United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Volume?
Public Awareness (A-107) Numbers
Washington DC 20460 March 1981
Protecting the Oceans
Oil Tanker Wallowing in Rough Seas
-------
New
Approaches
to the
Environ-
ment
Norman B. Livermore Jr.
Liss confrontation and more
cooperation between users
and protectors of the environ-
ment is foreseen by the leader
of the Reagan Transition Team
for EPA.
Norman B. Livermore Jr.,
the former California Secre-
tary for Resources during the
eight years when Reagan was
governor of that State, said that
he anticipates there will be a
more balanced approach to
environmental problems.
"We must recognize," he
stated, "that the environment
includes other social concerns
such as jobs, safety from crime,
education and overall energy
and economic development as
well as the essential protection
of the natural environment."
Unfortunately, Livermore, a
former member of the board of
directors of the Sierra Club and
the National Audubon Society,
continued "there have been
many examples of over-zealous
environmentalism. I can cite a
number of cases in California
where excess zeal has hurt the
environmental movement.
"By pushing too hard in their
arguments for expansion of
Redwood National Park, envi-
ronmentalists antagonized the
forest products industry, the
U.S. Forest Service, and the
whole business community.
"In the case of the Mineral
King proposal for a ski resort
project (which environmen-
talists succeeded in killing),
they antagonized the skiers,
who will play a key role in the
settlement of important Cali-
fornia wilderness projects.
Skiers are now quite hostile to
environmentalists because of
the over-zealous opposition to
any development of Mineral
King."
Livermore, now a retired
businessman who was recently
awarded a Sierra Club Conser-
vation Award, submitted a re-
port to the White House last
December for the transition
team he headed which dis-
banded after reviewing and
making recommendations on
EPA operations.
Discussing the future of
EPA, Livermore, who empha-
sized that he was speaking
unofficially, said that he antici-
pates that the Agency will con-
tinue to play a strong and
responsible role despite cut-
backs in operating funds and
probable stretching out of the
construction grants program.
On extending the construc-
tion grants program, Livermore
noted that "it took us many
decades to get as polluted as
we are. So whether it takes
three years or 10 to correct
these undesirable conditions is,
in my opinion, not that crucial."
He said he expects EPA to
be streamlined and reorganized,
in part. Livermore added that
while he expects some addi-
tional delegation of authority
by EPA to the States, he recog-
nizes that there are "many pol-
lution problems which cross
State boundaries and thus can't
be shoved off on the States."
Speaking about the Clean
Air Act, which will be reviewed
soon by Congress, Livermore
said that he is "a very strong
believer in.wilderness and
parks" and recognizes the need
to preserve visibility from the
encroachment of pollution in
these areas.
Yet, he continued, on a ranch
he owns with some members of
his family in Northern Califor-
nia, he has to phone 100 miles
continued on page 40
Transition, Task
Force Members
M'
I embers of Liver-
more's Transition
Team for EPA and the
function performed by
each were:
Christopher DeMuth,
policy analysis, lecturer
at the Harvard University
Kennedy School of Gov-
ernment and Harvard Law
School; also Director of
the Harvard Faculty
Project on Regulation;
James McAvoy, Federal-
State relations, Director,
Ohio Environmental
Protection Agency; Lou
Cordia, budget analysis,
Environmental Policy
Analyst for the Heritage
Foundation; Fred
Khedouri, U.S. House
of Representatives liai-
son, legislative director
for former U.S. Rep.
David Stockman who is
now OMB Director;
Nancy Maloley, U.S.
Senate liaison, legislative
assistant for Senator
Richard Lugar of Indiana;
W. Ernst Minor, per-
sonnel, former EPA Public
Affairs Director for EPA
laboratories in Cincinnati
and Reagan-Bush cam-
paign official; Robert T.
Herbolsheimer, adminis-
trative assistant, environ-
mental lawyer and
Congressional campaign
manager; George Van
Cleve, House relations,
Legislative Director for
Congressman Richard
Cheney.
The Transition Team
completed its review of
EPA operations and sub-
mitted a report and
recommendations to the
White House in
December.
In addition to the
Transition Team, Presi-
dent Reagan also ap-
pointed an Environmental
Task Force which dealt
with broad environmental
policy. Along with Liver-
more, this group, which
submitted its report to
the White House in mid-
November, included
among its members:
Dan Lufkin, former
Commissioner of the
Connecticut Department
of Environmental Protec-
tion; John Busterud,
former member of the
Council on Environmental
Quality; Henry Diamond,
former Commissioner of
the New York Environ-
mental Conservation
Department; Nathaniel
Reed, Director of the
National Audubon Society
and former Assistant
Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the
Interior; William Ruckel-
shaus, former Adminis-
trator of EPA; and Russell
E. Train, former Adminis-
trator of EPA, Under-
secretary of the Interior,
and Chairman of the
Council on Environmental
Quality. D
-------
United Stales
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Awareness {A-107)
Washington DC 20460
Volume 7
Number 3
March 1981
&EPA JOURNAL
Walter C. Barber, Acting Administrator
Charles D. Pierce, Editor
Truman Temple, Associate Editor
John Heritage, Managing 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
abiftty of natural systems to sup-
port and nurture life.
Cx,
Law of the Sea 2
The progress on this
major treaty, by Elliot L.
Richardson.
Major Oil Spills 6
A photo essay illustrating
these marine threats.
Initiatives to
Protect the Seas
8
A report on the help EPA
provides in marine
protection treaties, by
Alan B. Sielen.
Managing the Coastal
Environment 11
Measures that can protect
coastal areas as growth
occurs.
Plan for the
Caribbean
14
Pollution protection in this
regional sea.
The Impact of
Ocean Pollution 16
A review of efforts
to understand our
impact on the oceans,
by Allan Hirsch.
EPA and the Marine
Environment 20
The Agency's marine
research and regulatory
activities.
Underwater Scientists
at Gulf Breeze
How sea diving is aiding
marine pollution research,
by Betty Jackson.
Burning Wastes
at Sea
A report on plans to
incinerate hazardous
wastes on special ships
at sea, by Charlotte Garvey.
Guarding the Sea 26
The need to protect
the seas with which our
destiny is linked, by
Jean-Michel Cousteau with
Paula DiPerna.
Making Pollution
Prevention Pay 32
An analysis of how
pollution cleanup can
earn dollars for business, by
Michael G. Royston.
.
O
Departments
Around the Nation
Update 30
28 Almanac 37
People 38
News Briefs 40
Front cover: Oil tanker crashes
through heavy seas, an example
of one of the perils in the mounting
transportation of petroleum on
ocean waters. (Article on p. 2)
Photo credits: Leo Touchet, The
Photo Circle, Inc.; Cecil W.
Stougnton, U.S. Department of the
Interior; National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration;
U.S. Coast Guard; M. Woodbridge
Williams, Ralph Anderson, Richard
Frear, National Park Service; Soil
Conservation Service, U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture; Steven Foss,
James Patrick, EPA's Gulf Breeze
Environmental Research Labora-
tory; U.S. Travel Service; The
Cousteau Society; EPA's Environ-
mental Monitoring Systems
Laboratory, Las Vegas, Nev.;
F. Mattioli, U.N. Food and Agricul-
ture Organization; Bob Wands;
Paul Sequeira, and John Messina.
Design Credits: Robert Flanagan,
Donna Kazaniwsky and Ron Farrah.
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
..inly reflect EPA policy Con
tributions and inquiries should be
addressed to the Editor (A-107),
Waterside Mali, 401 M St , S W
Washington. D C 20460 No per
mission necessary to reproduce
contents except copyrighted photos
and other materials. Subscription
S1 2 00 a year, 51.20 for single
copy, domestic, 51 b 00 if mailed to
,i 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
-------
lt Reyes Nationa
, seashore, Calif.
-------
Law of the Sea
By Elliot L. Richardson
I ake Erie must at one time have seemed
I far too vast to be affected by man's
pollution. Yet everyone is now aware of
the harm which has resulted from man's
discharge of wastes into this body of water.
Many believe that the oceans are too vast
to be affected by man's pollution. However,
unlike Lake Erie where abatement efforts
are aiding natural restoration, the oceans
may be too vast to be restored if we wait
for precise determinations of the impact
of man's pollution on them. All steps
must be taken now to curb pollution of the
marine environment.
Pollution of the oceans comes from
several sources. The primary one is pollu-
tion from land-based sources directly into
the oceans or into streams and rivers
which flow into the ocean. Roughly 85
percent of marine pollution emanates from
sources on land. Other sources include
dumping of man's wastes into the oceans,
the atmospheric transport of pollution from
land into the sea, natural seepage of oil
from the seabed, and pollution resulting
from the recovery of oil from the continen-
tal shelf. The remaining source of pollution,
and the one which attracts the most
attention, is pollution from vessels at sea,
particularly the large oil tankers which
now and again cause disastrous pollution.
The wreck of the 233,000 ton Amoco Cadiz
off the French coast of Brittany in March
of 1978 is a recent and spectacular
example.
The Law of the Sea Treaty now in the
final stage of development by the Third
United Nations Conference on the Law of
the Sea addresses each of these sources of
pollution. It is to be an "umbrella treaty"
which provides a general legal framework
defining the rights and duties of countries
with respect to the oceans rather than
merely a technical convention designed to
spell out specific rules and standards such
as tanker construction requirements.
Adoption of the treaty will contribute an
important step in protecting the marine
environment from man's pollution. One of
its more important features, as I will point
out more specifically later in this article,
is that it would incorporate by reference a
wide variety of other treaties.
Land-Based Sources
Land-based pollutants include riverborne
substances from domestic sewage, indus-
trial waste and agricultural run-off, air-
borne pollutants such as vaporized hydro-
carbons, and direct discharges of sewage
and other wastes from coastal communi-
ties. With regard to petroleum, for example,
land-based sources account for an esti-
mated 50 to 90 percent of the estimated
total of 2 to 5 million metric tons of oil
which enter the oceans annually.
The U.N. Conference on Human Environ-
ment held in Stockholm in 1972 repre-
sented the first major effort by the inter-
national community to come to grips with
the question of land-based sources of
pollution. This conference, however, was
not a treaty-drafting conference but rather
attempted to identify the problem and to
establish institutional arrangements for
dealing with it.
One of the significant outcomes of the
Stockholm Conference was the creation of
the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) headquarters in Kenya. UNEP's
efforts include alerting countries to the
harm to their own interests which results
from land-based pollution of the marine
environment and encouraging regional
action to control such pollution. The
recently-concluded Barcelona Convention
for the Protection of the Mediterranean
Ocean is a good example of UNEP's con-
structive efforts in this area. However, this
is a regional agreement and is severely
limited in substantive scope.
The Law of the Sea negotiating text also
addresses in treaty language the question
of land-based pollution. The text imposes
a positive legal duty on all states to estab-
lish national laws and regulations to
prevent, reduce, and control harmful dis-
charges originating in their land territory.
Specifically mentioned sources include
rivers, estuaries, pipelines, and outfall
structures. The text also calls on states
to convene a separate conference for the
purpose of establishing global and regional
rules and standards to prevent pollution
from land-based sources. Finally, the text
requires states to enforce their laws in
regard to land-based pollution and to adopt
the necessary legislative, administrative,
and other measures necessary to implement
future international rules and standards.
Although this is the first multilateral treaty
to contain provisions of this type, more
far-reaching provisions were blocked,
partly by developing countries concerned
that stringent controls on pollution might
hamper their development and partly by
other nations sensitive to possible infringe-
ment of "sovereignty."
Pollution from Seabed
Activities
Such activities account for only a small
percentage of total marine pollution. For
example, it is estimated that oil develop-
ment, the predominant seabed resource
activity, produces less than two percent
of the oil pollution that enters the world's
oceans. However, the localized effects of
such activities can be dramatic and
devastating. The Santa Barbara incident
of several years ago and the recent
Mexican blowout vividly bring home the
potentially harmful consequences of un-
controlled or accidental discharges from oil
exploitation on the continental shelf.
The text developed by the Law of the Sea
Conference reflects the international
attention which has been focused on
pollution from seabed activities. It calls on
all states to ensure that their domestic
standards for exploitation on their con-
tinental margin are no less effective than
the international standards. Unfortunately,
there are no such international rules and
standards at the present time. Recognizing
this, the Law of the Sea treaty text calls
upon states acting through a diplomatic
conference to establish such international
standards to ensure that seabed activities
do not give rise to pollution of the marine
environment.
The text also addresses pollution
emanating from the other exploitation
activities conducted on the deep ocean
MARCH 1981
-------
floor like the mining of manganese nodules.
It requires states to apply domestic stand-
ards that are no less effective than the
environmental standards developed inter-
nationally through the international
organization being created to govern the
exploitation of these seabed resources.
Further, the text makes clear that states
may impose on ships flying their flag seabed
mining regulations more stringent than
those imposed by the Authority. This is
particularly important for the United
States, since our companies, along with
those of a few other industrialized states,
enjoy a significant lead in seabed mining
technology. The major problem for inter-
national organizations and individual states
has been the development of an adequate
body of scientific knowledge regarding
the effects of seabed mining upon which
to base intelligent environmental rules
and regulations.
Dumping
The practice of dumping wastes in con-
tainers and sometimes without containers
into the open ocean has been going on
for many decades. However, the high
toxicity of some of the wastes which have
been dumped and the increased under-
standing of the harmful consequences of
some past dumping practices have led to
international efforts to regulate and control
these activities. The first international
conference on dumping, convened in
London in 1972, resulted in a convention
now in force which restricts and limits
the dumping that can be conducted by
signatories to that treaty. It contains
detailed annexes which specify those
substances which cannot be dumped and
those substances which may be dumped
only in accordance with special precau-
tionary measures. The Law of the Sea text
requires all states to establish dumping
laws at least as effective as these global
standards. This provision will make the
London Dumping Convention standards
applicable to all states which ratify the sea
treaty whether or not they have ratified
the London Dumping Convention itself.
Pollution through
the Atmosphere
Evidence of DDT found in the ice sheet
covering Antarctica has convinced even
the most doubting skeptics that toxic
substances are being distributed by the
atmosphere throughout the world not only
on the ice sheet of Antarctica but also
into the world's oceans. Airborne pollution
of fresh-water lakes in North America
and in Europe is generating increasing
controversy. Thus far. however, little
international progress has been made on
this complex question. It is difficult to write
acceptable standards which limit activities
within the borders of one country in such
a manner as to ensure that those activities
do not adversely affect the citizens of a
neighboring country. The global concern
about fluorocarbons' possible effects upon
the ozone layer dramatically illustrates
that the atmosphere upon which all
depend is a global resource. Atmospheric
loading of carbon dioxide from the com-
bustion of fossil fuel, with potentially
critical implications for global climate
patterns, is another case in point. The
interaction between the atmosphere and
the ocean often results in transfer of these
airborne pollutants to the ocean. The Law
of the Sea treaty as an umbrella treaty does
not contain detailed provisions on airborne
pollution. However, countries are required
to establish regulations to reduce and
eliminate pollution of the marine environ-
ment from and through the atmosphere.
Pollution from Vessels
Pollution from vessels is dealt with in
considerable detail in the Law of the Sea
treaty. The detail results from the fact that
this source of pollution has long been a
subject of international regulation and the
fact that the use of the oceans for naviga-
tion remains one of the treaty's principal
objects. The Law of the Sea text strives
to balance the need for protection of the
ocean from vessel pollution and the need
to ensure that this important avenue of
commerce is not foreclosed by the abusive
exercise of rights by foreign states.
Pollution, particularly oil pollution from
vessels, results from accidental discharges
such as the Amoco Cadiz disaster or from
operational discharges. Accidents are
caused by navigational errors, improper
equipment, poor training of the crew, and
a myriad of other possibilities related to
the construction, design, equipment, or
manning of a vessel or its operation.
Operational discharges often are for the
convenience of the vessel operator to the
detriment of the marine environment and
the coastal state. These discharges result
from pumping waste out of the ship's
bilges, cleaning tanks which have been
used to carry products such as crude oil,
or deballasting. International efforts in the
International Maritime Consultation
Organization have created a complex
matrix of standards to reduce the discharge
of oil through operational discharges and
to seek to prevent discharges of oil from
maritime accidents or casualties. The Law
of the Sea text does not seek to displace
these standards but rather to build upon
them by addressing jurisdictional questions
whose resolution is necessary for their
effective implementation and enforcement.
The treaty apportions jurisdiction to
deal with vessel source pollution between
those states—coastal states—likely to be
most affected by it and best capable of
dealing with it, the state in which the vessel
is registered, and the states to whose
ports the vessel is bound. Historically, it
was felt that the state in which a ship is
registered should be the one to assure its
seaworthiness and the competence of its
crew. However, many states—those which
"provide flags of convenience"—have not
fully lived up to their obligations in this
regard. Thus the treaty imposes require-
ments on flag states more stringent than in
any previous multilateral treaty. Flag states
are obligated to ensure effective com-
pliance with all applicable international
rules and standards and their own national
pollution laws irrespective of where the
violation occurs. They must ensure that
vessels flying their flag do not leave port
unless the vessels are in compliance with
ail applicable international standards
including those relating to the design,
construction, equipment, and manning of
vessels. The draft also sets forth require-
ments regarding the certificates vessels
must carry to'show compliance with
international standards and obligates flag
states to perform periodic inspections to
assure that the condition of the vessels is in
conformity with these certificates. Finally,
flag states are required to investigate and
prosecute properly documented violations
occurring anywhere in the world.
Historically, some flag states have
argued that certain international standards
are not applicable to them because they
have not ratified the convention under
which the particular standard is promul-
gated. The Law of the Sea treaty attempts
to solve this problem by elaborating coastal
state standard-setting and enforcement
competence for the most serious pollution
problem—operational discharges. In its
territorial sea (12 miles under the treaty),
a coastal state may establish and enforce
pollution laws and regulations more
stringent than international standards so
long as such laws do not hamper the tradi-
tional navigational right of "innocent
passage"—the right to pass peacefully
through a territorial sea. For example, a
coastal state may prohibit the discharge of
any oil in its territorial sea and may estab-
lish insurance and liability requirements
at any level it deems necessary to assure
adequate compensation in case of a major
pollution incident. It may also establish
laws necessary for the safety of navigation
and the regulation of marine traffic. Beyond
12 miles, the international standards for
discharges would continue to apply.
The Law of the Sea Conference limited
the coastal state right to set standards
EPA JOURNAL
-------
concerning the design, construction,
manning and equipment of vessels travers-
ing its territorial sea because it felt the
potential multiplicity of regulations in
these traditional shipping routes would
place an undue burden on international
commerce. Standards on these subjects
would still be established by the Inter-Gov-
ernmental Maritime Consultative
Organization.
However, the treaty confirms the right
of all states under existing law to set such
standards for vessels entering their ports.
For example, the United States has enacted
port entry regulations regarding the design,
construction, manning and equipment of
vessels that far exceed existing interna-
tional standards. It seems to me legitimate
for coastal states, with due regard for the
need to avoid undue burdens on inter-
national commerce, through exercise of
their own jurisdiction over ships in their
ports, to exercise pressure for the
strengthening of international standards.
Beyond the territorial sea the treaty
creates a new zone of jurisdiction called
the "exclusive economic zone." In this
area, which extends to a distance of 200
miles from shore, the coastal state will
have rights over all living and non-living
resources. Traditionally this area has been
considered high seas, and coastal states
had no jurisdiction over vessels with
regard to the prevention of pollution.
However, because of the potentially serious
risk to the resources of the zone, the
coastal state will be allowed to take legal
proceedings in cases of serious violation
of international discharge standards that
cause or threaten major damage.
One of the more innovative features of
the Law of the Sea text, and perhaps its
greatest contribution to the effort to control
vessel-source pollution, is a new juris-
dictional concept in international law. The
treaty gives a state the right to take action
against a vessel voluntarily within its ports
for any violation of international rules and
standards. The port state can take legal
action against the vessel for violations
occurring not only within its own territorial
sea and economic zone but anywhere in
the ocean. This concept of universal port-
state jurisdiction is important for several
reasons. First, vessel-source pollution is
a global problem not capable of solution
solely by action of the jurisdiction where
the pollution occurs. Even if a state could
eliminate pollution within its own economic
zone by effective standards and enforce-
ment measures, it could not protect itself
from discharges occurring just beyond
its zone that are carried landward by
winds and currents. Further, unilateral
standards applicable only within a limited
zone do nothing to protect the oceans as
a whole from pollution. It is axiomatic that
each state suffers to the extent that the
Lighthouse fit Cape Hatteras National
Seashore, N.C.
overall water quality of the marine environ-
ment is degraded. Thus, states not affected
by individual pollution incidents within
their own jurisdictions will nevertheless
suffer over time the effects of discharges
occurring in other parts of the ocean.
Recent international conventions estab-
lished through the Inter-Governmental Mari-
time Consultative Organization prohibit any
discharges of oil by tankers within 50 miles
of land and beyond 50 miles set rigid
standards regarding the amount of oil
which can be discharged per mile (60
liters) and on the total amount of oil that
can be discharged (1 730,000 of the total
quantity of the cargo). They also establish
higher standards for design, construction
and equipment of new vessels and for the
retrofit of many existing vessels.
The port-state system set forth in the
treaty provides an efficient means of
enforcing these standards. At one time or
another most tankers call at the ports of the
United States, Japan, and Western
European countries. If these states acting
in concert were strictly to enforce these
standards, they would have a significant
impact in reducing operational discharges
of oil throughout the world.
A final contribution of the Law of the Sea
Conference is the inclusion of compulsory
third-party dispute settlement procedures
to deal with environmental disputes. Such
procedures will allow a body of "case law"
to be gra dually builtupthatwill give more
precise meaning to the previously men-
tioned environmental obligations.This body
of law can become an effective means of
bringing internal and external pressure on
a foreign state to meet its environmental
obligations. The threat of suit in and of
itseif can be a significant restraint. In
addition, dispute settlement procedures
can play a major role in reducing the
serious international friction that may arise
where significant economic interests are
at stake. The treaty provides the first global
agreement on compulsory third-party dis-
pute settlement of broad environmental
issues.
Conclusion
While there are a host of other provisions
dealing with the question of pollution of
the marine environment, these are among
the most important. The Inter-Governmental
Maritime Consultative Organization is left
with the role that it has been filling with
increased responsibility in recent years—
that of establishing international standards
for the construction, design, equipment,
and manningof vessels. The international
organization continues to set
standards for discharges beyond the
territorial sea. The Law of the Sea treaty
as an umbrella establishes basic jurisdic-
tional rights and duties which the
organization cannot address.
For a country such as the United States,
whose ports are entered by 95 percent of
the vessels appearing off its coast, the
power to set construction, design, equip-
ment, and manning standards as a condi-
tion for port entry remains an effective tool
for preventing pollution of the marine envi-
ronment. Similarly, the enforcement pro-
visions of the Law of the Sea treaiy, which
give the broadest role to the port state,
a strong role to the coastal state in the
territorial sea and a more limited role to the
coastal state in the economic zone, repre-
sent a creative accommodation. The oceans
are protected from pollution, while at the
same time navigational freedoms are also
protected.
For all these reasons the Law of the Sea
treaty, once in effect, will represent an
important step in the worldwide effort to
prevent and control pollution of the marine
environment of the world's oceans. When
combined with future international efforts
addressing the complex issue of land-based
pollution, the Law of the Sea treaty should
materially contribute to protecting the
world ocean from the fate that once befell
Lake Erie. D
Mr. Richardson was until recently the
President's Special Representative for the
Law of the Sea Conference. He is now the
Senior Resident Partner in the Washington
law office of Mi/bunk. Tweed, Hadley, and
McCloy. He has held several cabinet level
positions.
MARCH 1981
-------
A, The tanker Torrey Canyon,
grounded on shoals off the
southwestern coast of Great
Britain on March 16. 1967. lost
36 million gallons of crude oil.
Further environmental damage
was caused by attempts to clean
up the oil chemically with
untested detergents.
B. On March 3. 1968, the Ocean
Eagle ran aground while carry-
ing 5.7 million gallons of crude
from Venezuela to San Juan,
Puerto Rico. The ship dumped
two million gallons of oil into
the San Juan Harbor.
C. A Shell oil rig in the Gulf of
Mexico ten miles off the coast
of Louisiana burst into nearly
uncontrollable flames following
an explosion on Dec. 4, 1970.
D.Dec. 15, 1976. theSSArgo
Merchant, a Liberian tanker
carrying over seven million gal-
lons of heavy fuel oil, ran
aground off the coast of Nan-
tucket Island, Mass., and spilled
huge amounts of oil. Coast
Guard units staged an unsuc-
cessful six-day fight to save the
vessel, which was broken in half
by powerful currents and high
winds.
striking rise in the amount
of oil spilled on the seas
over the past decade reached an
all-time high in 1979, with 328
million gallons pouring into the
oceans from tanker spills. This
increase can be attributed in
part to growth in oil tanker
capacities.
Although much publicized,
ocean spills actually represent a
relatively small percentage of
the total 1.8 billion gallons of
petroleum discharged yearly
into the ocean. (Other sources
include operational discharges
from ships, river runoff, atmos-
pheric rainout, and natural
seepage.) But the public spot-
light focused on the dramatic
tanker spills emphasizes the
vulnerability of the world's
oceans and the delicate environ-
mental balance in which the
seas play a vital role.
EPA JOURNAL
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E. In March. 1978. the tanker
Amoco Cad in spilled more than
66 million gallons of oil when it
ran aground in the Atlantic off
the Brittany Coast of France.
F. Workmen pump oily water
from French shores following
the 1978 Amoco Cadiz spill.
MARCH 1981
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EPAJOURNAL
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Initiatives
to Protect the
By Alan Sielen
In the past decade the world community
has come together at an unprecedented
pace to seek solutions to the problems of
protecting our planet's natural environment.
This is particularly evident with respect to
protecting that two-thirds of the earth's
surface covered by oceans. United States
leadership has contributed immensely to
this phenomenon, and, in turn, EPA has
played a iarge part in U.S. efforts.
The Environmental Protection Agency
has been deeply involved in several
international initiatives to advance our
Nation's far-reaching interests in the seas.
The Agency provides expertise to the
Department of State and other Federal
agencies for negotiations on a number of
salt-water issues related to ocean dumping,
vessel pollution, the law of the sea, and
Antarctic resources.
The Agency's largest involvement is in
the area of ocean dumping. As lead
agency in the Federal Government for
implementing the 1972 London Dumping
Convention, EPA chairs United States
delegations to negotiations held pursuant
to the Convention, and provides most of
the scientific and policy support for such
deliberations.
The London Convention is the chief
global mechanism for regulating the
deliberate disposal of wastes at sea. The
Convention entered into force in 1 975,
and 46 countries have now ratified or
acceeded to it including most of the major
industrialized nations. Conceptually, the
Convention is similar to our domestic
ocean dumping law—extending many of
that law's features to the international
level. Prospective dumpers are required to
obtain a permit from the relevant national
authority in their country. There is a list of
particularly harmful substances which may
not be dumped such as organohalogens,
high level radioactive wastes, certain
heavy metals, and chemical or biological
Shorebirds wheeling over an ocean beach.
warfare agents. There is another list of
substances requiring "special care" before
dumping, and a set of environmental
criteria to be considered by the national
authority when issuing a permit.
Since 1975, the Convention Contracting
Parties have reached agreement on a
number of regulations and other measures
needed to effectively carry out the objec-
tives of the Convention. Mandatory regula-
tions are now in force to control the
innovative technology of incinerating
hazardous chemicals at sea. Similarly,
several measures have been adopted to
tighten controls on the sea disposal of
low-level radioactive wastes. Also, bio-
assay tests pioneered in the U.S. for
determining the effect of pollutants on
marine life are now required under the
Convention.
Recently, there has been special atten-
tion focused on the problem of ocean
dumping of nuclear wastes. Although the
U.S. does not now dump nuclear wastes, we
have been in the forefront of much interna-
tional work to strictly control their disposal
at sea. Through the International Atomic
Energy Agency and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development's
Nuclear Energy Agency, the U.S. has helped
develop environmental assessment and
monitoring requirements which will stead-
ily inject a greater degree of accountability
into this practice.
A second area of international environ-
mental cooperation is vessel safety and
pollution prevention. With a world fleet of
nearly 7,000 tankers transporting almost
two billion tons of oil each year, potential
costs in terms of human life, environmental
damage, and economic loss are a fact of
lifeat sea.
MARCH 1981
-------
The well publicized wrecks of the
Torrey Canyon, Amoco Cadiz and Argo
Merchant are just a few examples of the
risks attending the transport of oil and
other hazardous chemicals by sea. Acci-
dents often occur near shore where
valuable estuarine and coastal areas are
particularly vulnerable to damage. More
important in terms of volume are the dis-
charges of oil from routine vessel opera-
tions such as tank cleaning and
deballasting.
Fortunately, che international maritime
community is taking steps to prevent ship
pollution and to further protect human life.
During the past 25 years, a number of
international treaties have been negotiated
under the auspices of the Intergovern-
mental Maritime Consultative Organization
(IMCO)—a specialized agency of the
United Nations—to remedy problems of
tanker safety and pollution prevention. The
most significant of these agreements were
concluded in 1978 largely as a result of the
President's call for a total revamping of
United States and global rules governing
the design, construction, operation, equip-
ment and manning of tankers.
These agreements, the Safety of Life at
Sea and Marine Pollution Protocols of
1978, upgrade previous international regu-
lations and establish a comprehensive set of
safety and pollution prevention require-
ments for new and existing ships. The Ma-
rine Pollution Protocol strictly limits the
amount of oil which may be discharged at
sea, and contains effective operation and
design requirements for washing of crude
oil from cargo tanks, and segregated ballast
—the placement of cargo and ballast in
separate tanks. Moreover, to prevent loss of
oil from accidents, new tankers will be
required to place ballast tanks in protective
locations on the side or bottom of the ship
to cushion cargo tanks in the event of a
grounding or collision.
These and many other features found in
the 1978 Protocols can significantly reduce
vessel pollution if conscientiously applied.
In the past, maritime nations have been
exceedingly slow in ratifying the various
IMCO agreements, thus often delaying their
entry into force for several years. There is
hope, however, that this unfortunate pattern
is now being broken. Several nations,
including the United States, have already
ratified the 1978 Protocols and it appears
that these agreements stand a good chance
of entering into force soon.
The many jurisdictional questions deal-
ing with the rights and duties of nations to
set and enforce environmental rules are not
fully addressed in the treaties on dumping
and tankers. Rather, it was felt that such
legal issues would be best dealt with in the
broader context of the Third United Nations
Conference on the Law of the Sea whose
mandate is. to produce a comprehensive
agreement on all aspects of ocean use and
management—a virtual constitution for the
seas. The Conference has produced a Draft
Convention on the Law of the Sea, and is
expected to adopt a final agreement later
this year.
As Elliot Richardson discusses in detail
elsewhere in this publication, the Law of
the Sea Conference has taken enormous
strides in creating a new environmental
order for the oceans. The present Draft
Convention deals in a comprehensive fash-
ion with matters dealt with fleetingly, or not
at all, in previous conventional internation-
al law. It answers basic questions on the
distribution and exercise of authority in
various areas of ocean space such as ports,
territorial seas, 200-mile economic zones,
and the high seas. It tells us how far sea-
ward, and under what conditions. States
can apply national and international regula-
tions for the control of specific sources of
ocean pollution. New environmental obliga-
tions are also created. States must develop
contingency plans for responding to spills,
monitor the effects of pollution, and assess
activities for potentia I impact on the marine
environment. Other measures also point to
a greater degree of environmental account-
ability for marine activities: requirements to
comply wtih international environmental
rules; compulsory procedures for settling
disputes; and obligations regarding liability
and compensation for harm to the oceans.
Another focus of international attention
is Antarctica. Recently, this interest has
centered on the resource potential—both
living and mineral—of Antarctica and the
Southern Ocean. The United States is one
of thirteen countries party to the Antarctic
Treaty. (The others are Argentina, Austra-
lia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New
Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa,
Soviet Union, United Kingdom). Primarily,
the treaty ensures that Antarctica will be
used only for peaceful purposes; it encour-
ages research in the area; and "freezes" the
status-quo on territorial claims, while pre-'
serving the right to disagree on the recog-
nition of such claims. So far, the Treaty has
operated as something of a model of co-
operation. With recent interest in the
resource potential of Antarctica, however,
new stresses will be placed on the treaty
system including pressures from nations
outside the exclusive orbit of the thirteen.
Antarctica is rich in marine life including
fish, krill, squid, birds, seals, and whales.
Krill—a small shrimp-like crustacean—is
an essential element of the Antarctic food-
chain, serving, for example, as the main
source of food for whales of the Southern
Ocean. Krill may also turn out to be a
significant source of animal feed and food
for humans.
The prospect of seriously depleting fish
and krill stocks in Antarctica by overexploi-
tation prompted Antarctic Treaty members
to seek an agreement on conserving and
managing the continent's marine living
resources. Last year, treaty members con-
cluded the Convention on Antarctic Marine
Living Resources, which is open to all
nations for signature. It is the first world
fishery agreement to be based on eco-
system management principles. The scien-
tific community must now get on with the
research necessary to effectively carry out
the objectives of the Convention.
The possibility of significant oil and gas
deposits on the Antarctic continental shelf
has also generated new interest in the
southern continent. Antarctic Treaty mem-
bers are now considering the negotiation of
an Antarctic mineral resources regime.
Important elements of a regime are a means
for determining whether mineral explora-
tion and exploitation—presently governed
by a policy of "voluntary restraint"—
should take place, and if so, where, and
under what conditions. The fragile nature
of the Antarctic ecosystem, the importance
of Antarctica to the world environment,
severe weather meaning extremely difficult
working conditions, ... and the lure of oil
... all combine to make the Antarctic
minerals risk-benefit equation a formidable
challenge.
There has been real progress in protect-
ing the earth's salt-water environment. But
much remains to be done. Securing wide-
spread acceptance, and effective imple-
mentation, of existing agreements must be
the first priority. The difficult task of devel-
oping realistic strategies for the control of
land-based sources of marine pollution—
rivers, outfalls, atmospheric fallout—must
be met head on. Work on rules to control
new or as yet internationally unregulated
sources of ocean pollution, such as offshore
oil drilling, deep seabed mining and ocean
thermal energy conversion must move
forward.
Such prescriptive activities cannot exist
in a scientific vacuum. Concerted national,
regional and global efforts to study the
impacts, fates and effects of pollutants on
the marine environment are needed. This is
particularly true with respect to some of the
most harmful substances such as trans-
uranic radionuclides, synthetic organic
chemicals, heavy metals, and petroleum
hydrocarbons. The duties of states to con-
duct environmental assessments and to
monitor the effects of pollution are just now
being recognized at the international level.
This element of accountability has too long
been missing from our collective psyches.
General acceptance of these principles is
revolutionizing our thinking on ocean use,
and paving the way for a better future. D
Alan Sielen is Special Representative for
Marine Negotiations, Office of International
A ctivities, EPA.
10
EPA JOURNAL
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Managing the
Coastal
Environment
A handbook to help local
officials and planners
develop programs to protect
and manage the Nation's
coastal resources has been pub-
lished by the Federal
Government.
The guidebook, Coastal
Environmental Management:
Guidelines For Conservation of
Resources and Protection
Against Storm Hazards, was
prepared by the Conservation
Foundation for the Federal
Insurance Administration, the
Environmental Protection
Agency, the President's Council
on Environmental Quality, and
several other Federal agencies.
The guidebook deals with
such problems as beach ero-
sion, wetlands conservation,
saltwater intrusion into drink-
ing water supplies, estuarine
pollution, and the possibility of
hurricane damage.
The guidelines proposed by
the document are aimed at
helping communities plan for
sound development while
conserving resources and pro-
tecting lives and property from
natural hazards.
Traditionally, the guidebook
notes, many coastal protectors
and coastal developers have
thought that conservation and
development were at odds.
But, the guidebook says, weli-
planned development generally
adds to the prosperity of a
coastal community, while bad
development will, sooner or
later, have a negative effect,
including costs to the public
in higher taxes to handle crowd-
ing and unplanned services.
Management techniques can
serve multiple purposes, the
guidebook notes. For example,
setback requirements for beach-
front building can save the
nesting sites of turtles in sand
dunes, and also protect beach-
front homes from erosion and
storm waves.
The guidebook offers a series
of physical management poli-
cies which can help local
managers tailor their coastal
protection programs to match
local needs and local environ-
mental goals. The book also
contains a description of
relevant Federal and State
programs.
Highlights of the coastal
problems and proposed solu-
tions as discussed by the
guidebook follow:
Common tern rises from nest on Cape Cod, Mass.
MARCH 1981
1 1
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Beaches
Coastal
Floodlands
Dunelands
While beaches serve as the
main protective bulwark for
property along the shores of
oceans and large sounds, the
guide emphasizes, they are
fragile. If a community allows
removal of sand, improper
building, or blocking of sources
of sand replenishment the
beach may be severely damaged
or destroyed, the handbook
points out. For instance,
Miami's once wide and beauti-
ful beach has been reduced to
fragments. The probable cost
for repair is about $60 million
tax dollars, the guidebook says.
The guidebook calls for
community beach management
programs to limit building,
prevent excavation, and control
inlet and beach protection
structures. This would include
locating all structures inland
of the beach and encouraging
effective restoration of seriously
eroded beaches.
Coastal floodlands are sporad-
ically struck by storm waves
and flooded by storm tides, with
the most devastating effects
produced by hurricanes. These
floodlands attract many users,
the guidebook notes—industry,
commerce, recreational de-
velopment, homes. They are
often cleared, graded, filled,
and built on without regard to
their ecologic and hazard-
resistant functions. The result
includes increased danger to
life and property from sea
storms and hurricanes, and
land subsidence.
To protect the floodlands,
communities may need con-
struction setbacks, provisions
for elevation of homes and
other structures, and restraints
on excavation and groundwater
pumping, the guidebook says.
They may also need restraints
on soil erosion, wetland altera-
tion, and the modification of
water courses.
The guidebook explains that
dunelands—the area of dunes,
sand ridges, and flats between
the beach and higher ground—
are a unique natural habitat;
they are also highly susceptible
to storm damage.
The guidebook cautions that
while the risk of building
directly on the beach is obvious,
the risk of building in the
dunelands behind may not be
so apparent. Active dunelands,
like beaches, are uncertainly
balanced between the erosive
forces of storms and the
restorative powers of tides,
winds, and currents, making
them a risky place in which to
have a home.
The guidebook says dune-
lands need to be protected so
they can continue to buffer the
force of storm seas, store and
provide sand to protect beaches
and shorelands, and furnish
valuable wildlife habitat.
Management needs for dune-
lands, the guidebook says,
include setbacks, construction
standards, excavation re-
straints, and traffic control. This
includes prohibiting excavation
and removal of active dunes
and beach ridges and building
all structures landward of
active dunes.
EPA JOURNAL
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Banks
and Bluffs
Coastal
Uplands
Saltwater
Wetlands
The banks and bluffs that
border many coastal waters are
attacked by currents and waves,
which may cause slumping and
sliding. Water seepage from
above may further weaken their
stability. As a result, bank and
bluff tops can be hazardous
sites for development, the
handbook notes.
Many wildlife species breed
and sometimes live in natural
bank and bluff habitats.
To protect banks and biuffs
and minimize hazards, the
community will need to enforce
construction setbacks and con-
trols on such factors as water
seepage and physical alteration,
the guidebook says. Engineer-
ing techniques can be used to
prevent damage and restore
already damaged banks and
bluffs.
Coastal uplands might be farm
fields, woodlands, or suburban
neighborhoods. They might
extend from a few feet back of
the water's edge to a mile or
more. Uplands terrain and
water systems—streams,
ponds, and wetlands—collect
and hold large amounts of
storrn water, acting as a natural
sponge, providing a balanced
rate of runoff flow plus protect-
ing against flooding. Their
vegetation and soils cleanse the
water as well.
The guidebook warns that
upland benefits are diminished
when 'the terrain is cleared of
vegetation or paved, or changed
to speed drainage; when sur-
face water bodies and water-
courses are filled, detoured,
or channelized; or when the
natural pattern of freshwater
flow to the coast is changed.
Soil conservation and pro-
tection of natural water systems
in the uplands are the manage-
ment methods emphasized by
the guidebook.
Saltwater wetlands—marshes
and mangrove swamps—are a
key part of the coastal environ-
ment, the guidebook points out.
They support waterfowl, nour-
ish marine life, cleanse the
waters of the coast, diminish
storm flooding, and beautify
the shore. The more intensely
developed an area, the more
crucial is the need for wetland
preservation through land-use
controls and special regula-
tions, according to the
guidebook.
Management tools recom-
mended by the guidebook in-
clude restraining excavation,
filling, clearing, paving, and
grading; discouraging activities
that alter the natural water
systems, such as draining and
diking, and restraining the
discharge of pollutants into
wetlands.
Reviewing the overall picture,
from dunes to bluffs, the guide-
book says there are plenty of
examples of poorly controlled
development that has had a
serious negative effect on the
value of coastal resources.
Demands for retirement and
vacation housing and other
investments in waterfront land
have been intense. Developers
have encouraged and satisfied
these demands and, in so
doing, have frequently imposed
high capital and servicing costs
on coastal communities,
according to the handbook.
The costs of development
impacts are felt by the public
in higher taxes, the guidebook
points out. In addition, poorly
managed development can be
destroyed quickly, at great cost
to the community, in floods,
severe storms, and hurricanes,
the document says. "Thus, our
primary goals, conservation of
coastal resources and maintain-
ing nature's systems, can also
in the long run save the taxpayer
money," says the guidebook.
Other agencies contributing
to the guidebook were the
National Oceanic and Atmos-
pheric Administration's Office
of Coastal Zone Management,
the Corps of Engineers, and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Copies are available from
the Superintendent of Docu-
ments, U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington,
D.C. 20402. The order number
is 064-00-00009-8; the price
is $5.50. D
MARCH 1981
13
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Plan for the Caribbean
St. Thnrnns h,irbor in the U.S. Virgin Islands with the town of Charlotte Ama/ie in the background, 3 picturesque area in the Caribbean.
14
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Most of the 26 states of the wide-rang-
ing Caribbean region, including the
Gulf of Mexico, plan to join forces at a
meeting April in Kingston, Jamaica, to do
something about the deteriorating environ-
ment of their common sea and their coastal
areas.
The principal objectives are to assess
the state of the environment in the region
and to assist Caribbean governments to
solve or minimize environmental problems
through careful management of develop-
ment activities.
At the April meeting, top level represen-
tatives of the Caribbean governments are
scheduled to sign an ambitious Caribbean
Action Plan designed to meet these objec-
tives. They are also slated to set up a
small secretariat in the Caribbean region
to carry out the plan.
The action plan was prepared by scien-
tific and legal experts selected by these
governments at a meeting last month in
Managua, Nicaragua.
Activities under the plan are to deal with
oil spill prevention and control, coastal
water pollution, the impact of tourism, the
protection of coral reefs and mangroves,
the destruction of tropical rain forest, and
the special problems of fragile island eco-
systems. Included are strategies to improve
early warnings for natural disasters such
as hurricanes, and programs to train scien-
tists and technicians and equip marine
laboratories.
Three concerns facing Caribbean gov-
ernment officials at the April conference
will be: (1) what priorities should be
assigned to the 66 projects proposed as
part of the action plan; (2) is a Caribbean
environmental treaty needed, and if so,
what kind; (3) how can a Caribbean Trust
Fund be set up to help pay for environ-
mental activities in the region and who will
give how much.
The Caribbean meetings are being spon
sored by the United Nations Environment
Program, and the U.N. Economic Commis-
sion for Latin America.
The broad sweep of the arbitrarily-
created area known as the wider Caribbean
draws in those states bordering on or part
of the coastal and open waters of the
Caribbean Sea proper, the Gulf of Mexico,
and adjacent waters of the Atlantic Ocean
—every land mass from the tiny, unde-
veloped island of Montserrat to the large,
rich lands of the industrialized States along
the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The word Caribbean conjures up visions
of clear blue waters lapping onto white,
sandy beaches, soft sea breezes, and
swaying palm trees. But in addition to the
wealth of natural beauty to be found in
many of the countries in the Caribbean, the
region is also known to be rich in petro-
leum, gold, silver, copper, bauxite, man-
ganese, nickel, iron, lead, and zinc.
The countries with extensive petroleum
holdings plan to develop energy-intensive
industries such as petrochemical pro-
cessing; iron, steel, and aluminum
smelting; and chlorine production. Those
countries without such natural resources
are trying to attract light industries and
tourism.
For many reasons, including easy waste
disposal and ease of trans-shipment, much
of this development will occur in the fragile
coastal zone. Development and urbaniza-
tion, especially when the environmental
consequences of these activities are not
known or sought, carry the risk of pollution
and financial ruin.
For example, an island with bountiful
mangroves may, as a result, have a thriving
shrimp industry. This island seeks in-
creased tourism. Not knowing that the
shrimp fishery depends on the existence of
healthy mangroves, the government
decides to destroy the mangroves to build
harbors, marinas, and other tourist centers.
The loss of the mangroves results in a
ruined shrimp fishery. Had the government
known that the two were intertwined, it
might have changed its development
course.
A regional association is the key to pro-
tecting the Caribbean from such disasters,
many observers believe. Tiny countries
which cannot tackle alone the environ-
mental problems they may face could
benefit enormously from a regional organi-
zation, said Arsenio Rodriguez, a scientist
associated with the Caribbean-wide project.
Even the wealthiest of states in the region
cannot muster the resources to solve prob-
lems that transcend their borders, he added,
in an article in Chemical & Engineering
News.
With the pending action plan, "The
region has come together to work on
common problems, to incorporate the en-
vironmental dimension in the planning and
development process," said A. Mel Gajraz,
a senior research officer on the regional
project.
Assessing the state of the environment
and the region's resource base will be
crucial in establishing the sound manage-
ment practices envisioned by the plan,
officials working with the Caribbean effort
pointed out. Among pollutants to be moni-
tored are petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy
metals, toxic organic chemicals, and
nutrient loads from agricultural runoff and
domestic wastewaters. Officials believe
additional research is needed to determine
the environmental quality criteria suitable
for tropical waters.
Adoption of an action plan for the wider
Caribbean region could be a crucial first
step in preventing the environmental dis-
ruption of this relatively unpolluted region
now on the verge of rapid growth, many
knowledgeable observers believe. D
MARCH 1981
15
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OURNAL
-------
Threats to the marine environment are
increasing. The oceans are the ultimate
repository for many of man's wastes, which
arrive there through various routes. Con-
tinuing concentration of population and
economic development in the world's coas-
tal zones is increasing the potential for
marine pollution through direct discharge
to estuaries and coastal areas through
ocean outfalls.
River flows also contribute contami-
nants from discharge points far upstream;
the contamination of blue fish in Chesa-
peake Bay by Kepone released into the
James River many miles above the mouth is
an example. This incident resulted in the
closing of the commercial fishery. Marine
transportation activities contribute to ocean
pollution, not only through highly spectacu-
lar, but relatively infrequent, major oil
spills, but also through a continuing low
level discharge of contaminants irom small
spills of oil and other hazardous wastes,
and as a normal part of tanker operations.
Barging of wastes, both industrial and
municipal, to sea for dumping is another
source of marine pollution, In recent years
the-United States, through both national
legislation and international agreement, has
curtailed the ocean dumping of waste ma-
terials, particularly municipal sewage
sludges. U.S. legislation requires the
phase-out of "harmful" sewage sludge
dumping by December, 1981. The legisla-
tion also requires testing of other wastes,
such as dredged material, to ensure that
harmful materials are not being dumped.
Deposits of contaminants from the
atmosphere is now recognized as a major
source of pollution and may be the major
contributor of many pollutants to the ocean.
Various pollutants are reaching remote
oceanic areas far from the point of produc-
tion or disposal. This was vividly demon-
strated when high levels of DDT were
found in Antarctic penguins. Contamina-
tion of the marine food chain is another
significant contributor to ocean pollution.
The explosion in production and use of
synthetic chemicals, many of which are
toxic or otherwise harmful, has helped
increase this type of pollution. Pollution is
not the only source of stress to the marine
environment. Physical changes also are
impacting the oceans. For example, altera-
tions of freshwater flow caused by river
basin development are changing salinity
patterns and other environmental condi-
tions in many coastal areas, sometimes
with major ecological consequences. A
striking example is the construction of the
Aswan Dam which, by reducing nutrients
and sediments in the Nile, adversely
affected Mediterranean fisheries and
changed the nature of coastal beach and
dune formation. Large engineering works,
such as the Suez Canal, can significantly
alter the composition of marine ecosystems
by permitting transmigration of species.
Additional sea level canals may be built in
the future. Dredging and filling bays can
also alter current patterns and change
flushing rates.
Extensive loss of coastal wetlands rec-
lamation has resulted in loss of habitat
for important fish and wildlife species and
has altered nutrient exchange. In addition
to the importance of wetlands as nursery
areas for commercially valuable fish and
shellfish, recent evidence suggests that
they may play an even more important role
in geochemical cycling than had been
previously recognized.
The effect of the harvest of fish on
marine ecosystems should also be men-
tioned. Fisheries management has long
focused on issues relating to the manage-
ment of commercially harvestable stocks.
However, in addition to the determination
of maximum sustainable yield for various
species and populations, broader questions
are beginning to emerge. One is whether
over-fishing might in some way irreversibly
alter basic ecological relationships. In the
North Atlantic fishery, for example, will
continued harvesting of fish high in the
food chain result in permanent displace-
ment by species at a lower level? Recent
proposals for large-scale krill harvesting in
Antarctica would remove many tons of
these organisms from the food chain of
fish, marine mammals, and birds and raise
the possibility of changes in the structure
and function of ocean ecosystems.
We have long been aware of the poten-
tial impacts of development in the coastal
zone. Now, however, development is push-
ing out into marine areas hitherto consid-
ered remote and inaccessible and fre-
quently of great biological sensitivity and
importance. Until a few years ago, develop-
ment of oil and gas in the North Sea was
regarded as perhaps the most extreme
example of ocean engineering under haz-
ardous environmental conditions. New off-
shore development under the ice of the
Beaufort Sea and in other Arctic areas is
being considered. Oil and gas exploration
is now scheduled on Georges Bank, an
area subject to severe storm hazards. Waste
disposal from oil and gas activities, cou-
pled with already massive and increased
fishing, could hurt the productivity of the
world's richest fishing grounds. Deep ocean
mining for manganese nodules in the Cen-
tral Pacific and proposals for a superport in
Palau in the Southwest Trust Territory of
the Pacific Islands, provide yet other exam-
ples of the fact that no ocean area can be
regarded as so remote or isolated as to be
immune from development.
Prospects for large-scale tidal power,
and possibly even electric power genera-
tion through harnessing ocean currents
such as the Gulf Stream suggest that our
capacity to alter the marine environment
through physical and engineering changes
may increase dramatically in the future.
Ocean thermal energy conversion facilities
currently being studied as a source of
power depend on temperature differences
between surface and deeper waters. The
discharge of the cooler bottom waters and
their associated nutrients near the surface
and the use of biocides, such as chlorine,
to prevent fouling on the condensers could
produce adverse environmental impacts.
Fortunately, governments at all levels
have increasingly recognized the impor-
tance of ocean resources and the need to
protect marine environmental quality. Envi-
ronmental legislation enacted within the
last decade in the United States provides
for regulation of ocean dumping and dis-
charge of wastes, for protection of coastal
wetlands, for establishment of marine and
estuarine sanctuaries, for cleaning up spills
of oil and hazardous materials, for coastal
zone management and establishment of
environmental safeguards in development
of superports, marine minerals, and Outer
Continental Shelf oil and gas reserves.
The oceans are an international resource,
and the protracted Law of the Sea negotia-
tions attest to the importance placed on
these resources. During the 1970's, inter-
national conventions on pollution by ships.
on ocean dumping of wastes, and on pro-
tection of the Mediterranean Sea from pol-
lution, as well as the laws of various
nations regulating marine pollution, all
demonstrated an awareness and willing-
ness to address marine environmental
problems. While we may take this aware-
ness for granted today, it is a far cry from
relatively recent times when the sea was
considered a sink with unlimited capacity
to assimilate man's wastes. This is illus-
trated by the fact that legislation to control
ocean dumping in the United States was
enacted only eight years ago. long after
controls on conventional water pollution
discharges had been initiated.
In implementing these laws, environ-
mental managers have been, and increas-
ingly will be, seeking information on the
ecological consequences and trade-offs of
their actions as a guide to many marine
resource management issues they are con-
fronting. Many of these questions deal with
impacts and management options of a rela-
tively limited scope. Others address issues
which are global in nature, sometimes rais-
ing the spectre of possible "ecocatastro-
phies." From time to time there have been
dire predictions of catastrophic changes in
behavior of the oceans. For example, sev-
eral years ago, an individual prominent for
his activities in ocean exploration an-
nounced that the oceans were dying and
could well be dead within 25 years. Most
responsible scientists would probably dis-
miss such statements as wildly speculative
at best. Few, however, would deny that the
question of man's impact on the world's
oceans merits serious attention and that.
MARCH 1981
17
-------
should global impacts occur, the stakes
could prove very high indeed. For example,
should long-term reductions in photosyn-
thetic capability result from man-induced
stress, the impacts on food production in
the oceans and on atmospheric oxygen con-
tent could both have profound impacts.
The kinds of questions being asked are:
What is the capacity of the oceans to re-
ceive and assimilate wastes without threat
of serious impact? How can we measure
this assimilative capacity? Are there sig-
nificant and wide-scale trends in ocean
deterioration? Are subtle, long-term altera-
tions in marine ecosystems occurring as a
result of man-induced stress? What are the
consequences of marine waste disposal in
relation to terrestrial alternatives? How can
we monitor and detect deterioration in
marine ecosystems, particularly for early
warning purposes?
Although advances have been made, the
answers to many of these questions have
not been forthcoming from the marine
science community to date, due to a com-
bination of resource constraints and scien-
tific limitations. Our current understanding
of the response of marine ecosystems to
stress falls far short of that which will be
required for sound environmental manage-
ment over the long run. If we think of
marine systems as a continuum—ranging
from estuarine and inshore areas at one
end of the spectrum, through large en-
closed seas or semi-enclosed coastal areas,
to open oceans in areas at the other end of
the spectrum—we know most about the
impacts of man in confined and localized
areas and least in the open sea areas.
There have been many intensive studies
on individual bays, estuaries and nearshore
areas, and these have provided useful in-
formation concerning environmental im-
pacts. Despite this, we are often hard
pressed to quantify the impacts of major
disturbances on more than a local scale.
Enclosed seas such as the Baltic Sea and
large coastal regions such as the New York
Bight and Southern California Coast have
also been studied to assess the impact of
pollution and other marine alterations.
However, even in the New York Bight,
which perhaps has been more intensively
studied than any comparable oceanic area
in the United States and perhaps the world,
many questions concerning more than
isolated, localized, or relatively discrete
impacts still remain largely unanswered.
Thus, while evidence for specific situa-
tions has frequently been sufficient to sup-
port regulatory judgments, little is known
concerning the broader impact of man on
the open oceans. It is known that contami-
nation is widespread. Plankton tows in the
Atlantic have routinely picked up substan-
tial quantities of tar and plastic debris.
There is a general consensus among many
marine scientists that chlorinated hydro-
carbons, toxic metals, and petroleum hy-
drocarbons are all ocean contaminants of
potential global concern. However, while
widespread distribution of these contami-
nants has been detected in pelagic marine
environments, relatively little is known
about their significance in terms of eco-
system impacts. For example, although
increased low level contamination of the
oceans by petroleum hydrocarbons has
been well demonstrated, the ecological
consequences are not understood. This
lack of information has clouded interna-
tional discussions concerning the levels of
control that should be imposed on oil dis-
charges from vessel operations.
Clearly, there are major difficulties in
providing reliable information on trends in
marine environmental quality. On the one
hand, we are unable to demonstrate clearly
far-reaching impacts; on the other hand,
we have a haunting concern that damages
might later appear, perhaps far from the
source and with devastating effect. The
problems are perhaps more ambiguous and
less tractable than such comparable global
environmental issues as desertification and
loss of tropical rain forests, which can be
inventoried and quantified by remote
sensing techniques. Acquiring the neces-
sary information may pose some dilemmas
which, while not unique to marine systems,
are particularly difficult because of the
large-scale, open, complex nature of the
oceans. Marine ecosystems may exhibit
great spatial and temporal variability. At
any given time, they may be responding to
natural stress, such as the aftereffects of
severe storms. Tremendous difficulties
have been encountered in attempting to
establish baseline and monitoring ap-
proaches which can detect departures from
a norm, particularly for early warning
purposes.
So one dilemma marine scientsts face is
that of trying to predict and detect incre-
ments of man-induced change in a dy-
namic, constantly changing natural envi-
ronment. This poses a number of basic
conceptual problems. A basic problem in
detecting change is the so-called "noise-
to-signal" ratio. That is, are we actually
detecting a uni-directional change, or are
we somewhere within the hands of cyclic
or other natural variability? For example, is
the substantial loss of submerged aquatic
vegetation currently being experienced in
Chesapeake Bay the result of pesticide run-
off. Hurricane Agnes, or a cyclic natural
event?
Then there are problems determining
causal relationships. Once we have de-
tected a change, is it in any way related to
the stress we are monitoring? This is com-
plicated by the fact that a number of
stresses, both man-caused and natural,
may be simultaneously impacting the sys-
tem under study. Failure to identify the
correct cause of change could result in
either regulation or failure to regulate.
There is also the problem of defining the
significance of effects. If we have detected
a change and find it is man-induced, what is
its significance? Is it irreversible? Is it
catastrophic? Is it important? An example
is the destruction of estuarine or anadro-
mous fish populations by electric generating
plants. We may be able to estimate that a
plant is reducing the numbers of fish eggs
and larvae by 50 percent through its water
intake system, but how significant is such
a loss of eggs and larvae in determining the
size of the mature population? We do know
that populations may compensate to some
extent for such losses through increased
survival rates of the remaining eggs and
larvae. Another example is found in ques-
tions dealing with bioconcentration of pol-
lutants in food-chains. We can determine
if biomagnification occurs and predict
whether this may have an impact on se-
lected populations. But impacts on or risks
to man are much more difficult to determine.
All this, of course, says nothing about
the question of how much environmental
damage society is willing to accept. This
obviously is a public policy, rather than
scientific determination. But sound under-
standing of "significance" may assist in
resolving "acceptability."
There are inherent difficulties involved
in providing clear-cut answers to many of
these questions. In laboratory experiments,
scientists can control the variables and
obtain clear-cut results, but how do labora-
tory findings relate to what actually exists
or will exist in nature? Yet, when we try to
study the marine ecosystem itself, we have
a hard time controlling the variables and
distinguishing the impacts. And, if we con-
duct microcosm studies such as the EPA-
sponsored studies at the University of
Rhode Island, which are using large tanks
with natural seawater and communities of
organisms from nearby Narragansett Bay to
provide controlled experimental ecosys-
tems, then we still must question whether
or not we have really replicated the envi-
ronment or whether we are measuring ex-
perimentally induced anomalies.
In the final analysis, to make progress in
this area, we must seek to improve not only
our ability to predict the consequences of
marine pollution, but also our ability to
detect, measure, and understand the sig-
nificance of damage after it has occurred.
Improved predictive capability will depend
upon an integrated approach to the use of
such research approaches as laboratory
toxicity studies, ecosystem simulation
models, and field investigations. Our pre-
dictions must then be complemented by
improved monitoring capability which can
detect actual impacts, and serve as a feed-
back mechanism with respect to the
accuracy of our original predictions and
adequacy of our regulatory actions.
18
EPA JOURNAL
-------
New and innovative approaches will be
required to monitor and detect subtle and
long-term changes in ocean ecosystems.
One promising approach is biomonitoring.
An example of biomonitoring is the Mussel
Watch program. This effort utilizes mussels
and oysters as sentinel organisms for re-
cording relative levels of pollutants, such
as heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons
and haiogenated hydrocarbons, in coastal
environments. These organisms have the
ability to bioconcentrate these pollutants,
which makes analysis much easier, and to
integrate pollutant exposure over time. This
program has been used to identify pollu-
tant "hot spots" around the coast of the
United States.
Other organisms can also serve as bio-
indicators. For example, a conference held
several years ago on long-term ecological
measurements identified seabird popula-
tions as important potential indicators of
marine environmental quality. The confer-
ence report discussed the fact that many
marine birds are long-lived, widely dis-
persed during much of the year, but highly
concentrated during their nesting seasons.
Because of their role high in the food chain,
marine birds are potential accumulators of
contaminants as well as integrators of
ocean ecosystem conditions. It might be
feasible to design long-term sampling pro-
grams which could combine tissue analysis
with the monitoring of nesting areas
through aerial photography, thus sampling
populations representing a vast coverage
of ocean conditions in a very small space
and possibly providing a vehicle for detec-
tion of widescale oceanic change. This
approach still remains to be tested.
In addition to the conceptual and scien-
tific problems involved, marine pollution
studies present major organizational chal-
lenges. The very nature of ocean systems
calls for investigations which are inte-
grated, truly inter-disciplinary, and some-
times international in scope. This requires
major manpower and financial resource
levels and logistical support, as well as
organizational skills more characteristic of
the space program than of most environ-
mental research. In this regard, it is encour-
aging to see studies such as the Coordi-
nated Mediterranean Pollution Monitoring
and Research Program, supported by the
United Nations Environment Program,
which involves a sustained and integrated
attack by scientists of various nations.
1 have described the difficulties involved
in providing answers to some of the ques-
tions concerning marine pollution facing
decision makers. I would like to conclude
by stressing the importance of making
progress in this area. For the present, con-
cern about the future of the oceans, coupled
with the technical difficulties of monitoring
and detecting harmful effects early enough
to assure they will not become irreversible,
has been great enough to result in adoption
of a cautionary approach to many marine
environmental issues. Under current legis-
lation, many existing pollutant discharge
I
Oil-smeared bird is victim of pollution.
regulations are technologically based,
rather than reflecting ecological cause and
effect. That is, they require adoption of
waste controls that are feasible from an
economic and engineering standpoint,
rather than defining what is required to
avoid unwanted environmental impacts,
based upon analysis at a particular site.
However, a concern on the part of some
communities that secondary waste treat-
ment requirements for waste discharges to
the ocean could impose unnecessary costs
in relation to environmental results led to
enactment of Section 301 (h) of the Clean
WaterActof1977.Thissectionofthelaw
allows EPA to issue permit modifications
which will let municipalities discharge less
than secondary treated wastes to the ma-
rine environment provided they can demon-
strate that significant environmental dam-
age will not occur. Reviews of applications
for this type of permit modification are
currently underway. Conversely, in other
cases, technology-based regulatory con-
trols may not provide enough protection,
and marine environmental problems may
result.
Perhaps even more significant is the
question of whether excessively stringent
controls on marine waste discharges may
impose unnecessary costs or greater bur-
dens on some other sector of the environ-
ment. Increasingly, however, we are recog-
nizing the need to examine environmental
trade-offs; for example, wastes not dis-
charged at sea may require land disposal or
incineration, causing environmental prob-
lems elsewhere. As pressures mount on
such issues as ultimate disposal of toxic
wastes, protection of groundwater from
leachates from land disposal sites, the
atmospheric effects of waste incineration,
the energy costs of waste disposal, and
others, decisions based on a more quanti-
fiable relationship between environmental
control requirements and environmental
response increasingly will be required. The
need for better information about the eco-
logical consequences of waste disposal in
the ocean will be even greater than it is
today.
Efforts to address questions such as
those outlined above provide the basis for
EPA's current research activities relating
to marine pollution. Although EPA's re-
search programs and resources in this area
are relatively limited, we are working in
close cooperation with other agencies and
research institutions. We know that we can
never hope to find solutions for all the
problems of our impact on the oceans, but
we are attempting to provide information
which will greatly assist in making more
rational and informed management
decisions. D
Dr. Hirsch is EPA 's Deputy Assistant
A dministrator for Environmental Processes
find Effects Research.
MARCH 1981
-------
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EPA and
the Marine
Environment
The need for data on ocean
pollution is of growing im-
portance to EPA and other agen-
cies responsible for marine pro-
tection and management. EPA
is especially concerned with the
need for regulation to curb
ocean pollution and for research
to furnish the scientific basis for
regulatory decisions.
EPA's marine and coastal
activities are carried out under
several laws: Clean Water Act;
Marine Protection, Research,
and Sanctuaries Act; Toxic
Substances Control Act;
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide,
and Rodenticide Act; Deep Sea
Hard Mineral Resources Act,
and the Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion Act. (For EPA's
role in international marine
agreements, see article on
page 8.)
EPA's research is conducted
by the Office of Research and
Development at the Agency's
laboratories at Gulf Breeze, Fla.;
Narragansett, R.I.; Newport,
Ore., and Grosse lie, Mich.
Other EPA-supported research
is done at universities through-
out the U.S.anda Marine
Center of Excellence at the
University of Rhode Island.
EPA research and regulatory
activities related to marine and
coastal areas are listed below.
EPA-supported research,
which provides the technical
basis for regulatory decisions, is
focusing on marine waste dis-
posal, energy impacts, toxicity
studies, wetlands, the Great
Lakes and Chesapeake Bay, and
monitoring. Research activities
include:
• determining the impact of
municipal wastes disposed of
through ocean outfalls.
• developing procedures to
measure the toxicity of dredged
material and to determine levels
of pollutants in sediments.
• determining the impact of
drilling fluid disposal from oil
and gas drilling activities.
• examining the effects of oil
in the marine environment.
• developing and testing oil
spill prevention, control, and
cleanup devices and
procedures.
• determining the impact of
chlorine in discharges to the
marine environment.
• developing procedures to
measure the toxicity and impact
of pollutants such as pesticides
and toxic substances.
• determining the impact of
carcinogens on the marine
environment.
• investigating the fate and
effects of pollutants in simu-
lated marine ecosystems.
• developing procedures to
define wetland boundaries for
legal purposes.
• studying wetlands to deter-
mine their function and value in
the environment.
• conducting studies on toxics,
submerged aquatic vegetation,
and nutrient enrichment in the
Chesapeake Bay.
• examining pollutant input,
cycling, fate and effects in the
Great Lakes.
• assessing the use of mussels
and oysters as a technique for
monitoring pollutant levels in
marine coastal areas.
• developing methods to
monitor pollutant exposure at
specific sites in marine environ-
ments over relatively short
periods of time.
In addition to these research
efforts, EPA is also involved in
regulatory activities affecting
the following areas:
• ocean dumping of municipal,
industrial and radioactive
wastes.
• disposal of dredged material.
• discharge of municipal and
industrial effluents from ocean
outfalls.
• discharge of wastes from oil
and gas drilling operations,
deep sea mining activities, and
offshore thermal conversion
facilities to produce energy.
• oil and hazardous materials
spill prevention, cleanup, and
damage assessment.
• development of water quality
criteria for hazardous materials.
• registration or reregistration
of pesticides.
• premarket testing of toxic
substances.
Interagency coordination
regarding the marine environ-
ment is carried out both
formally and informally. Formal
planning for and dissemination
of information on marine
research activities for the
Federal Government is coordi-
nated through the interagency
Committee on Ocean Pollution
Research, Development and
Monitoring. D
Heron wading in ocean surf at
Padre Island, Tex., with offshore
oil well in background.
MARCH 1981
21
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Underwater
Scientists at
Gulf Breeze
By Betty Jackson
Marine biologists at EPA's Environmen-
tal Research Laboratory in Gulf
Breeze, Fla, are taking a leaf from diving
techniques to supplement laboratory re-
search on the effects of pollutants on marine
life.
Divers there have been conducting bio-
logical surveys underwater, collecting or-
ganisms and samples for use in laboratory
tests, and even transferring portions of the
sea floor into the laboratory for experiments
that attempt to simulate natural conditions.
Laboratory Director Henry F. Enos fore-
sees an expanded role for the scientific
diver in response to increased demands for
field validation of laboratory experiments
and on-site biological surveys for environ-
mental problem-solving.
"To fulfill this role, divers at our labora-
tory needed intensive advanced training in
the use of sophisticated equipment and in
the management of diving accidents," Dr.
Enos explained. "Therefore we set up a
workshop in advanced diving technology
that was conducted by instructors of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration."
The workshop curriculum was designed
to help Gulf Breeze scientists expand their
research periphery and extend their work
from the laboratory bench to the underwater
environment. They were also instructed in
diving physiology, uses of underwater
equipment, and safety procedures.
At the conclusion of the training, labora-
tory Diving Officer Jim Patrick was certified
as a diving supervisor and dive master. Six
laboratory staff members were certified as
operational divers: Joel Ivey, Dana Morton,
Jim Spain, Patrick Borthwick, Norman
Rubinstein, and Wiliam P. Davis. Biological
Aide Jeff Wheat qualified as a surface
support tender.
"Our team is the first within the Environ-
mental Protection Agency to meet diving
standards of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration," Dr. Enos
said. "Certification of our divers will be a
continuing exercise and will be subject to
periodic review by their instructors."
As more and more scientists combine
laboratory research with underwater inves-
tigations, guidelines for their health and
safety has become a concern of the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Administration.
Jim Patrick, Gulf Breeze's diving super-
visor, hopes that the exercise guidelines
and procedures used in the certification and
training of his team can be useful in devel-
oping safe diving requirements for EPA
divers.
"We consider ourselves pioneers in the
development of a safe diving code for the
Agency that will be applicable to scientific
divers who monitor pollution or document
damage caused by pollutants," Patrick said.
In addition to intensive training in life-
saving procedures, instructors Ed Clark and
Richard Rutkowski, assisted by Marc Kiser,
and Michael A. Heeb of EPA, taught Gulf
Breeze divers the use of sophisticated dry
suits designed for cold or contaminated
waters. Divers using the dry suits are sup-
plied air from the surface through two types
of face masks. Both mask systems are full-
face, underwater breathing devices that
protect the diver from contaminated water
and provide direct two-way communication
between the diver and a surface tender.
The dive team also was introduced to an
underwater television system that can
record behavior of marine life and any
changes in biota and the physical environ-
ment caused by people. Divers learned how
underwater video television technology can
aid in communication with topside support
personnel who monitor divers for safety
and assist in the evaluation of results.
Divers received training in the latest col-
lecting techniques for capturing delicate
animals in nets, cages, and devices such as
the airlift—a long pipe equipped with an
air venturi that transports sediment and
organisms to a collecting bag.
These techniques will be applied to, or
modified for research projects being
conducted by members of the dive team
Microbiologist Jim Spain, operational
diver, relies on other members of the team
to assist him in the collection of sediment
and water cores for tests to determine the
fate of toxic chemicals in the aquatic
environment.
The cores are collected carefully to
preserve bottom sediment, an area of
intensive microbial activity. Divers collect
the cores in an apparatus designed to trans-
fer sediments intact to the laboratory for
experiments with pesticides. The test sys-
tem, called the Eco-core, was developed at
Gulf Breeze to measure the rate of microbial
degradation in contaminated sediments.
Results aid in predicting the fate and per-
sistence of toxic organic chemicals in the
marine or estuarine environment.
Cores for the tests are collected from
various underwater sites in the Guif of
Mexico, Pensacola Bay estuary, and rivers,
often under difficult conditions. Spain, like
the other scientists at Gulf Breeze Environ-
mental Research Laboratory, believes that
scientific training and intimate knowledge
of the test procedures and objectives are
essential to the performance of such diving
tasks.
This view is shared by other members of
the team. Jim Patrick, who is currently
involved in studies with the belted sandfish,
Serranus subligarius, has found that diving
is the only method of collecting the animals
unharmed. Each fish, a type of hermaphro-
dite, can produce both viable eggs and
sperm. Mating pairs are identified by
behavioral interaction and by subtle differ-
ences in pigmentation. Thus scientific ex-
pertise is required to identify and collect
the pairs needed for laboratory tests to
determine whether the species can be used
in reproductive studies.
Joel Ivey, a biological technician, and a
member of the dive team, aided in the
design of community tests that use benthic
or bottom-dwelling communities estab-
lished in habitats placed underwater and
later retrieved by divers. The organisms
are lifted to the surface with the aid of air-
filled lift bags controlled by the divers.
With the assistance of other divers, Ivey
can transfer habitats that contain such
communities from the seafloor to the lab-
oratory for tests designed to determine the
toxicity of oil-well drilling fluids to bottom-
dwelling organisms. The test species,
including annelids, arthropods, molluscs,
crustaceans, and nematodes, settle in the
habitats that contain sand taken from the
sea bottom. After eight weeks, the habitats
and the developed communities are trans-
ferred to the laboratory for toxicity tests
with drilling fluid components. Results of
such tests are used to validate tests with
benthic communities that have been
developed in the laboratory.
Research biologist Patrick Borthwick
sees diving as a useful tool for locating and
collecting new test species for laboratory
acute toxicity studies. Under water, the
scientific diver can observe and collect live
specimens in various stages of develop-
EPA JOURNAL
-------
ment from specific aquatic habitats. In his
search for novel test species, he hopes to
develop a battery of sensitive organisms
representing several types of marine life for
screening pollutants.
Diving is important in the study of crabs
and other shellfish. These commercially
important species are oriented to the ocean
bottom and are often difficult to sample
with conventional traps.
As in recent years, divers from the Gulf
Breeze Laboratory this summer collected
arrow crabs (Stenorhynchus seticornis), at
Stage I, a Navy research platform in the
Guif of Mexico 1 2 miles south of Panama
City, Fla. The animals will be used for field
and laboratory studies of the effects of
drilling fluids on the offshore environment.
The research effort, supported by grants,
contracts, and interagency agreements,
focuses on the effects of drilling fluids on
animals and plants normally found near
offshore oil and gas rigs. It also seeks to
determine the impact of drilling near areas
of high biological activity, such as coral
reefs and the communities they shelter.
The divers frequently are consulted by
fellow scientists on design and procedures
for sub-sea experiments. Their underwater
observations are useful in evaluating the
effectiveness of sampling devices and deter-
mining whether the sampling site is unusual
or representative of a larger sampling area.
Field validation by divers is important in
verifying results of laboratory tests and
demonstrating that test conditions reflect
those existing in nature.
Divers at the Gulf Breeze Laboratory
predict that diving technology will be use-
ful in future attempts to monitor changes in
aquatic ecosystems at dumping sites or at
ocean outfalls. The need for basic data
about the environmental health of the
nation's water resources holds the promise
of a bright future for scientific diving. D
Betty Jackson is a technical writer for the
Gulf Breeze Laboratory.
Scientist nt EPA 's Gulf Breeze, Fin., laboratory prepares to dive in marine pollution research project.
MARCH 1981
23
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The hazardous waste incinerator ship Vulcanus at sea.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Burning chemicals at sea may be a key
part of the answer in disposing of
some kinds of hazardous and toxic wastes.
Incineration at sea is environmentally
safe, economical, and should be encour-
aged, concluded the recent report of an
interagency task force.
The Interagency Ad Hoc Work Group,
composed of members of EPA, the Com-
merce Department's Maritime Administra-
tion, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the
National Bureau of Standards, has been
studying expansion of technology in the
area and has issued a report on the topic,
"Report of the Interagency Ad Hoc Work
Group for the Chemical Waste Incinerator
Ship Program."
The group recommended amending the
Merchant Marine Act of 1936 to permit
substantial Federal assistance and funding
to build and operate privately-owned U.S.
flag waste incinerator ships.
"This country has an enormous hazard-
ous waste problem and Americans have to
face up to it," said former EPA Administra-
tor Douglas M. Costle. "Everybody wants
hazardous wastes picked up, but no one
wants^hem put down. Incineration, both on
land and at sea, gives us a major option for
effectively dealing with hazardous waste.
We need to be as supportive of these new
technologies as we can."
The government has two options, depend-
ing on how many private firms apply for
Federal assistance to build incinerator
vessels over the next year, said Russel
Wyer, EPA's co-chairman of the inter-
agency task force. One option is to stim-
ulate private industry to build ships them-
selves through financial incentives includ-
ing subsidies and Federally-guaranteed
loans. In return, industry would allow EPA
to set up research stations on the vessels
themselves to advance the state of the art.
If few applications for Federal assistance
are received, another alternative the gov-
ernment will consider is building and
operating its own vessel for possible later
sale or charter to private industry.
Wyer said that the at-sea program would
supplement incineration operations on land,
with an estimated capability to handle only
a fraction of total hazardous and toxic
wastes, even at maximum capacity.
The report recommends giving top prior-
ity to setting up "funding mechanisms
which encourage private entrepreneurs to
build and operate incinerator ships" in the
United States and to "place the cost of con-
structing a vessel in the United States on a
parity with foreign construction costs"
either through proposed subsidies or tax
incentives.
The Vulcanus, a Dutch incinerator ship
used extensively throughout Europe, in
1977 successfully destroyed three ship-
loads of Herbicide Orange, a toxic defoliant
used by the United States in the Vietnam
War. The average destruction efficiency of
this process for dioxin, a highly toxic sub-
stance in the herbicide, was greater than
99.9 percent. The burn took place about
1,000 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Burns take place on the high seas at least
100 miles from shore. Under EPA regula-
tions, an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) must be issued for each incineration
site to assess in detail what effect the
operation could have on the environment.
The Vulcanus is the only vessel capable
of at-sea incineration now available for
commercial use that can travel from con-
tinent to continent. It was converted from
a cargo ship to incinerator capability.
Waste Management, Inc., of Oakbrook,
III., has since purchased the Vulcanus from
its German owners, Hansa Lines. Ocean
Combustion Services, a subsidiary of
Waste Management, operates the vessel.
EPA has plans for the Vulcanus this year.
The Agency wants to destroy one and a
half shiploads of Silvex, which has shown
the potential to cause miscarriages, birth
defects, and have other adverse reproduc-
tive effects. EPA also plans to destroy half
a shipload of DDT at the same time and is
considering use of the Vulcanus for
destruction of PCB's.
The interagency group has also drawn up
a prototype model incinerator ship which,
unlike the Vulcanus and other at-sea
incinerator vessels, would have the capac-
ity to destroy solid as well as liquid wastes.
Wyer said equipment now on the vessels
is limited to liquid waste and the addition
of a rotary kiln incinerator to destroy solid
waste needs to be tested.
The model ship would have an 8,000
metric ton capacity compared to the
Vulcanus' 4,000 metric ton capacity. Wyer
says an alternative to building new ships is
to convert existing ships to incineration
capability, but the vessels would be much
smaller than the prototype.
A single prototype ship at full capacity
could destroy up to 200,000 metric tons of
waste a year.
Costs for constructing a single vessel
are estimated at $75 million in 1980
dollars, plus $25 million for incineration
equipment.
EPA estimates in 1978 indicated the U.S.
generates almost 350 million metric tons of
industrial waste a year, and projected at
least 57 million metric tons of hazardous
waste would be produced nationally in
1980.
Wyer said that incineration at sea offers
an attractive addition to the range of
methods now used to dispose of chemical
wastes. The other methods are landfill dis-
posal, chemical detoxification, and land-
based incineration.
An EPA comparative study in 1978
showed at-sea incineration to be the least
costly means of disposal. Incineration at
sea also is as effective as land-based incin-
eration, often destroying 99.99 percent of
hazardous materials contained in waste.
Wyer said there are a number of other
advantages to burning at sea, explaining:
"Because the ship destroys wastes away
from populated areas, you avoid any risk
to nearby communities."
He also indicated at-sea incineration has
minimal impact on the environment. "Acid
emissions from the incinerator ships can be
directly dispersed into the ocean without
the 'scrubbing' process needed for land-
base incinerators. The ocean water neutral-
izes most of the acids so the emissions mix
harmlessly with the water," he declared.
A gap could soon develop in incinerator
ship operations around the world when the
Vulcanus' certificate of fitness, approving
the vessel's condition for use, runs out in
1982, possibly before any other vessel has
been constructed or retrofitted with similar
capabilities.
Wyer said that Waste Management
hasn't indicated plans for the Vulcanus in
the future, but it is possible to rebuild the
existing ship.
"It's getting tight," he said. Retrofitting
a vessel could take up to a year and half,
according to Wyer, and to build a ship from
scratch, at least two years. He said that so
far, the government hasn't received many
applications for assistance.
To get things moving, the interagency
group held a meeting on the project in
December attended by members of the
private sector. The purpose of the meeting
was to exchange ideas, suggest possible
directions for the program, and help the
board estimate the potential number of
applicants for Federal financial assistance.
Wyer said that the government's pre-
ferred option is for private industry to con-
struct and operate the vessels, because it
would keep management of the operation
in the private sector and stimulate job
opportunities as well. Q
Charlotte Garvey is an editorial assistant
with EPA Journal.
MARCH 1981
25
-------
:'• . •-' :
Guarding
the Sea
By Jean-Michel Cousteau
with Paula DiPerna
Off the coast of Canada's island of
Newfoundland, the ocean waters are
clear and cold, some of the most biologi-
cally productive waters in the world. To
pursue the numerous whales of these great
seas, the Basques of the 1 6th centurv
traveled in wooden ships many days across
the forbidding North Atlantic. To fish the
plentiful cod of the Grand Banks, fleets of
merchant ships from England and France
in the 17th and 18th century followed the
Basque tradition. Fortunes were made and
lost; colonies were established and warred
over. Eventually, exploitation of the re-
sources of this ocean helped lead to the
settlement of the North American conti-
nent. In short, it is not far-fetched to sug-
gest that the resources of the global oceans
have shaped, in fact propelled, history.
Today, we tend to lose sight of how
closely our destiny as nations is linked
to the vitality of our oceans, even when
we are awed by the now legendary NASA
photograph of our small planet earth seen
from our dry moon, even as we see this
fragile blue sphere, 70 percent covered by
water, the only known habitable place in
our solar system.
We think of ourselves as the generation
of options. We are sometimes heady over
our inventions and our truly impressive
technological advances. But where the
oceans are concerned, we are quite option-
less. We cannot create another one, nor a
technological substitute. We are married to
the ocean we have, and the problems we
have created of the union are by no means
simple. Every problem is a web of
problems.
Take, for example, the tale of the tiny
capelin—the fish which is the fulcrum of
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Fish drying in the sun on the beach in WOK!
African fishing village.
•
_
'•- ' -
^---xr^*2>^
r-s- ^-^
-^ *< :TV- • *r^
,+*
the food chain in the North Atlantic. This
summer when we were filming from our
vessel Calypso off Newfoundland, we
watched thousands of these silvery fish
washing up on the beaches to die after
spawning, glinting like flakes of mica as
the waves turned them over onto shore.
It was a festive occasion for the local peo-
ple, who came down to the coves in high
boots. They stepped into the shallow water
and hurled out circular nets. One throw
yielded pounds of capelin. As we watched
these people following a centuries' old
custom, standing literally shin deep in
flickering fish, it was hard to believe there
could ever be a capelin shortage.
But there seems to be, and sharing the
coves with us was the leviathan evidence—
graceful mighty humpback whales, an en-
dangered species, swimming closer than
usual to shore. In the past several years,
the capelin stock appears to have dropped
—perhaps for natural reasons, but probably
as a result of overfishing by foreign fleets in
Canadian waters—and these whales which
depend on capelin for food have audacious-
ly followed what remains of the capelin
stock inshore. But the story does not end
with hungry whales, it ends with trapped
whales because by coming close to shore,
the whales risk becoming entangled in the
leader nets of cod traps set in the sea by
fishermen who must also draw their liveli-
hood from the coves. The whales swim
unexpectedly into the nets, becoming roped
into them, often ripping them apart in a
frantic attempt to become free. The fisher-
men are understandably furious at the loss
of their equipment—$3 million in damages
and lost fishing time in 1 979—and the
world perhaps loses yet another member
of this endangered species, as trapped
whales drown.
We have witnessed the underwater
scenes of this tragedy. One of our divers,
Bernard Delemotte, approached a trapped
young humpback whale, trying to avoid
being struck by her flailing fluke. Even-
tually, he was able to calm her by stroking
her body and her snout. Finally he suc-
ceeded in freeing her from the ropes which
were cutting into her mouth and in grati-
tude, we might conjecture, the whale al-
lowed Bernard to ride on her back for about
one mile! An extraordinary climax to events
that had begun with the depletion of a small
fish six to eight inches in length.
Take also, for example, the case of the
coastal zone. Here most of the life of the
seas congregates, but here too our rivers
discharge, our plumbing systems exit,
discharging inland pollution. Each year, we
dump from the United States alone hun-
dreds of thousands of tons of sewage
sludge and untreated sewage. We add mil-
lions of tons of river sediment—much of it
transporting dangerous chemicals and
heavy metals discharged by industries or
carried by soil run-off. We fill in our marsh-
lands, destroying vital ocean nurseries. We
"develop" virtually everything that is not
protected by zoning or legislation.
In the open oceans, the inventory of
insults includes oil—leaked and dumped
—approximately 6 million metric tons a
year according to the generally accepted
1 975 estimate of the National Academy of
Sciences, a figure currently being updated.
Whether the ocean can process such
amounts of oil is highly debatable. Certain-
ly a coating of oil on the ocean surface can
interfere with photosynthesis, and even
more certainly, migrating seabirds or ma-
rine mammals trapped in an oilspill cannot
survive being coated by petroleum once
the oil has interfered with their natural
body insulation systems. And tourists who
pay premium vacation rates will not return
continued on page 39
Calypso Finds A
New Home
The 142-foot oceanographic vessel,
Calypso, is now using Norfolk, Va. as
her new operations base following a
decision by Captain Jacques-Yves
Cousteau to establish a new center in
that city.
The Cousteau Society, a non-profit
organization with some 1 70,000
members, will use the center to house
its future activities. The facility is
temporarily located in quarters for
merly occupied by the Tidewater
Community College but plans are
underway to construct a "Cousteau
Oceans Center" for an estimated S20
million on the Norfolk waterfront.
Visualized as a combination educa-
tional and recreational attraction, the
center is being backed by city officials
as th<; centerpiece of downtown
renewal efforts.
In addition to housing submer-
sibles, underwater cameras and oihi'i
equipment previously located in Mar
seille, Los Angeles, and Hilton Head,
S.C., the center will provide expedi
tion and administrative support for
the Calypso. The converted mine-
sweeper is scheduled to make expedi-
tions this year to the Caribbean and
later to the Amazon River. Cousteau
said the presence in the Norfolk area
of several universities and Federal
agencies involved in marine research
influenced his decision to locate
there. Q
MARCH 1981
27
-------
Around the Nation
Conference Set
The third annual New
England Environmental
Conference will be held at
Tufts University in Med-
ford, Mass., on Saturday,
March 28, and Sunday,
March 29, 1981. The con-
ference will be spon-
sored by the Lincoln
Filene Center for Citizen-
ship and Public Affairs.
The conference will
bring together business
leaders, labor, environ-
mental organizations, gov-
ernment, advocacy
groups, and other inter-
ested citizens who have
an active concern for the
future of New England.
Thirty to forty work-
shops will explore such
problems as groundwater
supply, aquifer protection,
energy conservation,
environmental leadership
training, Georges Bank
exploration, renewable
energy, historic preserva-
tion, coastal resources,
and endangered species.
Vermont Approved
Vermont has become the
first New England State to
receive interim authoriza-
tion from the EPA to con-
duct its own hazardous
waste management pro-
gram. The Vermont pro-
gram will be administered
by Richard A. Valentinetti,
Chief, Air and Solid
Waste Programs, Vermont
Agency of Environmental
Conservation.
The Phase I interim
authorization was granted
to the State under the
Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act. EPA
determined that Ver-
mont's program, including
statutes, regulations and
enforcement authority, is
substantially equivalent to
the Federal hazardous
waste program.
Ocean Site
EPA is seeking comments
on its proposal to desig-
nate a site in the North
Atlantic Ocean for the
high temperature incinera-
tion of hazardous wastes.
An ocean-going incinera-
tor vessel would serve in-
dustry throughout the
Northeastern United
States.
The Agency has pre-
pared a draft environ-
mental impact statement
for the proposed site,
which is beyond the Con-
tinental Shelf, and approx-
imately 140 nautical miles
from Delaware Bay.
According to the draft
statement, there is a grow-
ing need for acceptable
incineration locations to
serve the Northeastern
U.S. when land-based dis-
posal methods are envi-
ronmentally unacceptable
because of the toxicity of
the wastes or potential
health risks.
EPA estimates that, by
1989, nearly 271,000
metric tons of toxic or-
ganic wastes will be gen-
erated on the East Coast
annually.
Firms Cited
Region 2 cited two firms
in New York and one in
New Jersey for violations
under new air pollution
regulations which make
payment of penalties man-
datory if the source is still
out of compliance with
emission control require-
ments after January 1,
1981.
Notices of Noncom-
pliance were issued to the
Niagara Mohawk Power
Corporation in Oswego,
and Boise Cascade, Inc.
of Beaver Falls, both in
New York. The Anchor
Hocking Corporation in
Salem, New Jersey, was
also cited.
Region 2 officials said
that under this regulatory
program companies in
violation of environmental
rules will pay penalties
based on what they have
saved by not complying
with the law. The penalty
formula is designed to
deprive companies of any
financial benefit gained
from avoiding the cost of
compliance.
comments made at a
public hearing in
Harrisonburg.
Proposed Brewery
Region 3 has proposed ap-
proval of a permit applica-
tion for the planned Coors
Brewery near Harrison-
burg, Va. Based on infor-
mation provided by the
Adolph Coors Company,
the Agency made a preli-
minary determination that
the construction and oper-
ation of the proposed plant
would meet the four con-
ditions required under
EPA's Prevention of Sig-
nificant Deterioration per-
mit regulations. These
conditions specify that:
• All pollutants must be
controlled by the best
available technology.
• Any increase in pollu-
tants must not exceed na-
tional air quality standards
• Sulfur dioxide and par-
ticulate emissions must
not cause violations of air
quality class increments
in the area to be impacted.
• Emissions must not
adversely impact soil,
vegetation or visibility in
the vicinity of the source.
To satisfy these condi-
tions, Coors provided
twelve months of air mon-
itoring data, meteorologi-
cal reports, visibility stu-
dies, and other technical
data and modeling studies
that show how its pro-
posed control technology
will control pollution.
EPA will decide wheth-
erto issuean actual permit
to Coors after reviewing
Asbestos Removal
The School Asbestos Re-
moval Program is continu-
ing to gain momentum in
the Southeast. Several
State programs are setting
the pace. In Tennessee, a
recent survey resulted in
the closing of a school
gymnasium while highly
friable (soft and crumbly)
asbestos-containing mate-
rial was removed. A num-
ber of bags holding the
same material was found
in a school district ware-
house in the same com-
munity. Parts of other
school facilities in Ten-
nessee have had to be
closed temporarily
because of the asbestos
problem.
Damaged or deteriorat-
ing asbestos materials
release asbestos fibers
into the air where they
may be inhaled into the
lungs creating potentially
serious health risks.
Information on the
school asbestos program
in Region 4 may be ob-
tained by calling (404)
881-3864.
Ohio Edison Company in
Stratton, Ohio. Ohio Edi-
son's nine other plants
will reduce paniculate
emissions by an addition-
al 41,000 tons per year as
part of an agreement
between EPA Region 5
and the electric utility
which calls for installa-
tion by the company of
some $500 million worth
of air pollution controls in
its power plants. The
agreement was formalized
in a consent decree signed
recently by EPA and Ohio
Edison and lodged with
the Federal District Court
at Columbus, Ohio.
The company has also
agreed to pay a civil
penalty of $1.5 million for
past violations of the Act,
and EPA has agreed that
the decree will settle all
outstanding legal actions
against the company for
paniculate emissions
violations.
Cleanup Pact
The largest single air pol-
lution control retrofit ever
undertaken in the United
States, thus far, will result
in a reduction of 75,000
tons in particulate matter
emissions a year at the
W. H. Sammis plant of the
University Cited
The Regional office issued
a complaint against Bray-
ton Fire Training School,
Texas A&M University,
for violations of the Toxic
Substances Control Act.
The complaint alleges that
the school unlawfully
failed to mark a polychlor-
inated biphenyls (PCB's)
transformer, failed to pro-
vide proper storage for the
transformer, and failed to
maintain PCB records.
The complaint pro-
posed a civil penalty of
$26,000 for failure to
mark ($10,000), improper
storage ($10,000), and no
records maintained
($6,000). Negotiations
toward settlement of the
complaint are in progress.
Hazardous Waste
Authorities Delegated
With the exception of New
Mexico, all States in Re-
gion 6 have received ap-
28
EPAJOURNAL
-------
provai from EPA for man-
agement of hazardous
waste programs by State
agencies. The State of
New Mexico and Region 6
worked out an agreement
to share the responsibility.
Arkansas, Louisiana
and Texas were three of
the first six States in the
Nation getting approval.
Oklahoma was approved
at the end of 1980.
PCB's
EPA and the Kansas City
Power and Light Company
have entered into a con-
sent agreement and order
regarding alleged viola-
tions of Federal regula-
tions governing the han-
dling, disposal, and
record-keeping of poly-
chlorinated biphenyls,
known as PCB's. This
toxic substance, believed
to cause cancer, came
under Federal regulations
in May 1979.
In an administrative
complaint issued in Feb-
ruary 1980, EPA charged
the electric utility with
marking and storage vio-
lations at various com-
pany facilities as well as
an improper disposal vio-
lation and two record-
keeping violations. The
violations were first ob-
served by the Agency on
September 4 and October
30, 1979, during inspec-
tions of a repair shop and
two power plants in Kan-
sas City, and the utility's
LaCygne power plant in
Kansas.
Under the agreement,
the company agreed to
undertake extensive reme-
dial actions in an effort to
comply with the regula-
tions, as well as several
measures beyond those
called for by law. These
other measures include
the conversion of an exist-
ing boiler at one of its
facilities into an high effi-
ciency boiler capable of
burning and destroying
low levels of PCB-con-
taminated oils in concen-
trations less than 500
parts per million, and
allowing EPA use of a
PCB storage space facility
in emergency situations.
The original proposed
penalty of 555,000 was
reduced to a fine of
$2,750, partly because of
the remedial actions to
achieve compliance with
Federal PCB rules and
because of the measures
and actions the company
has agreed to under the
consent agreement.
Toxics Burn
EPA has given ponditional
approval to the Depart-
ment of Energy's plan to
burn one gallon of poly-
chorinated biphenyls,
known as PCB's, at Rocky
Flats, located 1 5 miles
northwest of Denver,
Colo., as a trial disposal
procedure.
According to Region 8
officials, EPA made this
decision after carefully
evaluating the potential
risks and considering in-
put from State and local
health officials as well as
from citizens at two public
meetings. The citizens'
major concern. Agency
officials said, was not the
trial burn, but rather that
PCB's might be inciner-
ated there in the future.
Region 8 officials stressed
that the approval was only
for the trial burn and this
action in no way provides
or endorses future inciner-
ation of PCB's at Rocky
Flats.
According to the Agen-
cy, the burn, expected to
destroy 99.9999 percent
of the PCB's, would
release no detectable
amount of PCB's into the
urban air.
Disposal Standards
Ultimate control of 26
million tons of radioactive
uranium mill tailings in
the West came one step
closer recently with EPA
publication of proposed
standards covering dis-
posal of the wastes. This
is an important step, and
will help in the eventual
disposal of the tailings at
Durango and Grand Junc-
tion, Colo., Region 8
officials said.
Tailings from aban-
doned uranium mills cov-
er 1,000 acres of land in
10 States: Arizona, Colo-
rado, Idaho, New Mexico,
North Dakota, Oregon,
Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah
and Wyoming.
While Congress
charged the Department
of Energy with cleaning up
the sandy radioactive
wastes at abandoned ura-
nium mills, it gave EPA
the task of setting the
standards for health and
environmental protection
that Energy Department
remedial measures would
have to meet.
Buy Quiet
Several cities in Region 9
recently participated in a
"Buy Quiet" program
jointly sponsored by the
National Institute of Gov-
ernmental Purchasing, the
National League of Cities
and EPA. The "Buy
Quiet" program is a non-
regulatory, market-based
program designed to en-
courage the promotion
and purchasing of quieter
products.
The cities included
Tucson, Ariz., and in Cali-
fornia, Monterey Park,
Ventura, Oakland, and
National City. The prod-
ucts involved were quieter
lawnmowers which were
loaned to State and local
agencies for demonstra-
tion purposes during the
grass cutting season.
Many of the cities report-
ed excellent results with
the quieter lawnmowers.
It is anticipated that other
quieter products, such as
garbage trucks, vacuum
cleaners, chain saws, and
typewriters will be in-
involved in similar
demonstrations.
Purchase descriptions
for quieter models of
various products are avail-
able to State and local
governments upon request
through the National Insti-
tute of Governmental
Purchasings Data Bank for
quieter purchasing. Call
(703) 920-4020 for more
information.
Results
Region 10's successful
litigation against the
Georgia-Pacific Corpora-
tion's pulp and paper mill
in BeUingham, Wash., is
producing results. The
prosecution in U.S. Dis-
trict Court of Georgia-
Pacific for the mill's de-
layed compliance with
its wastewater discharge
permit produced a civil
penalty of $25,000. In
addition, the installation
of the required pollution
control equipment is al-
ready paying dividends in
terms of improved water
quality. In a before-and-
after study conducted by
the Washington State
Department of Ecology,
dissolved oxygen in the
BeUingham Bay area in-
creased from a range of
0 to 5 parts per million in
early 1979 to a range of
8 to 10 parts per million
in 1980. Corresponding
improvements were also
noted in acidity and water
discoloration. As recently
as 1979, anaerobic condi-
tions in the water pre-
vailed and many pilings
were devoid of any form
of marine life. A year
later, the same pilings
were showing signs of
rapid recolonization by
invertebrate species. Q
States Served by EPA Regions
Region 1 IBoston)
Connecticut, Ma
Massachusetts, f>.
Hampshire. Rhode Island.
Vern-
617-223 7210
Region 2 (New York
City)
NewJ
Puerto Rico. Virgin
Islands
212264-2525
Region 3
(Philadelphia)
Maryland,
Pennsylvania Virginia.
West Virginia. District of
Columbia
215-5979814
Region 4 (Atlanta)
Alabama. Georgia
Florida. Mississippi,
North Carolina. Sooth
Carolina. Tonnes'.
Kentucky
404 881-4727
Region 5 (Chicago)
Illinois. Indiana. Ohio
Michigan. Wiscona.n.
Minnesota
312 353-20OO
Region 6 (Dallas)
Arkansas. Louisiana.
Oklahoma. Texas, New
Mexico
21.4767 2600
Region 7 (Kansas
City)
Iowa. Kansas. Missouri.
Nebraska
816-374-5493
Region 8 (Denver)
Colorado. Utah.
Wyoming, Montana.
North Dakota. South
Dakota
3038373895
Region 9 (San
Francisco)
Ari/ona. California
Nevada. Hawaii
415-556 2320
Region 10 (Seattle)
Alaska. Idaho, Oregon,
Washington
206-442-1220
MARCH 1981
29
-------
Update
A review of recent major
EPA activities and devel-
opments in the pollution
control program areas.
AIR
Fly Ash
EPA has proposed
guidelines encouraging
the Federal Government
to buy cement and con-
crete mixed with fly ash,
which would help the
electric utility industry
save disposal costs for
nearly one-third of the fly
ash waste produced each
year as a by-product of
coal combustion.
Fly ash has been pro-
duced in large quantities
since utilities began using
pollution controls on coal-
burning boilers to capture
the ash rather than allow-
ing it to be dispersed
through the air. Fly ash
has been substituted for a
portion—typically, 20
percent—of the cement
contained in the concrete
used in many buildings.
Diesel
Diesel soot from trucks,
buses, and other heavy-
duty diesel vehicles could
be reduced as much as
two-thirds per vehicle by
1995 under a new par-
ticulate emissions stand-
ard recently proposed by
the EPA.
The proposed standard
would apply to 1986 and
later model year diesel
vehicles over 8,500
pounds gross vehicle
weight. Standards tor par-
ticulates from diesel cars
were promulgated in
1980. A public hearing
will be held on the pro-
posal for trucks and other
heavy duty vehicles.
Chemicals
The EPA has proposed
three air pollution regula-
tions that would reduce
smog-forming emissions
from the synthetic or-
ganic chemical manufac-
turing industry and from
metal coil surface coating
operations. The rules
would also cut benzene
emissions from petroleum
refineries and chemical
manufacturing plants.
The proposed rules would
affect only new sources.
ENFORCEMENT
Automakers
EPA has granted waivers
under the Clean Air Act to
six automakers, allowing
additional time for certain
engines to meet auto
emission standards.
EPA has given General
Motors, Ford, Chrysler,
and American Motors un-
til 1983 for seven of their
engine lines to meet the
1981 standard for carbon
monoxide (CO) of 3.4
grams per mile (gpm).
Meanwhile, cars using
these engines will be
allowed to meet a stand-
ard of 7.0 gpm.
The vehicles affected
by this action include
some now in production
as well as some that will
be introduced for the first
time in 1982. These cars
include GM 's J-cars,
Ford's Escort/Lynx, most
Chrysler models, and
AMC's Spirit/Concord.
EPA granted the waiv-
ers to give the financially
troubled companies flex-
ibility to improve the com-
petiveness of these cars.
Agency officials said that
no significant adverse
effect on air quality will
result from the action.
EPA also granted waiv-
ers to General Motors,
and to two Japanese auto
companies—Nissan (Dat-
sun) Motor Company,
Ltd. and Isuzu Motors Ltd.
—until 1983 for two
diesel engine families to
meet the 1981 nitrogen
oxides standard of 1.0
gpm. In the meantime,
these engines will have to
comply with a nitrogen
oxide standard of
1.5 gpm.
Gasoline
An investigation was
conducted in the Detroit
area late last year in
which six EPA investiga-
tors inspected 90 branded
and unbranded retail gas-
oline stations and took
fuel samples from un-
leaded pumps. The inves-
tigation resulted from a
complaint that leaded
gasoline was being sold
as unleaded at many retail
stations in the area.
EPA said that labora-
tory tests of the gasoline
samples showed lead con-
tent higher than permitted
by Federal regulations at
12 service stations. The
Federal standard for un-
leaded gasoline restricts
lead content to not more
than 0.05 grams of lead
per gallon. Generally,
leaded gasoline contains
from 1 to 2 grams of lead
per gallon.
The investigators also
found nozzles in violation
of Federal requirements
for leaded gasoline pumps
at three stations.
The EPA also an-
nounced that it has filed
an administrative com-
plaint against Southwest
Wholesale Cooperative of
Phoenix, Arizona, charg-
ing that the firm used
leaded gasoline in com-
pany vehicles which are
required under the Fed-
eral Clean Air Act to use
unleaded fuel, and im-
properly equipped a
leaded pump with an
undersized nozzle.
The complaint, which
seeks a penalty of
$65,300, also charges
Southwest Cooperative
with not properly labeling
leaded gasoline pumps
and failing to display
warning signs in the
pump stand areas.
Recall
General Motors Corp. will
voluntarily recall approxi-
mately 120,000 of its
1978 passenger cars be-
cause they may be failing
to meet Federal tailpipe
air pollution standards
for nitrogen oxides (NOx).
Vehicles recalled are
1978 GM models with
151 cubic inch displace-
ment (CID) engines in-
cluding the Chevrolet
Monza, Monza Wagon,
Pontiac Sunbird, Sunbird
Safari Wagon, Phoenix,
and Oidsmobile Starfire.
Vehicles built for sale in
California are not in-
cluded in this recall. Ve-
hicles in the above model
lines with other than 1 51
CID engines are not sub-
ject to the recall.
Hearing Request
Volkswagen of America
has requested a public
hearing to contest EPA's
October 24, 1980, recall
of approximately 140,000
1977 Volkswagen ve-
hicles. This is only the
second time a manufac-
turer has challenged an
EPA-ordered recall.
The recall, which in-
cludes 1977 Rabbitand
Scirocco models, is based
upon EPA's determination
that these vehicles fail to
meet the Federal exhaust
emission standards for
hydrocarbons (HC) and
oxides of nitrogen (NOx).
Under the Clean Air
Act, a vehicle manufac-
turer may request a hear-
ing if it disagrees with
EPA's determination that
the vehicles are not in
compliance with emission
standards. At least 30
days prior to the hearing,
EPA will publish a notice
in the Federal Register in-
dicating its scheduled
time and location.
HAZARDOUS
WASTE
Actions
From November 19 to
December 19, EPA
conducted 383 inspec-
tions of hazardous waste
generation and disposal
facilities, sent out 26
notices of violations, 18
compliance orders, and
levied $7,500 in fines for
violators of new regula-
tions which ensure that
hazardous waste is han-
30
EPA JOURNAL
-------
died in a way which pro-
tects the public and the
environment. The regula-
tions were effective Nov.
19,1980.
The new EPA regula-
tions require hazardous
waste producers to as-
sume responsibility for
the ultimate disposal of
the waste they generate,
transporting it according
to EPA/ Department of
Transportation standards
to a pre-determined facil-
ity designed to handle the
waste safely. A newly-
instituted tracking system
is designed to ensure that
the waste actually arrives
at that facility.
NOISE
Initiative
Regulatory officials from
more than sixteen coun-
tries have agreed upon a
new initiative to coordi-
nate and align interna-
tional noise measurement
and test procedures.
Proposed and hosted
by the United States, the
international meeting of
regulatory officials Dec.
9-12 was designed as a
working session of those
officials with policy re-
sponsibility for the adop-
tion of noise measurement
procedures in their re-
spective countries. The
meeting was coordinated
by the EPA Office of Noise
Abatement and Control.
The country representa-
tives agreed at the con-
ference to complete the
listing of present or forth-
coming regulations where
measurement procedures
may offer potential tech-
nical barriers to trade and
to indicate each country's
recommendations for pri-
orities in dealing with
these problems.
Motorcycles
EPA has proposed to
amend the testing require-
ments of the final motor-
cycle and motorcycle
exhaust systems noise
regulations which were
recently announced.
The proposed amend-
ments would require man-
ufacturers to take one
additional step in their
testing program over and
above what is required of
them as a result of the
final regulations. Specifi-
cally, under the proposed
amendment, manufac-
turers would be required
to remove all easily re-
movable components
from their exhaust sys-
tems before conducting
the tests necessary to
show compliance with
applicable standards.
These amendments are
expected to encourage
manufacturers to design
exhaust systems in ways
which will reduce the in-
cidence of tampering by
motorcycle owners and
mechanics.
TOXICS
Export
A final rule designed to
help foreign governments
become aware of possible
hazards associated with
certain chemicals they
import from the United
States has been issued
by EPA.
Under the rule, each
year exporters must notify
EPA the first time they ex-
port or intend to export
from the U.S. certain
chemicals on which the
Agency has taken action
to avert potential health
or environmental prob-
lems. EPA would then
notify affected foreign gov-
ernments.
WATER
Iron and Steel
EPA has proposed
new water pollution con-
trols for existing and
future iron and steel pro-
duction plants, including
both carbon and specialty
steel mills.
The proposed rules,
called "effluent guide-
lines," include a variety
of limits on different water
pollutants caused by the
manufacture of these
metals. The rules would
require an initial clean-up
level called "best practi-
cable technology" (BPT).
These standards would
take effect as soon as
possible after the pro-
posals are issued in final
form later this year.
After 1984 the proposals
would require tougher
clean-up levels for toxic
pollutants to be achieved
by using the "best avail-
able technology."
Tougher clean-up require-
ments also would be
applied to discharges of
oil and grease and sus-
pended pollutants through
the use of "best conven-
tional technology."
In addition, "pretreat-
ment" standards would
be applied to harmful
wastes released from the
mills to sewage treatment
plants, and new iron and
steel plants built after the
EPA proposals would
have to meet certain "new
source performance
standards."
Coal
New controls on dis-
charges of acidic water
and other wastewater
from existing and future
coal mines and coal
cleaning plants have been
proposed.
EPA's proposals would
apply to all underground
and surface coal mines
and coal cleaning plants in
the country. Cleaning or
preparation plants, usually
built near the mines,
remove sulfur and other
undesirable elements
from coal to make it more
acceptable for burning in
the boilers of electric
power plants and other
industries.
Pulp and Paper
EPA has proposed new
water pollution controls
for present and future
pulp and paper mills.
The proposals, known
as effluent guidelines,
are required by 1977
amendments to the Clean
Water Act and by a legal
agreement between EPA
and several environmental
groups. The Agency pro-
posals are expected to be
issued in final form some-
time in 1981, after public
comment.
The EPA rules would
require that pulp and
paper mills use the "best
available technology"
to control the discharge
of toxic pollutants from
their operations.
The new proposals also
would tighten current
controls on oxygen-de-
manding materials and
suspended particles that
result from the manufac-
ture of paper products.
AGENCYWIDE
Plain English
EPA recently honored
several employees with
"Plain English" cash
awards for producing
documents meeting high
standards of clarity and
organization.
The Office of Planning
and Management's Henry
Beal, director of the
Standards and Regula-
tions Division and the
Steering Committee, re-
viewed 35 documents
authored by EPA em-
ployees, judging them on
sentence structure, logi-
cal organization, and the
ease with which non-
experts can understand
them.
David M. Feldman of
the Office of Assistant
Administrator for Enforce-
ment won the $500 first
prize.
A $250 prize went for
a paper prepared by
Glenn Passavant and John
Anderson of the Motor
Vehicles Emissions Test
Laboratory in Ann Arbor,
Mich. Richard Johnson,
Joseph Panetta, Lynn
Brown, Cathy Kessler and
Jeffrey Kempter, Office of
Toxic Substances, won
$250 for their draft.
Richard McAllister and
David Mayer of the Office
of Toxic Substances won
a $75 honorable mention
for their work. Laura
Campbell of the Office of
Assistant Administrator
for Enforcement also won
a $75 honorable mention.
The Agency plans to offer
plain English awards
quarterly. [ i
MARCH 1981
31
-------
Making
Pollution
Prevention
Pay
By Michael G. Royston
In November 1979, the ministers of the
environment from the European countries
and representatives from the United States
and Canada met in Geneva under the
auspices of the Economic Commission for
Europe on the Protection of the Environ-
ment. Their purpose was to decrease pollu-
tion from industrial wastes. Long-range
transboundary air pollution, or "acid rain,"
from the world's metallurgy and power
plants was thought to be damaging north-
ern lakes and forests and had grown into a
major international issue. The ministers
and representatives signed a resolution to
"limit, gradually reduce, and prevent" this
form of pollution. They also adopted a
declaration stating that "economic devel-
opment and technological progress must be
compatible with the protection of the envi-
ronment" and advocating the use of no-
waste technologies in their countries'
industries. In this article, an authority on
business and the environment augments
the discussion begun at this important
international meeting. He offers consider-
able evidence that alert companies can turn
pollution prevention into profit and make
their growth and survival congruent with
environmental protection.
Copyright * 1980 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College; all rights
reserved. Reprinted by permission of the
Harvard Business Review. Making Pol-
lution Pay by Michael G. Royston, Nov.
Dec. issue.
Some businesses have long understood
that environmental protection and
economic progress can go hand in hand.
Consider the following examples:
• Ciba-Geigy, the chemical complex in
Basel, Switzerland has, with little capital
investment, been able to eliminate up to
50 percent of the pollution from its opera-
tions and save an estimated $400,000 a
year. By changing its manufacturing proc-
esses and recycling its water and solvents,
it has saved not only money but also
energy.
• A plant producing atactic polypropylene
waste in Japan has a waste recovery and
utilization plant with capital charges and
operating costs amounting to $100 a ton.
The value of recovery energy at $ 140 a ton
yields an annual profit of $500,000.
• In the Federal Republic of Germany,
Reffelmann Metallverarbeitung KG has re-
covered its electroplating liquors and made
a 40 percent profit on them. ENKA-Glanz-
stoff is increasing its marginal profit by 30
percent in recovering zinc from its rayon
plant effluents.
• In France, 22 factories have been con-
verting their production wastes into useful,
salable products. The Elf Oil Refinery at
Feyzin, for example, has turned its hydro-
carbon pollution into an annual profit of
$1,320,000. The Societe Alimentaire
Equilibree at Commentry has turned a
methionine mother-liquor pollution prob-
lem into an annual saving of $600,000. The
Sacilor steel works in Gandrange has re-
covered its iron dust residues and saved
$200,000 a year. The Societe Lacto-Centre
in Bas-en-Basset has recovered its whey
residue that was previously polluting local
rivers and made a gross profit of $ 1 80,000
a year on it.
• In the United Kingdom, North British Dis-
tilleries, near Edinburgh, has turned its
highly polluting still bottoms into nutritious
animal feed and has had an annual return
on investment of over 100 percent. Toma-
EPA JOURNAL
-------
tim, another distillery in Scotland, is raising
$6 million worth of eels in its hot water
effluent. An ICI plant is saving $600,000 a
year in fuel bills by segregating and
burning its wastes.-
• Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company, the multinational based in the
United States and known as 3M, has since
1 976 expanded production by 40 percent
and significantiy reduced its annual pollu-
tant load. Its liquid effluent has gone from
47 tons to 2.6 tons, its gaseous effluent
from 3,000 tons to 2,400 tons, and its solid
waste from 6,000 tons to 1,800 tons. This
cleanup has resulted in a cost saving of
$2,400,000 a year.
By 1976, this company had realized that
the cost of meeting increasing demands for
pollution control was threatening its profit-
ability. It decided to attack the problem at
its root by applying the philosophy that
pollutants plus know-how equal potential
resources and new profits. The company
initiated this approach under the slogan
"Pollution Prevention Pays" (3P).
In the first nine months of operation in
1 5 countries, 3P programs eliminated
70,000 tons of air pollutants and 500
million gallons of waste water. Instead of
expending money, 3M saved $11 million.
By viewing pollution as an indicator of
waste and an opportunity for profit rather
than as a costly threat, the company had, by
1979, saved over $20 million.'
New No-Waste Technologies
The savings possible from such no-waste
approaches vary widely from industry to
industry and from plant to plant. Most of
the old technologies and processes in use
were selected when the costs of energy,
water, and raw materials were much lower
than they are now and when the costs of
waste disposal were either very low or
could be ignored. Designs were selected to
maximize the discounted cash flow, so
long-term running costs tended to be sac-
rificed in favor of reducing initial capital
costs. Thus, many existing plants and proc-
esses in all industries tend to have a good
margin for improving efficiency, reducing
costs, and minimizing waste and pollution.
Even the best managed and most effi-
cient businesses are finding opportunities
to improve their efficiency, to the benefit of
both the economy and the environment.
Many of these examples are to be found in
Europe because it has a history of high
energy and raw material costs as well as
long-standing environmental concern.
There, for example, the cogeneration of
process steam and electric power, much
discussed recently in the United States, has
been routine practice for many years-
Many industrial and municipal installations
in Europe convert wastes into energy in
specially designed incinerators and use
waste heat from power plants for district
heating.
It was there, in Finland, that the metal-
lurgical industry developed the Outokumpu
process, which since 1947 has been turning
98 percent of the damaging sulfur dioxide
fumes arising from copper smelting into
salable sulfuric acid. It was there that the
"systems approach" of integrating one type
of processing plant with another to take
care of wastes resulted in combined treat-
ments that are clean, productive, profitable,
and capable of generating 50 percent of
their own energy needs. Exhibit I on page 35
shows how integrating various processes in
a system can produce useful products and
at the same time reduce waste.
It is in Europe, again, that a new tech-
nology known as fluidized-bed combustion
has eased the acid rain problem. Scotland
has been using this technique on a large
scale to burn coal at 97 percent combustion
efficiency and retain 90 percent of the sul-
fur in a bed during the burning of coal con-
taining 3.5 percent sulfur.
In the extraction and building industries,
English Clays has been using its china clay
wastes to make prefabricated houses.
Germany's steel industry has recycled
99 percent of the water it uses and con-
verted over 90 percent of its solid wastes
into other useful materials. It is in Germany
where coke ovens are being moved to en-
closed quenching zones to recover gas and
steam as energy sources and to eliminate
air pollution, where the aluminum industry
is using a closed fluoride cycle, and where
the rubber and plastics industries have a
large number of schemes to recover, resyn-
thesize, and reuse waste materials as fuels
by a variety of specalized pyrolysis and
incineration techniques.
In the chemical industry, the Soviet
Union has been using energy conversion
and water recycling to cut the costs in an
MARCH 1981
33
-------
ammonia plant to $40 or $50 a ton.
In the food industry, France has been
getting a 30 percent return on investment
from the recovery of protein from
slaughterhouse wastes.
The process industries in general are
able to turn half their gross pollution load
to profit before having to pay for the hard
task of cleanup, and many of them are in
North America.
Hylsa, the steel company in Mexico, is
using the sponge iron process to implement
direct reduction technology and prevent the
massive pollution of coke ovens, which
cost U.S. Steel over $600 million to clean
up recently at its Clairton works.
Shell Oil in Canada has been disposing
of its refinery sludge by ploughing it into
the prairie and increasing barley yields
from 18 percent to 31 percent. In a pulp
mill at Thunder Bay on Lake Ontario, the
Great Lakes Paper Co. Ltd. has for the past
three years been using the Rapson-Reeve
process, which is neither as dirty as a con-
ventional mill nor as uneconomic as one
retrofitted with expensive pollution control
equipment.5 It is based on closed cycle
operation and produces pulp more cheaply
than a conventional plant does.
In the United States, the paper compa-
nies have begun to look at their industrial
wastes as ways of making money.6
Union Camp, for instance, which used to
sell its mill wastes for eight cents a pound,
now turns them into flavors and fragrances
worth more than a dollar a pound. It has
boosted its chemical sales to $100 million
a year.
As a by-product of processing at its
Bellingham, Wash, plant, Georgia Pacific is
producing 190-proof alcohol "so pure and
potent" that the Treasury Department has
stationed men in the plant full-time to make
sure that none of it is converted to drinking
liquor before its sale to industrial users.
Westvaco has found the conversion of
mill wastes into other products so profit-
able that it has created a chemical subsidi-
ary with four processing plants and a re-
search center staffed with 80 scientists.
In the past five years, Westvaco's chemical
sales have doubled to $45 million, all from
materials that the company used to dump.
Other U.S. industries are now doing
similar rethinking.
Dow Corning has found that recovering
chlorine and hydrogen previously lost to
the atmosphere in making silicon can re-
duce operating costs by $900,000 a year.
A $2.7 million capital investment in equip-
ment is producing a 33 percent annual
return on investment.
Hercules Powder spent $750,000 to
reduce solids discharged into the Missis-
sippi River and is now saving $250,000 a
year in materials and water costs.
Process improvements in a Goldkist
poultry plant have cut water use by 32 per-
cent, reduced wastes by 66 percent, and
produced a net annual gain of $2.33 for
every $1.00 expended.
The chairman of the Hanes Dye and
Finishing Company has testified that
"cleaning up our stacks and neutralizing
our liquids was expensive, but in the bal-
ance we have actually made money on our
pollution control effort. EPA has helped
our bottom line."
All these examples confirm the impres-
sion that in many industries a good deal of
pollution stems simply from inefficiency
and waste—waste that could be turned
into profit.
Organizing for Profit
How can companies best exploit their own
pollution prevention opportunities? The
key to 3M's success has been giving corpo-
ratewide recognition to the importance of
technological innovation in making the
company efficient and profitable, delegating
responsibility and initiative to the shop
floor, and rewarding all company personnel
who get involved in 3P programs.
Joseph T. Ling, as vice president of en-
vironmental engineering and pollution con-
trol, heads up the corporate effort at St.
Paul, Minn, and works directly with the
corresponding managers of the over-
seas companies. In the United Kingdom,
for example, Ling works with the manager
of engineering services and a central
energy and environment committee. The
manager serves as chairman, and an ac-
countant, the central engineering manager,
the manufacturing manager, the mainte-
nance engineer, and the public relations
manager serve as the five other members
of the central committee.
Each 3M factory has its own plant energy
and environment committee comprising the
plant engineer as chairman, the manufac-
turing supervisor, the process engineer, the
maintenance supervisor, the control engi-
neer, the division engineer, and an indus-
trial engineer. Their job is to set targets for
waste avoidance, establish programs with
shop floor personnel, report progress to
management, audit savings, and report to
the central committee.
At 3M all corporate personnel from the
shop floor upward are mobilized to con-
tribute their knowledge and observations to
the pollution abatement programs adopted.
To qualify as a 3P program, a proposal has
to eliminate or reduce a pollutant; bring
about reduced energy use or more efficient
use of raw materials like water; include
some innovative feature; and bring mone-
tary benefit through reduced or deferred
controls or manufacturing costs, increased
sales of existing or new products, or
reduced capital or running costs. Pollution
has been efficiently lessened, not by install-
ing pollution control plants but by reformu-
lating products, redesigning equipment,
modifying processes, or recovering
materials for reuse.
Good housekeeping has been the basis
for successful pollution prevention at most
of the companies I have mentioned. Often,
however, they feel they have arrived at the
best programs possible through computer
optimization. They have looked at their
intuitive proposals singly and in combina-
tion through sophisticated computer pro-
grams and have reached rank orderings of
returns on investment for each degree of
pollution abatement.
They have found that the economic way
to abate pollution is not to call in equipment
suppliers but to detect waste in their oper-
ating conditions; establish material, energy,
34
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Exhibit I
Examples of no-waste technologies
and water balances; take note of legislative
trends; and predict future waste treatment
costs in the light of present expenses.
Action based on this approach includes
reducing energy consumption through heat
reuse; coupling heat-producing and heat-
consuming processes; integrating heat and
power production; reducing heat and cold
losses; and modifying temperatures, com-
pressor and pump loads, and boil-up rates.
The next stage after they have eliminated
substantial amounts of their waste has been
to sell as much of that waste as possible
to someone else and, with the residual pol-
lutants, to build extra plants to convert
them into useful raw materials or products.
Then they have appraised the self-cleansing
and dispersing power of their local environ-
ments and, with state authorities and local
communities, have established appropriate
discharge conditions for final residues.
Whenever possible, the companies have
built treatment facilities jointly, as for ex-
ample, Airco Alloy and a pulp mill in Swe-
den did and as Bass Charrington's giant
brewery and the town of Runcorn in the
United Kingdom did to profit from the com-
patibility of their mixed wastes. The treat-
ment facilities have also usually been built
with the companies' own manpower so as
to develop the kind of environmental know-
how that can be commercialized.
Growth Boost
If taking such a positive approach to envi-
ronmental protection can help companies
maintain their profit, it can also help them
grow. In the United States this year, envi-
ronmental business has been almost a $50
billion affair and has recently been in-
creasing 20 percent a year.
This new commercial area has brought
in its wake a wave of new businesses. In
the Federal Republic of Germany, more
than 200 new companies have recently set
themselves up to provide environmental
products and services. In the United States,
there are companies like Apollo Chemical
Co., which started in the air pollution busi-
ness some 15 years ago employing 10
people but which now employs over 400
Integrated systems
Copper smelting
Garbage disposal
Garbage disposal
Paper
Food preparation
Food preparation
Steel production
Hog production
Electric power
Domestic water
Whiskey production
Timber
Heat
Metallurgy
Aluminum
Alloy steel tubes
Titanium dioxide
Steel production
Phosphates
Mining
Electric power
China clay
Mining
Electric power
Animal waste
Sulfuric acid Fertilizer
Power generation Drinking water
Fuel production Metal recovery
Alcohol Protein
Protein
Chemicals
Municipal
waste water
Cheese
Sulfuric acid
Industrial water Pollutant recovery
Animal feed
Plywood Pulp
Power generation
Paper
Cryolite
Pigments
Pigments Magnetic tape
Ceramics
Plasterboard
Building materials,
(bricks, cement.
aggregate)
Insulating bricks
Prefabricated
houses
Recreation
Heating for homes,
fish ponds, fields
Gas
Wastes avoided
Sulfur dioxide, heat, resources
Land, heat, resources
Land, resources
Water pollutants
Water pollutants
Air pollutants, resources
Water pollutants
Water pollutants
Air pollutants
Water pollutants, resources
Water pollutants, resources
Water pollutants, resources
Air pollutants, heat, resources
Air pollutants, heat, resources
Air pollutants, energy, resources
Water pollutants
Water pollutants
Solid wastes
Water pollutants
Solid wastes
Solid wastes
Solid wastes
Land
Heat
Water pollutants
and has subsidiaries around the world.
Another is Waste Management Inc., a gar-
bage-handling business based on a new
technology that yields a turnover of S350
million.
Even more significant, many large com-
panies have added divisions to provide en-
vironmental goods and services. In the
United States, Boeing, FMC, Exxon, Dow
Chemical, 3M, and Caterpillar Tractor all
market environmental products and serv-
ices. In Europe, Shell, BP, Ciba-Geigy,
Krupp, and Philips market specialized en-
vironmental services. ICI, in the United
Kingdom, has three environmental divi-
sions—a general technical and instrument
division, a division for deep-shaft waste
treatment systems, and another for general
biological services and marketing plastic
filter medium. In Sweden, the PLM Com-
pany, formerly only in the packaging busi-
ness, has diversified into the reclamation
area and doubled its turnover to $500
million."
In such diversification, it is as important
as ever to link the new activity to an exist-
ing strength. Thus, in pyrolyzing garbage,
the Danish firm Destrugas is producing fuel
gas. Union Carbide is producing ammonia,
and Occidental Petroleum is producing
fuel oil.
New growth areas tend to stem from
technological innovation, and innovation
tends to result from external need or
pressure. Environmental pressure gen-
erates innovation.
Environmentally induced economic
activity continues to stimulate the econ-
omy. It is an estimated 2 percent of the
gross national product in countries like the
United States. The amount of employment
engendered by all aspects of environmental
protection in the United States was, at the
1977 Environmental Improvement Council
Conference, reported to be 2 million jobs.
Direct employment induced by the National
Environmental Policy Act runs at about
75,000.
A 1978 estimate of the economic impact
of environmental policies in the United
MARCH 1981
-------
Exhibit II
Number of innovations in which environmental concerns have been
considered
Industry
Automobiles
Chemicals
Computers
Consumer electronics
Textiles
Total
France
4
9
5
7
10
35
Federal
Republic
Germany
12
12
9
8
6
47
Japan
of
2
6
7
6
21
Nether-
lands
5
3
7
15
United
Kingdom
10
12
10
8
6
46
Total
28
44
31
32
29
164
.'.' Support tor Scmnce ilf'tJ Technology. An • .•( Foreign Expenence \C*i'r:bfi(i(n: M.-/-..S
. 1976}
States indicates that the annual benefits of
improvements in air quality since 1970
have been $21.4 billion and that the total
annual benefits in 1985 due to improved
water quality will be $12.3 billion. It is
further estimated that by the end of 1980
U.S. environmental regulations will have
added 0.1 percent to the consumer price
index, reduced unemployment by 0.4 per-
cent, and increased gross national produc-
tion by $9.3 billion.
Japan, in recession in 1974, used strict
pollution control legislation to boost con-
struction and engineering and hence restim-
ulate the economy; 20 percent of its eco-
nomic growth since then can be attributed
to its new strict environmental legislation.
Japanese companies are world leaders in
supplying advanced pollution control
equipment such as pyrolysis plants and
flue gas desulfurizers.
Sweden used similar measures in 1970
when it faced an economic recession. The
government introduced strict pollution con-
trol and offered industries cash grants of
up to 75 percent of the purchase price of
pollution control equipment installed be-
fore 1975. The result was a major improve-
ment in the environment and a massive
stimulation of the construction, equipment,
and chemical industries. Sweden pulled out
of the recession, and, like Japan, developed
companies that are now leading suppliers
of advanced pollution control equipment,
chemicals, and know-how in the world.
Survival of the Fittest
In determining the direction of their future
growth, companies as well as nations will
more and more have to take environmental
concerns into account. The ultimate objec-
tive of the corporation is survival, and
reaching that depends very much on the
adaptation of the corporation to its
environment.
Such major companies as Shell and BP
are directing their development by fore-
casting from scenarios. They describe all
the possible environmental conditions that
might control their growth and make deci-
sions accordingly. AKZO, the Dutch chem-
ical multinational, constructs elaborate
scenarios based on the social, political,
physical, economic, and technological
environments that it feels may prevail in the
future and then determines which products
and services will be most compatible with
such conditions.
More and more companies are assessing
the environmental impact of projects they
are about to introduce. Some, such as
DSM, the Dutch state coal mining enter-
prise that is now a large, successful multi-
national chemical company, go to the
extent of simulating public hearings of
impact reports. Company staff members
play the roles of community and environ-
mental advocates to identify the dangers
and problems early so that remedies can
be applied while cost and time penalties are
still minimal. Under programs like this,
enterprises accept the validity of environ-
mental concern and encourage environ-
mental awareness in their staffs. They can
minimize the negative and maximize the
positive impacts of their new projects,
They can also prevent their projects from
being blocked by the courts or by citizen
protest actions. By becoming concerned
about environmental impact ahead of time,
companies can avoid costly delay, bad
press, and heavy financial burden.
The Payoff
If a company looks at economic questions
in an ecological way and at ecological
questions in an economic way, it can make
pollution prevention pay in relation to three
corporate objectives. By focusing attention
on waste avoidance and efficient operation,
it can increase profit. By investigating new
areas in which to develop products and
services, it can grow. By avoiding conflict
over new projects and winning acceptance
for them by looking at them with an eye to
the new environmental values, it can
improve its chances of surviving. Q
Footnotes
1. See Ministere de la Qualite de la Vie,
Usines Propres (Paris: La Ministere, 1976).
2. See my book. Pollution Prevention Pays
(Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979).
3. See Joseph T. Ling, "Developing Con-
servation Oriented Technology for Indus-
trial Control," in Non-Waste Technology
and Production (Oxford: Pergamon Press,
1978),p.313.
4. S. Harkki, "The Outokumpu Flash Smelt-
ing Method," in Non-Waste Technology
and Production (Oxford: Pergamon Press,
1978).
5. United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe, "The Rapson-Reeve Process,
A Case Study," Compendium of Low-Waste
and Non-Waste Technology (Geneva:
Palais des Nations, 1980).
6. United Nations, "Money from Wastes,"
Development Forum, January-February
1977,p.3.
7. I. Flory, "Separation of Paper, Glass and
Tinplate from Waste in Residential and
Industrial. Areas," ELMIA Conference,
Jonkoping, Sweden, October 1976.
8. Eighth Annual Report of the Council on
Environmental Quality (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977),
p. 332.
9. Tenth Annual Report of the Council on
Environmental Quality (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980).
pp. 655-662.
10. Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, "Prevention Less Costly
than Cure," OECD Observer, May 1979,
p.9.
11. Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, "The Environment and
Current Economic Problems" and "The
State of the Environment," OECD
Observer, May 1979, p. 29.
Mr. Royston is professor of technology and
environment at the Center for Education in
International Management in Geneva,
Switzerland.
36
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Environmental Almanac: March 1981
A Glimpse of the Natural World We Help Protect
Swans
Winging
North
With a thunderous slapping
of wings and pattering of
black-webbed feet on the water
surface, flocks of whistling
swans soonwill betakingoff
from Chesapeake Bay and other
eastern waterways for their
extraordinary annual migration
across the continent to Alaska
and Western Canada.
After assembling together at
various staging points along
the East Coast these graceful
white birds begin their vast
journey often at dusk or by
moonlight. They lift off when-
ever instinct tells the leaders
the time has come to return to
the rim of theArctic Circle to
breed and raise their young
under the midnight sun.
As the great spring migration
begins the swans will fly at
heights ranging from 2,000 to
8,000 feet for as much as eight
hours before landing on the first
leg of their flight.
Sometimes they are caught
and buffeted in severe storms
and forced to land abruptly in
farm fields. Occasionally these
weary birds have landed on the
Niagara River and have been
swept over the mighty falls.
When these mishaps occur the
survivors have often been shot
or clubbed to death by people
who regard them as game birds.
However, the majority of the
whistling swans successfully
complete their migration and
begin building large, crude
nests of grass and other vege-
tation on the North Slope of
Alaska or in marshy areas of
Canada's Northwest Territories.
Dr. William J. L. Sladen, who
has conducted extensive re-
search on whistling swans
(Cygnus columbianus), confirm-
ed the flight of these birds from
Chesapeake Bay to Alaska in
1970whenheandhispilotin
a small airplane spotted a
color-dyed swan swimming on
an Alaskan lake.
After the plane landed, Dr.
Sladen identified the bird by its
numbered band as one of 48
swans marked the previous
winter near Galesville, Md.
The flight of these birds can
sometimes be hazardous to
aircraft. In 1962 a United
Airlines plane crashed in Mary-
land and all passengers were
killed after a swan struck its tail.
This is one of the reasons
why information on the migra-
tion of swans and other large
birds is of more than academic
interest.
Although named whistlers,
these stately birds actually have
a high-pitched "woo-HOW-
woo" call that sounds like
children playing Indians.
During the spring migration
season in the Chesapeake re-
gion, you can sometimes see
and hear masses of several
different types of aquatic birds
winging their way north on
different flight levels at the
same time.
In addition to the baying of
the whistling swans, you can
hear the quacking of mallards,
the croaking of snow geese, and
the honking of Canada geese,
an unforgettable medley of
sky music.
Whistlers wintering in the
Chesapeake Bay region feed on
aquatic vegetation and, when
they can find them, thin-shelled
clams.
However, in recent years the
underwater greenery in the
upper Chesapeake Bay has
become scarce, forcing the
swans to find food on land.
When the swans feed on young
shoots of winter wheat some
farmers start to talk about the
possibility of changing the law
that now protects whistlers
from hunters.
Research is being conducted
by EPA, Maryland, and Virginia
and various agencies on the
reasons for the disappearance
of the water vegetation.
One cause is that increased
discharges of sediment from
land development and larger
flows of wastes into the bay are
increasing turbidity. This re-
duces the sunlight needed by
the aquatic plants for photo-
synthesis.
There are an estimated
1 00,000 whistling swans in the
U.S. They are one of three
species of wild swans in this
country. The other two are the
trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccina-
tor), a bird primarily of the West
and which can be distinguished
from the whistler mainly by its
larger size, and the mute swan
(Cygnus olor), the royal bird of
England now sometimes found
in the wild in this country, but
which was introduced into the
U.S. many years ago as an
ornamental bird for parks.
The eggs of whistling swans
hatch in June and by fall, thd
young, known as cygnets, are
ready for their maiden flight to
the wintering grounds.
An older male, called a cob,
leads each wedge of the migra-
tory flight. The ash-grey cygnets
fly between their elders and are
buoyed by the air turbulence
generated by the leading birds
on the way to Chesapeake Bay
and other water bodies between
Maryland and North Carolina,
where they are still protected
by law against hunters.
S. Dillon Ripley, Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution and a
noted ornithologist, has com
mented on the value of
whistling swans:
"To me the far-ranging
whistler has always seemed a
perfect symbol of the wilder-
ness. The birds come and go
on their own. without let or
hindrance. They can be killed
legally in three states and to
what purpose? Swans are for-
tunately unpopular as table fare,
and the trade in swanskins and
swansdown has passed into
history. I feel that only a fool
would kill a swan, for to do so
istoimpingeon your birthright,
to sully your natural surround-
ings, to scar your soul a little."
—C.D.P.
MARCH 1981
37
-------
People
Edward A. Kurent
He has been named Director,
Enforcement Division, Office of
Water Enforcement for EPA.
In his new position, he will
be responsible for directing na-
tional water pollution enforce-
ment and compliance monitor-
ing programs, primarily those
under the Clean Water and Safe
Drinking Water Acts.
He was most recently the
legal director of EPA's Hazard-
ous Waste Enforcement Task
Force. He previously served as
special assistant to the Admin-
istrator for Enforcement, and
as a staff attorney in the Office
of Water Enforcement at head-
quarters.
Prior to coming to EPA, he
served in the U.S. Navy Judge
Advocate General's Corps
where he was first a prosecution
and defense attorney, and then
a Special Court Martial Judge in
the Republic of the Philippines.
Before that, he worked in the
federal Office of Economic
Opportunity for two years be-
fore it was dissolved in 1 973.
He received his bachelor's
degree from Ohio Wesleyan
University in 1968 and his law
degree from the University of
Cincinnati Law School in 1971.
Lewis Crampton
He has been named Director of
the Management and Planning
Division for Region 5. Crampton
is in charge of the Region's
planning processes, including
budgeting. Among the areas un-
der his direction are personnel
management, general services,
and the analytic center. Prior to
joining EPA, Crampton was a
senior consultant for Arthur
Little Co. in Cambridge, Mass.,
where he led a team which pre-
pared a major report for 300
clients in the private sector on
the regulatory outlook for haz-
ardous substances through
1985. From 1974 to 1977
Crampton served as Commis-
sioner of the Massachusetts
Department of Community
Affairs. Crampton said that he
hopes to make services pro-
vided by the Planning and
Management Division oriented
toward helping EPA program
people to do their jobs better.
His goal is to manage staff and
budgetary resources more effi-
ciently and to contribute to a
more effective planning process.
A native of Boston, Crampton
received an honors degree in
public administration from the
Woodrow Wilson School of
Public Affairs at Princeton Uni-
versity, a master's degree in
East Asian studies from Har-
vard, and a doctorate in urban
and regional planning from MIT.
Irwin P. Baumel
He has been named as Director,
Health and Environmental Re-
view Division in the Office of
Toxic Substances. The Health
and Environmental Review
Division is responsible for the
detailed assessment of harmful
effects of chemicals on human
health and the environment in
support of Office of Toxic Sub-
stances regulatory program
activities.
Prior to his appointment, Dr.
Baumel was Acting Director of
the Division of Criteria Docu-
mentation and Standards De-
velopment for the National
Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health. He held
several other administrative
positions with that agency
beginning in 1975.
He received his bachelor's
degree in Pharmacy from Co-
lumbia University in 1963; a
master's degree in Pharmacol-
ogy from Northeastern Univer-
sity in 1967; and his doctorate
in pharmacology from the Uni-
versity of Rhode Island in 1970.
Prior to entering government,
service, Baumel pursued an
active research and teaching
career at Yale School of Medi-
cine and at Georgetown Uni-
versity School of Medicine,
where he held an Assistant
Professorship.
Edward A. Klein
He has been named Director,
Chemical Control Division,
Office of Toxic Substances.
He was most recently the
Special Assistant to the Asso-
ciate Solicitor for the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Admin-
istration, beginning in 1974.
Prior to that, he was a trial
attorney for the National Labor
Relations Board.
He received his bachelor's
degree in political science from
the Pennsylvania State Univer-
sity in 1965, and his law degree
from New York Law School in
1969. He is a member of the
New York Bar. He is the author
of the article "Caution: The
Workplace may be Hazardous to
your Health," which has ap-
peared in several publications
including the book Toxic Torts
(1976).
-•:••
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Thomas R. Hauser
He has been named Senior
Research Official at EPA's
Environmental Research Center
located in Research Triangle
Park, N.C. Since 1977 Hauser
has been Director of EPA's
Environmental Monitoring
Systems Laboratory at that loca-
tion, and will continue in that
post.
In his new role, he will be ihe
principal spokesman for the
complex of four major labora-
tories and two offices that make
up the Center.
Since last May, Hauser has
also served as Field Director
and Coordinator for all EPA
environmental monitoring stud-
ies at Love Canal in upstate New
York.
He received an officer's
commission in the U.S. Public
Health Service in 1955, and he
joined the National Air Pollution
Control Administration at
Cincinnati in 1 958 as a research
chemist.
In 1970 he transferred to
Research Triangle Park as a
supervisory research chemist
in the National Air Pollution
Control Administration's Health
Effects Research Program. After
this agency became part of
EPA, Hauser was named Deputy
Director of the Environmental
Monitoring Systems Laboratory
at Research Triangle Park.
He received his bachelor's
and master's degrees in chemis
try from Xavier University in
1953 and 1 955 respectively,
and his doctorate in environ-
mental engineering from the
University of Cincinnati in 1971.
Donald H. Horstman
He has been named Chief of
the Clinical Research Branch of
EPA's Health Effects Research
Laboratory in Research Triangle
Park, N.C. In his new role he
will supervisee staff of ap-
proximately 25 physicians,
physiologists, bioengineers,
biochemists and immunoiogists
in studies on the relationships
between human health problems
and air pollution. Their research
focuses primarily on the levels
of air pollutants commonly
found in metropolitan areas,
and subsequent effects on the
human body.
Horstman will also assist in
development of EPA's environ-
mental health research
programs.
Priorto joining EPA, he was
a research physiologist for
eight years at the U.S. Army
Research Institute of Environ-
mental Medicine in Natick,
Mass., where he studied the
effects of altitude, temperature
and exercise on human
physiology.
He received his doctorate in
physiology from Pennsylvania
State University at University
Park. And he performed post-
doctoral research as a fellow
at the Institute of Environmental
Stress at the University of
California at Santa Barbara. G
Guarding the Sea
continued from page 27
to a resort where they have walked in sand
laced with tarballs, a phenomenon now
noticeable on beaches from Micronesia to
Cape Cod Bay, from Brittany to the south
coast of Crete.
Where the oceans have been concerned,
we who think of ourselves as master man-
agers have been masterly at mismanage-
ment. In 40 years, we have threatened the
health of the seas more dramatically than
any people in the preceding 4000 years, but
we have only recently recognized the
hidden costs of our errors, the long-term
penalties to be paid.
And, our folly is not confined to salt
water. Our fresh water management is in
some ways worse because these water
resources quench our thirst and bathe our
bodies. What could be closer, more impor-
tant to us?And yet rampant unplanned
"development" gobbles up hundreds of
acres of land a day, making increasing
demands on our freshwater supply. And
our urban planning does not always take
fresh water needs into account.
Environmental protection does not mean
we must sacrifice a quality standard of
living. On the contrary, preserving our
natural resources infuses our living stand-
ard with higher quality, a higher quality that
is based not just on the exhilaration of the
wilderness, or just on the beauty of a blue-
green sea as the sun illuminates it; nor on
just the pleasure of watching dolphins glide
MARCH 1981
iridescent alongside the prow of a ship.
It is the higher quality of life that accom-
panies knowing we have truly tried our best
to husband the gifts we have.
Nowhere will the environmental chal-
lenge of the next years be more obvious
than in the oceans which are so vast and
so far from the view of most of us. These
waters are truly our last earthly frontier.
Most of them remain unexplored, and we
have much to learn every day from them.
Scientists have found new forms of life in
the dark abyss, reaches of the sea which
Sea gull in flight at Assateague Island
in Maryland.
other scientists had long ago given up for
dead. For nearly seven years, nations have
squabbled over minerals and fishing rights
of the oceans, battles which have at least
culminated in a Law of the Sea, albeit in-
complete. Eventually, ocean thermal con-
version, tidal power, and salinity gradients
—all energy sources from the ocean—will
help ease our energy crisis. We will grow,
in many respects, increasingly more
dependent on the oceans.
Just as healthy vibrant seas once helped
open whole continents to human activity
and ingenuity, so human activity and in-
genuity must be marshalled now to protect
the seas. There are many encouraging
signs, but just as many discouraging ones,
and the next twenty years will sway the
balance.
The choice is rather clear. We can either
face out to the sea and guard it wisely and
well, or we can lower our eyes to the
responsibility and turn the oceans into mere
recipients of the pollution and other prob-
lems we have on land. Finally, the chal-
lenge will be whether we can properly
manage our ocean asset, this unique capital
which has fueled a very rich part of our
history, and on which so much of our future
well-being will depend, [j
Jean-Michel Cousteau is the son of
ocean explorer and environmentalist
Jacques-Yves Cousteau. He is Vice Presi-
dent, Communications for The Cousteau
Society, a group which is dedicated to the
protect/on and improvement of life. Paula
DiPerna is a writer for the Coustenu
Society.
.;.,
-------
News Briefs
Barber Named
Acting EPA
Admini strator
Walter C. Barber, 39, a career EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator
and former examiner with the Office of Management and Budget, has
been designated as EPA's Acting Administrator. Barber is an air
pollution expert who has been recognized for his work with government
and industry in dealing with national and international pollution
problems. Ernst Minor, a member of the Reagan Transition Team
assigned to EPA, has been named as executive assistant to Barber.
Minor worked for seven years at EPA's research laboratory complex
in Cincinnati, Ohio, before joining the Reagan-Bush campaign.
New Approaches to the
Environment
continued from
inside front cover
away to San Francisco just to
get a permit to burn small piles
of pear tree prunings. "This is
ridiculous," he said.
He added that he also has
difficulty understanding air
pollution rules which restrict
burning to certain winter days.
He said that it seems to him
that if farmers could burn when
they needed to there might be
less concentrated smoke
pollution.
"While I'm no scientific ex-
pert on this, I don't believe
smoke from agricultural burn-
ing is all that bad anyway."
Livermore said that when his
ranch foreman, a conscientious
man, asked for information on
the exact rules about burning,
he called the California Air
Resources Board and asked for
a copy of the rules.
"I got 1 50 pages of rules,"
Livermore noted.
On another aspect of clean
air, Livermore said that he has
difficulty understanding "why
if the Japanese over the past
several years have been produc-
ing cars that meet clean air
standards, our Detroit auto
manufacturers have so much
trouble complying."
Livermore said that he favors
extensive use of economic
incentives to help encourage
business to curb pollution. He
said that in his opinion sub-
stantial savings can be realized
by granting business greater
flexibility in the methods used
to reduce pollution.
On the subject of economy,
Livermore also said that he
believes that some small towns
have been forced to build very
expensive waste treatment
plants which they couldn't
afford. "There appears to be
little question but that there
have been excesses in that
area," he added.
Livermore. a graduate of
Stanford University, is currently
serving as a member of the
California Fish and Game
Commission by appointment
of Governor Edmund Brown. Cl
Back cover: The incinerator ship Vulcanus burning hazardous wastes at sea. (Article on p. 24)
Opposite: A diver from EPA 's Gulf Breeze laboratory in Florida collects bottom sediment and water
for research into the impact of toxic chemicals on the aquatic environment. (Article on p. 22)
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