and tedious report
that did, however, conclude that existing
legislation on toxic wastes was inadequate.
The report got scant notice in the media,
and nothing was done.
Meanwhile Britain, along with other
industrial countries, was becoming environ-
ment-conscious. In 1970a Royal Commis-
sion on Environmental Pollution was
appointed, with wide powers of enquiry,
Its first task was to survey the state of the
environment in Britain. It found evidence of
"fly-tipping," that is, the illicit dumping of
toxic wastes in places not registered to
receive them; and it urged the government
to tighten the law. Still nothing was done.
Throughout 1971 the Royal Commission
collected further examples of fly-tipping,
and in August it expressed disquiet at the
potential danger to water supplies and the
government's failure to deal with the
matter.
The government's reply was that there
was too heavy a program of parliamentary
business for the matter to be dealt with in
the coming session; moreover, there was to
be a reorganization of local government
that would affect the administrative
arrangements, and a comprehensive bill to
control pollution was to be introduced
sometime in 1 974. In October and Novem-
ber 1971, further pressure was brought on
the Minister by the Royal Commission, and
on November 30, the chairman of the Royal
Commission wrote to the Minister to say
that "the risk to the public is such that we
must pursue this matter, even though it is
at an awkward time." Still no action was
taken, and the Commission drafted a report
critical of the government that was pub-
lished on March 7, 1972.
But before that date a new character had
appeared in the story. His name was Lonnie
Downes. He was a truck driver in a waste-
disposal firm in the Midlands and shop
steward for his branch of the Transport and
General Workers Union. He discovered that
some of his mates were being given a bonus
of 20 pounds a week for dumping loads of
cyanide, chromic acid, caustic soda,
phenol, and other noxious substances on
delivery tickets that described them as
IA
*sSTo
MISCARRIAGE
Seepagi
Chemic
Pregnant Women, Inf
^j
oxic Nightmare Troubles State
V
(First of Two Articles)
^t, RALIEGH — Until now, about all state
L--- officials could say about hazardous
*Y\eV ^wastes in North Carolina is that there is,
tion, and North Carolina is at least a step
ahead of others on that approach, with the
state government and Research Triangle
Institute already working cooperatively
on a viable way to burn both hazardous
tion; and one of the bit
Southeast. Waste from nu
plants is only a small \
byproduct of industry and res
-------
harmless "suds oil." Mr. Dowries com-
plained to the management of the firm, who
replied with vague threats of dismissal.
A few weeks later Mr. Downes was offered
promotion, which he declined. Then, so it
was reported, he was offered 300 pounds if
he would leave the company; again he
declined. Instead, he reported the whole
affair to the loca! branch of the Conserva-
tion Society. The Society, helped by specific
information from Mr. Downes and his
mates, prepared a detailed report and sent
it to the Secretary of State for the Environ-
ment. Still nothing was done.
At this point the Conservation Society,
having given due warning that it would
make the matter public, sent its findings to
the press. The story broke in the Birming-
ham Sunday Mercury on January 10, 1972.
Thereafter press, radio and television
descended upon the refuse dumps of Brit-
ain like a fiock of scavenging birds. Pictures
of alleged toxic waste drums appeared in
the newspapers. Parliament was forced to
hold a special debate on the issue, but the
Under Secretary of State still maintained
that the parliamentary timetable was too
packed for legislation to be introduced
before 1974.
Toward the end of February 1 972 the
government knew that the Royal Commis-
sion was about to publish its views on toxic
wastes; but on February 24 an incident
occurred that eclipsed the sober delibera-
tions of a Royal Commission. Thirty-six
one-hundredweight drums were discovered
in a derelict piece of ground near the town
of Nuneaton, on a site where children
played. Attempts had been made to erase
the label 'sodium cyanide' from the drums
and some of the crystals were sticking to
the outside. The Department of the Environ-
ment hurriedly drafted a bill to control the
deposit of poisonous waste. It was read for
the first time on March 8, went through its
remaining stages on March 1 6, and passed
into law on March 30.
I tell this story to illustrate the vagaries
of the human dimension in the first stage
of the chain reaction between the disclosure
of an environmental hazard and political
action to control it. The moral of the story
was aptly summed up in an editorial in
The Times when the emergency bill was
introduced:
"It is instructive to note what did and
what did not prompt the Government to
squeeze a Bill as a matter of urgency into
an already crowded legislative programme.
The urgent representations of an official
commission composed of distinguished
persons who were moved by 'the disturb-
ing cases which have come to our knowl-
edge of local problems and anxieties,' did
not. Headlines about drums of cyanide
waste on derelict land in the Midlands did."
It is one consequence of the astonishing
adaptability of man that he has to be per-
suaded to be dissatisfied about abuses to
his environment. To set the chain reaction
going is often the hardest task in social
reform. This raises an ethical problem of
some importance. Is it morally defensible
to use shock tactics, to exaggerate, to dis-
tort the facts or color them with emotive
words, or to slant the television camera in
order to excite the public conscience?
My experience leads me reluctantly to
believe that in the present social climate
some dramatization is necessary.
Without Rachel Carson public apathy
about the hazards of pesticides might have
persisted for a decade longer.
But not ice an important point about these
enthusiasts: they are commonly what
academics call "unsound," which in aca-
demia is a highly pejorative epithet. Rachel
Carson's biology can be faulted, and she
uses cunningly the technique of a story-
teller in her opening chapter.
And yet, if these writers had been coolly
rational, if they had stuck meticulously to
uncolored verifiable facts, would they have
made any impression on the public con-
science? I doubt it, and my doubts are
confirmed by the opinions of two very great
men, one a philosopher and the other a
theologian. It was Alfred North Whitehead
who made the surprising assertion,
"It is more important that a proposition be
interesting than that it be true." Proposi-
tions hedged about with reservations, as
many scientific statements have to be, are
seldom interesting to the public. And
Cardinal Newman was even more emphat-
ic: "Deductions," he wrote, "have no
power of persuasion. . . . Many a man will
live and die upon a dogma; no man will be
a martyr for a conclusion." n
Chemical crisi's: too little, too lot.
BIRTH-DEFECT RATE HIGH
"ant. It's too late now <
»y. going to do a bout tha
e is done," he said.
thing like this?" said
'do you cut across all
id where do you stop? P
->ro
Jy mpf't'"-
? From Long-Buried Toxic
ah Routs N.Y. Families
Towns fight
hazardous
waste disposa
mts Urged to Move
L, nuuKCi miv.
then "the ac- Car
V^IKTHIlUdl V^U. Ill
ditch and covered it wi«^ - -'- . — »111
Ionian's third stillborn
•Pis Love Canal protest
ficia
e prob- dint
as been men
ic said. A
e man- mjin
years, was
•areful j0n t
toxir
mlies
are stud
The McC
d UD Wl11
-------
Wild In Philadelphia
Pythons, turtles, and owls are
among the stars in the "Eco-
shows" produced by the
Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Sciences to help students
learn the fundamentals of
ecology.
A typical eco-show, such as
the presentation "Wetlands and
Waterways," takes the audi-
ence on an imaginary journey
down Wissahickon Creek to the
Schuyikill River and into
Tinicum Marsh. Their guides
are a great horned owl, a skunk,
a mallard duck, a red-tailed
hawk, and a snapping turtle.
Participants find out how these
creatures interact with people
and with their surroundings.
By learning the ways of swamp
denizens, people can under-
stand better the impact of
human activities such as drain-
ing and filling wetlands.
Certain shows are given
daily in the Academy's audi-
torium for groups of school-
children. A variation called
"Eco-show on the Road" travels
to schools, community organi-
zations, and private groups
giving performances days,
evenings, and week-ends.
Traveling show topics include:
Digging for Dinosaurs, Animals
and their Young, Animals With
Bad Reputations, Survival in
a Wild World, and Animal
Myths and Legends.
24
EPA JOURNAL
-------
(A ) The flapping wings of n .
Greot Horned Owl capture the
attention of n class.
(B) This young I fid waits for a
chance to handle a turtle in the
course of a lesson on amphib-
ious creatures.
(C) Sonic youngsters are
equally enthralled by the tradi-
tional mounted exhibits.
(D) Students pet a python to
gain familiarity with this rep-
tile with o had reputation.
JANUARY 1981
25
-------
By Mattie Montgomery
EPA's Role
In Educating
Youth
fci
Three and a half years ago, the Office of
Public Awareness began a special
effort to reach youth as part of its
communications program. The ideal
method of making this information avail-
able to youth and educators was through
environmental education.
Many school systems include environ-
mental studies in existing curricula.
However, a review of the existing pro-
grams and materials they used showed
most of the material focused on nature and
wildlife. Only a few items even touched
briefly on the subjects of air and water
quality or considered solid waste manage-
ment as more than an anti-litter campaign.
(However, in some of the materials used
specifically in health classes, areas such as
radiation, chemical contamination, and
solid waste as a health hazard were
highlighted.)
The Office of Public Awareness (OPA) is
periodically mailing specific program
materials to environmental education coor-
dinators in each of the State Departments
26
EPA JOURNAL
-------
V
~v~r-
of Education to encourage a broader con-
cept of environmental education. The co-
ordinators then make the materials avail-
able to classroom teachers. The EPA
Regional Offices provide additional assist-
ance and the person-to-person contact
needed to insure that students and teachers
gain a greater understanding of the environ-
mental mission. Regional Office Staffs
provide assistance to teachers and cur-
riculum specialists, which enables them to
create lesson plans that focus on a particu-
lar problem in their geographic location.
Safety Tips on Chemicals
Through meetings with State representa-
tives of the National Education Association,
we have been asked to provide information
and assistance in developing educational
materials in highly technical areas—toxic
substances and hazardous waste. A product
being used in high schools is a com-
plete study unit on toxicology developed by
the National Science Teachers Association.
The unit covers the use and production of
chemicals, the hazards involved in certain
chemical compounds, EPA regulations
affecting the production of chemicals, and
safety tips for use in shopping for everyday
products that can become hazardous by
misuse.
Efforts in the educational community
have increased the number of articles
appearing in journals and newsletters
focusing on environmental issues. For
example, My Weekly Reader has published
a series of articles on the environmental
impact of energy development.
The amount of mail we receive from
students and teachers requesting specific
information has more than doubled. Envi-
ronmental issues are becoming the subject
of discussions among high school debating
teams. The most popular topic is acid rain.
Because of OPA's work with children,
we have been included in several Federal
Interagency Committees dealing with chil-
dren and youth.
International Year of the Child
One of the Interagency Committees we
have been involved with was the Federal
Interagency Committee on the 1 979 inter-
national Year of the Child (lYC).This
Committee was established in September
1977 to help improve the condition and
status of children in the United States.
While the Cornmitee had been active
since October 1977, EPA did not become
involved until August of 1978. By this time,
many of the projects and programs initiated
by other agencies were completed or nearly
completed. However, a review of EPA
activities showed many of them related to
the well-being of children. Among the exist-
ing EPA projects that were recognized as
vital was the School Asbestos Program.
This program not only focused on the haz-
ard to children of asbestos materials in
school buildings, but provided a common
cause for concern and action by parents,
educators, and government.
EPA was also commended for its Farm-
worker Safety Program, designed to help
reduce the danger of exposing children to
pesticides not only in the fields but to con-
tamination from clothing of parents who
worked in the fields without proper safety
measures.
The EPA Noise Control efforts, the Pres-
ident's Environmental Youth Awards Pro-
gram, the environmental education pro-
grams and materials, and the overall
research and development activities in the
area of health were also considered
excellent examples of Federal concern for
children.
The Committee worked closely with the
U.S. National Commission for IYC, chaired
by Jean C. Young, which coordinated work
with the United Nations IYC staff. OPA
was asked to prepare a statement on en-
ronmental problems affecting children
for inclusion in the National Commis-
sion's report to the President and later to
the United Nations General Assembly.
The statement included an abbreviated
list of projects and programs that had
already been completed and a simitar list
of recommendations of things that remain
to be done in the environmental field.
As a result of this statement and the
Commission's report, OPA has received
requests from a number of African nations
who want to use EPA's programs as modefs
for assistance in developing environmental
education programs.
Health and Safety Guides
Another important group involving children
is the Intergovernmental Regulatory Liaison
Group (IRLG). The IRLG established a work
JANUARY 1981
27
-------
group to develop health and safety curricu-
lum guides for teachers of middle, junior and
senior high school students. The guides will
represent the joint efforts of four Federal
agencies—the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, EPA, the Food and Drug
Administration, and the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration—and
will introduce young people to essential
principles of health and safety relevant
to the concerns of the agencies. These
guides are designed to provide teach-
ers with tools for helping students to
assume responsibility for their own health
and safety and that of those around them.
More specifically, the guides are con-
structed so that teachers may lead students
through a progression of discoveries to-
ward the recognition that, in various
spheres of their lives and in relation to
various types of potential hazards, they
can, and inevitably will, make the difference
between safety and harm.
Each unit of the guides begins with infor-
mation and activities that teachers may
adapt to help students recognize the risks
involved in one general class of substances
or products. Next, the units offer informa-
tion and activities that can help students
identify the specific hazard associated with
them. Then we focus on methods of preven-
tion and control of those hazards, both
precautions that individuals may take and
regulations that the Federal Government
enforces. Exploring these methods will
help students to identify the responsibilities
that are involved in the different roles that
they and others may fulfill.
These guides reflect the conviction that
educating young people in basic principles
of health and safety can make a difference
to all of us. There are many reasons to focus
upon their recognition of risks and respon-
sibilities. Young people a re as vulnerable as
the rest of the public to the hazards asso-
ciated with our Nation's increasingly
sophisticated technology. They are already
consumers and are constantly exposed to
advertising; they need a foundation for
making enlightened decisions about what
products to buy and how to use them. More-
over, young people are often idealistic,
committed to improving their world. And
they are flexible. They can learn patterns of
behavior that can promote health and safety
for the rest of their lives.
The health and safety material contains
study units on toxic substances, food, drugs,
cosmetics, air pollution, water pollution,
noise pollution, fire, and powered equip-
ment. The guides will be ready for distribu-
tion by the spring of 1981, and represent
one of the IRLG's efforts to help the public
protect itself.
Under an EPA Region 4 purchase order,
the Warren Wilson College at Swannanoa,
N.C. brought together various environmen-
tal education specialists throughout the
Southeastern United States in a workshop
to recommend materials which EPA could
develop for use in its programs for students
in kindergarten through grade 12. The
result of these sessions was the develop-
ment of activity cards relating to the eight
basic laws which give EPA most of its
authority. Activities on these cards would
be designed for use at any grade level.
Accompanying the cards will be an EPA
booklet, providing more substantive infor-
mation, and providing additional ideas.
These materials are currently being
reviewed by Region 4 staff. After editing
and printing, the materials should be ready
for distribution by spring, 1 981. n
Mattie Montgomery is the Youth Constituency
Coordinator in EPA's Office of Public
Awareness.
28
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Alligators
And The
World
The main role in preservation
of life during drought periods
in the Everglades National Park
in Florida is played by a rather
surprising protector—the
alligator.
A National Park Service
publication. Everglades Wild-
guide, notes that during the dry
season it is the alligator that
keeps the water holes open,
using its feet and snout to clear
out vegetation and muck.
As a result, large numbers
of turtles, snails, and fresh-
water animals move right in
with the alligators. Birds and
small animals then congregate
at the alligator holes to feed on
the teeming water life.
While the host alligator eats
some of his guests from time to
time, most survive until they
can leave when the rains return.
While this is one of the more
unusual ecosystems (the inter-
action of all the plants and
animals with each other and
with their particular habitat) it
is only one of many that
make up the astounding inter-
related mosaic of the natural
world.
The National Park Service is
one of thousands of organiza-
tions around the world which
are now providing information
about the natural environment
upon which all civilization and
life depend.
University programs, nature
centers, ecology camps, and
wildlife refuges are all helping
to contribute to a vastly im-
proved understanding of our
life-giving air and water
systems.
The National Audubon
Society, for example, supports
a network of nature centers,
camps, and wildlife sanctuar-
ies, and publishes several
publications, including perhaps
the most beautiful magazine in
the world, Audubon.
National Audubon also has
a series of visual aids and
educational materials about
birds, trees, wildflowers and
other features of the natural
world. These can be obtained
by writing to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica Educational Corp.,
425 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago,
III. 60611.
The National Audubon
Society has more than 451
chapters across the country,
and many of these also have
educational programs.
Other major environmental
groups with extensive educa-
tional programs include: The
Sierra Club, Friends of the
Earth, Defenders of Wildlife,
American Forestry Association,
National Parks and Conserva-
tion Association, Wilderness
Society, Izaak Walton League,
and the National Wildlife
Federation.
Additional information about
national and international
organizations dealing with edu-
cation and the environment
may be found in a reference
work, Directory of Environ-
mental Education Resources. It
is available for S3.95, plus 90
cents for mailing, from the
Center for Environmental
Education, 1925 K Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20006.
Several Federal agencies
have environmental programs.
A listing of agencies and their
activities can be found in a
publication titled "Environ-
mental Education Activities
of Federal Agencies," spon-
sored by the Educational
Resources Information Center
of the National Institute of
Education and the Ohio State
University. Copies are available
by writing to the ERIC Clear-
inghouse, Ohio State Univer-
sity, 1200 Chambers Road,
Third Floor, Columbus, Ohio,
43212. The reference number
is SE-024-1 66, and the cost is
S4.15 per copy.
JANUARY 1981
29
-------
By Jane and Don Kellogg
EPA, Guam, And
Environmental Education
Palms swaying in the warm tropical
breeze, curling aquamarine waves
crashing on a white beach, and puffy
clouds skidding across a crystalline sky
would indicate that the Pacific island of
Guam is environmentally sound,
unpolluted, and problem-free.
On a closer examination, however, it
becomes apparent that, though conditions
are a vast improvement over the past, envi-
ronmental education and action are needed
to protect this island.
Prevention of pollution has been the
responsibility of the Guam Office of the
Environmental Protection Agency since
1973. Legislation relating to environmental
protection has been written and is currently
being enforced by the Guam EPA. The
present day image of a jewel in the Pacific
is no accident. Through cooperation by
governmental agencies and private enter-
prise, many of the difficulties of the past
have been dealt with and acceptable
alternatives developed.
Compared to many American commu-
nities, Guam is an environmental Utopia.
Local action centers on prevention of large-
scale environmental degradation through
careful planning and, equally important,
through education.
Raw sewage is no longer allowed simply
to flow into the nearest river, stream, lake,
or sea. Air quality has been improved
through control of dust created by rock
processing and construction companies,
and emissions from power plants are being
controlled. Groundwater contamination is
being monitored and the placement of
septic tanks, cesspools, sewage lagoons,
and landfills is carefully controlled.
Hazardous materials are being identified
and, in many cases, are collected, stored,
and ultimately receive disposal in approved
hazardous waste landfills on the mainland
United States.
Legislation and monitoring are only a
portion of the role of the Guam EPA in
protecting environmental quality. Qualified
personnel are presently conducting
research in many areas. One of these is
the northern Guam freshwater aquifer.
As is true in the United States, knowledge
of groundwater characteristics is limited
due to previous difficulties in the collection
of uncontaminated samples. This study will
give a more accurate picture of the quantity
and quality of this main source of drinking
water.
Residents are kept abreast of environ-
mental problems, solutions, regulations,
and research being conducted through
public participation meetings and
educational problems.
"Wet and Wild" Workshop
The most recent venture into an education
program resulted in a rather unusual
cooperative agreement with four other
agencies—the Guam Coastal Zone Plan-
ning and Management Bureau, Guam
Department of Agriculture, Guam Teacher
Center, and the University of Guam—to
provide environmental education.
Talents and finances were combined to
support a six-day environmental education
workshop for fifty teachers in August,
1 980. This unique workshop, entitled,
"Wet and Wild," immersed teachers in
activities designed to heighten their aware-
ness of the environment as a whole.
In-depth coverage was given on
groundwater.
Teachers came from all over Guam and
from the island of Ponape. During the
workshop, they attended classroom
sessions in which they learned environ-
mental concepts and discussed with rep-
resentatives of the participating agencies
how those concepts related to solving or
preventing Guam's environmental
problems.
While lectures and classroom work did
occur, the main emphasis was on activities.
The most enlightening was an overnight
camp-out on a remote beach complete with
naturally edible foods, spear-fishing,
snorkeling, and field studies. Equipmentfor
the field studies as well as literature were
purchased with funds generated by the
sponsoring agencies. In addition, represen-
tatives of the cooperating agencies will be
available during the school year to provide
advice to the public schools.
Commitment to carrying out an environ-
mental education program in the class-
rooms was demonstrated by the prepara-
tion of a plan of action by each of the
teachers. Through programs such as this,
teachers can make a significant impact on
the environmental ethic of the citizens of
Guam.
The same pressures which have already
created environmental disasters in parts of
the mainland U.S. are present in Guam.
Fortunately, the "conquer and move west"
ethic which prevailed so long on the main-
land has had a barrier on Guam—no west
to move on to. There seems to be a strong
determination to prevent pollution in
the future and to save one of the few
remaining tropical paradises.D
Jane Kellogg is a Writer/Editor at EPA's Robert
S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory in
Ada. Oklahoma. Her husband, Don, is Professor
of Science Education at East Central Oklahoma
State University in Ada. This report is based
on their studies last year at Guam, a U.S.
territory in the Western Pacific with an approxi-
mately 100.000 population and a land area
of about 209 square miles.
30
EPA JOURNAL
-------
"
A native of Guam husking coconuts.
JANUARY 1981
31
-------
The Greening Of The Gray Panthers
By Harold A. Bair
!'ir) with young
environmental students.
A decade ago, in the same year that the
Environmental Protection Agency was
created, a dynamic woman, Maggie
Kuhrt, and four of her friends refused to accept
the stereotype that old people are useless.
Maggie Kuhn, at 65, had been forced into
retirement, and she was neither ready nor
willing to stop a lifetime of hard work and
social contribution. With her friends she
formed the Gray Panthers, an organization
devoted to combatting ageism, that is, dis-
crimination based on chronological age.
Gray Panthers believe that ageism saps
the strength of American society, just as
virulently as racism, sexism, and elitism do.
Ageism afflicts not only the job market, but
contributes to personal identity crisis,
victimization from drug and alcohol abuse,
and far-reaching neglect in the decision-
making process. Gray Panthers were quick
to recognize that all of these injustices are
shared by young and old alike. Ageism
affects people at both ends of the age
spectrum.
Today, the initial group of five Gray
Panthers has grown to more than 55,000
people throughout the land. The key to their
success, and the heart of their movement,
is that they are young and old in action
together. Gray Panthers, above all, are
inter-generational.
Environmental Awareness Project
One of the problems that Gray Panthers
are now addressing is the environment.
Older Americans have witnessed the
buildup of pollution in this country across
the entire span of their adulthood. As young
people they lived in a relatively unpolluted
world. But since the two world wars they
have watched one smalt piece of environ-
mental erosion occur after another. And
recently they have become aware, as have
all of us, that each of these small things has
added up to create the critical state that
our environment is in today.
With this understanding, the Philadel-
phia Gray Panthers Education Fund, Inc.
has initiated a nation-wide Environmental
Awareness Project under the direct spon-
sorship of the Environmental Protection
Agency. The originators of the project
believe that they can uncover ways that
older people can use the experiences
which they have lived through to help
young people understand environmental
problems. In particular, they want to help
young people recognize how crucial the
time element is if the ravages of pollution
are to be abated and controlled.
Maggie Kuhn remembers, for example,
from her own childhood a proposal to keep
Lake Erie clean. But not enough people
at that time recognized or cared about the
threat of the impending disaster. So the
proposal was never adopted, the life of the
lake was imperiled, and now millions of
dollars have had to be spent for its
restoration.
Many older people, from all walks of life,
have stories like this that can be told to the
young. One of the greatest gifts that older
people have is their past. Their experience,
survivorship, and perspective can serve as
models for the young. Their personal appeal
can add validity to our common goal of a
cleaner, healthier environment for all.
Rather than sitting by and watching young
people float around and recite slogans and
then go into the ordinary work-a-day
world and add to pollution, older Ameri-
cans can serve as motivators for the young
by helping them become actively involved
in the environmental cause.
"What are we doing to the children who
grow up today without knowing old people
or having any old friends that they can love
and be comforted by and look forward to
association with?" Maggie Kuhn asks.
"The Environmental Awareness Project
puts people together, people who have been
separated, for a very important cause that
affects both. We, as the elders of our
society, have an obligation and a respon-
sibility to protect our environment for the
young who come after us. The Environmen-
tal Awareness Project is the kind of pro-
gram where we're looking beyond our little,
self-centered beings to others. And our goal
ought to be to reach out to others, to get
connected with a cause that we believe in
and that we can work in."
This new program is being developed in
six cities that form a geographic cross-
section of the United States: Philadelphia,
Pa.; Miami, Fla.; Denver, Colo.; Austin,
Tex.; Portland, Oreg.; and San Francisco,
Calif. Groups in each of these cities are
working with a particular social action
theme directly related to environmental
policy.
Some of the themes from which they are
choosing are law, health effects, tech-
nology, energy conservation, economic
benefits, scientific progress, recreation,
transportation, and ethics. The groups will
target their programs to fit existing youth
service systems such as scout troops,
neighborhood associations, service clubs,
Y's, community centers, afterschool pro-
grams, church groups, and summer camps.
When the project is completed, they will
publish their program in a total social
action-oriented manual so that their model
can be duplicated in communities through-
out the country.
Maggie Kuhn sees older people being
scrap-piled and thrown away by our society
like so many old, used cars. The primary
efforts of the Gray Panthers over the past ten
years have been to counter this scrap-piling by
recycling older Americans into public inter-
est work, into monitoring the operations of
the courts, banks, nursing homes, insurance
companies, and municipal agencies such as
planning commissions and zoning boards.
The Gray Panthers were the first group to
organize people across the country to
reform nursing homes. They have kept a
vigilant eye on the media to eliminate
negative portrayals of older people.
Because many older people do not have
large sums of money to invest and cannot
wait long periods of time for their invest-
ments to accrue, Gray Panthers, in 1978,
petitioned the Federal Reserve Board and
four other Federal agencies to raise interest
rates on small saver accounts, and,
supported by numerous allies, the Gray
Panthers won. They were also instrumental
in raising the mandatory retirement age
from 65 to 70, and they continue to lobby
for a complete lifting of the age limit. In
1974 Ralph Nader's Retired Professional
Action Group merged with the Gray
Panthers, and they guided the successful
enactment of legislation to regulate the
hearing aid industry.
"You handle the stereotypes," Maggie
Kuhn says, "by projecting other images that
define age in affirming tones." While Gray
Panthers make news by fighting the inequi-
ties of ageism, they try to instill the idea
that aging is a natural process that begins
at birth. A positive attitude toward aging
views life as a continuum with all parts
contributing to a wholeness of living. Life
must not be segmented into periods of
greater or lesser worth. Each moment can
be worthwhile. There is an interconnected-
ness to all living toward which we can
devote our common efforts. D
Harold A. Bair is Co-Convener of the Phila-
delphia Gray Panthers and the Director of the
Environmental Awareness Project. Anyone
wishing to get involved in the Gray Panthers-
EPA Environmental Awareness Project should
contact him at 6344 Greene Street, Philadel-
phia, Pa. 19144, telephone 215-843-0814.
32
EPA JOURNAL
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Environmental Almanac: January 1981
A Glimpse of the Natural World We Help Protect
Winter Skeletons
A dawn arrives, the naked
branches of elm and oak
trees are silhouetted like
intricate black fans against the
ruby background light of a
slowly rising sun.
So another winter day un-
folds over a landscape where
plant skeletons—wildflower
and weed stalks and trees
stripped of their winter leaves
—march along roadsides and
across fields and woods.
Gone is the perfumed beauty
of such annual flowers
as violets which disappear
completely by the end of
summer. Yet plants such as
milkweed. Queen Anne's Lace,
wild yams, goldenrod, teasel,
and virgin's bower remain and
are transformed into a new
dry form that can survive icy
breezes.
Some of these plants still
carry seeds and were described
by Thoreau as those "unex-
hausted granaries which enter-
tain the earliest birds—decent
weeds . . . which widowed
nature wears."
Many birds and other ani-
mals also find feed in bare
trees or the vines wrapped
around them. The orange
berries of the bittersweet vine,
the dried purple fruit of grape
vines, and the white berries of
poison ivy all provide nourish-
ment for wildlife.
Even erect dead trees—
called snags—are useful to
creatures of the forest. Wood-
peckers and other insect-eating
birds, such as the brown
creeper, thrive on carpenter
ants, beetles, and termites liv-
ing in the dead wood. Tree holes
drilled by woodpeckers or
caused by disease provide
shelter needed by raccoons
and other mammals.
The most successful hole
digger is the pileated wood-
pecker, a red-headed black and
white bird about the size of a
crow, with a massive black
beak. When drilling, the
pileated woodpecker sounds
like a jackhammer breaking up
concrete and sends wood chips
flying with its hammering
blows.
The large oval hofes it
creates while making a nest
or digging for carpenter ants in
the trunk are later used by many
other birds and small animals.
An excellent den tree is the
sycamore which is particu-
larly susceptible to the internal
diseases and decay that leave
large cavities. Hikers caught in
rain storms can sometimes
walk into the trunk holes in
huge sycamores and find
shelter.
One of the more ancient
trees, the sycamore has a brown
exterior bark that splits as the
trunk grows instead of expand-
ing as the bark does on more
modern trees. When the exterior
flakes off, the sycamore's light
under-bark gives it a distinctive
mottled or whitish appearance.
Other trees which can also
be identified in winter despite
the absence of leaves include
the elm which has a vase-
shaped trunk and branches, the
pin oak with its ascending
upper and drooping lower
branches, the honey locust
noted for its prominent trunk
thorns, and the shagbark
hickory with its shaggy bark.
The silhouettes are only
one of many clues that can pro-
vide a guide to trees and help
solve a tiny part of the vast
mystery of nature.
Winter often savages forest
trees, bending or cracking them
with heavy burdens of ice
or snow.
Occasionally, branches of a
falling tree catch on a neigh-
boring limb, and two forest
monarchs are locked in an
awkward embrace. When winds
blow again, they groan, moan,
and squeak as their branches
rub against each other.
Once they crash to earth,
fallen trees may be cut for
lumber or firewood, but the
less desirable ones will be left
to rot on the forest floor.
Sometimes a seed falling
from a standing tree will be
blown by wind into a crevice in
a log below. When conditions
are right, the embryo in the
seed gradually begins to grow
as the point of its root cracks
the seed case and finds mineral
and water in the decaying
trunk, known by foresters as a
nurse log.
Gradually a new tree sprouts
and begins its long journey
toward the sky as once again
life renews itself in death.—
C.D.P. D
JANUARY 198'
33
-------
People
Tenth Annual
Awards Ceremony
Douglas MacMillan
Three individuals and four
groups were awarded gold med-
als for exceptional service last
month at the 10th EPA annual
awards ceremony. The individ-
uals honored were: Douglas
MacMillan, Director, Hazard-
ous Waste Enforcement Task
Force, Headquarters, for lead-
ership in the hazardous waste
enforcement program; Al Smith,
Jr., Chief, Environmental
Emergency Branch, Region 4,
for leadership in environmental
emergency programs, and
Deborah Taylor, Acting Chief,
Air Economics Branch, Head-
quarters, for leadership in the
design and implementation of
EPA's Budget Policy.
A gold medal went to the
EPA Region lOAIpetco Project
team for exemplary processing
of a precedent-setting environ-
ronmental impact statement
and consolidated permit proc-
ess for a major energy project.
The group includes Glenn
Akins, Paul Boys, Robert Cour-
son, Michael Johnston, Sylvia
Kawabata, Deborah Kirk,
William Lamoreaux, Lee Mar-
shall, Alexandra Smith, Daniel
Steinborn, Robert Wilson, and
John Yearsley.
;.v..\\£tr^
^^^K
....VOW,***^
Al Smith, Jr.
The Resource Conservation
Recovery Act Senior Task
Force, Headquarters, received
a gold medal for its outstand-
ing achievement in developing
and implementing regulations
for the management of hazard-
ous waste. Members of the
group are: Dorothy Darrah,
Gary Dietrich, Lisa Friedman,
John Lehman, and John Skinner.
A gold medal went to the
Consolidated Permit Regulation
and Application Group, Head-
quarters, for exceptional
service in developing regula-
tions and forms for the waste-
water discharge, hazardous
waste, and underground injec-
tion control permit program.
The group includes Joel
Blumstein, Robert Brook, Alan
Eckert, Frank Hall, J. William
Jordan, Heather Struck, Dov
Weitman, and Robin Conrad.
A gold medal was also
awarded to the Inspection and
Maintenance Team from EPA's
Region 8 and the Office of
Deborah Taylor
Mobile Source Air Pollution
Control in Ann Arbor, Mich.,
for their outstanding work in
setting a national precedent for
vehicle inspection and main-
tenance in Colorado. The
members of the group are:
Thomas Cackette, Robert
DeSpain, Robert Duprey, John
Philbrook, Christine Shaver,
and Dale Wells.
The silver medal for superior
service went to seven individ-
uals and five groups. Silver
medals were awarded to
Michael Dellarco, Headquar-
ters; Jerry Kurtzweg, Head-
quarters; Joellen Lewtas,
Research Triangle Park, N.C.;
Alvin Morris, Region 3; William
Preston, Jr., Headquarters;
Terry Thoem, Region 8, and
James Vincent, National
Enforcement Investigations
Center, Denver, Colo.
Silver medals went also to
the Alabama Power Task Force
from Region 4, Research
Triangle Park, and Headquar-
ters: Richard Biondi, Kirt Cox,
Alex Cristofaro, Warren Peters,
Roger Pfaff, Libby Scopino,
Eric Smith, Jimmy Suitt,
Michael Trutna, Lydia Wegman,
Jame:; Weigold, Peter Wyckoff,
Jerry Yarn; the Pulp and Paper
Mill Litigation Team from
Region 10: Danforth Bodien,
Lloyd Reed, Thomas Waite;
the Uncontrolled Hazardous
34
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Waste Site Investigation and
Safety Interim Guidance Group
with the National Enforcement
Investigations Center: William
Blackman, Jr., Barrett Benson,
Kenneth Fischer, James Hathe-
way, John Lattimer; the Pesti-
cide Effluent Guideline Group
at Headquarters: Colburn
Cherney, George Jett; and the
1-84 Environmental Review
Team from Region 1 and Head-
quarters: Stephen Ells, Eliza-
beth Higgins, Peter Karalekas,
Mary Kelley, Sam Little, Joseph
McCabe, Marianne Salerno,
and Wallace Stickney.
The Administrator's Award
for Excellence went to six
individuals and two groups.
Winners include Sheila Allen
and Margaret Boswell, Head-
quarters; Forrest Crane, Las
Vegas, Nev.; Wayne Goforth,
Research Triangle Park, N.C.;
Penelope Poeppelman, Atlanta,
Ga.; Barbara Spahr, Kansas
City, Mo.; the EGD Word One
Center group from Headquar-
ters including Pearl Smith,
Kaye Storey, Carol Swann,
Nancy Zrubek, and the Special-
ized Procurement Unit also
from Headquarters including
J. Lawrence Butler, Patricia
Caldwell, Nancy Collins,
Natika George, Phyllis Parisi,
Roberta Roberts, and Edwin
Stull.
Winner of the Public Health
Service Distinguished Service
Medal was Lawrence Gray,
Headquarters. Public Health
Service Meritorious Service
Medals were won by Robert
Ajax, Research Triangle Park,
N.C., and Charles Porter,
Montgomery, Ala.
Five retiring EPA officials
received Distinguished Career
Awards. They include Allen
Cywin, Senior Science Advisor,
Headquarters; Paul DeFalco,
Jr., Region 9 Administrator;
Robert Horton, Senior Research
Advisor, Research Triangle
Park, N.C.; Albert Metzler,
Assistant Director for Planning
and Management, National
Enforcement Investigation
Center, and Thomas Williams,
Deputy Director, Office of Pub-
lic Awareness, Headquarters.
Also recognized were the 1 2
EPA employees who received
1980 Presidential Rank Awards.
Members of that group are:
Walter Barber, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Air Quality
Planning and Standards,
Research Triangle Park; Eckardt
Beck, Assistant Administrator
for Water and Waste Manage-
ment, Headquarters; Roy N.
Gamse, Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Planning and
Evaluation, Headquarters;
Richard Wilson, Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
General Enforcement, Head-
quarters; Henry Beal, Director,
Standards and Regulations
Division, Headquarters;
Marilyn Bracken, Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
Toxic Program Integration and
Information, Headquarters;
Richard Dewling, Region 2
Deputy Administrator; Rebecca
Hanmer, Region 4 Administra-
tor; Frank Princiotta, Director,
Energy Processes Division,
Headquarters; Steven Reznek,
Deputy Assistant Administrator
for Environmental Engineering
and Technology, Headquarters;
James Rogers, Associate
General Counsel for Water and
Solid Waste, Headquarters, and
Michael Walsh, Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
Mobile Source Air Pollution
Control, Headquarters. D
Sanford W. Harvey, Jr.
He has been named Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
Mobile Source, Noise and
Radiation Enforcement. He was
most recently Regional
Enforcement Director for EPA
in Atlanta.
In his new role, he will be
responsible for designing and
implementing programs to
insure compliance with noise
and motor vehicle emission
standards. Harvey replaces
Ben Jackson, who resigned
last April.
Harvey came to the Agency
in 1978 as the Regional
Counsel for Region 5. Prior to
that, he was an Administrative
Judge with the Corps of
Engineers. He has also worked
in the Office of the General
Counsel of the Office of the
Chief of Engineers, after
serving in the Army Judge
Advocate General's Corps from
1971-1975.
He received his bachelor's
degree from Norwich University
in 1967, and his law degree
from Harvard Law School in
1970.
JANUARY 1981
35
-------
Update
A review of recent major
EPA activities and devel-
opments in the pollution
control program areas.
AIR
Emission Limits
EPA has approved fi-
nal air emission limits
for two West Virginia
power plants that will
protect human health in
the area and maintain
employment stability at
various State coal mines.
The plants affected are
Mitchell Station near
Wheeling and the Harri-
son Station near Morgan-
town. The Mitchell
Station is operated by
Ohio Power Company,
and the Harrison facility
is operated by Monon-
gahela Power Company.
Although EPA has ap-
proved the emission
limits as adequate to
protect the atmospheric
health standard, the
Agency has determined
that the State's plan to
protect atmospheric wel-
fare standards is inade-
quate. The Agency has
asked the State to submit
a new plan within nine
months for attaining this
standard within a reason-
able time.
Options Announced
EPA recently announced
major options it is
considering for restrict-
ing production of ozone-
destroying chlorofluoro-
carbons. The Agency's
preferred option involves
an innovative new ap-
proach that would limit
the total amount of
chlorofluorocarbons al-
lowed to be used in the
United States and give
industry the right to
"buy" and "sell" permits
to produce or use up to
that limit. This approach
would allow, in essence,
continuation of those
uses of chlorofluorocar-
bons society values most
highly while less essen-
tial uses would be re-
placed by substitutes. A
second approach being
considered by EPA in-
volves the use of more
traditional types of restric-
tions such as selective
bans, and setting tech-
nical standards for
emissions during produc-
tion and usage.
Standards
Air pollution standards
recently proposed by the
EPA would cut paniculate
(dust material) emissions
from most new sodium
carbonate production
plants by 55 percent. New
Source Performance
Standards are issued
under authority of the
Clean Air Act.
Particulate emissions
from sodium carbonate
plants can endanger pub-
lic health and welfare.
These tiny particles,
when ingested into the
iungs, can cause breath-
ing problems and respira-
tory illness.
If these new sodium
carbonate plants were
subject to current State
standards, particulate
emissions would be lim-
ited to 768 tons per year
in 1985. The proposed
standards would lower
that figure to 348 tons
annually in 1985.
ENFORCEMENT
Accord Reached
EPA has signed an agree-
ment with National Steel
Corporation which will
bring company plants in
three States into com-
pliance with all air and
water pollution control
requirements by the end
of 1982. The agreement
affects one plant in
Weirton, W.Va., one
plant just outside
Detroit, and a facility in
Granite City, III. The
Barge loaded with Philadelphia sludge moving down the Delaware River.
Ocean
Dumping
Ended
Philadelphia recently
became the first major
U.S. city to stop dumping
sewage sludge into the
Atlantic Ocean. The
cessation, after nearly
twenty years, fulfills a
commitment made by the
city in May 1979 when
it signed a consent agree-
ment with the U.S.
Environmental Protection
Agency, the States of
Pennsylvania and Mary-
land, the Delaware River
Basin Commission, and
the Sierra Club. That
agreement called for a
halt to ocean dumping by
December 31, 1980.
"We are extremely
pleased by the actions of
the City of Philadelphia
and its new Water
Commissioner, William
Marrazzo," said EPA
Regional Administrator
Jack J. Schramm.
Marrazzo said the city's
strip-mine reclamation
program, one of several
alternative programs
devised to utiiize the
sludge, played a major
role in ending the dump-
ing. Almost 70 percent of
the 60,000 to 70,000 dry
tons of sludge produced
annually by the city is
now trucked to two
counties in southwestern
Pennsylvania where it is
applied over spoiled
strip-mine land to foster
revegetation.
Congress has man-
dated an end-date of f
December 1981 for all?
other cities which
continue to dump sludge
material into the Atlantic.
settlement incorporates
National's plans for
modernization and re-
placement of several
basic steelmaking
processes. It will also
maintain the economic
stability of these facili-
ties, which together
employ over 30,000
workers, while protecting
the health of citizens in
surrounding communi-
ties. Particulate emis-
sions will be reduced 79
percent and 80 percent
respectively at the
Detroit and Granite City
plants.
Suits Filed
On behalf of EPA, the
Department of Justice
has taken the following
actions:
• Filed suit against
Chemical Recovery Sys-
tems, Inc., charging that
a chemical waste storage
and solvent recovery
facility operated by the
company is contaminat-
ing soil and the Black
River in Elyria, Ohio.
• Filed suit against the
Diamond Shamrock Cor-
poration charging that
hazardous chromate
wastes deposited at its
Painesville, Ohio site
have contaminated soil
and groundwater under-
lying the site and have
migrated into the Grand
River.
• Filed suit against the
Gulf Coast Lead Com-
pany of Tampa, Fla.,
charging that the disposal
of hazardous wastes at its
secondary lead smelting
facility has polluted
groundwater under the
site.
• Filed suit against the
Chemcentral-Detroit Cor-
poration of Romulus,
Mich., charging the toxic
chemicals discharged at
the company's facility in
Romulus have contami-
nated soil and ground-
water beneath the facility
and have polluted a near-
by stream which connects
with the Detroit River.
36
EPA JOURNAL
-------
In a!l of these actions,
EPA is asking the court to
order the companies to
take remedial action to
eliminate the contamina-
tion, and resolve all other
related problems.
Request Denied
The EPA has denied a
request from Rolls-Royce
Ltd. for a waiver of the
carbon monoxide (CO)
emission standard for its
6.75 Liter V-8 engine
family that it plans to use
in all its models for both
the 1981 and 1982 model
years, The auto manufac-
turer had requested a two-
year delay because initial
emission tests results
suggested there may be
problems with the ve-
hicles meeting the stand-
ard. Since then, however,
EPA said test vehicles
have demonstrated a
capability of meeting the
standards.
HAZARDOUS
WASTE
Hotline Started
EPA's Office of Solid
Waste has begun operat-
ing an industry assistance
telephone "hotline" to
help industry comply with
the new hazardous waste
regulations under the
Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act. The
toll-free hotline operates
Monday-Friday from
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The
number is 800-424-9346
(in Washington, D.C.,
554-1404). Questions
concerning the hotline
may be directed to:
Michael Barclay, Project
Officer, RCRA Industry
Assistance Project, Office
of Solid Waste (WH-565),
Environmental Protection
Agency, Washington, D.C.
20460. Tel.: (202)
755-9190.
Shortage Predicted
A contract study prepared
for EPA estimates that
some areas of the country
do not appear to have
enough hazardous waste
disposal facilities to han-
dle industrial wastes over
the next year, although
nationally, sufficient
capacity exists for hazard-
ous waste generators to
comply with new regula-
tions that took effect this
past November.
EPA Administrator
Douglas M. Costle said
"the results of the study
must be interpreted with
extreme caution." Costle
pointed to the fact that
data on hazardous waste
generation are still very
rudimentary and will con-
tinue to be for several
years, that the hazardous
waste disposal situation
is shifting rapidly, and
that the attention in the
study was focused on the
situation in 1981.
NOISE
Buy Quiet
Municipal officials around
the country are beginning
to establish programs to
reduce noise in their cities
by buying, when possible,
quiet equipment, vehicles
and other machine-driven
products.
The program, called
Buy Quiet, is being coor-
dinated by the EPA and
National Institute of Gov-
ernmental Purchasing. It
is part of a Federal urban
noise initiative to achieve
noise reductions without
Federal regulation, soon
to be implemented in such
cities as New York,
Chicago, Pittsburgh, New
Orleans and Minneapolis-
St. Paul.
Consolidated Guidelines
New consolidated Federal
guidelines on noise-com-
patible land use were
announced recently by the
EPA. As a result of this,
localities now will have a
central point of access to
this information. The
guidelines are intended to
help cities and other local
government in guiding
noise sensitive develop-
ments, such as housing,
away from highways, air-
ports and other major
noise sources and to en-
courage noise-compatible
growth instead.
PESTICIDES
Investigation Opened
An investigation to deter-
mine whether to allow the
continued unrestricted
use of carbon tetrachlo-
ride in fumigants sprayed
on harvested wheat and
other grains has been
opened by the EPA. The
reason, said EPA, is that
carbon tetrachloride
causes cancer, liver dam-
age, and other adverse
effects in test animals
indicating a potential
human hazard.
The Agency said it has
preliminary evidence that
low level residues of car-
bon tetrachloride are
showing up in flour. Bread
baked from this flour
probably would still retain
a small amount of the
residue, according to the
Agency.
RESEARCH
Pilot Study
The EPA recently an-
nounced a pilot study to
see if compact, portable
carbon monoxide detec-
tors carried by commuters
are of practical use in
determining carbon mon-
oxide levels in everyday
living and working condi-
tions. EPA's Environmen-
tal Monitoring Systems
Laboratory in Research
Triangle Park, N.C., is
responsible for the
project.
Program Completed
The EPA has successfully
completed its first minor-
ity apprenticeship science
program. More than 100
students were placed in
the Agency's research and
development laboratories.
The Minority Appren-
ticeship Program includes
EPA and six other Federal
agencies with research
and development respon-
sibilities. In order to par-
ticipate in the program,
students had to have com-
pleted the 10th grade and
have at least one course in
the physical or life
sciences. They also had to
be recommended by their
science teacher or school
principal.
Cold Weather
The EPA recently released
a study which recom-
mends replacement of
existing home furnaces
and boilers with new high
efficiency heating equip-
ment as a means of con-
serving energy whife re-
ducing pollution emis-
sions and heating costs.
The study notes that
homeowners who have
older, less efficient gas
equipment can reduce
their heating bills by
approximately one-third
by purchasing new high
efficiency equipment
which has seasonal effi-
ciencies greater than
80 percent. Those home-
owners with old oil heat-
ing equipment can
have it upgraded, while
those who can heat with
oil but have access to a
gas main could consider
switching to high effi-
ciency gas equipment.
These homeowners could
cut their fuel consumption
by one third and save
money, according to
the study.
Copies of the study
entitled, "An Analysis of
the Economics of Replac-
ing Existing Residential
Furnaces and Boilers with
High Efficiency Units"
may be obtained from
EPA, Rm415 West
Tower, 401 M Street,
SW, Washington, D.C.
20460, Attn: Rosetta
Stokes.
TOXICS
Study Results
The Toxic Substances
Control Act, passed by
Congress in 1976, is just
as likely to stimulate
innovation in some sec-
tors of the chemical
industry as it is to dis-
courage it in others,
according to a study just
released by the EPA. This
finding runs contrary to
fears expressed by some
members of the chemical
industry that the only
effect of the Act's require-
ments will be to slow
down the development of
needed new chemicals.
New Rule
New regulations issued
recently by EPA require
companies intending to
manufactureor import two
controversial fire-retard-
ants, PBB's and TRIS, to
give advance notice to the
Agency. EPA would then
determine whether the
production or importing
of these two compounds
threaten human health or
the environment and take
any required action.
WATER
Clean Water
More than a million rural
residents either already
have or soon will have
their drinking water
cleaned up to meet Fed-
eral drinking water stand-
ards as a result of a finan-
cial aid program run by
the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Farmers
Home Administration in
cooperation with the EPA.
Since the cooperative
effort began in 1978, the
Farmer's Home Adminis-
tration has awarded over
$850 million in 44 States
for roughly 1,500 drink-
ing water projects. D
JANUARY 1981
37
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Around the Nation
Bubble Approved
EPA is proposing for-
mal approval of an in-
dividual bubble plan.
The bubble plan was sub-
mitted to the Agency—
after approval by the State
of Rhode Island—by
Narragansett Electric
Company on August 24,
1980, and involves a
pollution trade-off be-
tween two of the utility's
power plants in Provi-
dence. This multi-plant
bubble strategy would
allow Narragansett
to burn higher-sulfur oil
at one plant, but only
when the other plant is not
operating or is burning
natural gas. Once adopt-
ed, this strategy should
cut sulfur dioxide emis-
sions 1,389 tons per year,
reduce dependence on
foreign oil by 6,000,000
barrels per year, and reap
an annual fuel cost sav-
ings of nearly S3 million.
Agreement Reached
U.S. Attorney Edward F.
Harrington and EPA
Regional Administrator
William R. Adams, Jr.
have announced that EPA
has entered into a consent
decree with W. R. Grace
and Co. concerning the
disposal of hazardous
waste at the W. R. Grace
industrial complex in
Acton, Mass.
The decree, which has
been submitted to the
Federal District Court in
Boston, requires the com-
pany to take a number of
actions, all of which must
be approved by EPA, to
clean up the pollution at
the Acton plant, and to
restore the groundwater
and aquifer to a fully
usable condition.
Transportation Grant
A $3 million Federal grant
to the Tri-State Regional
Planning Commission
will finance local planning
agency efforts to use
transportation innovations
around the New York
Metropolitan Region to
reduce harmful levels of
carbon monoxide and
ozone from auto traffic.
EPA Regional Admin-
istrator Charles S. Warren
said the grant "represents
a challenge to local plan-
ning agencies to look
carefully at available
alternatives to single-
occupant auto use, choose
the best methods for their
area and plan how to put
them into effect. The
agencies involved also
will be asked to predict
how these innovations will
affect local communities."
The two-year project
will involve transportation
and environmental plan-
ners in New York City,
Nassau, Suffolk, Rock-
land, and Westchester
Counties, Northeast New
Jersey, and Southwest
Connecticut. They will be
studying a mix of trans-
portation alternatives.
to groups of children at
the main library and at
16 branch libraries. Each
child also received a
packet containing envi-
ronmental literature, a
bookmark listing books on
environmental themes,
and a balloon imprinted
with a Charles Schultz
"Peanuts" cartoon.
EPA and library offi-
cials are developing plans
fora larger and continu-
ing program in the future.
Suit Filed
The Department of Jus-
tice, on behalf of EPA,
filed suit recently against
Fischer and Porter
Company, Inc., for con-
taminating the public
drinking water supply in
Hatboro and Warminster
Heights, Pa. The com-
plaint alleges that the
Warminster company
improperly disposed of a
degreaser used in its
manufacturing process,
which seeped into the
groundwater. The de-
greaser contains tri-
chloroethylene and
perchloroethylene, two
known cancer-causing
agents.
Environmental Program
Region 3 and the Free
Library of Philadelphia
recently sponsored a
week-long environmental
awareness program for
approximately 1,500
children in grades 4
through 8.
Regional staff members
showed films and spoke
Technology Surge
Region 4 is witnessing a
surge in the use of
innovative and alternative
technology in wastewater
treatment. Sixty-three
such projects were funded
by the Regional Office
in fiscal year '80, while
only nine were funded the
previous fiscal year. The
number of land applica-
tion systems has also
increased in the region
from 6 to 45.
Among the more note-
worthy projects is one
of the largest over-land
flow systems in the Nation
in Cleveland, Miss. It
has a capacity of three
million gallons per day.
Dalton, Ga., has one of
the largest land treatment
systems of any type in
the country, it is a
50-million gallon per day
silviculture project on
8,000 acres. In St. Peters-
burg, Fla., there is a
zero discharge system
where tertiary-treated
wastewater is used to
irrigate public golf
courses, highway rights-
of-way, and other areas.
The facility also includes
a deep-well injection
system for use as a
backup during wet
weather.
Dust Clean-Up
One of the first practical
applications of EPA's
bubble policy has been
put into effect at the
Armco Inc., steel plant
in Middleton, Ohio,
opening the door for other
steel companies to follow
suit. Under the bubble
plan, plant managers are
allowed to figure out the
best way to control air
pollution, as long as
overall clean-air stand-
ards are met. Instead
of instituting expensive
dust-control measures in
the plant itself, Armco
chose to control wind-
blown dust from outside
sources. Armco paved
more than 8 miles of road
within the 1,700-acre
plant complex, installed
fixed and mobile sprays
for raw material storage
areas, paved parking lots
at the plant perimeter, and
began operating com-
pany-owned buses to
reduce employee auto
traffic. In addition, Armco
covered about 18 acres
of barren ground with
trees, shrubs, and grass.
Armco's dust-control
plan under the bubble re-
ceived tentative EPA
approval; final approval
is expected within the
next several months.
Coal Contract
EPA has subpoenaed
documents from Cleve-
land Electric Illuminating
Co., dealing with the
company's cancellation
of a coal contract that
put several hundred
Y & 0 Coal Co. miners
out of work. United Mine
Workers filed a petition
on September 26, seeking
an investigation into the
layoffs atY & O'sAllison
mines as a result of
Cleveland Electric's
cancellation of the con-
tract. EPA granted the
union's request on
October 8 and asked
voluntary cooperation of
all parties. EPA's action
stems from Section 321
of the Clean Air Act,
which allows an em-
ployee, or his representa-
tive, to seek a full investi-
gation in cases where
layoffs are being attrib-
uted to compliance with
Clean Air Act require-
ments.
Y & O Coal Co. con-
tended that Cleveland
Electric could continue
using coal from its Allison
mine and still comply
with applicable regula-
tions of the Clean Air Act.
While officials of Y &0
Coal voluntarily sub-
mitted documents to EPA,
Cleveland Electric raised
objections to the
investigation.
38
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Waste Control
Arkansas became one of
the first States in the
Nation to assume respon-
sibility for management of
its hazardous waste con-
trol program when Re-
gional Administrator
Adlene Harrison approved
the program during cere-
monies in Governor Bil!
Clinton's office recently.
Giving her approval,
Mrs. Harrison said,
"EPA feels strongly
that the State level is
the appropriate place for
such programs, and I feel
confident that Arkansas
officials will do an out-
standing-job."
Noise Conference
A national conference of
noise pollution officials
was held recently in the
University of Texas
Convention Center in
Dallas.
Federal and State offi-
cials discussed noise-
related issues including
State and local noise
control programs
and the function of
regional Noise Technical
Assistance Centers.
Technical issues such as
noise measurements,
monitoring and enforce-
ment were also on the
agenda.
Proposal Approved
Voters in Kansas City,
Mo., recently approved a
proposal to add a con-
trolled amount of fluoride
to their drinking water.
This decision follows
more than a year's cam-
paign begun in 1979
with the introduction of
an ordinance by City
Councilman Emanuel
Cleaver. A citizens'
committee led by local
dentists and pediatricians
actively campaigned for
approval of the measure.
Federal financial
assistance is offered to
municipalities that wish
to practice controlled
fluoridation. EPA sup-
ports this program
through its Office of
Drinking Water.
Drinking Water Study
A Region 7 Task Force, in
conjunction with the
Robert L. Kerr Environ-
mental Research Labora-
tory, Ada, Okla., is
investigating the problem
of nitrates in the ground-
water of the region.
Preliminary findings show
that there are areas in
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
and Nebraska where
groundwater is contami-
nated with high levels
(1 0 mg per liter) of
nitrate.
Suit Filed
U.S. Attorney Charles E.
Graves, on behalf of EPA,
has filed suit in Wyoming
against Rainbow Pipe-
line Company of Afton
and the Rio Vista Home-
sites water system near
Green River. Rainbow
serves about 40 people
in Lincoln County and Rio
Vista some 300 people
in Sweetwater County.
EPA's complaint
alleges that the water
suppliers failed to: do
basic monitoring of their
water quality, report
results of their water
quality to EPA, notify
users that the system was
not in compliance with
Safe Drinking Water Act,
and maintain records of
testing.
Closing Studies
The Regional Office in
Denver has begun an
economic investigation of
the closing of Anaconda
Company's Anaconda
Smelter and Great Falls
Refinery. The investiga-
tion was requested by
Carpenters and Joiners
Local #88, Machinist
and Aerospace Workers
Local #29, and the Inter-
national Union of Operat-
ing Engineers. Section
321 of the Clean Air Act
a Hows workers affected
by pollution control-
related plant closings or
threatened closures to
call for an investigation.
EPA Regional Adminis-
trator Roger Williams
said the effort will be
"a full investigation of
the claims by the Ana-
conda Company that the
plant closure is a direct
result of the administra-
tion of provisions of the
Clean Air Act." He
added,"The company
has pledged its full
cooperation."
Although not related
to the investigation, ways
to reopen those facilities
and allow operation until
1988 are being explored.
Williams said that al-
though he's not optimis-
tic, he and his staff are
continuing discussions
and communications with
Montana's Congressional
delegation, State environ-
mental officials and the
Company.
mission, and the State of
California to monitor a
low level nuclear disposal
site fifty miles off the
coast of San Francisco,
near the Farallon Islands.
Approximately 47,500
steel drums containing
laboratory paraphernalia
and low level nuclear
waste from the Lawrence
Livermore nuclear re-
search laboratory were
disposed of at the site
between 1946 and 1970.
EPA surveys conducted
in 1974and 1977 con-
firmed concentrations of
radioactivity within
expected levels but con-
cluded they posed no
threat to man or the
marine environment.
Increased public concern
resulted in a review of
the data on the disposal
site by a Congressional
subcommittee. The sub-
committee concluded that
fish in the area were
edible, but that a detailed
and regular surveillance
of the site was warranted.
Nuclear Waste:
Region 9 will initiate a
memorandum of under-
standing with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the
Nuclear Regulatory Corn-
Urban Pests
Region 10 last month
supported a three-day
Seattle seminar on urban
integrated pest manage-
ment.
"Integrated pest
management is not just
for the farm ... it can be
adopted by public and
private institutions in the
city as well," said the
Washington Environ-
mental Foundation, spon-
sor of the seminar.
The seminar was de-
signed to acquaint local
governments and com-
munity groups with
biological techniques and
other alternatives that
could supplement or re-
place chemical agents
used to control pests and
unwanted vegetation.
Eskimo Language
To accommodate Alas-
kans who speak only
Inupiaq—an Eskimo lan-
guage—Region 10 held
a recent public hearing in
Barrow in both English
and Inupiaq to hear
comments on EPA's pro-
posed permit for seven
compressor stations that
would be used on the
planned Alaska gas pipe-
line. G
States Served by EPA Regioni
Region 1 (Boston)
Connecticut. Maine.
Massachusetts. New
Hampshire. Rhode Island.
Vermont
617-223-7210
Region 2(Naw York
City)
NewJersry Ni'ivYork.
Puerto Rico. Virgin
Islands
212-264 2525
Region 3
(Philadelphia)
Delaware. Maryland,
Pennsylvania. Virginia.
Was! Virginia. District of
Columbia
215-597-9814
Region 4 (Atlanta)
Alabama. Georgia
Florida. Mississippi.
North Carolina. South
Carolina, Tennesses,
KpnHickv
404-881 4727
Region 5 (Chicago)
Illinois. Indiana. Ohio.
Michigan, Wisconsin.
Minnesota
312-353-2000
Regions (Dallas)
Arkansas, Louisiana,
Oklahoma. Texas. New
Mexico
214-767-2600
Region 7 (Kansas
City)
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri.
Nebraska
816 374-5493
Reg ion 8 (Denver)
Colorado. Utah.
Wyoming. Montana,
North Dakota, South
Dakota
303-837-3895
Region 9 (Sen
Francisco)
Arizona, California.
Nevada. Hawaii
415-556-2320
Region 10 (Seattle)
Alaska. Idaho. Oregon,
Washington
206-442-1220
JANUARY 1981
39
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News Briefs
Superfund Approved
Congress has passed legislation authorizing a "Super-
fund" to aid the Environmental Protection Agency in
the clean-up of toxic waste dumps and chemical spills.
The Agency estimates that some 30,000 to 50,000 poten-
tially hazardous waste dumps are scattered across the
country.' The legislation passed by Congress authorizes
over $1.6 billion t6 be spent over a five-year period.
Of that, 87.5 percent will come from a tax on those in-
dustries which operate the chemical feed-stocks of haz-
ardous waste. The remaining 12.5 percent of the fund
will come from the Treasury. The Agency will take clean-
up action, under this legislation, only in cases where
a responsible party cannot be identified, where a res-
ponsible party refuses or cannot afford to adequately
respond, and if the State is unwilling to take correc-
tive steps.
New Use For
Bubble Idea
The EPA is making a variation of its "bubble" idea
immediately effective to let American can manufac-
turers save an estimated $107 million in capital
expenditures and $28 million annually in operating
costs. The Agency's action expressly encourages
States to allow can makers to meet applicable
emission levels by averaging emissions over a 24-hour
period, permitting much greater flexibility with no
adverse air quality effects.
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EPA JOURNAL
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Young students examining insect specimens at the Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies.
Environment Education
Continued from page 3
budget constraints—a time when we find
it difficult enough simply to maintain busi-
ness as usual, let alone take on new
assignments. I say "we" because EPA and
the pollution control and energy industries
must work together in protecting and
enhancing our environment. The task calls
for ingenuity, cooperation, and a better
understanding by all segments of our
society of the underlying causes of
environmental problems.
We need managerial and conceptual
innovations from the private sector and
government that will enable us to meet our
environmental mandate without imposing
impossible financial demands on our
country. We need fresh thinking about the
things I've mentioned: better waste
technologies, resource recovery, and,
above all, making limited funds do more
than routine duty.
Such calls for technological innovation
are common, and are easiiy dismissed as
being unrealistic. Yet the history of tech-
nology is full of achievements that sages
predicted would never come to pass.
In 1900, for example, the Literary Digest
—once the most influential publication in
the U.S.—had this to say about the auto-
mobile: "Although its price will probably
fall in the future, it will never, of course,
come into as common use as the bicycle."
The day before the Wright Brothers took
off at Kitty Hawk, a Harvard professor of
physics called a press conference to explain
why it was flatly impossible for man to fly.
In 1926, electronics pioneer Lee DeForest
offered this opinion on the future of com-
mercial television: "While theoretically and
technically television may be feasible,
commercially and financially I consider it
an impossibility, a development of which
we need waste little time dreaming."
In short, a striking number of impossible
things have somehow gotten done over the
years by people who refused to stop trying.
The technology that has given us so
many ecological problems must now be
applied to prevent them. We must merge
two "ologies" that have often been in con-
flict into a single life-sustaining, resource-
conserving science for the environment. D
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