United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Affairs (A-107)
Washington DC 20460
Volume 10
Number 9
November 1984
r
a
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The
Oceans
Last spring, the President
proclaimed mid-1984 to
mid-1985 as the Yew of the
Ocean. The aim is to expand
understanding of the oceans'
importance and to promote a
sense of stewardship and
partnership in managing ocean
resources
Focusing on this theme, the
EPA Journal begins this issue
with a passage from The Edge of
the Sea, a hook by naturalist
Rachel Carson. The passage
sums up the deep meaning of
the oceans to people worldwide.
The magazine asked seven
respected observers of marine
environmental trends for their
opinion on the health of the
oceans. Their answers, which are
included here, reflect a diversity
of views on the vulnerability of
the ocean environment.
The Journal interviewed Jack
Ravan, the agency's Assistant
Administrator for Water, for his
views on the job of preserving
the quality of the oceans. Ravan
recently created an Office of
Marine and Estuarine Protection
which involves many of the
agency's ocean protection
programs.
Articles on specific EPA oceans
activities include a review of the
agency's research into the effects
of ocean dumping and the
dangers of pesticides absorbed
in the marine environment, and
an explanation of the agency's
concern about disposal of sewage
sludge in the Atlantic Ocean
off New York City. A photo
essay pictures a recent ocean
work trip by the Antelope, an
agency marine survey vessel.
The public awakening
concerning pollution of a
nationally important estuary, the
Chesapeake Bay, is chronicled. A
similar awakening in Puget
Sound is reported in the third
article in a Journal series on
efforts by EPA regional offices
addressing major environmental
problems.
Taking a global view, a
long-time participant in marine
affairs discusses approaches to
achieve successful protection of
the world oceans resource. A
related article discusses
international pollution control
programs.
From a national vantage point,
an article presents the views of
another federal agency involved
in ocean stewardship: the
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
Another article presents an
explanation by the oil industry of
the steps it is taking to protect
the environment when drilling
for oil at sea.
Concluding this issue of the
magazine are Update, featuring
major developments at EPA, and
agency appointments. LJ
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United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Public Affairs (A-107)
Washington DC 20460
Volume 10
Number 9
November 1984
S-EPA JOURNAL
William D. Ruckelshaus, Administrator
Josephine S. Cooper, Assistant Administrator for External Affairs
Jean Statler, Director, Office of Public Affairs
John Heritage, Acting Editor
Susan Tejada, Associate Editor
Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor
Bob Burke, Contributing Editor
EPA is charged by Congress to
protect the nation's land, air, and
water systems. Under a mandate of
national environmental laws, the
agency strives to formulate and
implement actions which lead to a
compatible balance between human
activities and the ability of natural
systems to support and nurture life
The EPA Journal is published by
the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, The Administrator of EPA
has determined that the publication
of this periodical is necessary in the
transaction of the public business
required by law of this agency. Use
of funds for printing this periodical
has been approved by the Director
of the Office of Management and
Budget. Views expressed by
authors do not necessarily reflect
EPA policy. Contributions and
inquiries should be addressed to the
Editor (A-107) Waterside Mall, 401
M St.. S.W.. Washington, D,C.
20460. No permission necessary to
reproduce contents except
copyrighted photos and other
materials.
Rachel Carson on
the Meaning of the Sea
Key Observers Comment
on Ocean Pollution
The Job of
Protecting the Seas
An Interview with
Jack E. Ravan 7
EPA's "Navy"
at Work
by Margherita Pryor
Ocean Dumping
in the New York Bight
by Jack Lewis 14
Cleaning Up the
Chesapeake Bay:
A Public Awakening
by Frances H. Fianigan
Challenging the Pollution
of Puget Sound
by Ernesta B. Barnes 18
Global Oceans Cleanup.
A Time of Transition
by Alan B. Sielen 20
Strategies to
Safeguard the Seas
by Peter Thacher
Offshore Oil Drilling:
An Industry View
by C.T. Sawyer -'4
From Fisheries to
Sea Turtles: Managing
the Ocean Environment
by Dr. John V. Byrne 26
Exploring the Secrets
of the Sea
by Bob Burke 28
Update
Appointments at EPA 32
60
N
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3
CNJ
•O
Front cover: Pacific Ocean surf at
Boiler Bay, Oregon. Photo by David
Falconer, Folio.
Design Credits: Robert Flanagan:
Ron Farrah.
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Rachel Carson on
the Meaning of the Sea
Wor/d-famous naturalist Rachel Carson
published a meditation on ocean life in
her book. The Edge of the Sea. We
reprint the passage here for readers of
EPA Journal.
Now I hear the sea sounds about
me; the night high tide is rising,
swirling with a confused rush of waters
against the rocks below my study
window. Fog has come into the bay from
the open sea, and it lies over water and
over the land's edge, seeping back into
the spruces and stealing softly among
the juniper and bayberry. The restive
waters, the cold wet breath of the fog,
are of a world in which man is an uneasy
trespasser; he punctuates the night with
the complaining groan and grunt of a
foghorn, sensing the power and menace
of the sea.
Hearing the rising tide, I think how it is
pressing also against other shores I
know-rising on a southern beach where
there is no fog, but a moon edging ali the
waves with silver and touching the wet
sands with lambent sheen, and a still
more distant shore sending its streaming
currents against the moonlit pinnacles
and the dark caves of the coral rock.
Then in my thoughts these shores, so
different in their nature and in the
inhabitants they support, are made one
by the unifying touch of the sea. For the
differences I sense in this particular
instant of time that is mine are but the
differences of a moment, determined by
our place in the stream of time and in the
long rhythms of the sea. Once this rocky
coast beneath me was a plain of sand;
then the sea rose and found a new shore
fine. And again in some shadowy future
the surf will have ground these rocks to
sand and will have returned the coast to
its earlier state. And so in my mind's eye
these coastal forms merge and blend in a
shifting, kaleidoscopic pattern in which
there is no finality, no ultimate and fixed
reality —earth becoming fluid as the sea
itself.
On all these shores there are echoes
of past and future: of the flow of time,
obliterating yet containing all that has
gone before; of the sea's eternal
rhythms-the tides, the beat of surf, the
pressing rivers of the currents—shaping,
changing, dominating; of the stream of
life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean
current, from past to unknown future. For
as the shore configuration changes in the
flow of time, the pattern of life changes,
never static, never quite the same from
year to year. Whenever the sea builds a
new coast, waves of living creatures
surge against it, seeking a foothold,
establishing their colonies. And so we
come to perceive life as a force as
tangible as any of the physical realities of
the sea, a force strong and purposeful, as
incapable of being crushed or diverted
from its ends as the rising tide.
Contemplating the teeming life of the
shore, we have an uneasy sense of the
communication of some universal truth
that lies just beyond our grasp. What is
the message signaled by the hordes of
diatoms, flashing their microscopic lights
in the night sea? What truth is expressed
by the legions of the barnacles,
whitening the rocks with their
habitations, each small creature within
finding the necessities of its existence in
the sweep of the surf? And what is the
meaning of so tiny a being as the
transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a
sea lace, existing for some reason
inscrutable to us—a reason that demands
its presence by the trillion amid the rocks
and weeds of the shore? The meaning
haunts and ever eludes us, and in its
very pursuit we approach the ultimate
mystery of Life itself.* D
* From the book THE EDGE OF THE SEA by
Rachel Carson, published by Houghton Mifflin
Company, Boston. Copyright © 1955 by Rachel
L. Carson. Reprinted by permission of of the
publisher.
JS ^r*
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Key Observers Comment on
Ocean Pollution
How healthy are our oceans? EPA
Journal asked seven respected
observers from different vantage points
their views on this question. Here are
their answers:
Kenneth S. Kamlet
Director,
Pollution and Toxic
Substances Division
National Wildlife Federation
The ocean's vital signs are stable.
However, some of its extremities are
gangrenous and poisonous residues are
showing up in some of its tissues.
Round-the-clock care is still needed.
This was the thrust of a 1982 United
Nations Environment Program report on
"The Health of the Oceans." The report
noted that, "although effects of pollution
have not so far been detected on a global
scale, general trends of increasing
contamination can be recognized in some
areas, and these trends are warning
signals." Among the problem areas
highlighted were: increased levels of
DDT and RGBs in the southern
hemisphere and lower latitudes of the
northern hemisphere; the substantial
contamination of semi-enclosed areas
like the Gulf of Mexico, the
Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea and
the Baltic Sea; the human health risk
posed by the discharge of sewage and
sewage sludge, through consumption of
contaminated seafood and through direct
infection on some beaches; the
pollution-associated reduction of some
marine mammal populations in one area
of the North Sea and in the Baltic Sea;
and the mixing of contaminants in
industrialized estuaries and coastal
regions, such as the New York Bight.
The prognosis for U.S. coastal waters
is similar to the global picture, as
evidenced by a recent National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Report to Congress on Ocean Pollution.
The report indicates that the Hudson-
Raritan Estuary may be a smaller than
expected source of contaminants in the
New York Bight apex, increasing the
significance of ocean-dumped sewage
sludge and dredged material as a source
of pollution. The report also cites studies
on starry flounder in polluted parts of
San Francisco Bay as evidence that
severe organic pollution in urbanized
estuaries may be responsible for "a large
part of the observed declines in estuarine
fish populations during the last 50
years."
Results recently published by NOAA's
Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center
indicate that metal and aromatic
hydrocarbon pollutants in Puget Sound
sediments accumulate in the liver and
muscle of bottom-dwelling fish and are
closely linked to serious liver diseases,
including neoplasms, in these species.
These findings are consistent with the
many previous reports of pathological
conditions in marine fish from polluted
coastal waters and estuaries at locations
in the U.S. and abroad.
Low-level toxic contamination has
become a problem even in deep-water
species. Southern California researchers
recently found that a "control" site off
Malibu, in water 200 feet deep, contained
seriously contaminated fish. And a
search from Port San Luis south to
Ensenada, Mexico, and out 90 miles to
the Cortez Bank failed to turn up any
uncontaminated fish.
The ocean can and should play a role
in the management of society's wastes.
But it is wrong to assume that persistent
toxic materials can be harmlessly
assimilated by the simple expedient of
dilution.
Dr. Charles Osterberg
Marine Ecologist
Ecology Division
U.S. Department of Energy
\
Colin Moorcraft's 1973 book asked,
Must the Seas Die! "Yes," replied
Barry Commoner, "the oceans have
become the world's sink and the death of
the ocean will be the death of us all."
Paul Ehrlich predicted in Ecocatastrophe
that the seas would die by 1979.
Cousteau, in 1976, said, "the
Mediterranean is dead, killed by
pollution."
Never since Aesop's Fables have so
many falsely cried "Wolf!" For, despite
the doomsayers, the ocean lives, as Food
and Agricutural Organization world
fishery catches show: 66 million metric
tons in 1975 up to 75 million in 1981;
while a "moribund" Mediterranean
jumped from 1.21 million to 1.68 million
metric tons in the same period. Yes, the
ocean is the world's sink; it has been
since time began and always will be, as
long as rains fall on the land and flow to
the sea, where runoff increases the
productivity of coastal waters.
How healthy are the oceans? Frayed
around the edges, especially the quiet
shallows near population centers, but not
too sickly, because coastal waters of 100
meters or less in depth continue to
provide 85 percent of our seafood, even
though they make up only two percent of
the seas' volume. And the remaining 98
NOVEMBER 1984
-------
percent, water over 100 meters deep,
contains less manmade contaminants
than our drinking water.
Why then is so much environmental
firepower aimed at "saving our seas"? I
think because the foulest waters are in
our busiest bays and estuaries, in full
sight. "Save the Chesapeake Bay"? Yes,
the Bay's 18 cubic miles of brackish
water with its crabs, oysters and bluefish
must be saved. But how different from
the Bay is the deep ocean; isolated,
empty, unfished, and yes, so clean and
self-sufficient; its 326 million cubic miles
of unproductive salt water need no such
care.
So, while some local coastal waters
may be ailing, the vast ocean is not. And
yet the laws protect bay and ocean alike,
forcing toxic wastes (which must go
somewhere) onto the land to threaten
freshwater supplies. Only 0.6 percent of
the world's liquid water is fresh; it
supports terrestrial life and makes the
earth bloom, putting nearly 245 pounds
of food on our table from the land for
every one pound from the sea (averaged
per unit area). It is not the health of the
giant ocean that is endangered, but those
relatively few drops of fresh water upon
which human life depends. As a
concerned land animal, I cry, "Wolf! Save
our productive lands and sweet fresh
water from the ocean savers!"
Joel Piitchard
U.S. Congressman (R.-Wash.)
Member, Subcommittee on
Oceanography
and Ranking Minority Member,
House Committee on Merchant
Marine and Fisheries
T
first at those areas where land and sea
meet, and where most human activity is
concentrated. Coastal areas in general,
and estuaries in particular, represent one
of the most valuable portions of our
environment. For example, more than 70
percent of the total landings by all
commercial fisheries and 65 percent of
the recreational catch in U.S. marine
waters are of species dependent on
estuaries during some portion of their life
stages.
Washington State's Puget Sound, one
of the more significant large fjord-like
estuaries in this country, has come under
increasing environmental stress in recent
years due to various kinds of pollution,
and is now the target of a number of
pollution control efforts. It is important to
remember that Puget Sound, because of
its greater than average depth and high
energy level, has substantially different
pollutant characteristics from most other
estuaries. Therefore, any effective
strategy for cleanup must be uniquely
designed to take these patterns into
account. This estuary-specific thrust is an
important element of a program recently
established by Congress to monitor
water quality and environmental
assessment activities in Puget Sound as
well as Long Island Sound, Narragansett
Bay, and Buzzard's Bay. In recognition of
the unique characteristics of these
estuaries, specific pollution control
strategies will be developed for each.
Another element important to the
success of any estuary program is
coordination between the various federal
and state agencies with applicable
jurisdictions. The four-estuary program
just established will be implemented as a
cooperative effort of the EPA and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), with NOAA
providing monitoring of pollutant
loadings and assessment of the effects
on organisms, which will be used by EPA
in developing its regulatory approach.
State and local interests will logically be
involved in this process as well.
Also crucial to any pollution control
strategy is the development of priorities
within a particular estuary. As we
establish these priorities based on
improving information about the fate and
effects of pollutants in Puget Sound, we
will be better able to allocate our
pollution control resources to those areas
which are most stressed and to those
areas of the Sound where the benefits
are greatest. This prioritization of needs
is called for in the development of a
Master Plan for Puget Sound proposed
by Congressman Norm Dicks as a recent
amendment to the House-passed version
of the Clean Water Act.
Through these programs aimed at the
study and costs of pollution on estuaries,
we will be better able to answer the
question, "How healthy are our oceans?"
And I believe that with careful application
of what we learn, coupled with effective
pollution control technologies, we will be
able to ensure the health of our marine
environment in general and protect
extremely valuable and productive areas
such as Puget Sound.
W. F. "Zeke" Grader, Jr.
Executive Director,
Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen's Associations, Inc.
Fishing is one of mankind's oldest
activities. And it has helped provide
society with its most essential of
needs—food. Not unlike the habitats and
species essential for hunting, gathering
and trapping societies, or the farmlands
o answer the question, "How healthy
are our oceans?", it is natural to look
EPA JOURNAL
-------
and soil necessary for agriculture, the
rivers, bays, estuaries and oceans needed
for productive fisheries are today
threatened.
Nowhere is this threat more evident
than in the United States and its coastal
waters. The loss of fresh and
anadromous fish due to habitat
destruction is well documented. Dams
and water diversions, unscreened pumps,
and land use practices that have
destroyed stream canopy and silted-in
spawning beds have, for example,
reduced salmon populations on the
Pacific Coast to less than 50 percent of
their historic levels.
The losses have not been limited to
fresh and anadromous fish, however. The
diking and filling of wetlands has
destroyed spawning and nursery habitat
for other fish. Pollution has affected
some of this nation's most productive
rivers, bays and estuaries from the
Hudson to the San Joaquin, from Boca
Ciega Bay to Puget Sound, from
Chesapeake Bay to San Francisco Bay.
The list of species affected ranges from
shrimp to striped bass, from oysters to
crab.
In the ocean, the effects of offshore oil
development on fisheries is still not fully
understood. Most of this development
has been in areas where natural oil
seepage existed and where organisms
evolved that could exist in such an
environment. Baseline studies are still
lacking to determine what effects spills
from offshore oil have anci, more
important, what effect the various
components in the drilling muds being
used are having on the marine
environment.
New uses proposed for the ocean pose
yet another threat to the fisheries. The
disposal of nuclear wastes on the
seabed, the incineration of toxic wastes
at sea, and the mining of the seabed
could all affect the fishing industry from
leaks, spills or the disturbance of the
ocean bottom and resulting
sedimentation. The impacts could range
from direct fish kills, to lowered
resistance to disease or lowered
fecundity, to fish that are unmarketable.
Just as programs need to be
developed to protect our farmlands from
urban sprawl, the build-up of salts and
other toxics in the soil and the loss of
soil itself, there needs to be a strong
national commitment to the protection of
fisheries. This includes cleanup programs
to restore damaged or threatened
fisheries, monitoring and enforcement
programs to maintain healthy fisheries,
and, finally, thorough baseline studies to
determine what the potential impact is of
any new use proposed for our waters.
Under sound regulations, U.S. fisheries
can continue efficiently providing society
with a healthy source of protein. But the
U.S. fishing industry cannot continue to
supply fish and shellfish at its present
level or an increased level unless steps
are taken now to ensure there are
healthy rivers, bays, and estuaries and
healthy oceans.
Dr. J. P. Ray
Manager,
Environmental Services
Support
Environmental A ffairs
Department
Shell Oil Company
As a marine biologist in the petroleum
industry, I am faced with the many
facets of this question on a daily basis.
How, based on the current state of our
scientific knowledge, do we make sound
determinations as to the oceans' health?
What are the criteria?
The effects of man's activities can be
detected in site-specific cases. In some
instances the duration is short, and in
others long periods of time will be
needed for recovery. The determination
of effort is, in part, dependent on the
time-scale used: e.g., life cycle vs.
geological time. Unfortunately, there is
still much that we don't know about the
oceans, especially the various processes.
My gravest concern is that the
knowledge necessary to understand our
oceans, and the impact that man has on
their health, will be further delayed
because of current approaches to marine
science. All too often, the large sums of
money needed for research are spent to
solve politically-perceived ocean
environmental problems, while at the
same time we ignore the truly significant
impacts.
For example, over the past decade,
government and industry have spent in
excess of $400 million dollars to study
the impacts of oil and gas activities on
the Outer Continental Shelf. Althought
we have found little in the way of
significant, measurable impacts from
offshore oil and gas development,
because of political pressures we will go
on spending millions of dollars looking
for phantom effects on the environment.
In contrast, we have overlooked the
most important area of our oceans, the
near-shore coastal environments. These
are biologically the most important, and
unfortunately, they are also the areas
most prone to sequestering of pollutants
from both onshore and offshore sources.
In addition to looking in the wrong
place, we are worrying about the wrong
pollutants. The ocean has a remarkable
ability to disperse, sequester, and
degrade a broad variety of contaminants.
It does have assimilative capacity! We
should be most concerned with the
manmade pollutants, e.g., some of the
synthetic organics, which can have long
persistence times in the environment,
and can be detrimental at extremely low
concentrations. With the widespread use
of synthetic chemicals throughout the
world, the potential for affecting the
overall quality of the world's oceans is
present.
Based on current data, with the
exception of small regionally-affected
areas, the oceans still appear to be
healthy. This opinion is limited by our
current scientific knowledge and our lack
of understanding of natural variability.
The time has come to stop designing
ocean research to meet political needs,
and instead address the real problems.
NOVEMBER 1984
-------
Barbara Boxer
U.S. Congresswoman
(D.'-Ca/if.)
Member, Subcommittee on
Oceanography
House Committee on Merchant
Marine and Fisheries
Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth's
surface. A general feeling exists that
this vast expanse of salt water represents
our last frontier: unspoiled, untouched by
humankind and laden with plentiful
resources just waiting for the taking.
In reality, however, tar balls as big as
golf balls can be found bobbing on the
surface of the open ocean. Discarded
fishing nets, seemingly harmless,
entangle seals and cause drowning of
large numbers of these marine
mammals. Carbon dioxide, sulphur
dioxide, and nitrogen oxide, the waste
products of the burning of gas, oil, and
coal, invisibly diffuse from the air into
the sea. Our oceans, once a pristine
environment, are increasingly being used
as a garbage dump for civilization's
refuse.
Today we are seeing an assault on our
Outer Continental Shelf, including
pressures for such activities as oil and
gas development, deep seabed mining,
ocean incineration, and ocean dumping.
Can the oceans absorb this stress and
increased pollution? How many species
extinctions and population shifts can be
sustained by the ocean without causing
dramatic consequences? The answer is,
we simply do not know.
While we know much about what
plants and animals live in the ocean, we
know surprisingly little about how these
organisms interact, how animal
communities interact, and the rates at
which all these interactions and
processes occur.
It is irresponsible and indefensible to
deliberately dump toxic wastes into the
ocean and to allow such pollution to
occur as a result of insufficient
safeguards when we do not even
understand the full extent of the impacts
on marine life.
The United States borders three
oceans. Our nation boasts thousands of
miles of coastline that support a large
percentage of our population and
millions of dollars in coastal industries.
We cannot afford careless, shortsighted
exploitation of our coastal and ocean
resources. Until we can guarantee that
our marine activities will be conducted
without mishap and will not disrupt or
harm marine life, we must exert utmost
caution and adopt a conservative
approach to offshore development and
ocean waste disposal.
The pollution we cause today will be
our legacy to our children. Marine life
must and should be protected.
Christopher Roosevelt
President,
The Oceanic Society
The answers to the ocean health
question will be diverse, by
virtue of the very nature of the oceans
and their myriad interfaces with land and
human populations. The paucity of
comprehensive long-term data makes it
extremely difficult to detect, much less
predict, trends. Even with intensive
scientific study and the application of
significant resources, many aspects of
complex near-shore ecosystems elude
our knowledge and understanding,
particularly in the areas of subtle,
long-term or cumulative impacts. Our
science and technology for gaining
knowledge and understanding of deep
ocean ecosystems is leagues away from
adequacy.
At the May 1984 National Marine
Pollution Research and Monitoring Issues
Workshop, 64 invited participants
selected the following two issues as the
10th and 14th in highest priority of fifty
issues:
"Validity of existing analytical
techniques...as appropriate indicators of
pollution impacts..;" and
"Sufficiency of indices to distinguish
between natural and...[man-induced]
change."
Without a doubt, these are threshold
issues which must be resolved before we
can expect consensus on the health of
the oceans.
Within our current processes, little
influence is given to such values as
species diversity, special habitats, or the
few remaining untouched areas of ocean
ecosystem. Yet the momentum is
developing for increased utilization of the
oceans for disposal of toxics, sludge, and
radioactive wastes. The number one
issue at the previously mentioned May
1984 Workshop was comparative
assessment of various media for waste
disposal. If we are still near the
beginning point of that investigation,
how can one rationally recommend
policy now?
The fallacy in the "comparative
assessment" movement is the myth that
we have somehow favored or overlooked
the marine environment in our quest to
utilize terrestrial and atmospheric
environments for wastes. One need only
look at our harbors, bays and coastal
areas to be reminded of the extensive
burdens of waste suffered by these
marine environments since the days of
the industrial revolution.
Given our history of mismanagment of
land and air resources and the growing
recovery of marine areas from previous
periods of abuse, we should approach
the future health of the oceans with a
more conservative perspective. Let us
affirmatively place the burden of proving
the safety of ecosystems on the
proponents of exploitation or waste
disposal. Let us recognize the driving
forces of economics and/or politics, but
let us also insist upon thorough and
comprehensive scientific data and
assessment. Then, and only then, can we
be comfortable that our advanced and
advancing society has dealt intelligently
with the health of the oceans. D
EPA JOURNAL
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The Job of Protecting
the Seas
An interview with Jack E. Ravan
EPA's Assistant Administrator for
Water, Jack E. Ravan, is responsible for
most of the agency's programs to
protect the oceans. EPA Journal asked
his views in the following interview:
vJ. What is the condition of the oceans
today?
r\ When you consider that the oceans
cover seven-tenths of the earth's surface,
based on their sheer immensity, I would
have to say they are fairly healthy. Our
concern with this assessment, however,
is twofold. One, we at EPA have not had
any legislative mandate to operate
beyond the 200-mile limit and therefore
have little data of our own to
independently assess the conditions of
these waters. Accordingly, we must rely
on secondary data.
Two, our main concern at this time is
the near-shore marine waters. These are
the waters most important in supporting
marine life, commercial and recreational
fisheries, and other activities. Since they
are in close proximity to major
population and industrial centers, they
are most immediately and severely
impacted by man's activities. Even here
we don't have sufficient data to make the
kind of assessment that I think your
question requires. Given these concerns,
Bill Ruckelshaus and I have established
an Office of Marine and Estuarine
Protection within the Office of Water to
focus on these important issues.
i.. Do you believe the oceans or
portions of the oceans need special
protection now?
A
r\ Yes, I do. The last 16 years of this
century are important because of the
continuing rapid expansion of
technology. Although new technological
processes are vitally important to our
way of life, the standards of living which
we enjoy as a nation can create serious
threats to the environment and human
health if not properly managed. This
awareness peaked in the late 1960s and
in the early 1970s with the birth of an
environmental ethic that resulted in
massive legislation and capital
expenditure to correct the preceding
decades of misuse and neglect.
We should take those lessons, learned
the hard way, and apply them to the
oceans. We must not look at near-shore
oceans, and say, "Well, that's the dump
of last resort, so that's where I'm going."
That action simply transfers to some
future generation the same kinds of
problems that we have faced in many of
our other streams and lakes. Instead, we
must apply our environmental ethic to
the protection of the oceans and
estuarine waters and their many
beneficial uses.
Q
What will be the role of the Office
of Marine and Estuarine Protection in
achieving this goal?
A\ First, it will serve as the focal point
within the Office of Water for carrying
out our responsibilities under the Marine
Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries
Act. It will focus resources and energies
on evaluating permits for discharges into
our oceans and estuarine waters. It will
emphasize and coordinate our marine
research efforts and help those outside
EPA who would like to bring some
resources, either governmental or other,
to this effort.
NOVEMBER 1984
-------
Q
Does EPA play a major role in the
protection of the oceans compared to
other agencies like the Coast Guard,
Army Corps of Engineers, the Maritime
Administration and the Department
of the Interior?
r\ No, it doesn't. This was dramatically
demonstrated at a conference last
September 12 when Bill Ruckelshaus
hosted the other federal agencies with
the mutual responsibility of protecting
oceans. However, although we're small
potatoes in this arena, our legislative
mandate is very specific. In my opinion,
we have been the repository for the
environmental ethic in America and our
purpose should be, again, to transfer that
ethic into our ocean operations. The
oceans are vital to a number of activities
within the United States. In addition, as
new activities become technically and
economically feasible, the seas may be
used in some sort of farming or mining.
We must remember that the oceans do
not belong just to America. They are not
our rivers and they are not our lakes.
Rather, the oceans connect all nations
and make us neighbors. We must all help
to protect the oceans.
Q
What progress is being made in
regulating the dumping of wastes in the
sea?
A
I am happy to report that over the
last ten months we have made really
good progress. We have sent a very clear
message that we will regulate certain
dumping activities. We1 have taken action
on dump sites off New York, New Jersey,
and the northeast coast. We are working
closely with the Corps of Engineers to
provide designated sites for specific use.
Elsewhere, an example of our progress is
the disposal program prepared for
Tampa Bay in Florida. Even though the
selection of a proper disposal site there
was full of anguish and delay, it was a
good demonstration of cooperation
between local, state and federal
government. With proper coordination,
we can, in fact, put together a good
disposal program that is well-monitored.
U What did we learn about the
environmental dangers of dumping
sewage sludge in the New York Bight?
From the beginnings of this dump
site in the early 1900s, there was a gross
amount of material disposed of and as a
result the site had become biologically
dead. We therefore are gradually closing
it and moving disposal to a site much
more appropriate for those kinds of
activities. Let me be quick to add,
however, that we do not consider this
action an end-all solution. I think we
should, to the fullest extent possible,
control our activities and dispose of our
various wastes where they are created.
We recognize, however, that there may
be some instances for which the oceans
option is not only appropriate but also
may be the best. The ocean
environment may provide a certain
amount of assimilation and neutralization
of some wastes. This includes certain
dredged materials and acid wastes which
are neutralized or buffered in ocean
waters without harming sea life.
Q
What is the status of EPA's review
of the petitions to allow some
municipalities to treat sewage
discharged into the oceans at less than
secondary levels?
A
am not certain what Congress
intended with the so-called 301(h) Marine
Waiver. I would hope that it intended to
provide a fairly narrow window of
consideration where it was readily
apparent that perhaps a lesser degree of
treatment would be adequate to protect
marine waters. But as it turned out, we
have so far received 208 applications. We
are already trying to deal with a universe
of over 60,000 dischargers (end-of-pipe
dischargers) in the United States, and the
new applications for ocean discharges
are unexpectedly numerous and
complex. As a consequence, we have
finalized approvals for only six 301(h)
waivers (which would mean (ess than
secondary treatment). We have
tentatively approved 23, for a total of 29.
At the same time, we have denied 24
applications and tentatively denied an
additional 50, for a total of 74 denials.
This means that we have handled about
50 percent of our workload in this arena.
I think we may have to reexamine the
situation and weed out those cases that
are not suitable applicants.
U What is EPA's policy regarding the
disposal of radioactive waste at sea?
r\ We are reconsidering this now
because of a moratorium established by
Congress on such activities. What EPA
would have to see, either at the end of
the moratorium, or under some other
directive from Congress or the President,
would be a specific proposal or some
sort of program plan for disposal of
low-level waste. We would then go
through a full environmental examination
of the consequences of that proposed
action.
Q
Some specialists suggest that we
ought to be putting more waste into the
oceans. What is your view of this issue?
r\ There are two parts to that. First, I
have not seen any evidence that would
cause me to draw that conclusion. When
you get right down to the basics, we
have only three options for waste
disposal: air, land, and water. I believe
that disposal first ought to be handled
on-site. If man's land activities create a
certain waste load, then those wastes
ought to be planned for, engineered for,
EPA JOURNAL
-------
constructed for and handled there to
the extent possible. Second, that may
leave residues, and some of those
residues may, in fact, best be handled
through ocean disposal methods. The
oceans do have an assimilative capacity
for certain wastes. Even after employing
our best treatment technology on land,
here in America we plan for and use the
assimilative capacities of our rivers. So I
think it is appropriate and consistent to
think, of the assimilative capacity of the
oceans as one resource. The difference is
that we should set that assimilative
capacity at a very high quality level and
limit disposal there.
Q
Do you favor ocean incineration as
a method of handling waste?
r\ To me, ocean incineration is simply
another option to dispose of wastes. It
should be weighed based on the
scientific evidence. It should be
compared with the risks and benefits of
other disposal methods that are available
for these kinds of materials, including
on-land incineration. The basic issue is
disposing of a very small residue of
material wherein the cost/benefit/risk
ratio suggests that disposal is best done
some distance away from man and his
normal activities. I must quickly add that
there is much controversy about the
possibility of incineration at sea as a
means of disposal. We need to do a
substantial amount of research to
determine as much about the truth of
that situation as we can. We will then
transfer what we learn to the people so
they can make up their minds on
whether or not they support such an
operation.
Q
If incineration is an option in some
cases, how will you decide which sites
would be used?
A
There will be a number of
environmental factors to evaluate,
including considerations of
EPA Oceans Responsibilities
The statutes which give EPA its responsibilities to protect the oceans are
listed below, along with the agency's duties.
Statute
EPA responsibility
Clean Water Act
Section 104n • Conduct and promote studies of pollution in the estuaries
and estuarme zones of the U.S.
Section 301 h • Allow variances from secondary treatment for sewage
discharge into marine waters, if the applicant for a variance
satisfactorily demonstrates that the discharge meets certain
criteria intended to protect the water and ecosystem.
Section 311 • Define quantity of oil that may be harmful if released into
navigable waters of U.S. (up to 200 miles offshore).
• Require certain onshore or offshore facilities to prepare and
implement a Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasures
Plan to prevent the unauthorized, unpermitted release of oil
into navigable waters of the U.S.
Section 312 • Promulgate standards of performance for marine sanitation
devices.
Section 403 • Evaluate the impact of pollutants on marine ecosystems
prior to issuing National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) permits. Evaluation to include such factors
as pollutant dispersal and persistence, presence of fish
spawning or nursery areas, and ecosystem diversity,
productivity, and stability.
Marine Protection, Research, and
Sanctuaries Act
Title
• Regulate ocean dumping, including materials and
transportation of materials which would have an adverse
impact on human health and welfare or on the marine
environment.
• Issue ocean dumping permits
• Designate ocean dumping sites and areas where ocean
dumping is prohibited, such as marine sanctuaries.
Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (Super-fund)
Section 102 • Designate which substances are hazardous, and allow the
Administrator to designate additional hazardous substances
which, if released, might endanger public health and welfare
or the environment..
• Establish reportable quantities for those hazardous
substances.
Deepwater Port Act
Section 18m
• Define the quantity of oil that may be harmful if
discharged.
NOVEMBER 1984
-------
sensitive species that inhabit a particular
site or nearby water. When we examine a
site, we look at several things: first of all,
how busy is the site? We do not want to
pick a location where a number of other
activities are already underway. Second,
we are looking at the depth of waters,
and what might happen to the material in
final deposition at that site. The air and
ocean currents are important. We are
looking at the productivity of marine life.
The next consideration is that we need
port facilities and transportation systems
that can support that particular site.
If these kinds of activities are safe, we
may be only marginally increasing that
safety or may actually reduce it by
moving a ship another 500 miles; this
suggests there is a limit to the safety you
can acquire by simply increasing the
distance. Also, when you consider
distance on the seas, you are looking at
safety factors that are not necessarily as
significant on land, such as weather.
Weather becomes an important factor in
the process of selecting an ocean site. At
the bottom of the list, perhaps, is the
economic consideration of whether or
not that site is available.
So, when we get to the point of
selecting a site, we will have considered
all the factors that I have just mentioned;
and we will try to rate "the best sites"
based on those considerations.
Q
In making decisions about how to
use the ocean, how will you take into
account citizen reaction?
A
Very much as we have in other
areas, but there is an increased emphasis
and new dedication for taking those
kinds of opinions into consideration. The
best example since Bill Ruckelshaus has
been back is the lead smelter issue in
Washington State. EPA presented all the
evidence to the affected public as clearly
as it could and the public participated in
the decision. The agency is involved in a
certain degree of public education, which
certainly will result in a concerned and
informed public capable of participating
fully in such deliberations. However,
there comes a time when the public
wants leadership, either elected,
appointed, or regulatory in nature, to
make those tough decisions. Bill
Ruckelshaus made it very clear to me in
a recent comment: "Sometimes we have
the legislative authority to perform
certain actions, but the true power is with
the people, and when the people don't
want a certain action to take place in
their country and on their seas, it's
inappropriate, even though we are
authorized to go forward with it...."
If the people can't feel confident that
the activities are safe, they will not
support them. Then our political system
will not allow such activities to go
forward. So it's a very important factor
for us, and I think the mistake this
agency made with regard to incineration
at sea was indeed along these lines.
/">
LJ. What role do you believe the states
should play vis-a-vis the oceans?
r\ The states have a very large stake
in our oceans activities. Congress has
indicated this course and we are trying to
encourage such participation. Having
said this, I think we need to keep one
point in mind, and it is the constitutional
framework of our nation. The highest law
in the land is the federal law. A state's
constitution is dominant within the state;
however, the national Constitution is our
boundary, and there are national
interests that may override in some
cases. However, the state ought to have
every opportunity to prepare itself, and
should be considered a full partner.
Q
Regarding the Chesapeake Bay,
there are so many federal activities,
states, cities, and millions of people
involved, how is it ever going to be
cleaned up? Are you optimistic?
r\ Yes, because I sense the people
want the Bay cleaned up. Every time the
American people, especially those most
affected, have made a decision, the
American people have been the winner. I
think we will win in the Chesapeake Bay.
I want to caution, however, that we
Americans have become very demanding
and accustomed to having "instant
pudding." Instant cleanup won't happen.
We cannot recover from many years of
adverse activity on the shores of the
Chesapeake in an instant, but I think we
will see the Chesapeake Bay cleaned up
and recovered over time.
Q
What's your prognosis for the
cleanup effort that is beginning in Puget
Sound?
r\ The situation is very similar to what
I just stated. The fundamental factor will
be the people in the Puget Sound area.
Their commitment will determine how
successful the cleanup is. EPA can
support with federal tax dollars, in terms
of research and sharing our
understanding of our oceans
environment. We can contribute the
wisdom of the federal family, but we are
primarily dependent upon the deep
commitment of the people. D
10
EPA JOURNAL
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EPA's "Navy'
at Work
Text by Margherita Pryor
Photographs by Steve Delaney
It may not be as awesome as the U.S.
Sixth Fleet, but EPA has a navy, too.
Under EPA's marine protection
responsibilities, this environmental fleet's
mission \s to monitor the effects of
pollution in the Great Lakes and coastal
waters, to survey and monitor ocean
dumping sites, and to collect offshore
scientific data.
Right now, EPA's fleet consists of two
ships: the Roger Ft. Simons and the
Ante/ope. Former U.S. Navy patrol
gunboats, they both have been refitted
extensively for duty as ocean survey
vessels.
The Roger R. Simons works out of
Cleveland, Ohio, on Lake Erie, where it
carries out pollution surveillance and
limnology studies on each of the Great
Lakes.
The Ante/ope, stationed in Annapolis,
Md., carries out ocean and coastal
studies and can remain at sea for up to
ten days at a time. !t carries a crew of 13
plus a scientific team of up to 17
members and is equipped with a wet lab,
a microbiology lab, a chemistry lab, and
a computerized survey center.
Recently the Antelope completed a
five-day trip to study several sewage
outfall and dredge dumping sites along
the U.S. East Coast. Under the direction
of chief scientist Bill Muir, 12 scientists
from EPA, Old Dominion University, and
the National Marine Fisheries Service
investigated the effects of sewage on
marine ecosystems and gathered
background data on fish and other
marine populations.
(Pryor and Delaney are on the staff of the
EPA Office of Public Affairs.)
EPA's oceanographic survey vessel, the
Antelope. The ship is equipped with two
deck winches, an extendable boom crane,
and a variety of scientific gear, including
sonar equipment, three laboratories, and an
underwater TV camera. It also can support a
div/ng crew. On this trip, researchers were
studying a dredging disposal site off Virginia
Beach, Virginia, and two sewage outfalls off
Ocean City, Maryland, and Bethany Beach,
Delaware.
NOVEMBER 1984
11
-------
Crew members lower a bottom dredge,
which rakes through sediment to collect
bottom-dwelling organisms.
Crew members prepare to sort contents of a bottom trawl net.
Trawl nets pick up deep water fish and organisms. L to r, Jay
Lewis of the National Marine Fisheries Service; Chuck Burdick,
a high school honor student working on this trip: chief scientist
Bill Muir from EPA Region 3; and Ed McLean, EPA ship
coordinator.
Marria O'Malley, from EPA's Central Regional Laboratory in
Annapolis, Maryland, and consultant Don Lear analyze bacterial
specimens in the microbiology lab of the Antelope.
L to r, Nancy Mountford of Cove Associates, an EPA contractor;
Jay Lewis, and Bob Davis, EPA Region 3 biologist, identify
species caught in a bottom dredge. One object of this trip
was to study fish populations and migration patterns.
12
EPA JOURNAL
-------
\\
Crew completes collection of a bottom
sample. The equipment they are using,
called a grabber, picks up blocks of
sediment for analysis.
EPA Region 3 personnel Bob Davis,
engineer Libby Rhoades, and John Ruggero
lower another type of bottom grabber.
NOVEMBER 1984
13
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Ocean Dumping
in the New York Bight
by Jack Lewis
Many people believe that the New
York Bight is imperiled by the
continuation of ocean dumping. The
Bight is a large area of the Atlantic Ocean
bounded by lines drawn due east from
Cape May, New Jersey, and due south
from Montauk Point, Long Island. An
estimated 95 percent of all United States
ocean dumping occurs in this area. The
three primary materials currently being
dumped in the Bight are sewage sludge,
dredged materials, and acid wastes.
Ships leave New York Harbor every
day bound for ocean dumping sites
specifically designated to receive these
waste materials. The sites currently in
use are all located near the entrance to
New York Harbor, in the so-called "apex"
of the Bight. In 1983, 8.3 million
wet tons of sewage sludge were
released from barges at the "12-Mile"
site. During the same period, 4.1 million
cubic yards of sand and silt dredged
from New York Harbor were dumped at
the dredged material site in the Bight
apex, while 38,000 tons of acid waste
were dumped at a separate aqueous
industrial waste site.
Recently, EPA has taken actions on all
three types of materials dumped in the
Bight. If EPA's interim decisions,
announced in May 1984, are made final,
ocean dumping of sewage sludge will be
moving to a site located approximately
106 miles south by southeast from New
York Harbor. Dredged materials and acid
wastes will continue for the time being to
be dumped in the Bight apex. However,
EPA has placed volumetric limits on
dredged material dumping and granted
final designation to an aqueous industrial
waste site outside the Bight. Both of
these actions will facilitate the eventual
phaseout of ocean dumping in the New
York Bight.
Ever since the 1920s, New York City
and adjacent New Jersey municipalities
have been dumping sewage sludge at a
site located 12 miles off the coast of New
Jersey in the apex of the New York Bight.
(Lewis is Assistant Editor of EPA
Journal J
This 12-Mile site is a significant source of
contamination to the coastal waters of
New York and New Jersey.
Municipal sewage sludge is
approximately 95 percent liquid, and its
principal components other than water
are all harmful to humans if ingested.
Sludge contains viruses, bacteria, trace
metals, organic substances, organic
chemicajs, metals, and oils. Every day
these and other pollutants are poured
aucl Material -
Mew York
Dredged
New Jersey
- Sewage Sludge
T
Acid Wasies
Atlantic Ci
C*y
V Cape May
•
-------
•
•
Working in
sustenance, whether economic or
nutritional.
EPA has also announced plans to
impose limits on the dumping of dredged
materials and acid wastes in the New
York Bight apex. In the case of dredged
materials, the agency announced in May
1984 that it is setting a future limit of an
additional 100 million cubic yards on the
dredged material dump site in the Bight
apex. If current rates of usage continue,
probably near the turn of the century the
Corps of Engineers will have to begin
transporting dredged material to another
site location further removed from New
York Harbor. For the time being,
however, EPA has granted a final
designation to the so-called "Mud Dump
Site" already in use within the New York
Bight apex.
The ocean disposal of acid wastes will
also continue during the foreseeable
future at a site within the Bight apex, but
the new 106-Mile site to which EPA has
given final designation will include an
aqueous industrial waste site. The
still-functioning acid waste site within the
Bight apex is in a declining usage
pattern, owing to economic factors.
Exercising its permit-granting authority,
EPA will probably foster the gradual
phaseout of the Bight apex site by
issuing permits more readily to industrial
dumpers willing to use the newly
designated 106-Mile site.
EPA has announced that it intends to
apply what it calls the "rule of reason" in
its consideration of all future applications
for ocean dumping permits, of whatever
variety. This means that all parties
wishing in the future to dump waste in
the ocean will be required to
demonstrate to EPA a clearcut need for
such disposal. There is further evidence
of EPA's cautious approach to the whole
concept of ocean dumping. Even EPA's
"final" site designation of the Deepwater
Municipal Sludge Dumping Site is only
viewed by the agency as an interim
measure. [
NOVEMBER 1984
15
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Cleaning up
the Chesapeake Bay
A Public Awakening
by Frances H. Flanigan
The people responsible for protecting
our nation's estuaries are closely
watching the Chesapeake Bay, where a
unique experiment is underway. On the
shores of H. L. Mencken's protein factory,
where four centuries ago European
settlers conceived of a new nation, the
Bay area's citizens are engaged in an
all-out struggle to restore the
Chesapeake.
Concern about water quality and
resource productivity in estuaries is not
new, either in the Chesapeake region or
elsewhere. What is so electrifying on the
Chesapeake is the almost palpable sense
that we, as a collection of individuals,
can shape the future of the estuary which
is so much a part of our lives. We are
writing a new definition of environmental
management, and the results we achieve
are of great concern to professionals and
interested citizens nationwide.
The story of the renaissance of the
Chesapeake began long ago, and has
many chapters familiar to all who have
been involved in resource management
issues. There were the periodic
newspaper articles with banner headlines
trumpeting a dying Bay; there were
studies to look at this and look at that;
there were laws enacted to prohibit, and
regulations promulgated to control; and
there were organizations, meetings,
newsletters, hearings, boat trips, and
speeches—all dedicated to getting
something done about the Bay. Most
everyone was certain that something was
wrong, although no one seemed to know
quite what, and solutions were elusive.
Enter the Chesapeake Bay Program. In
1976, Congress directed EPA to conduct
an in-depth study of water quality
conditions in thb Bay and make
recommendations for improved
management. The resulting Chesapeake
Bay Program succeeded in doing several
things. First, it represented an effort to
assemble a synoptic, bay-wide data set
that would provide a baseline for
(Flanigan is director of public participation
for the Citizens Program for the
Chesapeake Bay. The organization has been
under contract to EPA's Chesapeake Bay
Program since 1977.)
comparison with historical data and for
measuring future change. Second, it
embodied an effort to assess the sources
of pollution and to understand the
relative contributions of each source.
Third, the study attempted to link water
quality and pollution with changes in
living resources. And finally, the study
recognized the importance of the
governmental decision-making network
in place on the Bay, and made a bona
fide and fairly successful effort to involve
representatives of affected entities in the
program.
The technical findings of the EPA study
have been presented in a series of
reports which are available from the
Program's office in Annapolis (839
Bestgate Road, Annapolis, Md. 21401). In
essence, the study concluded that: most
of the Bay system is nutrient-enriched;
localized sediments are contaminated
with metallic and organic toxics; the
volume of water experiencing very low
or no dissolved oxygen in summertime
has increased 15-fold in thirty years; and
living resources, especially those that
depend on fresh water in their juvenile
stages, are at historic lows. The study
made a significant contribution to our
technical understanding of how the Bay
works and how it is being affected by
contaminants generated on the land.
The strength of the response to EPA's
study was remarkable. A close look at the
factors which galvanized such a forceful
response is advisable for anyone
concerned with the protection of
estuarine systems.
One obvious yet critical factor is that
all kinds of people care about the
Bay—fishermen, farmers, boaters,
businessmen, seafood-lovers—and lots of
them. EPA made an early commitment to
public involvement by hiring the Citizens
Program for the Chesapeake Bay, Inc.
(CPCB), a nonprofit coalition of
organizations to provide non-technical
information to the public and to create
opportunities for citizen involvement in
the study. By the time the study's final
reports were submitted to Congress in
September 1983, large constituencies had
been informed about what the new
scientific information meant in terms of
their relationship to the Bay. CPCB used
a variety of techniques—newsletters,
public meetings, and advisory
committees—and worked hard to
develop relationships with groups which
had not been previously involved in Bay
discussions, such as the farm
community.
The emphasis on Bay users—sailors,
shippers, utilities, fishermen, marinas,
shorefront communities, and
industry—was matched by efforts to
couch Bay problems in terms of people
and land. People in Richmond, Roanoke,
Baltimore, Chestertown, Lancaster, and
16
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Loudon County have begun to
understand the connection of corn grown
in the hills of the Piedmont with fish
spawned in the headwaters of the
Potomac. The pathways taken by water
on its way to the Bay—across the endless
parking lots and highways, through
millions of dishwashers and washing
machines, over thousands of acres of
farm fields and suburban lawns—are
beginning to be understood not just by
scientists, but by people in all walks of
life. The interconnectedness of the web
of users with the land and the water has
disarmed those who would blame the
Bay's decline on someone else. The
growing sense that it is not "them," it is
"us," has created an atmosphere where
creative problem-solving can take place.
Because the problem-solving phase of
the Chesapeake Bay Program was
organized several years ago, moving
from the technical arena to the political
one was less difficult. Links had already
been established with user groups, and a
constructive working relationship with
the states was in place. The involvement
of the states on the Bay Program's
management committee meant that
Governors and other elected officials had
firsthand knowledge of the study's
findings early on and were already
persuaded of the need for a political
response. At the end of 1982, Maryland
and Virginia committed to a high level
meeting to conclude the Bay study. This
commitment led to a summit conference
held in December 1983.
During 1983, Governors Harry Hughes
of Maryland and Charles Robb of Virginia
traveled to Harrisburg, Pa., to encourage
Governor Richard Thornburgh to join
them in crafting a response to the Bay's
troubles. The Harrisburg meeting was
followed by a trip on the Bay, hosted by
the governors, with EPA Administrator
William Ruckelshaus as the guest of
honor. The Governors convinced
Ruckelshaus that the states were ready to
make a substantive commitment to
cleaning up the Bay, and urged him to
seek long-term federal support.
These political events laid the
groundwork; the summit conference
provided the mechanism for the creation
of specific solutions. The conference
sponsors convened five workshops:
habitat management, land activities,
water activities, fisheries management,
and monitoring. The workshops were
each composed of 20-30 individuals who
were asked to collectively examine
scientific findings and to bring to the
Governors and legislative leaders policy
recommendations for improving the
management and enhancing the
A boatful of menhaden from (
Bay, near Cornfield Harbor, Marys
productivity of the Chesapeake Bay.
The workshops made a series of tough
recommendations. The land activities
committee, for example, recommended
specific load reduction goals for each of
the major tributaries. The habitat
committee examined eight kinds of
ecological systems within the Bay and
provided specific recommendations for
their protection and enhancement. The
fisheries committee evaluated harvest
management policies, as well as
environmental issues, and urged the
states to take aggressive action to protect
declining fish stocks. In every case,
recommendations were based on best
available scientific information but were
couched in terms of policy and
management, land and people.
At the conference, each principal made
a commitment to undertake specific
actions and programs. In addition, they
signed a joint agreement creating a
Chesapeake Executive Council. The
Council was charged to "assess and
oversee the implementation of
coordinated plans to improve and protect
the water quality and living resources of
the Chesapeake Bay estuarine system."
Composed of cabinet-level designees of
the Governors and chaired by the
administrator of EPA Region 3, the
Council has met three times during 1984.
In January, state commitments
crystallized as Governors submitted
legislative packages and budgets to their
respective General Assemblies. Nearly
$50 million was appropriated by the
states for fiscal year 1985 alone. The
relatively easy enactment of the state
packages provided overwhelming
evidence that the task of working out
political solutions based on scientific
evidence was well underway. As a token
of the federal government's intention to
participate with the states in restoring the
Chesapeake, President Reagan
announced his intention to put $10
million into the EPA budget for the Bay
in 1985.
The significance of these actions
should not be underestimated. The states
have responded aggressively to the
findings of the Bay study and to the
recommendations made by the
conference workshops. Their actions are
not dependent upon the availability of
federal funds, but stand as testimony to
the value each state attaches to the
Chesapeake Bay. The federal government
has announced its desire to support the
cleanup program by appropriating funds
and by taking concrete steps to
coordinate multi-agency federal
programs on the Bay.
This has been a remarkable year for
the Chesapeake Bay. The governmental
effort to "save the Bay" has had an
auspicious beginning. EPA's study played
a central role, by providing
incontrovertible evidence of
environmental decline, in terms
comprehensible to the layman. The
public played an equally important role,
by pressing for action with a voice more
unified than at any previous time. The
poiitical leadership, supported by science
and by the people, forged solutions that
clearly acknowledge the connections of
people and land to the problems of the
Chesapeake.
One of the lessons of the Bay Program
that seems to have taken root in the
public consciousness is that the recovery
of the Bay will be a long-term affair. The
need for money and for vigorous
programs to manage the effects of
growth will persist beyond the terms of
office of our current public servants. This
reality suggests that the ultimate
salvation of the Bay lies with the people
who live around it. As Virginia State
Senator Joseph V. Gartlan, chairman of
the Chesapeake Bay Commission, said at
the December conference: "In the end,
what will sustain this cooperative,
voluntary effort is what got it started in
the first place, and that is that growing
numbers of people in the Bay region will
want the effort to be sustained and to
succeed."
The Chesapeake experience, we hope,
will be a beacon to others who wish to
protect their estuaries. D
NOVEMBER 1984
17
-------
Challenging the Pollution of
Puget Sound
by Ernesta B. Barnes
Administrator, Region 10
This is the third article in a series by
EPA's regional offices on major
environmental problems they are
addressing. The series began with an
article by Region 1 about progress in
dealing with Boston Harbor pollution.
The second article reported on Region
4's extensive involvement of the public
in the program to protect the Biscayne
Aquifer in Florida. This article reports on
the efforts to clean up Pcger Sound in
the State of Washington.
Puget Sound is a great place if you're a
tourist . . . however it's not so hot if
you're an oyster.
For the past three years, Harold
Wiksten's oyster beds on the shores of
Puget Sound have been closed to
harvesting. There are fecal coliforms in
his oysters.
Puget Sound is a great place to catch a
salmon . . . though you might not want
to catch a Dover sole or an English
flounder. Unlike the salmon, who just
pass through, the sole and flounder are
permanent residents at the bottom of the
Sound.
In Eagle Harbor, about seven miles
from downtown Seattle, no less than 89
percent of all the bottom fish have liver
tumors. The sediment from which they
feed contains toxic contaminants that
include cancer-causing benzo-a-pyrene
and other polynuclear aromatic
hydrocarbons.
Puget Sound is a great place to watch
the harbor seals ... it is better to see
one than to be one.
The harbor seals of Gertrude Island in
southern Puget Sound have been found
to contain concentrations of poiy-
chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) higher
than almost any other seal population in
the world.
Bacteria in oysters; toxic chemicals in
sediments and seals: these discoveries
are among the mounting indications that
Puget Sound is not the pristine body of
water people would prefer to think it is.
Contaminants have been discovered in
the sediments of Tacoma's
Commencement Bay, at the mouth of the
Duwamish River in Seattle's Elliott Bay,
and in harbors at Everett and other cities
and towns—literally everywhere
scientists have surveyed.
Finding pollutants in sediments
offshore from urban areas with industrial
or commerciai activity would not be all
that surprising to most people in other
parts of America, but it has come as a
surprise—almost a shock—to the people
near Puget Sound. They thought that
because of Puget Sound's size and
strong currents and tidal flows, any
pollutants entering it would be quickly
washed away into Admiralty Inlet and
out to the Pacific. The Sound's dispersion
characteristics, the residents reasoned,
were such that any remaining pollutants
would be so scattered as to be virtually
undetectable.
Not many people hold to such theories
anymore.
Now the prevalent notion is that the
strong currents are actually working to
the Sound's detriment. The process may
work like this: pollutants entering the
Sound from the Seattle area, for
example, are rapidly carried north to
Admiralty Inlet. At some point within the
Inlet the currents are reversed, and as
much as 70 percent of the pollutants are
driven back into the Sound, where they
form pockets of contaminated sediments.
If this hypothesis is correct, it would
help explain why heavy metals are
showing up in the sediments in the
remote stretch of Puget Sound just north
of Olympia. Near Case Inlet, for example,
whose only town has no industries, few
people, one church and one saloon. Not
the sort of place where one expects to
find "big city" pollutants.
Just around the bend from Case Inlet
are the closed-up oyster beds of Harold
Wiksten, who blames his trouble not on
heavy metals, but on bacteria from
failing septic tanks and "hobby farmers."
According to Wiksten, just upstream from
his shellfish operation on Minter Creek,
sewage is leaching into the ground water
and cattle and horses are using the creek
as a toilet. The inevitable result is oysters
contaminated with fecal matter.
Wiksten is not the only shellfish grower
whose beds have been closed to
harvesting. Fecal coliforms have been
found in more than a dozen other beds,
up and down the Sound. The beds are
home to the mussels, clams, oysters and
the giant clams called "geoducks" which
make up a major share of the State of
Washington's $10 million-a-year shellfish
industry. The rate of shellfish bed
closures is increasing, and the outlook for
the future is troubling.
The problem of runoff from hobby
farms and failing septic tanks is only a
part of the larger problem of runoff from
agricultural lands and the residential and
commercial development that is
urbanizing almost all of the Sound's
shoreline. But such runoff is not the only
contributor to the Sound's degradation.
Others include inadequately treated
discharges from municipal sewage
treatment plants, combined storm water
overflows, direct industrial discharges,
and the disposal of contaminated
sediments dredged to maintain
navigation in the many shipping
channels that ring Puget Sound.
Toxic contaminants are a major
concern of EPA and the State of
Washington's Department of Ecology as
they step up their ongoing efforts to
clean up the Sound.
A significant move in controlling toxics
was taken last summer when EPA and
the State of Washington's Department of
Ecology announced their intention to
deny a variance from secondary
treatment sought by a Seattle sewage
treatment plant. The plant, with its
current level of treatment, discharges 10
times the toxics released by a nearby
secondary plant, even though the volume
of discharge from the latter is half that of
the plant in Seattle.
The EPA-Department of Ecology
announcement was of symbolic, as well
as practical, importance. It settled a
controversy that had been raging around
Puget Sound for more than 10 years.
Since the enactment of the 1972 Clean
Water Act, operators of municipal
treatment plants had sought relief from
the law's secondary treatment
requirement. They had applied for the
variances that the 1977 amendments to
the Clean Water Act allow to municipal
plants which discharge to salt water.
Variances can be granted if the operators
can demonstrate conclusively that their
discharges will not harm marine life, will
'
EPA JOURNAL
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not violate state water quality standards,
and will not impair recreation or other
uses of the water receiving the discharge.
The variance denial, prompted by new
data showing toxics in the discharge
from the Seattle treatment plant, gave
the strong signal that EPA and the
Department of Ecology were not likely to
waive secondary treatment for any of the
other two dozen Puget Sound
dischargers whose variance applications
were still pending.
The news was hailed by local
environmentalists, but received with less
than total enthusiasm by the sewerage
authorities who now face the prospect of
paying for the improvements to their
plants. Given current uncertainties about
future federal funding for new treatment
facilities, much of the financial burden
will be borne by the users of those
sewage systems.
The people around the Sound will have
to come up with the money to finance
the upgrading of their treatment plants,
and-to eliminate the storm-water
overflows that cause the plants to be
bypassed during heavy rains. But more
than money is needed to support all the
efforts required to prevent degradation of
Puget Sound. The people around the
Sound must be willing to sustain the
political will that already has convinced
their elected officials in Washington, D.C.,
and Olympia to get cleanup started, and
started soon.
The response of the elected officials at
the federal and state levels transcends
political party lines. Last summer, at a
Seattle news conference with
Washington Governor John Spellman
and EPA Administrator William
Ruckelshaus, a Republican congressman
(Joel Pritchard from Seattle) heaped
praise on a Democratic congressman
running for re-election (Norm Dicks from
Tacoma) for pushing through a $1.4
million appropriation for EPA and the
Department of Ecology to accelerate the
cleanup program. The aggressive support
of the appropriation by the two
Washington senators (both Republicans)
and all eight congressmen (six
Democrats, two Republicans) was their
acknowledgment that public opinion has
coalesced over concern for the Sound.
That $1.4 million appropriation was
immediately added to funds committed
months before by EPA and the
Washington State Department of Ecology
in the two agencies' joint effort to
develop a coordinated management plan
for Puget Sound. This management
initiative is called the Puget Sound Action
Program, and is administered by staff
fel
I
members from both EPA and the
Department of Ecology. Although both
agencies recognize that it may take a
decade or more to solve the Sound's
pollution problems, they are off to a
running start that promises some early
pay-offs. Two examples:
• EPA is contributing most of the $3.5
million being spent by the Department of
Ecology on a Superfund feasibility study
to develop a remedial action plan for
toxic containment in Tacoma's
Commencement Bay. The work to
develop this plan is expected to be
completed in early 1985.
• Of the approximately $2 million the
Department of Ecology has committed
for work in the Sound during its current
fiscal year, a sum of $260,000 is being
spent to study bacterial and nutrient
contamination in the south portions of
the Sound where Harold Wiksten's and
other shellfish growers' beds are closed
to harvesting.
Protecting shellfish is one of the state's
highest priorities. A significant part of the
Department of Ecology's shellfish
strategy is currently centered around the
development of model ordinances that
can be enacted by counties or
municipalities to regulate septic tanks
and animal waste from hobby farms.
Without such controls at the county or
local level, shellfish will continue to be
contaminated by pollution from those
sources.
Preventive measures are the keys to
protecting the Sound. Many or most of
the keys are in the hands of the more
than 700 agencies of local government
that exist around the Sound. Counties,
municipalities, sewerage authorities, port
districts and the like must come to grips
with problems federal and state
governments have no authority to
handle. Land use or zoning codes will be
needed to control population densities in
unsewered areas near sensitive wetlands
or shellfish beds. Local approvals would
be required for the possible siting of an
upland disposal area that would keep
material dredged from a navigation
channel from being dumped into Puget
Sound. Local government must enforce
existing regulations for failing septic
tanks or drainfields. Ordinances must be
enacted at the local level to control
animal wastes and other agricultural
runoff.
EPA and the Department of Ecology
can suggest these measures to local
governments, but they cannot tell them
to carry them out. Only the people who
elect those local officials can make such
demands. They are the same people who
might once have said "It can't happen
here," and who now seem to be saying,
"It shouldn't happen any more." Surely
the oysters, flounders, and seals would
agree. D
NOVEMBER 1984
Hi
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Global Oceans
Cleanup:
A Time of
Transition
by Alan B. Sielen
When looking at the evolution of
international law to protect the
oceans against pollution, one is struck by
the parallels to our own experience
within the United States. Whether for
political, scientific, or institutional
reasons, we have entered a new phase in
fighting degradation of the oceans. It is a
phase characterized more by efforts to
effectively carry out existing laws than to
create new ones, and by work to better
understand and control the more
intractable forms of pollution not
addressed in the early days of oceanic
activism.
The early 1970s saw the signing of two
major environmental treaties: one to
prevent pollution from ocean dumping,
and the other to counteract tanker
discharges and spills. Agreements were
also concluded dealing with such matters
as tanker safety, and liability and
compensation for oil pollution damage.
The London Dumping Convention has
served in many ways as a model for
cooperation among nations in controlling
pollution. Now that the novelty of
reaching widespread agreement on this
matter of global environmental
significance has faded, however, the
Convention has begun to experience
growing pains. Policy makers, scientists,
and diplomats from some 54 member
nations are now facing the difficult task
of making the Convention work. Similar
to our experience with U.S.
environmental laws, the London
Convention nations are beginning to
experience the inevitable clashes
between laudable environmental
objectives and the reality of finding
politically and technically acceptable
solutions to their waste disposal
problems.
Several tough issues—only vaguely
familiar to the Convention's original
framers—are now the subject of intense
international negotiation. Can high-level
radioactive wastes be safely buried
beneath the seabed? Is at-sea
incineration of hazardous wastes an
acceptable disposal option? Should
(Sielen is Director, Multilateral Stuff, EPA
Office of International Activities)
certain substances heretofore off-limits to
dumping (heavy metals, organohalogens)
be disposed of in the oceans if new
techniques such as "capping" can
prevent their dispersion?
Having to face such questions in a
responsible fashion reminds one of how
much more gratifying it can be in a free
society to make rules than to implement
them. Nevertheless, faith in the efficacy
of international law as a useful
instrument for keeping nations on their
good environmental behavior requires
that these complex problems be studied
and acted on in a thoughtful way.
International treaties, like national laws,
do not work by magic; at least as much
energy and commitment is required in
their conscientious application as in their
formulation.
The task at hand is formidable. As an
example, the conclusion of the 1973
International Convention on the
Prevention of Pollution from Ships
(MARPOL '731 was hailed as a seminal
event in the global effort to combat oil
pollution from tankers. The Convention
was seen as leading to the complete
elimination of intentional discharges of
oil into the oceans from tank cleaning
and de-ballasting, and as a vehicle for
eventually curtailing the discharge of
noxious chemicals, sewage and garbage.
History has severely tested our faith in
this ambitious goal.
By the late 1970s, not a single major
maritime nation had ratified MARPOL. As
an added twist, the U.S., after a spate of
tanker accidents off its shores, suddenly
decided that the MARPOL standards were
not strict enough—notwithstanding its
previous refusal to ratify them for
reasons quite the opposite. As a result, in
1978, the MARPOL Convention was
substantially upgraded and agreement
was reached by the maritime nations to
work toward its rapid ratification. Just
last year the requisite number of
ratifications finally had been obtained for
MARPOL 73 '78 to enter into force.
A decade, then, after conception, a
treaty with state-of-the-art standards to
prevent pollution from vessels is in place
with sufficient numbers of maritime
nations committed to it to result in a
substantial improvement in the quality of
the world's ocean waters. Should the
slow, and at times tortuous, pace of the
past ten years be any indication of the
maritime community's attitude toward
implementation of MARPOL, there is little
reason to be optimistic. However, it
appears that these nations have learned
something from their experience—not the
least of which is the real cost of
vacillation and inaction—and there is
reason to believe they will now approach
the implementation stage of this
important international initiative with
renewed vigor.
There is another part of the vessel
pollution problem which has also
received considerable attention lately,
and whose history, at least in the U.S., is
similar to the MARPOL experience. This
is the matter of liability and
compensation for pollution damage.
caused by oil spills. Treaties were
negotiated in 1969 and 1971 to establish
strict shipowner liability for tanker spills,
and to create a fund, paid for by cargo
owners, to compensate the victims of
spills beyond liability limits. Although the
Liability and Fund Conventions have
been in force for some time, our nation
has not become party to either
agreement on the grounds that the
liability amounts are too low, and would
pre-empt higher limits set by U.S. law.
In May 1984, a diplomatic conference
was held in London with the chief goaf of
increasing liability amounts substantially
under both Conventions. Agreement was
reached on shipowner liability in the
range of $60 million with fund coverage
up to $200 million. Such figures are now
adequate to cover damages from an
Amoco Cadiz-type spill off U.S. coasts,
and we have expressed our intent to
ratify the new agreements. The
Conference did not reach agreement on
the difficult question of liability for spills
of hazardous and noxious substances
other than oil; this matter will be taken
up at future negotiations.
Ocean dumping and ship discharges
and spills are relatively easy sources of
ocean pollution to control, given
sufficient political will. The source is
easily identified, and proven control
technology exists. Most ocean pollution,
however, comes from land-based sources
such as rivers, pipelines, atmospheric
fallout, and urban and agricultural runoff.
After it has reached the ocean, it can be
very difficult to determine where such
pollution originated. Moreover, attempts
to establish international controls for
pollution originating on land raises
questions of national sovereignty not
encountered with dumping or vessel
pollution—activities which generally take
place on the high seas or in areas of
tempered sovereignty such as 200-mile
exclusive economic zones.
Sovereign states are often reluctant to
subject their national laws and
regulations to scrutiny by an
international authority. Looking at but
one example, the disposal of nuclear
wastes in the ocean, helps to illustrate
the resultant environmental dilemma.
The ocean dumping of nuclear wastes is
regulated by international treaty and by
rules set by the International Atomic
Energy Agency. The ocean discharge of
nuclear wastes by pipeline from coastal
facilities such as nuclear fuel
reprocessing plants is not subject to
similar international rules even though
20
EPA JOURNAL
-------
'i shipov\ •
•
this practice can pose a greater
environmental hazard than dumping.
Until sensible international rules are
applied to these sources, a truly effective
global regime to protect mankind's
common saltwater heritage will continue
to elude us.
Recognizing the significance of
land-based sources of marine pollution,
the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) recently set up a group of legal
and technical experts to consider control
guidelines. Whether this group will come
up with meaningful proposals remains to
be seen, as does the matter of whether
such controls are appropriately
addressed in a "global" agreement
similar to those existing for dumping and
vessel pollution. Whatever final form it
takes, the UNEP initiative is an
encouraging beginning, and signals
growing recognition that the control of
pollution coming from land is an
important dimension in promoting the
health of the oceans.
Another recent trend is the recognition
that certain regional marine areas have
special pollution problems of their own,
not necessarily amenable to global
solutions. UNEP's regional seas program
has identified eleven such areas
throughout the world and embarked on
negotiations for regional agreements
directed at the particular needs of each.
Agreements have been in place for
several years for the Mediterranean Sea,
the Persian Gulf, and West Africa. With
the prompting of the U.S., a Convention
on the Protection of the Marine
Environment of the Caribbean was
concluded in 1983. Negotiations are now
underway for a similar agreement among
the nations of the South Pacific.
Finally, it is important to note the
changing outlooks of some nations on
the scientific aspects of marine pollution
control. When the dumping and vessel
conventions were written, there was a
great deal of sympathy among scientists
and lawmakers for the simple proposition
that the best way to keep the oceans
clean would be to keep all wastes out. In
fact, it was that philosophy which shaped
much of the content of international and
U.S. law on marine protection. The U.S.
Ocean Dumping Act and London
Convention prohibitions as well as
MARPOL requirements to segregate
cargo and ballast water are examples.
Since the early seventies, however,
there has been a greater emphasis
among marine scientists on the capacity
of the oceans to assimilate wastes. Some
scientists now believe that the oceans,
because of their immensity and natural
recuperative properties, have a much
greater capacity to safely absorb certain
wastes than was earlier thought.
Moreover, the oceans are being
increasingly viewed as part of national
integrated waste management
strategies—evaluated and compared with
other environmental media (e.g., the air
and land) for their waste disposal
potential.
With these shifting scientific
perceptions, there are bound to be
stresses on many of the underlying
principles of the early ocean protection
treaties, just as the U.S. in recent years
has reexamined key provisions in its
marine laws. This constant quest to see
that the environmental rules by which we
live are consonant with the latest
scientific thinking is a healthy impulse.
The challenge for saltwater diplomats in
the years ahead will be to see that this
more sophisticated understanding of the
scientific aspects of marine pollution is
not used as an excuse by the expedient
and shortsighted for policies which result
in further degradation of the oceans; but
rather continues as a force for bettering
our lives and enhancing the quality of
our natural heritage. LJ
Workmer
Cadiz
NOVEMBER 1984
21
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Strategies to
Safeguard the Sea
by Peter Thacher
Steve Delaney
Seen from space, this is indeed "the
Water Planet"; unique in our solar
system not only because five-eighths of
the surface is aquatic, but also because
life developed first in a watery
environment, as the chemistry of our
blood reminds us.
But more than history attaches us to
the oceans, and makes us mindful of our
continued dependency on its proper
functioning. For many, oceans are the
primary source of proteins, as well as
livelihood, commerce, and recreation.
tlh.ir.her /s a Distinguished Fellow of the
' 'iV'.sowce.s Institute in Wnshir.yton,
D. C He was formerly Deputy 1'xucutivc
Director of the United Nations Environment
Program )
And the climate of the entire globe is
intricately interdependent with the state
of the seas.
Anyone who has lived on the edge of
the oceans would testify that obvious
changes have taken place in recent
decades: there are, regrettably,
mayors of many coastal towns who are
uncomfortable about their children
swimming in waters they once took for
granted. Even though we know how
shoreline conditions are changing in such
personal terms, we still know very little,
in quantifiable terms, about changes
underway in the oceans of the world.
Until recently, most of our knowledge
was deficient because there was no
comparability between different sets of
data collected by different means in
different places. Understandably, this
gave rise to concern that the lack of good
data delayed actions which seemed
obvious and compelling. Without
comparable data no sound cost-benefit
calculation could be made.
Nonetheless, more than a century ago,
long before the 1972 United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment
in Stockholm, good progress in
cooperative scientific investigations had
begun during the First Polar Year in 1882.
This work has been augmented more
recently in Antarctica and during the
International Geophysical Year (IGY) of
the mid-50s. By 1972 the work of the IGY
had led, in the Baltic Sea, to a
EPA JOURNAL
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measurement program with built-in
intercalibration to ensure data
compatibility.
Jurists also have been hard at work
attacking some of the most obvious
maritime sources of pollutants. A variety
of agreements and treaties have been
signed which are intended to reduce
accidental spills through improved
navigation and ship design. Still,
most of the ocean's contaminants
come not from spills at sea but from the
land. It was this point which both the
Stockholm conference and the United
Nations Environment Program's Regional
Seas Program emphasized.
Fortunately, the "health" of the oceans
can be measured best in the area at
greatest risk, near-shore waters
(particularly in enclosed or semi-enclosed
seas like the Baltic and the
Mediterranean, and the Gulf of Mexico).
Not only are the levels of pollutants
much higher in coastal waters—before
gradual dispersion in ocean
currents—but also contamination of
near-shore waters demonstrably harms
many human concerns. Swimming can
be unhealthy or unpleasant, seafood
becomes contaminated, and tar balls of
congealed oil from tankers ruin tourism.
Spawning and breeding grounds of
fisheries are at risk when pollutants mix
with rich nutrients flowing from land.
Dealing with such losses in a concerted
way led to one of the United Nations
Environment Program's (UNEP) most
successful efforts, the Mediterranean
Action Plan. A comprehensive attack on
all sources of marine pollution by
regional groups of coastal states, the
Plan has now been replicated in eleven
regions serving some 120 coastal states,
through a comprehensive approach,
tailored to the specific priorities of each
group of states.
The political aspects of dealing with
marine pollutants deserve attention.
Despite the disputes and conflicts which,
as always, could be found at one end or
the other of the "cradle of Western
civilization," the fact that marine
pollutants were somehow a bit more
distant, "out there" offshore, rather than
"here" on dry land, where sovereign
states tolerate no voice but their own,
made it easier to win governmental
agreement. It was obvious to all of the
neighbors on "Mare Nostrum," even if
they refused to talk to each other about
it, that something had to be done to
protect their "common" property against
further deterioration.
Is a major effort needed in the '80s at a
global scale, like the regional efforts in
the '70s? To answer this, we must seek a
comprehensive assessment of the state
of the oceans, recognizing that to be
complete we should include not only
pollution trends but also the status of
fisheries, marine mammals, and other
ocean life.
First, a definition of "marine pollution"
is essential. Consider this one, from the
1972 Stockholm conference:
The introduction by man, directly or
indirectly, of substances or energy into
the marine environment (including
estuaries) resulting in such deleterious
effects as harm to living resources,
hazards to human health, hindrance to
marine activities, including fishing,
impairment of quality for use of sea
water, and reduction of amenities.
Since being approved by governments
at Stockholm, this formula, in one form
or another, has been incorporated in
each of the various Regional Seas
treaties, starting with the Barcelona
Convention of 1976.
The most recent, comprehensive
assessment of the state of the oceans
was done only a few years ago by the
U.N. Group of Experts on the Scientific
Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP),
in the first of what are to be
periodically-updated reviews. The
Executive Summary of this 100-page
report (available from UNEP or the other
agencies who sponsor GESAMP) has this
concluding remark:
The Group noted that although effects of
pollution have not so far been detected
on a global scale, general trends of
increasing contamination can be
recognized in some areas, and these
trends are warning signals. The signals
are noticeable mainly in the marine areas
most intensively used by man, viz.,
coastal waters. The oceans are capable of
absorbing limited and controlled quantities
of wastes and, as such, represent an
important resource. But careful control of
waste disposal is necessary. Programs
must be maintained for this purpose and
initiatives taken to regulate the entry of
new contaminants to the oceans. The
effects of pollution should be carefully
monitored, and our understanding of the
fate and effects of pollutants in the
oceans must be improved. This approach
makes for more accurate predictions and
assessments and therefore provides the
most effective means of ensuring that
the health of the oceans is maintained.
As a retired international civil servant, I
can dare to say some things which I
earlier could not. One of them is, to me,
an obvious truth: no international effort
at the global scale has succeeded in the
past unless the U.S.was strongly behind
it. It was a U.S. proposal which launched
the World Weather Watch in the early
60s; today we can see some of the
results every night on our TV screens.
And no nation benefits more than the
U.S. from the kind of foresight which is
today possible because of the global
program coordinated by the World
Meteorological Organization (a GESAMP
member). No reliable two-week weather
forecast will be possible unless the
ocean-atmosphere exchange processes
are better understood; "GARP" (Global
Atmospheric Research Program) was
another U.S. proposal from the 60s, and
work continues under it today. The U.S.
and the USSR were among those who
proposed that something serious be
done about smallpox; today, thanks to
cooperative programs developed by
governments sitting at the World Health
Organization (also a GESAMP member),
smallpox has been eradicated.
Specific international agreements to
tackle land-based sources of marine
pollutants have been reached in a
number of regional pacts, such as the
conventions of Helsinki (1974), Paris
(1975), Athens (1980), and Quito (1983).
Within UNEP's Regional Seas Program
others are under negotiation for the
South Pacific and the East African sea.
Work on these agreements is encouraged
under Chapter 12 of the Law of the Seas
Convention, which calls on states to take
all measures that are necessary to
prevent, reduce and control pollution of
the marine environment from any source,
using for this purpose the best practicable
means at their disposal and in accordance
with their capabilities, and they shall
endeavor to harmonize their policies in
this connection.
Although the United States has not
signed the Law of the Sea Convention,
U. S. influence could still be felt if we
exercised leadership. The United States
is a multi-ocean state with interests in all
the oceans of the world. It is time for our
nation to take the lead in proposing
broad programs to safeguard the marine
portion of the "Water Planet." I i
NOVEMBER 1984
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Offshore
Oil Drilling:
An Industry
View
by C. T. Sawyer
The history of petroleum exploration
and production in U.S. waters is one
of dramatic and continuing technological
advancement.
This is perhaps no more clearly
demonstrated than in the care that is
now taken to assure the protection of the
nation's offshore environment and in the
state-of-the-art technology being applied
during the search for and production of
crude oil and natural gas off our coasts.
Because of this effort, the chances for
accidental release of significant amounts
of oil into the environment during such
operations are minimal.
Offshore drilling, of course, is not new
to the American scene. The first wells
were drilled in U.S. waters more than 90
years ago, from piers extending into the
coastal waters of Southern California.
Throughout the ensuing years, more than
30,000 offshore wells—25,000 in the U.S.
portion of the Gulf of Mexico
alone—were drilled here.
Over the same period, more than 10
billion barrels of oil and in excess of 76
trillion cubic feet of natural gas have
been produced from federal and coastal-
state waters. On average, domestic
offshore wells are currently contributing
more than one million barrels of oil and
some 12 billion cubic feet of gas to our
energy supplies each day of the year.
Yet it is a matter of record
that—throughout the long history of
offshore operations in these
waters—there has been only one spill
from exploration and production
operations that has resulted in significant
amounts of oil reaching shore. That was
the well-known spill at a platform in
California's Santa Barbara Channel in
1969.
Scientific studies by government
agencies, academia and the petroleum
industry confirm that the damage which
did occur there was temporary and that
the area quickly recovered. There was
some loss of life among certain marine
organisms and seabirds. Fish and other
animal populations returned to normal
(Sawyer is Vice President of the
American Petroleum Institute.I
levels within a year following the spill.
Since that accident 15 years ago,
environmental protection during offshore
operations has taken a quantum step
forward. This improvement has resulted
both from stricter governmental
regulation of offshore operations and
from a growing environmental
consciousness among members of the
petroleum industry.
According to the U.S. Department of
the Interior, since 1970 there has been
only one spill from exploration and
production operations in federal waters
in which more than 10,000 barrels of oil
were released into the environment. That
spill occurred when an anchor was
dragged across the seabed and ruptured
an oil pipeline. Moreover, during the
period from 1975 through 1982, the
department reports that more than 2.2
billion barrels of oil and some 34 trillion
cubic feet of gas were produced from
under federal waters. Total spillage over
that eight-year period amounted to a
little over 17,000 barrels—only seven
one-hundredths of one percent of the
volume of oil produced. The Department
states further that "no oil from [these]
operations reached the U.S. coastline in
significant quantities." As a point of
comparison, natural oil seeps at Coal Oil
Point in the Santa Barbara Channel
annually introduce about 22,000 barrels
of oil into the local marine enviornment.
What steps and technology have
contributed to this record? They are
numerous and effective at both the
exploratory.and production stages, as the
following examples show.
There is little risk of adverse
environmental impact during exploratory
operations, beginning with the methods
currently employed in seismic surveying
through the drilling of exploratory wells.
Seismic surveys, designed to provide
information on subterranean structures,
are routinely made in both federal and
state waters. Nondestructive energy
sources are used to produce the
acoustics needed in the surveys. These
sources include the use of controlled air
chambers trailed behind the vessels.
Explosions or implosions activated within
the chambers create a muffled sound
and, in the use of propane and
compressed air chambers, produce air
bubbles visible in the wake of the vessel.
Newly introduced technology uses a
contained implosion of water without
creating bubbles. Studies have shown
that these surveys have little impact on
sea life.
Fishing and other vessels in the survey
area are kept informed of the seismic
survey path. Sophisticated colfision
avoidance and vessel guidance
equipment is used to track other vessels
in the area and to keep the seismic
vessel on course.
EPA JOURNAL
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•
When exploratory drilling is to take
place, regulations and industry standards
require that strict safeguards be in place.
Among these are regulations prohibiting
the discharge of nonbiodegradable
wastes overboard. Such wastes may be
either brought to shore or disposed of in
an environmentally safe manner aboard
the drilling vessel. Oil and oily waters
brought onboard the vessel during
drilling must be contained onboard and
the waters cleaned before they can be
returned to the sea.
Drilling fluids or "muds" pose little
danger to the environment. This has
been confirmed by a recent National
Petroleum Research study. These
mixtures, composed primarily of clay,
barite, water and low concentrations of
special chemicals, are used to bring rock
chips cut by the drill bit up from the well
and to help control pressures within the
well. Oil-based fluids are sometimes used
in offshore drilling but are not discharged
into U.S. waters. Natural movements in
the water column quickly disperse any of
the components to normal background
levels. The heavier particles drift to the
seabed, where they become covered with
silt or are moved away by ocean
currents. The area around the drill site
begins to "heal" itself quickly, once
drilling stops.
In addition to the pressure control
exerted by drilling fluids, blowout
preventers (BOPs) are installed in the
drilling system on board the drilling
vessel or placed on top of well casings
after they have been installed. BOPs are
generally used in stacks of three or more,
which provides an extra margin of safety.
These stacks consist of a series of
automatically or manually activated
valves which can close down the well
within a matter of minutes.
If an unexpected change of pressure
occurs, the drilling operator can control
pressures in the well by adjusting the
composition of the drilling fluid and its
rate of flow into the well. In addition,
well operations can be closed down from
a number of points aboard the drilling
facility.
Unannounced emergency shutdown
and evacuation drills are held routinely
and all safety equipment is periodically
tested. All offshore platform operations
are shut down and people are evacuated
when a severe storm threatens.
Where special environmental
conditions exist, such as in arctic water,
safeguards are often tailor-made to meet
those conditions. For example, seismic
Workman prepares a blowout prevunti
installation on an oil well being drilled off
the Louisiana coast.
and other exploratory operations are
halted during certain periods to avoid
conflict with native subsistence hunting.
Operations are also postponed during the
migration of endangered species of
whale. And special construction
technologies such as manmade gravel
islands are applied to shield drilling and
production operations from the
movement of arctic ice.
Production operations in the nation's
offshore areas are governed by the same
operational safeguards as are in place
during the exploratory phase. There is,
however, an environmental "plus"
resulting from platform installation. The
platforms serve as artificial reefs,
attracting plankton and other small sea
life which, in turn, bring an influx of a
wide variety of fish to the area.
A recent report by the Council on
Environmental Quality states: "It is not
uncommon to see these platforms [in the
Gulf of Mexico] circled by fishing boats.
Besides an increase in sport and
recreational fishing, commercial
fishermen have begun to harvest shrimp
concentrations associated with the
platforms." Several coastal states have
asked that platforms scheduled for
demolition be left in place or removed to
other areas to create new fishing
opportunities in state waters.
As a consequence of improved
technology and increased environmental
awareness on the part of both company
management and operations personnel,
the petroleum industry's recent offshore
environmental and safety record in U.S.
waters has been excellent. That does not
mean that there will never be another oil
spill; there is some environmental risk in
virtually every activity of man. The risk of
an accidental spill from exploration and
production operations, however, is
minimal.
The National Academy of Sciences
estimated recently that offshore oil and
gas operations in U.S. waters account for
only five one-hundredths of one percent
of oil pollution in the world's oceans.
Natural seeps, in comparison, account for
15 percent of the oil that reaches the
world's oceans.
With continued advances in offshore
exploration and production technology,
and with the application of additional
safeguards as they are developed, the
record of environmental protection may
further improve in the years ahead. [
NOVEMBER 1984
25
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From Fisheries to Sea Turtles:
Managing the Ocean Environment
by Dr. John V. Byrne
Environmental management is not as
well known a concept as it deserves
to be. At the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it
involves a philosophical approach to
problems of the environment that
stresses the importance of optimum use
of land and water resources. The
reasoning behind this attitude is clear:
we have a responsibility to protect and
improve the lot of human beings and
their surroundings—the environment.
NOAA has a number of important
responsibilities relating to environmental
management. Our fundamental reason
for being is to provide service—service to
the American people and to industry-
service that cannot be provided by the
private sector. And our sphere of
responsibility is environmental,
encompassing the atmosphere and the
oceans.
We forecast the weather, manage
marine fisheries, monitor and seek to
ameliorate marine pollution, study
climate, maintain marine and estuarine
sanctuaries, chart the coasts and
waterways. And we have other
responsibilities: protecting whales,
porpoises, seals, and sea turtles;
fostering technology for recovering
manganese nodules from the deep
seabed, and for ocean thermal energy
conversion; and providing on-scene
scientific coordinators in response to
offshore and coastal spills of oil or
hazardous materials.
All of our science, whether
fundamental or applied, is keyed to the
needs of our mission. It is designed to
help us do our safety and service jobs
better.
Although NOAA has environmental
management responsibilities for marine
fisheries and sanctuaries in particular, its
major contributions to environmental
management involve providing unbiased
scientific data on which management
agencies (EPA, the Department of the
Interior, state and local governments) can
base decisions.
•
til t
'
For example, we conducted a
multidisciplinary study of the Strait of
Juan de Fuca, off the coast of
Washington State, as a result of
proposals by the Northern Tier Pipeline
Company to move petroleum shipments
there. Our scientists grappled with
questions about the Strait. What would
happen if oil were spilled in the waters?
What physical, chemical, and biological
processes would come into play to
disperse, transport, or degrade it? What
biological resources would be at risk, and
under what circumstances? What
shoreline areas might be impacted?
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries
Service, together with our environmental
research group, has a team of scientists
working on a major project dealing with
the overall marine environment of Puget
Sound and the nature, fate, and effects of
its chemical pollutants: petroleum
hydrocarbons, synthetic organics such as
PCBs, and metals.
The scientists are addressing critical
environmental questions on how marine
organisms react to the pollutants. Do fish
An unusually regular array of manganese
nodules on the seabed. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
helping to develop technology for
recovering such nodules from the ocean
bottom.
and shellfish take them up? Are they
biologically transformed, or retained by
the animals? Do they cause disease or
cellular and subcellular abnormalities?
We are also developing a monitoring
program to give us long-term
information from which we can assess
the spatial and temporal trends in water
pollution. This national program will
cover the major pollutants and other
factors that may cause stress on our
fisheries. During the first year we will
monitor pollutants in sediments, water,
and bottom fish.
Once we've built up records of spatial
and temporal changes in pollutant levels,
and data on how the pollutants got there
and what processes are involved, we will
be in a better position to advise
management and regulatory agencies on
possible management strategies.
NOAA's National Ocean Service also
provides technical assistance to the EPA
Office of Emergency and Remedial
Response (the Superfund office) during
cleanup operations at hazardous waste
sites.
More than 18,000 such sites have been
identified as possible candidates for
EPA's National Priorities List and a
possible 4,000 sites may be identified this
year by the states. EPA has so far listed
538 sites on the National Priorities List
(NPL), and proposed the addition of 244
others. NOAA has identified 348 of the
NPL sites as located in coastal counties,
including counties adjacent to the Great
Lakes, and mapped them in preparation
for determining priorities.
In addition, the Ocean Service has
developed a detailed data base on the
individual characteristics of all 348 sites,
which includes types and quantity of
waste at each site; distance to tidal
surface waters, coastal wetlands, and
critical habitat; and depth to ground
water. NOAA and EPA will determine
which of the sites pose the greatest
threat to living estuarine and marine
resources.
We also cooperate closely with the
Coast Guard on oil and hazardous
materials spills along the coasts or at
sea, and provide a scientific support
coordinator to assist the Coast Guard's
on-scene coordinator at such disasters.
This responsibility had its beginnings at
26
EPA JOURNAL
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•-I
the Argo Merchant wreck off Nantucket
Island in 1976, when a small scientific
research team from NOAA and the Coast
Guard undertook a limited project
designed to describe the movement and
fate of the oil released from the tanker.
Another area of increasing
environmental interest to us is the
Alaskan Polar Region. One of America's
great fisheries lies in the Gulf of Alaska
and Bering Sea, where safety, as well as
economy, depends on good weather
forecasting. In addition, we have
responsibilities for certain of the marine
mammals in the area.
We are about midway in a study of
superstructure icing, a critical
phenomenon which threatens fishing
vessels in the cold Alaskan waters.
Fishermen often run into the problem of
ocean spray freezing to the metal parts of
their vessels in areas where there is no
sea ice. It is very difficult for them to
determine the extent of danger to their
ship. Our scientists have data showing
that the amount of freezing depends not
only on wind speeds and air
temperatures, but also on the
temperature differential between air and
sea. We've devised a guidance card for
A scouting helicopter lands on the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) ship Surveyor, on a scientific
mission in the Arctic.
mariners that shows zones of
superstructure icing depending on certain
weather factors, and our people are
working on putting it into a formula so
forecasters can easily compute icing
probabilities.
Finally, NOAA has an Assessment and
Information Services Center that studies
the economic impacts of weather and
climate events on the U.S. economy. In
addition to its regular reports, the Center
does special studies on such events as El
Nino, whose oceanic and atmospheric
effects were felt so strongly last year
throughout much of the world.
NOAA deals in many ways with the
ocean environment, through research,
operations, and management. Much of
the work is innovative and dramatic. All
of it is aimed at furthering our
obligations relating to the ocean
environment and our involvement in
service to public health and safety.
As our responsibilities expand under
the recently proclaimed 200-mile-wide
Exclusive Economic Zone off the United
States coast, and as our knowledge
increases through more and better
research, our understanding of the ocean
environment—and our ability to change it
for the better—will grow as well. ! l
At N'
Labo'. '.-':•
.
NOVEMBER 1984
27
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Exploring the Secrets
of the Sea
by Bob Burke
•
It has become apparent in recent
I decades that many saltwater resources
are potentially threatened with
permanent damage from a variety of
human activities. In order to protect our
oceans and coastal areas from these
effects, we must know more about our
saltwater resources, how they sustain
life, and what happens when the wastes
from man's activities intrude. EPA's
marine research is currently focused on
two areas that relate to these
developments. The first is the
environmental consequences of dumping
industrial and municipal wastes at sea.
The second is the adverse environmental
and public health effects that pesticides
residues and toxic wastes are having on
ecologically sensitive coastal areas.
EPA's Ocean Dumping Research
Program
EPA's ocean disposal research is
centered at the Environmental Research
Laboratory in Narragansett, R.I., and at the
laboratory's West Coast field station in
Newport, Ore. Their basic mission is to
provide information to help EPA and
other federal agencies discharge their
responsibilities under the Marine
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act
and the Clean Water Act. These laws
established permitting programs to
regulate the disposal of municipal and
industrial wastes into the ocean.
To facilitate the permit program, EPA's
Office of Research and Development and
the Narragansett laboratory have put
together a five-part Hazard Assessment
Strategy which evaluates the
environmental hazards of waste disposal
at sea. The Strategy covers activities
starting before a site is even selected for
dumping, and continuing long after
disposal. These five components are:
Site Assessment: Pollutants have been
described by one Narragansett official as
materials which are simply in the wrong
place. This thought pretty well
summarizes the objective of site
assessment, a process that looks at the
physical, chemical and biological
(Burke is Contributing Editor of EPA
Journal)
28
EPA JOURNAL
-------
characteristics of an existing or proposed
dumping area to see if it is
environmentally suited for such use.
Suitability depends on such things as
how water currents and other physical
factors would affect the transport of
wastes, the kinds of commercial fish and
other resources that are in the area, and
their particular vulnerability to pollution.
Waste Characterization: Some wastes
are banned from ocean dumping
altogether. Once eligibility is established,
chemical assessments are needed to
determine how toxic the wastes are, how
they will disperse in the ocean, and their
potential for creating contaminant
residues. All of these factors influence
the degree of hazard that the wastes
would pose to marine life and to human
health.
Exposure Assessment: This phase of
hazard assessment determines the
likelihood that the proposed wastes will
contact an ocean resource that warrants
protection from pollution — and the
concentration, frequency, and duration of
that contact. Predictions of exposure are
often required since the proposed waste
discharge and the critical resource which
could be threatened aren't always in the
same location.
Effects Assessment: This phase seeks to
establish the functional relationships
between exposure conditions and
specific biological effects on the living
marine resources that can be exposed to
the wastes, as determined earlier. This is
not a simple test, nor is it easily
amenable to current mathematical
modeling. Therefore, field verification
and monitoring become exceedingly
important to prevent either inadequate or
overly restrictive regulation.
Monitoring Programs: An extensive
monitoring program is recommended as
part of hazard assessment. This
documents both short- and long-range
environmental effects of the dumping.
The long-term monitoring is intended to
ensure that problems which might not be
apparent immediately following dumping
at the site do not, in fact, contribute to
environmental problems at a later date or
farther place. This involves frequent
sampling at and around the site with
sophisticated monitoring equipment, and
running biological tests on fish and other
species.
EPA's Hazard Assessment Program is
being put to the test in a comprehensive
laboratory and field verification program
by the Army Corps of Engineers at a
location in central Long Island Sound.
The site has been used as a designated
dumping area since 1972. Wastes from
Black Rock Harbor in Bridgeport, Conn.,
are being dredged by the Corps for
subsequent disposal at the designated
area. The Corps is trying to find out how
the dredging of these materials affects
neighboring wetland and upland areas in
the Bridgeport area. EPA is involved in
determining the specific impacts that the
dumping of the dredged material will
have on the disposal site and on
surrounding areas of Long Island Sound,
All of this information will be used to test
portions of the Hazard Assessment
Strategy.
Some of the techniques EPA will be
using in the Black Rock Harbor Program
demonstrate how comprehensive and
varied the science of evaluating ocean
dumping has become. Assessment of the
biological effects alone involves over 20
short- and long-range tests or analyses.
They range from determining how well
fish, shellfish, and other sensitive life
adapt to the dumping shortly after it
occurs, to complex biological and
chemical testing of the long-range effects
on growth, reproduction and abundance
of several species. Perhaps these
biological assessments can be seen as a
relative measurement of the quality of
life that various aquatic species
experience in the midst of controlled
dumping. Conditions are closely
monitored by the Narragansett
laboratory using underwater
photography, sonar, and diver
observations. Participating scientists from
Yale University and the University of
Connecticut are contributing
sophisticated underwater measuring
devices that profile changes in chemical
composition from the dumping in and
around the dumpsite. Laboratory models
also are employed to predict future
developments from current data on the
site and from information as it is
supplied from the field. The physical,
chemical, and biological impacts of the
dumping are thoroughly examined for
their effects on water, sediments on the
ocean floor, and biological communities
in the site area. The Black Rock Harbor
Project should considerably expand
EPA's capability to determine the best
sites for dumping wastes into the ocean,
and the conditions under which such
dumping should take place to minimize
environmental damage.
Marine Pesticides and Toxic
Research
EPA research is also being conducted to
understand the effects that pesticides and
toxic substances are having on the
marine environment. While some of this
work is being done at Narragansett, most
is being implemented at EPA's
environmental laboratory in Gulf Breeze,
Fla. Various research projects at Gulf
Breeze support EPA's enforcement and
regulatory functions under both the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). While the
legislative mandates are separate, many
of the specific activities are either
coordinated or use similar procedures
and testing methodologies, including field
studies, laboratory tests and computer
modeling.
The pesticides and toxic substances
research programs are largely focused on
studies in coastal or estuarine areas
rather than deep sea research. These
shoreline areas are home to several
fragile forms of aquatic life and terrestrial
wildlife, some of which are particularly
sensitive to pesticides and toxic
substance residues or degradation
products. Studying these fragile areas is
important to develop programs that
would specifically reduce environmental
damage to affected animals and
vegetation. Furthermore, these areas
serve as "nursery grounds" for aquatic
life. They provide a unique early warning
system of the harmful effects that
pesticides and toxic substances may be
having on sensitive or ecologically
important forms of marine life.
Some of these projects include:
NOVEMBER 1984
29
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Development of methodologies to
determine how and to what extent
marine life is exposed to pesticides and
toxic substances and how it is affected
by this exposure. Three specific areas of
research are:
• Studies on sensitive crustacean
populations to determine how pesticides
may be affecting their health, growth and
reproductive capabilities. If these
crustaceans are affected, it provides
researchers with a clue that other
sensitive estuarine life forms are
potentially threatened.
• Fish life-cycle studies and testing
programs in several different coastal
environments to help judge the adverse
impacts that pesticides are having on
commercial fish populations and other
species important for maintaining
ecological balance in coastal areas.
• investigations to determine the effects
that certain biological control agents
(such as those for mosquitoes) may be
having on other forms of life in the
estuarine environment. Among other
things, this research may shed light on
substitutes that control these pests
without harming other living things.
Field studies which allow researchers to
compare laboratory techniques and
findings with actual pesticide impacts
experienced when pesticides are used
under normal conditions.
Biological or other influences that exert
some controls on how pesticides settle,
concentrate, move, or degrade in the
marine environment. Of particular
interest is how biological microbes
reduce pesticides residues by, in effect,
feeding on them. This information makes
it possible to predict how extensive the
accumulations of unwanted pesticides
will be.
Research on toxic substances in the
marine environment, which involves a
monumental undertaking when one
considers how many kinds of old and
new products potentially threaten
saltwater resources. EPA's research is
essentially developing answers to three
basic questions.
• How do toxic chemicals get into the
marine environment?
• Which way are the toxics being
transported and what will be the effects
on the marine environment?
• How vulnerable to damage are specific
saltwater areas, and are they resilient
Researchers working for EPA's
Narragansett lab pull up a sampler filled
with sediment collected from
the ocean bottom.
enough to recover when exposed to
these toxicants? EPA research seeks
answers to these questions through
separate but interrelated forms of
analyses. The first determines how
different kinds of marine life and water
systems are affected when they are
exposed to toxic wastes. The second
determines the specific hazards posed by
certain kinds of toxic substances in the
marine environment. The third combines
these factors to provide a collective risk
assessment in terms of the hazards of a
particular toxic waste and the kinds of
marine life and levels of exposure to
these hazards. One innovative area of
research related to toxics in the marine
environment is biotechnology. This
research effort is seeking to determine if
there are decontamination sources within
the marine environment such as small
biological organisms that, in effect,
search out and destroy toxic
contaminants or curb their influences in
other ways.
EPA's marine research programs are
balanced in their assumptions and in the
ways the various programs are
conducted. With ocean dumping, for
example, the objective is not to obstruct
the disposal of wastes at sea, but to
make certain that all disposal activities
are carried out in a manner which
protects saltwater resources that would
otherwise be threatened. Marine
pesticides and toxic substances research
proceeds in a similar fashion by trying to
determine how fragile coastal areas and
man's dependence on modern
substances can co-exist in some
acceptable fashion. Protecting our
saltwater resources from the pressures of
20th century developments is a
complicated, multi-faceted challenge
which EPA research is addressing with
increased orecision. LD
30
EPA JOURNAL
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Update
A review of recent major EPA activities and developments in the pollution control areas
AIR
Coke Oven Emissions Listing
EPA has announced that it is
listing coke oven emissions as a
hazardous air pollutant under the
Clean Air Act and will develop
regulations to reduce emissions
because they pose a significant
risk of cancer.
Coke ovens produce a carbon
residue called coke that comes
from the heating of soft
(bituminous) coal. Coke is used
primarily in the stee! industry's
blast furnaces to make iron that
is subsequently refined into
steel.
EPA is officially listing coke
oven emissions as a hazardous
air pollutant under Section 112
of the Clean Air Act, based on a
finding that these substances
"may reasonably be anticipated
to result in an increase in
mortality or an increase in
serious irreversible, or
incapacitating reversible, illness."
The agency estimates that
between 1.5 and 16 lung cancer
deaths per year are attributable
to exposure to coke oven
emissions.
The hazardous air pollutant
listing signifies EPA's intent to
issue regulations for reducing
emissions and public health risks
from new and existing coke
plants in the U.S. Proposed
emission regulations are
expected to be issued next year.
Alcohol Fuel Violations Penalties
EPA has given official notice to
ten Southern California gasoline
manufacturers that a total of $8.1
million in civil penalties has been
proposed against them for
violating provisions of the Clean
Air Act governing the use of
alcohol in gasoline.
The penalties sought in these
actions are the largest ever
proposed for the misuse of
alcohol additives in gasoline.
The parties were identified in
two separate investigations
conducted by EPA, the California
Department of Food and
Agriculture, Division of
Measurement Standards, and the
California Air Resources Board.
In the first of two
investigations, EPA began an
inquiry into the La Mesa
Corporation and related
companies after receiving a tip
from an anonymous source last
fall. A search of company
records at the Rosemead and
Banning, Calif., home offices of
the La Mesa Corp. turned up
evidence which verified the
earlier allegations.
EPA found that the owner of
La Mesa oversees the operation
of three other companies, Nelson
Oil and Tell Industries of California,
and Morago Company of Delaware,
and that all four were involved in
blending and selling illegal fuel.
The EPA charges allege that
the companies broke the law
when methanol, used to increase
octane ratings, was added to
unleaded gasoline without the
co-solvents and additives needed
to prevent an increase in
automotive emissions.
Further evidence that the fuel
was not properly blended was
found in samples of gasoline
taken at La Mesa retail outlets
owned by the Morago Co. EPA
proposed a $4,280,000 penalty
against the four companies.
Based upon the La Mesa
investigation EPA also proposed
a $2,560,000 penalty against
Petroleum Exchange, Inc. (PEI),
and Drive Oil, Inc., in Long
Beach, Calif., which sold methanol
to the four companies and
allegedly engaged in the
blending of the fuel as well. The
penalty also took into account
PEI methanol sales to petroleum
wholesalers, T. B. Smith Co. and
Wright-Willbarb, for producing
the illegal blends.
1985 Mileage Ratings
The Honda Civic Coupe HF has
captured the highest mileage
rating at 49 miles per gallon in
city driving and 54 mpg on the
highway for the second year in a
row, according to the 1985
mileage figures released by EPA.
Other top-rated cars in the
1985 mileage estimates are the
Chevrolet Sprint, rated at 47 mpg
in the city and 53 mpg on the
highway; the Nissan Sentra,
rated at 45 mpg and 50 mpg;
and the Ford Escort and Lincoln
Mercury-Lynx, both rated at 43
mpg and 52 mpg.
EPA said fuel economy
continued to improve for the
fleet as a whole. Based upon
projected 1985 model year sales
and fuel economy estimates, the
fleet average fuel economy for
domestic and foreign passenger
cars is expected to be 26.8 mpg.
In 1984, the comparable estimate
was 26.6 mpg. In 1975, the fleet
average fuel economy for cars
was 15.8 mpg. This improvement
has occurred while air pollution
from new cars has been
substantially reduced.
This year's estimates have
been revised to more accurately
reflect fuel economy under both
city and highway driving. The
two-number system for
estimating fuel economy was
adopted in response to
Department of Energy consumer
surveys. In these surveys,
respondents indicated a
preference for individual city and
highway estimates, rather than
the composite single average
value previously published.
ENFORCEMENT
proposed update may have been
contaminated by low levels of
pesticides used in pineapple
fields.
Pollution Control Enforcement
Enforcement of the nation's
pollution control laws is meeting
or exceeding projections,
according to EPA's latest figures.
Figures from the third quarter
(April to June) of fiscal year 1984
(October 1983 to September
1984) show that the agency
exceeded overall third-quarter
projections for enforcement
action.
The agency's regional offices
issued 624 Administrative Orders
(direct, non-judicial enforcement
orders) in the third quarter,
exceeding the overall third
quarter target of 514. The
regions also referred 66 civil
judicial cases to EPA
headquarters or directly to the
Department of Justice, against
their overall projection of 53
referrals. The agency conducted
3,008 inspections of regulated
facilities, against a target of
2,556.
During this period, EPA
headquarters and regional
offices referred a total of 78
judicial cases to the Justice
Department for prosecution;
there were 40 such referrals in
the second quarter and 49 in the
first quarter of fiscal year 1984.
HAZARDOUS WASTE
244 New Superfund Sites
EPA has proposed 244 new sites
for inclusion on the Superfund
National Priorities List (NPL).
Priority sites are those deemed
to pose the greatest potential for
long-term threat to human health
and the environment.
As a result of this proposed
updating, there are now 786
sites, including 538 actually on
the list and four others proposed
earlier for listing but still under
consideration.
Among the 244 sites proposed
are 36 federally-owned
facilities. This is the first time
federal facilities have been
proposed for inclusion on the
NPL.
In addition, the agency said it
is considering the inclusion of
sites where the environment
may have been contaminated by
releases of pesticides duly
registered under and applied in
accordance with the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Six
Hawaiian sites included in EPA's
PESTICIDES
Genetically Engineered
Pesticides
EPA has announced the first
steps toward regulating
pesticides derived from genetic
engineering. Companies which
produce certain types of
microbial pesticides will be
required to notify the agency
before they release such
substances into the environment
during small-scale field testing.
An EPA interim policy
statement to be published in the
Federal Register requires
industry to give notice to EPA
before starting small-scale field
tests involving the use of certain
microbial pesticides. These
include pesticides which contain
(1) naturally occurring
micro-organisms that will be
used in environments where
they are not native
(nonindigenous or exotic), and
(2) micro-organisms which have
been genetically altered or
manipulated by humans (EPA
has previously registered
pesticides which contain
naturally occurring
micro-organisms). EPA has 90
days to evaluate the proposed
testing, to determine if there is
any potential risk to public
health.
Linuron Review
EPA has initiated a special
review of all pesticide products
containing the active ingredient
linuron after determining that
both dietary and workplace
exposure to this herbicide may
pose a hazard to public health.
The decision to review the
substance is based on evidence
that linuron causes tumors in
laboratory animals.
EPA's special review of
products containing linuron is
designed to determine whether
registration of these products
should be permitted to continue
and, if so, under what
conditions. During the review
process, EPA will examine the
risks and benefits of using
linuron products to determine an
appropriate regulatory response.
Linuron, a broadleaf weed
control herbicide, is used mainly
on soybeans, but is also
registered for use on carrots,
celery, asparagus, corn, cotton,
parsnips, potatoes, sorghum,
and winter wheat. It is used as
well on golf courses, sod fields,
fencerows, highway
NOVEMBER 1984
31
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rights-of-way, streets, alleys, and
vacant lots.
To reduce the risks associated
with linuron during the review
process, EPA has limited its
application to "restricted use."
This means that only certified
applicators trained in and
familiar with safe pesticide uses,
or persons under their direct
supervision, may use the
product. In addition, label
changes will require protective
clothing for those applying the
pesticide and provide a warning
statement regarding the potential
oncogenic (tumor causing)
effects of linuron.
TOXICS
Virginia Asbestos Penalty
EPA has announced a proposed
514,600 penalty against the
Arlington County, Va., public
school system for federal
asbestos rule violations.
Arlington County is a suburb of
Washington, D.C.
The administrative civil
complaint was issued under the
authority of the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The complaint against the
Arlington County Public Schools
alleges that the system failed to
(1) complete and maintain the
required inspection forms at its
central administrative office; and
(2) post the required public
notice and keep required
inspection and notification
records at three schools.
There are 33 other schools in
the Arlington system that EPA
has not been able to inspect yet.
WATER
Acid Rain Lakes Research
EPA has begun, with the
cooperation of the states, a
large scale survey of lakes in
several regions across the
country so that scientists will
have a better understanding of
the type and number of lakes
affected by acid rain in the U.S.
The sampling is the first part
of a three-phase multi-year
project called the National
Surface Water Survey designed
to measure the extent of acidic,
low alkalinity and fishless lakes
and streams.
More than 1,800 lakes will be
sampled in the Northeast,
Southeast, and the upper
Midwest regions of the country.
A preliminary survey of 50 lakes
in the mountainous West will be
conducted at the same time in
preparation for a complete
survey next year. The estimated
cost of the lake survey is $6
million.
The National Surface Water
Survey is designed to study a
representative sample of lakes in
"sensitive" areas of the United
States. The results will provide
essential information from which
EPA can predict the number of
lakes across the country which
are now acidic, and those which
are at risk.
EPA's effort is part of the
National Acid Precipitation
Assessment Program, a
congressionally-mandated
nationwide research effort that
includes 12 federal agencies and
hundreds of scientists working in
universities, state governments,
the private sector and federal
and national laboratories. The
program's role is to develop and
improve on the objective
scientific information base for
use in decision-making by
Congress, the Administration,
and the public. LJ
Appointments at EPA
Richard H. Mays has been appointed
Senior Enforcement Counsel in EPA's
Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Monitoring. He has held this position on
an acting basis since March 1983.
From June 1982 to March 1983, Mays
served as Special Assistant to the
Enforcement Qounsel and the Deputy
General Counsel on issues related to
EPA's enforcement program. During his
first year and a half at the agency, he
was an attorney, first in the Office of
Hazardous Waste Enforcement and then
in the Office of Legal and Enforcement
Policy. Since joining EPA, he has
received three cash awards for special
and meritorious service.
From 1980 to 1981, Mays worked as
Department Attorney for the Arkansas
Department of Pollution Control and
Ecology. Prior to that, he was in private
practice as an attorney-at-law in Little
Rock and El Dorado, Ark., for a
period of almost 20 years.
Mays received his B.A. in philosophy
from the University of Oklahoma in 1959.
He completed his legal studies in 1961 at
the University of Arkansas.
A member of the Arkansas bar, Mays
served on two occasions as a Special
Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court
by Gubernatorial appointment. In
addition, he was a member of the school
board and Vice President of the Arkansas
Constitutional Convention.
Lee A. DeHihns, III, has been appointed
EPA's Associate General Counsel for
Grants, Contracts and General Law. He
has been Acting Associate Genera!
Counsel in that division of the Office of
General Counsel since November 1982.
DeHihns has been with EPA since June
1974, the month after he received a
J.D. from the Columbus School of Law at
Catholic University. DeHihns began his
EPA career as an area specialist in the
office of then-Administrator Russell E.
Train. Shortly after his arrival at EPA,
DeHihns was appointed special assistant
to then-Deputy Administrator John R.
Quarles, Jr., for whom he worked until
May 1975. From 1975 to 1978, DeHihns
worked as Attorney-Advisor in the Water
Division of EPA's Office of General
Counsel.
In October 1978, DeHihns moved into
the Grants, Contracts and General Law
Division as an Attorney-Advisor. In March
1981 he was named to the post of Acting
Assistant General Counsel for Grants; he
assumed that position on a permanent
basis in May 1982.
DeHihns' EPA career has been
distinguished by several awards for
meritorious service. Twice—once in !983
and once in 1980—he has won EPA's
Bronze Medal, and twice in 1982 he was
selected for special achievement awards.
DeHihns completed his undergraduate
education at the University of Scranton,
where he majored in history and received
his bachelor of science degree in 1967.
Before beginning law school in 1970, he
worked for the Raymond Corporation in
Greene, N.Y. From 1970 to 1973, DeHihns
worked as an adjudicator in the Claims
Division of the U.S. General Accounting
Office. He worked as a law clerk in the
Superior Court Division of the U.S.
Attorney's Office from 1973 to 1974. D
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EPA JOURNAL
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Out for a stroll in the At/antic Ocean surf.
Back cover: Fishing pier at Ocean City, New
Jersey. Photo by E.G. Johnson, Folio.
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United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington DC 20460
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use
$300
Third-Class Bulk
Postage and F-ees Paid
EPA
Permit No. G-35
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