United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Communication:
Public Affairs (A-107)
Numb
EPA JOURNAL
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Can Our Coasts
Survive More Growth?
From closed shellfish bods
to vanishing marshes: our
coastal environmental
problems include more than
medical syringes on the
beach. EPA Journal explores
why these ecologically vital
areas are in trouble and what
can be done about it.
To set this issue of the
Journal in context, a leadoff
article describes the
phenomenon of Americans
moving, lemming-like, to
coastal areas—some to
vacation and many to live
year-round—and the squeeze
this is putting on the natural
environment.
EPA Administrator William
K. Reilly declares a
no-nonsense policy toward
the environmental problems
that are plaguing our coastal
zone. The Agency, he
explains, will be very tough
on coastal and marine
pollution. A side piece spells
out EPA's coastal laws and
programs.
Next is a forum in which
seven observers from
different vantage points
answer a question that
inevitably arises regarding
the nation's coastal
environmental situation: can
these areas tolerate more
growth and still maintain
their ecosystems?
Articles then discuss three
key features of the coastal
environment and the ways in
which the surge of growth is
affecting them. The first
piece focuses on estuaries,
the mixing zones between
fresh and salt water that
include many bays and
lower-river areas. The second
item focuses on coastal
wetlands. And the third
piece focuses on beaches and
recent findings about waste
on these sandy strips.
1%.|«4B i
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Skip Brown photo Sea Giant Coffege, University of Maryland
An article then raises the
question, is the nation
focusing on the right targets
in its urgent efforts to stop
the pollution that has been
showing up along the coasts?
Next, writers in a second
forum discuss Maryland's
nationally unique initiative
to protect a coastline—in this
case, that of a major estuary,
the Chesapeake Bay. The
question posed to these
observers is: do the land-use
controls in Maryland's
critical area protection
program represent an
effective approach to
protecting coastal resources?
A view from Congress on
the steps that the nation
should take to rescue its
coastal environment is
presented by Congressman
Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.),
Chairman of the House
Subcommittee on Fisheries
and the Environment.
Five articles follow on
particular situations that
relate to this issue's theme of
the crunch between human
activities and natural
resources in near-coastal
environments. The pieces
focus on Louisiana's ongoing
coastal wetlands loss, largest
in the nation; the story of a
Virginia barrier island
threatened by development;
the successful revival of a
marsh in the San Franciso
Bay area; the clash between
erosion and development in
many coastal areas; and the
attack now under way on
pollution in the Gulf of
Mexico.
Then, taking a step back
from the current situation, an
article provides a historical
perspective on the heavy
growth along U.S. coasts.
Concluding the articles on
coastal issues is a feature on
the "people power" now at
work to help get a handle on
the pollution.
Then a nontheme article
reports on the Superfund
cleanup of a radioactive hot
spot in New York City. And
the magazine concludes with
a regular feature—
Appointments. Q
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Communications and
Public Affairs (A-107)
JOURNAL
Volume 15
Number 5
September/October 1989
William K. Reilly, Administrator
Lewis S.W. Crampton, Associate Administrator for
Communications and Public Affairs
John Heritage, Editor
Karen Flagstad, Assistant Editor
Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor
Ruth Barker, Assistant Editor
Marilyn Rogers, Circulation Manager
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.
EPA Journal is published by the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. The Administrator of EPA
V? has determined that the
publication of this periodical is
necessary in the transaction of the
O 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.
-V" 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, DC 20460. No
permission necessary to reproduce
contents except copyrighted photos
and other materials.
The annual rate for subscribers in
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Anyone wishing to subscribe to
EPA Journal should fill in the form
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Superintendent of Documents,
GPO, Washington, DC 20402.
A Prologue
by John and Mildred Teal 2
Trouble in Paradise
by Jack Lewis 3
Getting Tough on Coastal
Pollution
by William K. Reilly 8
Can Our Coasts Stand More
Growth?
A Forum 11
The Coastal Environment:
—Estuaries
by Tudor Davies 15
—Wetlands
An Interview with David
Davis 19
—Beaches
by Kathryn O'Hara 23
Are We Picking the Right
Targets?
by Harvey W. Schultz 26
The Maryland Initiative:
Lesson for the Nation?
A Forum 29
A View from Congress
by Gerry E.
Studds 35
Around the U.S.
—Louisiana's Wetlands
Calamity
by Peggy Rooney 37
—The Challenge to Protect a
Virginia Island
by Karen L. Mayne 40
—The Saga of an Urban
Marsh
by Peter Grenell 42
—Where Erosion and
Development Meet
by David W. Owens 44
—Changing the Fate of the
Gulf
by Jack Lewis 46
How the Coastal Migration
Began
by Richard Delaney and Jack
Wiggin 48
People Power
by Tom Armitage 50
Cleaning Up a New York Hot
Spot
by Miles Kahn 53
Appointments 55
Front Cover: An aerial view of tin;
New Jersey shoreline, looking
soiifh. Hig/i/y duvclaped barni-i is-
lands ana back bays stretch into
the distance on (hi; right: on (he
left, (he Atlantic: surf and beach.
Photo by Mike Yamashita tor
Wood/in Ccjmj).
EPA Journal Subscriptions
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-------
A Prologue
Along the eastern coast of North
America, from the north where ice
packs grate upon the shore to the
tropical mangrove swamps tenaciously
holding the land together with a tangle
of roots, lies a green ribbon of soft, salty
wet, low-lying land, the salt
marshes ....
The undisturbed salt marshes offer
the inland visitor a series of unusual
perceptions. At low tide, the wind
blowing across Spart/nci grass sounds
like wind on the prairie. When the tide
is in, the gentle music of moving water
is added to the prairie rustle. There are
sounds of birds living in the marshes.
The marsh wren advertises his presence
with a reedy call, even at night, when
most birds are still. The marsh hen, or
clapper rail, calls in a loud, carrying
cackle. You can hear the tiny,
high-pitched rustling thunder of the
herds of crabs moving through the grass
as they flee before advancing feet or the
more leisurely sound of movement they
make on their daily migrations in search
of food. At night, when the air is still
and other sounds are quieted, an
attentive listener can hear the bubbling
of air from sandy soil as a high tide
floods the marsh.
The,1 wetlands are filled with smells.
They smell of the sea and salt water and
Sktp Brown photo Sea Gram College, University of Maryland
of the edge of the sea, the sea with a
little iodine and trace of dead life. The
marshes smell of Sparfina. a fairly
strong odor mixed from the elements of
sea and the smells of grasses. These are
clean, fresh smells, smells that are
pleasing to one who lives by the sea but
strange and not altogether pleasant to
one who has always lived inland.
Unfortunately, in marshes which have
been disturbed, dug up, suffocated with
loads of trash and fill, poisoned and
eroded with the wastes from large cities,
there is another smell. Sick marshes
smell of hydrogen sulfide, a rotten egg
odor. This odor is very faint in a healthy
marsh.
As the sound and smell of the salt
marsh are its own, so is its feel. Some of
the marshes can be walked on,
especially the landward parts. In the
north, the Spartina patens marsh is
covered with dense grass that may be
cut for salt hay. Its roots bind the wet
mud into a firm surface. But the footing
is spongy on an unused hay marsh as
the mat of other years' grass, hidden
under the green growth, resists the
walker's weight and springs back as he
moves along.
In the southern marshes, only one
grass covers the entire marsh area,
Spartina aJternifJora. On the higher
parts of the marsh, near the land, the
roots have developed into a mass that
provides firm footing although the
plants are much more separated than in
the northern hay marshes and you
squish gently on mud rather than grass.
It is like walking on a huge trampoline.
The ground is stiff. It is squishy and
wet, to be sure, but still solid as you
walk about. However, jump and you can
feel the ground give under the impact
and waves spread out in all directions.
The ground is a mat of plant roots and
mud on top of a more liquid layer
underneath which gives slightly by
flowing to all sides when you jump
down on it ....
Down toward the creek, where the
mud is watered at each tide, the soil is
as muddy as you can find anywhere.
When you try to walk across to the
water at low tide, across the exposed
mud where the marsh grass does not yet
grow, hip boots are not high enough to
keep you from getting muddy. The boots
are pulled off on the first or second step
when they have sunk deep into the
clutching zone. There are no roots to
give solidarity, nothing but the mud and
water fighting a shifting
battle .... o
—From John and Mildred Teaf's Life
and Death of the Salt Marsh (1969).
Reprinted by permission of the authors.
:•/.•/
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Trouble
in Paradise
by Jack Lewis
Media attention was drawn to the
problem of coastal deterioration
during the summer of 1987 when
garbage and dead fish began to appear
on U.S. beaches. But public opinion was
not really galvanized until the middle of
1988 when used hypodermic needles,
surgical gloves, and other forms of
medical waste—wrongly feared to be
AIDS-related—started to wash up on
Eastern shorelines. The consensus
formei^ last summer has since gained
added momentum as a result of the
shocking series of coastal oil spills that
have dominated the headlines in the
first half of 1989.
The lure of this Ocean City, Maryland, inlet is a chance at catching flounder, sea bass,
and sea trout.
New human communities,
once settled, become daily
sources of pollution that
continue to degrade already
traumatized ecosystems.
Environmental scandals need
environmental culprits, and in these
cases, like so many Adams trapped in
an increasingly trashy Eden, human
suspects have not been hard to find . . .
in their ones and in their millions. The
recent history of America's coastlines
has been a story of too-big populations
and too-rapid development, and the
environment is now paying a heavy
price.
According to demographers,
Americans have since World War II
been moving in greater and greater
numbers to the nearest major body of
water: whether to the shoreline of the
Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf coast, or the
Pacific Ocean. Already more than half
of the U.S. population—52.9 percent as
of 1987—live within 50 miles of the
coast, where people are densely
packed—especially in the East—onto
[Lewis is an Assistant Editor of EPA
Journal.]
less than 10 percent of the nation's
land.
Experts differ over the exact speed of
growth and the exact definition of
"coastal area." For instance, the figure
just cited mixes numbers from the
expanding saltwater sea coasts with
numbers from the declining freshwater
Great Lakes. Nevertheless, all experts
agree that the population of U.S. sea
coasts is rising in absolute terms and
will continue to rise in virtually all
regions in the years ahead.
Dr. Steven F. Edwards of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration Northeast Fisheries
Center predicts that by the year 2000.
U.S. population clustered along the sea
coasts will rise, but only to 53.5 percent
of the national total. Others, conjuring
up the image of a lemming-like surge to
the sea, claim that 75 percent of U.S.
citizens already live in coastal
communities, with another five percent
to follow by 2000.
No analysts, whether conservative or
apocalyptic, deny that there is already a
serious problem of overcrowding in
certain highly popular coastal locations,
especially in the Northeast, the
mid-Atlantic, Florida, and Southern
California. Our focus here, and in the
rest of this issue of EPA journal, will be
strictly on areas such as these: the
portions of America's saltwater
shorelines that have proved most fatally
attractive to transplanted city-dwellers.
Paradise Lost
To such once-pristine coastal
environments, new inhabitants—some
of them permanent residents, some just
weekend or vacation visitors—have
brought large-scale, quasi-urban
construction and with it, large-scale,
quasi-urban pollution. As a result, many
overdeveloped areas have—in a
genuinely vicious cycle—lost the very
charms that once made them lucrative
tourist attractions and treasured natural
wonders: abundant fishing grounds,
exquisite scenery, healthy air, and i.lr.m
water. The situation is already such that
on any given day, one-third of U.S.
shellfish beds are closed to fishermen,
whether sport or commercial.
What we are witnessing now in the
most popular coastal communities is, in
a certain sense, a recapitulation of the
decades of rapid urbanization and
population growth that fell like a bomb
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
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'
jl
„-*»• •
Full
33d.
Taylor photo Duke University Marine Laboratory
on the scospheres of America's greatest
cities early in the 20th century. Urban
patterns of development differ, however,
from what most sea coasts are
witnessing today.
The near-coastal development boom
has erected few cities but many a
cluster of houses, stores, offices, and
marinas near saltwater coastlines
running from Kennebunkport on clown
the most attractive parts of the East
Coast, then continuing around the
peninsula of Florida and parts of the
Gulf coast, as well as from San Diego up
to San Francisco—and perhaps someday
soon from San Francisco to Seattle.
With the exception of Miami, Tampa,
Orlando, Virginia Beach, San Diego,
Long Beach, and Santa Monica, not
many cities have emerged from this
diffused development pattern; on the
other hand, a great many coastal towns
have increased in si/.e, and many small
communities have sprung up. This
pattern has spared the environment the
worst intensity and scale of urban
pollution, but it has subjected a
disproportionately large area of the
near-coastal world to disruptive human
settlement.
New human communities, once
settled, become daily sources of
pollution that continue to degrade
already traumatized ecosystems. The
sources of pollution within the
immediate coastal environment are
already enormous in scale, and
constantly growing. Each day 900
sewage treatment plants discharge 9.5
billion gallons of effluent directly into
estuaries and near-coastal waters.
Another 3.2 billion gallons are
discharged each day by over 1,300
commercial and industrial facilities.
In some areas, nonpoint-source
pollution causes even greater problems
than pollution from point sources. Point
sources, since they are large, can be
easily located, and thus regulated.
Nonpoint-source pollution, on the other
hand, originates in thousands of
hard-to-pinpoint places. Most often, it
takes the form of toxic run-off from city
streets, suburban developments, or
agricultural land.
Some of the environmental trauma is
externally inflicted. Near-coastal
environments, because of their
proximity to big cities located slightly
inland, become sinks for large quantities
of pollution discharged from urban
point sources, such as municipal sewage
treatment plants, industrial facilities,
and hazardous waste disposal sites.
Many of these are located miles upriver
from the coastal communities in
question, but still within polluting
range. Many nonpoint problems also
start far upstream from sea-coast
communities, forming a poisonous
legacy bequeathed by America's older
urban jungles to her new beachfront
"paradises."
Paradise Described
The media have spoken primarily of the
threat to U.S. beaches and the scenic
waters that pound against them, but it is
impossible to generalize about sea-coast
environments without mentioning two
other kinds of watery environment:
wetlands and estuaries. Together with
beaches, they form a trinity of
interdependent ecological entities that
constitute the key components of
near-coastal environments. It would do
well to examine each in turn:
• Beaches are the sandy stretches of
coastal real estate dear to millions of
Americans as a recreational haven.
They—and the salt water adjacent to
them that lies over the inner portion of
the continental shelf—are so magnetic
to tourists that their most alluring
attributes have in many cases been
compromised.
When sewage effluent, industrial
waste, and other pollutants foul beach
areas, it is sometimes necessary to
terminate swimming privileges for brief
EPA JOURNAL
-------
periods of time. However, the everyday
threat to the health of ocean bathers is,
in general, less than the media and
public opinion have recently chosen to
imagine. This is largely because swirling
ocean currents keep polluted sediments
and bacteria from settling on the skin,
and therefore from causing lasting
damage.
A more real—and more visible—beach
problem is the detritus washed ashore
from vessels that have sloppy loading
practices or throw used fishing gear and
galley garbage into the sea, as well as
from combined sewer overflows that
pipe a strange variety of waste,
including medical items, into the fragile
ocean. The scope of the debris problem
is indicated by the experience of the
47,500 volunteers who worked in
"Coastweeks" clean-up activities in
1988: they found, catalogued, and
disposed of nearly two million pounds
of debris along 3,500 miles of shoreline
(see article on page 23).
• Wetlands—habitats transitional
between terrestrial and aquatic
systems—are today highly valued as
havens for fish and wildlife. Most U.S.
wetlands—95 percent—are inland,
freshwater wetlands, usually on or
adjacent to agricultural property. Coastal
wetlands, on the other hand, are
saltwater or brackish enclaves subject to
fluctuation with ocean tides. As a result
of intense regulatory scrutiny, coastal
wetlands are today fairly stable, except
in the endangered Louisiana Delta,
which is the site of 40 percent of the
existing tidal wetlands in the United
States (see article on page 37).
However, future trends such as the
Greenhouse Effect could spell the ruin
of wetlands that now seem
well-protected.
• Estuaries are meeting places between
river and sea: the partly salty, partly
freshwater area where the wide, lower
region of a river finds its currents met
and influenced by the tides of the sea.
Renowned for their abundance of fish
and wildlife, and their enormous
economic value to man, estuaries are
unusually susceptible to pollution. Not
only are they frequently downstream of
major cities, and thus on the receiving
end of inland, urban pollution, but a
peculiarity of their own currents in
many cases prevents them from flushing
all but a small portion of that pollution
out to sea.
In most estuaries, fresh surface waters
have an outward, seaward current, and
initially they carry a majority of
estuarine pollution in the form of
freshwater run-off. Those contaminants
The situation is already such
that on any given day,
one-third of U.S. shellfish beds
are closed to fishermen,
whether sport or commercial.
start to sink in the estuary as they
become attached to sediment particles,
but then their outward flow is reversed
when they are hit by heavier, saltier
bottom waters that have a net flow
landward. As a result, many pollutants
remain trapped in estuaries and never
reach coastal waters, with
disastrous, long-term effects on water
quality.
Among America's most famous—and
most polluted—estuaries are Long
Island Sound in New York, Chesapeake
Bay in Maryland, San Francisco Bay in
California, and Puget Sound in
Washington State. Plagued by problems
such as sewage spills, fertilizer run-off,
and toxic contamination, these and
other estuaries were the target of state
and local clean-up efforts in the 1970s
and 1980s. In 1985 they also provided
the impetus behind the formation of
EPA's National Estuary Program (see
article by Tudor Davies on page 15).
Paradise Explained
Our improved knowledge of beaches,
wetlands, and estuaries is the result of
scientific advances that have occurred
during the past decade. This new
emphasis on the science of near-coastal
ecology marks a departure from earlier
years when it was fashionable for
scientists to focus on deep ocean waters.
The shift of attention nearer to shore
has enriched various types of applied
science that are relevant to the needs of
the government regulators who are now
trying to save near-coastal
environments.
What are a few of the new insights
this scientific work has engendered?
Experts now realize that estuarine
ecosystems differ distinctly from
freshwater and open-ocean systems in
that they act as sinks, trapping toxins
from land, rivers, and streams. The
peculiarity of their currents has already
been described; what needs to be
emphasized here is the type of impact
toxics and other pollutants have when
they become trapped in these sinks.
Scientists now believe that impact to
be cumulative, both in the soil
sediments that often first absorb the
pollutants, and in the living organisms
later exposed to pollutants
environmentally and through the food
chain. While studying this impact over
the past decade, EPA scientists have
developed an improved knowledge of
the ways that ingestion of contaminants
affects living organisms.
First, "bioaccumulating" in the tissues
of fish, shellfish, and birds, these toxins
sometimes cause smaller birth size and
birth defects. Then, if these animals are
in turn consumed by other animals, the
effects of their bioaccumulated
contaminants are "biomagnified"; in
other words, their harmful effects are
amplified in direct proportion to body
weight. Because the contaminant impact
often comes simultaneously from
different, interacting pollutants, EPA
now assesses ecological risks by
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
Homes on canals at West Palm
Beach, Florida. Elbow room
along our coasts is diminishing.
conducting whole-effluent toxicity tests
rather than working strictly on a
chemical-by-chemical basis.
Another area of intense scientific:
scrutiny in recent years is tin:
phenomenon of "eutrophication,"
overgrowths of algae blooms caused by
organic: nutrients purveyed by fertilizer
run-off, septic leakage, sewage effluents,
and manure run-off from farms and
feedlots. This nitrogen and phosphorus
"enrichment" stimulates explosive
growth of aquatic plants, particularly
algae, in near-coastal waters. The decay
of these plant masses when they die
consumes dissolved oxygen in the water
and reduces oxygen availability for
other marine life. In addition, major
algae blooms can restrict light
penetration into the water and with it
the vital process of photosynthesis.
"Red tides" are another phenomenon
of great concern to scientists
specializing in near-coastal ecology.
These bizarre occurrences, great waves
of algae that have been the cause of
numerous beach closures, are caused by
sudden population explosions of
dinoflagellates (zooplankton).
Dinoflagellates, which are toxic: to some
fish, dolphins, and whales, also cause
harmful reactions when ingested by
people.
Another problem scientists are
studying is habitat loss, a crisis
threatening near-coastal fish and
wildlife. Acres of housing, stores, and
offices now occupy environments where
birds, fish, and other wildlife once
thrived. Other natural habitats have
been irrevocably altered by the dredging
of channels, the construction of dams,
and the diversion of fresh water for
purposes of irrigation and drinking.
Scientists are studying the adaptations
that affected species are making to this
endemic habitat loss.
In addition, two larger threats to the
coastal environment now appear to be
underway: the Greenhouse Effect and
stratospheric: ozone depletion. Of
course, it is significant that both these
phenomena have been blamed primarily
on human technology and development.
However, in both these cases, the root
causes are not to be found simply in the
immediate vicinity of the sea coasts but
throughout the industrial world. As a
result, science has had to throw its net
extremely wide to get a handle on what
is happening.
Scientists are now predicting that the
In addition, two larger threats
to the coastal environment
now appear to be underway:
the Greenhouse Effect and
stratospheric ozone depletion.
Greenhouse Effect will melt polar
ice-caps and raise coastal sea levels
roughly three and one-fourth feet by the
year 2100. If these predictions prove
valid, the net result will be inundated
beaches and wetlands, and destruction
of shoreline environments in estuaries.
A sea-level rise of this magnitude would
destroy 30 to 70 percent of U.S. coastal
wetlands and intrude several miles into
the already eroding Louisiana Delta.
Such a development would bring an
end to the relative stability those crucial
environments now enjoy in places other
than Louisiana.
Beaches would not come off any
better than wetlands. A sea-level rise of
even one foot would erode beaches 50
to 100 feet from the Northeast to
Maryland, 200 feet in the Garolinas, 100
to 1,000 feet along the Florida coast,
and 200 to 400 feet in California. This
would wreak havoc with beachfront
recreation, since today's average
commercial beach in the United States
is a mere 100 feet wide.
The cycles set in motion could be not
only self-sustaining but self-amplifying.
It is, for instance, an acknowledged fact
that the oceans absorb much of the
carbon which, in excess quantities, is
linked to the higher temperatures of the
Greenhouse Effect. In performing this
vital function, the oceans become
warmer; some experts now fear that any
further warming could alter worldwide
weather patterns to an extent even more
radical than Greenhouse experts have
already predicted.
One more habitat change—this one
also global in scale—is expected to
make beaches less attractive places to
be: namely, stratospheric ozone
depletion. Proliferation of
chlorofluorocarbons and other
chemicals has been eating away at
earth's protective layer of stratospheric
ozone, the gas that shields us from the
most deadly of the sun's rays. Already
doctors are reporting higher incidences
of serious skin cancers. With each
passing day, the American fad for
sun-bathing—whatever its cosmetic
selling points—is beginning to look
increasingly dubious from a health
standpoint.
In addition, stratospheric ozone
depletion will permit excessive
quantities of ultraviolet radiation to
penetrate near-coastal waters. This will
slow down photosynthesis and deplete
production of much-needed forms of
vegetation, such as phytoplankton. The
long-term effect of this trend, especially
near the equator, will be to foster new
species of ultraviolet-resistant algae. An
evolutionary change of this nature
would have an unforeseeable impact on
the food chain as a whole, including the
health of the human consumers at its
pinnacle.
Such a trend would, however,
certainly hasten the Greenhouse Effect,
because killing off non-resistant
EPA JOURNAL
-------
South Florida Wafer Management District photo. West Palm Beach
algae would mean a shortage of marine
organisms on the surface of the
water—the very organisms most needed
to absorb the excess carbon thought to
cause the Greenhouse Effect.
Paradise Regained?
The challenge between 1989 and the
end of the century is to work toward
approaches to coastal development that
will protect the health both of its
human inhabitants and of the
environment as a whole, with nil its
diverse forms of life. A large part of that
work will have to be done at the state
and local levels of government, which
stand in a very real sense at the cutting
edge of conflict between development
pressures and conservation values.
The State of Maryland, in particular,
has been a pioneer in this kind of work,
and not just through its participation in
the Chesapeake Bay Program.
Maryland's "critical area program,"
which has drawn national attention,
provides a specific framework that
communities can use to control the
adverse effects of land use on wildlife
habitats and water quality (see forum on
page 29). Other states are now following
suit, sometimes alone, sometimes in
concert with their neighbors.
EPA's role is to set national policy for
coastal waters, wetlands, and estuaries
(see box on statutes, page 10) as well as
specific regulatory requirements
governing the discharge of pollutants.
The Agency also intervenes in serious
situations that are either multi-state or
too large for an individual state to
handle, such as the Chesapeake Bay or
the Gulf of Mexico (article on page 46).
Dealing with these situations requires
EPA to cooperate with officials of local
and state government as well as often
skeptical, even hostile, members of the
business community.
In recent years, much has been
learned in various localities from the
process of working together to combat
coastal pollution. As a result, a
consensus is now slowly emerging
about which strategies for coastal
management are successful, and which
are not. Now is the time to share that
information more broadly at all levels of
business and government.
A few of the more widely discussed
strategies include pollution prevention
(waste reduction, recycling,
pretreatment, etc.), adoption of
cross-media and cross-boundary
"systems" thinking, volunteerism,
land-use planning, community
consensus-building, tax incentives, user
fees, and monitored private-party land
acquisitions. Each of these approaches
accepts the reality of expanding
socio-economic development along the
nation's shorelines but tries to protect
the ecosphere through artful balancing
of self-interest and the public interest.
They all operate on the premise that
unless the proper balance is achieved,
all will be losers; if it is achieved and
sustained, all will be winners.
Needless to say, such tactics will have
to be used in conjunction with a degree
of good old-fashioned coercion if true
enforcement is to occur, as EPA
Administrator William Reillv has vowed
that it will. Enforcement is vital, for
without it, airy ideals and ambitious
proposals come to nothing. Any
slackness in that area would mean that
the development pressures now
barraging our nation's coastlines will
continue to be an onslaught.
The loss will be grievous if
developers continue to win too many
battles in the war for coastal supremacy,
and that loss will be felt not just in
economic and ecological terms, but
also—and very keenly—in an aesthetic
sense. People who have sought refuge
frcm the air-conditioned nightmare of
big-city life do not relish the prospect of
becoming trapped in a salt-air
nightmare: an ugly new world of
narrowing, littered beaches . . . algae-
and sewage-laden surf discolored to a
sickening brownish-red . . . overly salty
wetlands devoid of many once-familiar
varieties of fish and birds . . .
once-thriving estuaries hovering
helplessly on the brink ot dtuith.
Only by striking—and sustaining—a
proper balance between man and nature
can the economies and the ecospheres
of America's sea coasts continue to be
life-sustaining sources of plenty. But an
added effort will be needed, a further
infusion of creative foresight and
planning, if they are to remain bastions
of that strangely satisfying serenity that
man has always sought—and found—by
communing with nature at the ocean's
edge. Q
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
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Getting Tough on Coastal Pollution
by William K. Reilly
To protect our oceans, EPA will be enforcing anti-pollution rules like Captain Bligh, says
tho EPA Administrator
Ocean dumping, closed beaches,
coastal development, oil spills, trash
washing up on our shorelines—all these
have produced a tidal wave of
indignation among Americans. For too
long there has been an imbalance
favoring economic development over
ecological protection of our nation's
coastal areas. An emerging national
consensus says that we must now tip
the scales towards ecological protection.
Fortunately, we have already started
at EPA. EPA is working with states to
reduce the ocean and coastal discharges
of industrial and wastewater treatment
facilities. We are also working with
states to eliminate virtually all ocean
dumping of raw sewage or sewage
sludge through outfall pipes. Deep-sea
dumping of municipal sludge is being
phased out, and the ocean has been
closed to industrial dumping, waste
incineration, and radioactive waste
disposal. Despite this progress, it is
becoming clear that all of us—citizens,
businesses, municipalities, states, EPA,
and other federal agencies—must do
even more to protect our coastal areas.
EPA's National Coastal and Marine
Policy
Responding to the need for more action
to protect our coastlines, my
predecessor Lee Thomas unveiled EPA's
National Coastal and Marine Policy on
January 18, 1989. That policy
articulated a set of goals critical to the
protection of the near-coastal
environment. The policy states:
The Environmental
Protection Agency will
protect, restore, and maintain
the nation's coastal and
marine waters to protect
human health and sustain
living resources. We will take
actions to further reduce
pollution of these waters and
limit the effects of increasing
coastal populations. Future
uses of these resources that
are vital to the nation's
growth, economy, and
security can and must be
conducted in an
environmentally sound
manner.
(ReiNy is Administrator of EPA.)
t',
EPA JOURNAL
-------
To ensure that this policy produces
real environmental improvements, EPA
has set five goals:
• Recover the recreational use of alJ our
shores, beaches, and coastal waters by
reducing sources of contamination,
plastics, and debris.
• Restore and protect our shellfisheries,
saltwater fisheries, and other wildlife
habitat by controlling pollution and
causes of habitat degradation and loss.
• Stop wastes from entering coastal
waters by stepping up enforcement of
ocean dumping laws, reducing the
amount of waste that our society
generates, and improving coastal land
use.
• Improve our economic and scientific
understanding of coastal ecosystems by
expanding research and monitoring.
• Lead other nations in protecting the
world's oceans by aggressively
promoting international treaties and
cooperation.
These broad goals provide a blueprint
for action by all levels of government.
EPA will follow this blueprint. When
actions are the sole responsibility of
EPA, this Agency will move
aggressively. When actions are the
shared responsibility of other federal
agencies, we will work with them to
assure a coordinated approach. When
actions are the responsibility of state
and local governments, we will
persuade, encourage, and support them
in their efforts.
EPA's Responsibilities
EPA's coastal protection efforts are
being implemented through the
Agency's coastal and marine programs:
the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes
Programs; the National Estuary Program;
the Regional/State Coastal Water
Strategies; and special initiatives like
the Gulf of Mexico Program, the
Mid-Atlantic Bight Initiative, and the
Ocean Dumping Program. These
programs emphasize taking quick action
to achieve specific environmental
results in places with special problems.
EPA can do much more to improve
enforcement of its own regulations. In
fact, as far as ocean waters are
concerned, we are going to start
enforcing like Captain Bligh. I gave my
first speech as EPA Administrator to the
National Association of Attorneys
General. I said that polluters would be
prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I mean it.
For too long there has been an
imbalance favoring economic
development over ecological
protection of our nation's
coastal areas.
EPA is going to increase the pressure
to end all ocean dumping of waste. The
dumping of industrial waste has been
stopped, and we will not issue any new
permits. The dumping of sewage sludge
will be illegal after 1991; any dumping
thereafter will result in heavy penalties.
In short, we will use all the enforcement
tools at our disposal to make the ocean
a no-dumping zone.
The President fully endorses this
emphasis on enforcement. He has made
strong, vigorous enforcement of the law
one of his major environmental
principles. The President is also
working to toughen environmental laws
to eliminate, at the source, the wastes
that often end up in marine
environments. The President's proposed
Clean Air Act Amendments, for
instance, would sharply reduce the tons
of airborne toxic emissions that .
currently contribute to pollution in the
Great Lakes.
In addition, because EPA is now
committed to stopping pollution before
it becomes a problem, our pollution
prevention efforts will eventually result
in redesigned or reformulated consumer
products and packaging. Designing
reusable products and biodegradable
packaging has the potential to reduce
greatly the amount of waste that
currently is illegally dumped at sea and
washed ashore.
Working with Other Federal Agencies
EPA is not the only federal agency
responsible for enforcing
ocean-protection laws. The Departments
of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, and
Interior all have important
responsibilities that directly or
indirectly affect the quality of the
coastal environment. A number of
federal agencies within those
departments—the Army's Corps of
Engineers and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, to name
just two—have major roles to play in
protecting coastal habitats.
It is absolutely essential that EPA
build partnerships with these and other
agencies to advance the cause of coastal
protection. A good example of this kind
of partnership is a recent interagency
meeting held at the White House.
President Bush called together all
federal agencies involved in wetlands
protection to formulate a coordinated
approach for carrying out his pledge to
achieve no net loss of wetlands. I have
every confidence that this interagency
effort will lead to strong, effective
action.
EPA intends to work closely with
other federal agencies on other coastal
issues as well. For example, we are
going to ask the Department of Defense
if coastal military bases scheduled for
shutdown might be set aside as parks or
ecological preserves. EPA is already
working with the Corps of Engineers to
develop new strategies for disposing of
dredged materials in ways that will
protect water quality. An EPA standing
committee has been formed to oversee
how well we are working with other
agencies to protect the coasts.
Working with State and Local
Governments
The federal government, of course, does
not work in a vacuum. Therefore, EPA
will do everything it can to support the
involvement of state and local
governments and citizens. We want to
encourage efforts like Washington
State's Puget Sound program, in which
strong state leadership and grassroots
support helped to control point- and
nonpoint-source pollution, protect
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
shellfish resources and wetlands, and
manage contaminated sediments. We
want to encourage efforts like the
Narragansett Bay project, where citizens
fought to limit development that would
degrade the Bay. We want to encourage
efforts like Maryland's critical area
program, the first state program to
confront the effects of land use on water
quality and wildlife habitat.
In fact, greater state and local
attention to land use along all stretches
of the nation's coasts is urgently
needed. What happens on the land has
a direct and substantial effect on what
happens in the water. I think this
country can do a better job balancing
economic development with
environmental protection. The
commitment to economic progress is
unquestioned. Yet, to quote the
President: "Pollution is not the
inevitable byproduct of progress ....
Sound ecology and a strong economy
can coexist."
I think we can do a better job
balancing economic development with
environmental protection. I invite state
and local governments, businesses, and
grassroots organizations to work with
EPA to set the balance right.
All of us must work together to
protect that fragile ribbon of land and
water on which so much of our
economy—so much of our
well-being—depends. We all gain if we
work together; we all lose if we do
not. a
COASTAL PROTECTION LAWS
• Under the Clean Water Act of
1977 as amended by the Water
Quality Act of 1987, EPA is
responsible for:
—Coordinating the National
Estuary Program, which oversees
the development of comprehensive
management and action plans by
state, local, and federal agencies to
restore and protect nationally
significant estuaries.
—Regulating industrial discharges
and publicly owned sewage
treatment facilties under the
National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System, which
governs point-source pollution.
—Controlling nonpoint-source
pollution, such as agricultural and
storm-water run-off.
—Overseeing the Chesapeake Bay
Program, the purpose of which is
to enhance and preserve the Bay
and its basin.
—Protecting wetlands and other
waters by co-administering, with
the U.LS. Army Corps of Engineers,
a permitting program that regulates
the discharge of dredged or fill
material into waters of the United
States.
• Under the Marine Protection,
Research, and Sanctuaries Act of
1972, EPA is responsible for:
—Prohibiting the transportation
of materials for dumping or the
actual dumping of materials into
the ocean without a permit.
—Controlling ocean dumping of
non dredged materials; working
with the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers in controlling dredged
material dumping.
• Under the Marine Plastic
Pollution Research and Control
Act of 1987. EPA is responsible
for:
—Conducting research to
determine the effect of plastic
pollution on coastal areas and to
evaluate current efforts at reducing
plastic in marine environments.
—Prohibiting discharge of all
plastics into the sea as well as
discharge of food wastes and other
floating materials within specified
distances from land.
• Under the Ocean Dumping Ban
Act of 1988, EPA is responsible
for:
—Prohibiting all municipal sewage
sludge dumping into the sea after
December 31, 1991.
—Creating and administering,
along with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration,
a monitoring program to track
municipal sewage sludge dumping
until December 31, 1991.
—Prohibiting medical waste ocean
dumping.
—Administering the Shore
Protection Act of 1988, which
requires vessels to install handling
systems and obtain permits for
transportation of non-hazardous
commercial waste.
• Additional legislation and
programs affecting coastal areas
are:
—The Degradable Plastic Ring
Carrier Act of 1988, which
requires all plastic ring carriers to
be made of naturally degradable
plastic.
—The Water Resources
Development Act of 1986, which
restricts and regulates ocean
dumping.
—The Organotin Antifouling Paint
Control Act of 1988, which phases
out existing stocks of organotin
paint (used on boat bottoms and
marine structures) and continues
related research and monitoring
programs.
—The Coastal Zone Management
Act of 1972 and Amendments,
which offers grants for states that
develop coastal zone management
plans.
—The Deepwater Port Act of 1974,
which regulates deepwater port
loading and unloading of materials
and evaluates any environmental
effects.
10
EPA JOURNAL
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A Forum
Can Our Coasts Stand More Growth?
Can U.S. coastal areas
tolerate more growth and still
maintain their ecosystems?
As coastal development
continues at an accelerated
pace, this question carries a
heightened sense of urgency.
EPA Journal asked seven
people with different vantage
points for their answers.
Their responses follow:
Steve Wells
I don't think that it is
possible to have more
growth in U.S. coastal areas
and maintain their
ecosystems—at least not in
any rigorous sense of
ecosystem maintenance. We
shouldn't fool ourselves into
thinking that continuing
growth is free.
Ecosystems have limits,
known and unknown, and
some of those limits are like
steep canyons into which a
fall is abrupt and fatal.
Others are more like clouds
which cause momentary
distraction as we pass
through. And, because some
ecosystems in some ways are
resilient, we bounce off them
when we bump their edges.
The image I'd like to work
with has us walking along
near the canyon edges. These
precipices are limits beyond
which a fall hurts greatly.
Each increment of
growth—every new family,
new clearcut, new road, or
new business day is another
step towards the canyon.
In the Puget Sound region
of the Pacific Northwest
we're rapidly learning more
about the dangerous edges
and how close we are to
many of them. These clues
show up as the booming
costs of land, lengthening
commutes, loss of landfill
space, tumorous fish, hazy
views of Mt. Rainier and
other mountains, and
ever-deeper wells. We spot
fewer owls. Bear Creek is
losing its bears. Cougar
Mountain Park will not have
cougars. And the kids in
Crystal Springs can't drink
the surface water.
Fortunately, such
changes for the worse
have captured the public's
attention. Ecosystem health,
primarily recognized by our
regional public as healthy
salmon runs in neighborhood
streams, is a key issue in this
year's local elections. Salmon
are politically sexy. Just
recently, the King County
Council boldly increased the
size of the smallest legal lot
in three watersheds so that
sediments flowing from new
subdivisions will not
overwhelm the salmon in
Soos Creek.
These are clues that growth
will be managed. Because
Puget Sounders care deeply,
we'll avoid many threatening
ecological precipices. But
let's not fool ourselves.
Growth will change our
ecosystems. It's not possible
to continue growth, sustain
more people, use more
resources, create more waste,
and maintain our ecosystems
unchanged.
Lawrence R. Zucchino
We can expect continued
development in our
coastal areas and increasing
pressure on the ability of our
coastal areas to sustain their
ecological integrity.
If we are to deal with these
pressures more effectively,
we must begin to restructure
our traditional view of the
problem. There is no
question of the need to
maintain viable coastal
ecosystems. However, we
must take a hard look at the
notion that our coastal areas
must remain sparsely
developed agrarian and
resource-extractive areas. The
simple inertia of current
development will take us
well past that point during
the next decade.
Our coastal areas and their
people deserve a dynamic
and diversified economy. We
need not squander a viable
tax base on the waterfront by
restricting development
which need not harm the
environment but may simply
offend some people's notion
of a rural aesthetic.
Much of the debate about
the ability of our coastal
ecosystems to withstand
further growth has centered
on land-based residential
development and its
associated impacts. In our
East-Coast estuaries, water
quality degradation and
wetlands loss have been
attributed to this growth, and
the management focus has
been directed primarily at
land development.
However, coastal water
quality is much more
impacted by nutrient
overloading from agricultural
activity than from
development. Considerably
more wetland loss results
from the timber industry than
from development activity.
This is not to point the finger
elsewhere. It is to say that we
need to avoid attacking the
most convenient target and
instead begin to direct an
intelligent effort toward
managing the true impacts on
our coastal ecosystems.
We can begin, by
restructuring our thinking
about regulatory controls on
land development, which
often promote the ineffective
use of land. For instance, we
hear continually about the
"problem" of high-density
development. It is folly to say
that high density in and of
itself causes environmental
degradation, Poorly
conceived and implemented
regulation and development
cause environmental
degradation.
Alternately, increased
development densities can
provide the economic basis
for protecting critical habitats
and improving water quality.
Well-planned, high-density
development would
undoubtedly result in less
environmental impact than
the low-density response
which seems so innocuous
but in fact spreads
(Wells is senior Resource
Planner, King County,
Washington State.]
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
11
-------
development-associated
impacts over a much broader
area.
We need to:
• Hold development in the
coastal areas to the highest
possible standard
• Apply the necessary
scientific research to
understand where the true
problems are
• Let the developers meet
that high standard of
performance in creative
ways.
We cannot solve the
problem with the simplistic
solution of no growth.
Growth in our coastal areas is
going to occur. Our coastal
areas must maintain their
ecological integrity. Success
in managing this growth will
be measured in the next
decade by how creatively we
deal with these competing
visions.
Robert W. Knecht
fZucchino, President of
Paton/Zucchino and
Associates, a landscape
architecture/inn in Raleigh,
North Carolina, is a
con.su/tant to developers.)
More growth is possible
under certain conditions
in portions of U.S. coastal
regions. In this regard, three
caveats seem important to
me:
• Before any additional
development is contemplated
in coastal areas that are
already over-stressed, steps
should be taken to restore the
vitality of their natural
processes and their
environmental quality. For
example, the flows of
pollution into coastal waters
should be reduced and,
where possible, the ebb and
flow of tidal waters should
be returned to altered or
degraded wetlands and
productivity restored.
• Representative and
especially valuable but
vulnerable areas in coastal
regions should be identified
and set aside for long-term
protection as sanctuaries or
preserves for education,
research, and aesthetic
purposes. Development in
such areas should not be
allowed.
• Development permitted in
coastal areas should be
water-dependent (for
example, related to
recreational or commercial
fishing or associated with
coastal recreation or
traditional maritime uses)
and should serve the
broadest possible public
purposes.
As a general matter,
development that is allowed
in coastal regions should be
undertaken so as to prevent
disruption of natural systems
which keep areas biologically
productive and aesthetically
attractive. Further
deterioration of coastal water
quality should not be
permitted. Net loss of coastal
wetlands should not be
allowed. Modifications or
alterations that affect the
long-shore sediment drift or
the other systems such as
bulkheads that maintain
physically stable shorelines
should not be permitted.
Effective, well-enforced (and
well-supported) state coastal
zone management programs
are one way of ensuring this
type of sensitive coastal
development.
Coastal regions are a
precious national asset. As
the present-day stewards of
this resource, I believe that
our generation has a
responsibility to leave these
regions in at least as good
condition as we found them.
Certainly, our grandchildren
deserve the joy of a summer
day on a clean beach as
much as we did. Further
development of coastal areas
must be accompanied by
responsibility to repair the
damage of the past.
June Lindstedt-Siva
(Knecht is former Director
of the Coastal Zone
Management Program,
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric
Administration.)
As human populations and
their support systems
expand, natural ecosystems
are disturbed, contaminated,
or converted to other uses.
There is no area of the
country where this pressure
on natural systems is felt
more than on our coasts,
where marshes are converted
to marinas and airports, .sand
dunes lose their native
vegetation to off-road
vehicles, and nesting sites
used by birds and rest areas
used by seals and sea lions
are occupied by human
beachgoers. A marina may be
aesthetically pleasing, but it
is not a salt marsh.
It may not be possible to
have unlimited coastal
development of the kind that
destroys natural systems and
still maintain natural
populations. However,
development and natural
ecosystems can be
compatible. All "developed"
areas need not be written off
as lacking ecological value.
In fact, with careful planning
and multi-disciplinary
project management, it is
possible for many kinds of
development to preserve the
12
EPA JOURNAL
-------
ecological integrity and
functions of the surrounding
areas. The result may not be
pristine wilderness but can
often be a fully functioning
ecosystem with few real
ecological losses.
One example of
development that has
actually preserved natural
ecosystems and their
biological diversity is the
Guadalupe Dunes oil field in
coastal Santa Barbara County,
California. Although the field
has oil wells, pipelines,
roads, and some storage and
treatment facilities, most of
the area is maintained as
open space and public access
is restricted. The field has
become one of the few places
in the region where native
dune vegetation survives,
including some endangered
species. In fact, the dunes
outside the oil field have
been damaged by off-road
vehicles.
Similarly, in Kern County,
California, the oil fields are
the only remaining large
tracts of land in the San
joaquin Valley that have not
been converted to agriculture.
Here, too, native plants and
animals survive, among them
several endangered species.
The Camp Pendleton U.S.
Marine Corps Base in San
Diego County contains many
small wetlands that would
have been converted to
marinas and condos long ago
had they not been on a
federal military base. If lost
one by one, the wetlands
wouldn't have received much
attention. However, since so
many areas of wetlands
habitat have been lost in
southern California, the small
wetlands at Camp Pendleton
have become increasingly
important to the total coastal
ecosystem. Each year the
Marines "enhance" the
environment to increase
production of the endangered
tern gulls which nest there.
Since the birds prefer nest
sites with some protection
from the winds, heavy
equipment is run over the
beach leaving large tractor
marks. The beach is then
closed to all activity until
after the nesting season.
In these instances,
protection of natural systems
was an incidental byproduct
of the type of development
that occurred at the time the
projects were begun. Now
these natural systems are
protected systematically as
part of management planning
for the facilities. This
conservation by design must
be encouraged and
supported.
There are several kinds of
"development" that can be
made compatible with
natural systems. If we wish
to keep our native coastal
ecosystems, efforts should be
made to encourage and
permit those kinds of
development that maintain
the ecological integrity of the
natural system and to deny
permits for those that do not.
Careful environmental
planning and management
must be an integral part of
project siting, development,
and operation.
Vivian D. Newman
(Lindstedt-Siva is Manager of
Environmental Sciences for
Atlantic Richfield Oil
Company.)
We can have more coastal
development—and
ecosystems, too!
Just one thing,
though—first bring back Peter
the Great to carry out the
environmental controls. He
was the Russian tsar under
whose reign the penalty for
cutting down even a single
tree in the tsar's forest
(which today might read
ecosystems or public trust)
was summary execution,
with no exceptions made.
You might say he was
probably the last leader of
any nation to have truly
grasped the exigencies of
environmental law and order.
Of course, such methods
have gone out of style in
today's age of negotiated
conflict resolution and the
Executive Order on Takings
(which requires federal
agencies to assess the
economic impacts of federal
actions on private
landowners). Our modern
leaders and lawmakers have
embraced risk assessment
and growth management,
flaccid concepts dreamt up in
some office charged with
making discomfiting choices.
We live in the heyday of
legalistic wheeler-dealers
hired for princely sums to
cajole the professional
equivocators into settling for
zoning variances, permit
modifications, and mitigation
projects.
Daily compromises have
assured a steady flow of toxic
discharges, sediment,
nutrients, and floatables into
our waters. Obeisance to the
false idols of convenience
and greed all too often is
behind the ridicule of waste
reduction at the source and
organic no-till farming and
energy conservation as
laughable, possibly
dangerous notions. Befouled
beaches and polluted
shellfish beds attest to the
efficacy of today's tyranny of
small-minded
decision-makers who have
replaced the tyranny of an
energetic despot like Peter
the Great.
Coasts and wetlands
represent only a tiny fraction
of our total land mass, but
their incomparable riches are
not found elsewhere. The life
they have supported for
centuries—so miraculously
diverse and abundant—has
been a source of wonder and
self-replenishing usefulness
to human beings. But "live
simply, that others may
simply live" is a rarely hoard
credo today, especialh' when
it comes to the habitat of
humbler creatures; overriding
"public benefit" has altered if
not obliterated most of these
ecologically vital areas.
Let's face facts—it's simply
too late now even for Peter
the Great (harsh, draconian,
un-American as he may be
remembered) to restore what
was. But we must borrow at
least some of his governing
style if we wish to avert or
postpone the collapse of our
coastal ecosystems.
(Newman is Chair of the
Sierra Club's National
Coastal Committee.]
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
13
-------
Nathaniel Reed
Florida's coastline is the
focal point of tourism in
the state. Our failure to
manage coastal growth has
given rise to a multitude of
development-related
prohlems, including
inadequate hurricane
evacuation, erosion of
beach-front properties,
limited public access to
natural coastal areas, water
pollution, and destruction of
habitat.
Development has, for the
most part, failed to recognize
the physical constraints of
Florida's coastal zone. Our
estuarine systems share all
the problems plaguing
estuaries in highly urban
areas. Unmanaged growth
along these water bodies has
created conditions which
now threaten marine life.
Florida's past failure to
manage aquatic preserves and
regulate marina siting has led
to the destruction of critical
marine; habitat, including
seagrass beds. Poor
management also threatens a
number of endangered
species, including the
manatee.
Beaches and shores, which
play a critical role in the
protection and safety of those
who live on or visit Florida's
coastal barriers, are
especially vulnerable to the
impacts of development.
Seawalls and revetments
have replaced many
historical beach and dune
systems, preempting nature's
ability to provide upland
protection and to recover
from major storms.
Future growth must
recognize that Florida's
coastal areas should be
managed as a whole,
acknowledging that any
development activity
potentially affects the
physical processes of the
entire coastal ecosystem.
Florida's recent
comprehensive planning
initiatives, including a
special focus on coastal
issues, represent our attempt
to ensure that future growth
is compatible with the needs
and physical limitations of
the coast. State, regional, and
local plans address barrier
island development,
protection of habitat and
marine resources, and
enhanced intergovernmental
coordination, with the goal of
significantly modifying future
growth patterns in terms of
land use, densities, levels of
service, and resource
protection.
For Florida, it is not a
question whether there
will be or should be
additional growth in
sensitive coastal areas.
Instead, collectively we are
facing the challenge to
manage future growth by
abandoning past
development practices in
order to preserve and
enhance our remaining
coastal resources.
Jean Michel Cousteau
[Reed, a former Assistant
Secretary of Interior, is
serving as Chairman of the
Governor's Commission on
the Future of Florida's
Environment.)
I believe it is becoming
obvious even to economists,
industrialists, and developers
that nature's capacity to
accommodate human
intrusion and expansion is
limited.
Civilization cannot
continue to intrude on
coastal zones without causing
a decline in the health of
coastal marine systems.
Simply, there can be no
long-term maintenance of
coastal ecosystems, given
society's historical approach
to growth. I do believe that
there can be change and
improvement under a slightly
different perspective in
which growth is defined as
replacement rather than
endless expansion. Given the
limits of resources and space,
the expansion type of growth
usually exceeds the carrying
capacity of the environment
to assimilate human impact;
ultimately, natural
ecosystems are degraded or
destroyed.
A more sustainable strategy
can be found in nature where
ecosystems develop to
maturity through
successional stages and then
remain relatively stable. For
example, successional
development from a
grassland to a forest involves
an increasing complexity of
structure as the system grows
and accumulates biomass and
diversity. Similarly, villages
grow to become towns and
eventually cities as they
accumulate greater numbers
of people and dwellings.
Yet, in nature, growth
levels off as a forest
ecosystem reaches maturity.
This does not mean that
biological vitality ceases.
Rather, there is a dynamic
process of replacement and
innovation and the
development of more
integrated systems within the
community. Species become
heavily dependent upon one
another in cooperative
relationships which create
an integrated web of life.
In mature natural
communities, cessation of
growth is not accompanied
by stagnation. Instead,
growth is replaced by
specialization and a
progression toward a more
complex and, in human
terms, a more sophisticated
ecosystem. There can still be
growth but of a replacement
type. Growth in a mature
society can encompass
redesigning better systems or
products to replace existing,
less-efficient ones. Net
growth can be shifted to
replacement growth with a
long-range plan. Then coastal
areas can be developed while
their ecosystems are
preserved.
Increasingly, changes
toward improving the quality
of life have taken root, but
they must be pursued more
aggressively. We must opt for
quality over quantity and
unlimited growth. I am
certain that such a shift in
value will provide a higher
quality life with fewer
negative consequences than
our present unlimited growth
mentality, n
(Cousteau, the son of Jacques
Cousteau, is Director of The
Cousteau Society.]
EPA JOURNAL
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The Coastal Environment
Estuaries
by Tudor T. Davies
Willrsm C. Fran7 p/ioro.
Estuaries, by definition, are
where rivers meet the sea and
fresh water mixes with salt.
(Do vies is Dime-tor of EPA's Office, of
Marine and Kslimrim; Protection.)
Estuaries, by definition, are where
rivers meet the sea and fresh water
mixes with salt. This mixing makes
them among the richest, most
productive, and most intensively used
habitats on earth, accommodating a
uniquely diverse array of uses.
But the down side of this intense use
is now apparent as recent events
confirm that our coasts are profoundly
troubled. Oil spills, inedible shellfish,
and unusable beaches raise public
concern, but these are only symptoms.
The far deeper problems include toxics
contamination, eutrophication, pathogen
contamination, habitat loss and
alteration, and changes in living
resources. And underlying even these is
the most basic problem of all: too many
people and too much development are
overwhelming estuaries and coastal
environments.
Estuaries are often busy "Main Streets" of
our waters. Here, an oil tanker plies its
way through the Kill van Kull waterway,
which separates New York and New Jersey.
Toxic contamination doesn't occur
only in estuaries, of course. But
estuaries are particularly vulnerable
because they trap pollutants,
concentrating them to very high levels.
They also receive the accumulated silt,
toxic chemicals, pesticides, nutrients,
and pathogens discharged from
thousands of upstream sources. And
while these pollution sources may not
seem significant individually, their
aggregate impacts are immense.
Toxics such as heavy metals and
synthetic organic chemicals have
accumulated in such high
concentrations in sediments that they
now contaminate shellfish and
Si I'M Mlil H OClOBi H 1!)»'.)
15
-------
Going over the top. Here,
a heavily trafficked bridge
crosses waters near Puget
Sound in Washington
State.
Puget Sound Water Quality Authority photo
bottom-dwelling finfish, threatening the
entire food chain. Toxics have also been
linked to increased incidence of fish
disease and now threaten the health,
reproduction, and very survival of
coastal species. Flounder in Boston
Harbor have the highest rate of cancers
and lesions of any area on the East
Coast, and English sole from Puget
Sound are frequently riddied with liver
tumors.
We are also losing shellfish beds
because of pathogen contamination from
sewage and agricultural waste. The
entire eastern shore of Puget Sound is
now banned for commercial shellfish
harvesting due to contamination from
sewage treatment plant discharges,
combined sewer overflows, and urban
run-off. Twenty percent of the shellfish
acreage east of the Tappan Zee Bridge in
New York has been closed, and the
Long Island clam and scallop industry
has shrunk from $110 million to $40
million. In some pJaces, sewage
contamination has also been responsible
for outbreaks of hepatitis A, Norwalk
illness, and viral gastroenteritis among
shellfish consumers and even
swimmers.
Eutrophication is another major
concern. Nitrogen and phosphorus are
vital nutrients, but agricultural run-off
and effluent from sewage treatment
plants put too much nutrient content in
the water. These excess nutrients
stimulate explosive algae growth that
reduces the oxygen available for other
aquatic life. The lower the oxygen
levels, the fewer finfish, crustaceans,
and submerged aquatic vegetation that
can be supported.
Oxygen depletion, or hypoxia, is not
simply a change in chemical makeup; it
is a symptom of severe ecosystem stress,
and its frequency seems to be rising in
all our coastal areas. The Gulf of Mexico
takes in one-third of the nation's fish
landings; yet in 1985 alone, 8,000
square kilometers of the Louisiana shelf
went hypoxic. Extensive areas in the
Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, the
New York Bight, and Massachusetts Bay
are so oxygen-deficient that they can no
longer support fish and crustaceans.
These declines in fisheries and
shellfisheries and other changes in
living resources are closely linked to
massive development and ensuing
habitat destruction in coastal
environments. In the last few decades,
the scale of uses in estuaries has
expanded enormously. More important,
so has the number of users.
People don't live in bubbles. To
accommodate this growth, we build
roads through marshes, dredge, drain,
and fill wetlands, and divert essential
freshwater flow. We create housing
tracts, shopping malls, and sewage
treatment plants. In our desire to be
close the water, we are destroying the
unique habitats and living resources
that make it valuable to us.
Clearly, estuaries and coasts bear
enormous impacts from high population
densities and heavy industry. A recent
assessment to identify and target areas
that may need special management
attention found that more than 2,200
industrial facilities and wastewater
treatment plants now discharge directly
into estuaries and near-coastal waters;
thousands more facilities discharge
upstream. Other direct sources include
combined sewer overflows, commercial
shipping and recreational boating, oil
and gas platforms, marinas, and naval
and commercial port activities.
16
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Pollutants also enter estuaries from
nonpoint sources such as farm and
livestock run-off, lumbering, mining,
urban and suburban run-off, failing
septic systems, contaminated ground
water, leachate from hazardous waste
storage sites and landfills, and airborne
pollution. These diffuse sources
originate from a wide range of activities
within coastal drainage basins, which
can be geographically immense.
The watershed that feeds the
Chesapeake Bay, for example, stretches
from the Mohawk Valley of New York
in the North to the Appalachian
Mountains in the West and as far south
as North Carolina. Oil washed from the
streets of Twin Falls, Idaho, ends up in
the Pacific Ocean. Fertilizers washed off
the farmlands around Bismarck, North
Dakota, end up in the Gulf of Mexico.
The result is that despite years of effort
and billions of dollars, pollutant loads
entering estuaries and coastal waters are
still too much.
These conditions are threatening
estuaries' unique biological richness and
ability to support many beneficial uses.
Near-coastal fisheries account for
billions of dollars per year and more
than 70 percent of total commercial fish
landings in the United States;
recreational fishing generates $2.4
billion per year. Yet the economic losses
in these industries are increasing.
New Bedford Harbor in
Massachusetts, for example, has been
closed to fishing because of severe PCB
contamination. The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration has
conservatively estimated that the
community has lost over $2 million
from its lobster-fishing industry, $1.9
million from its recreational-fishing
industry, $14.7 million from closed
beaches, and $30 million from
decreased property values.
The ecological value of estuaries is
just as important as their economic
value. They provide critical habitat for a
wide range of commercially and
ecologically valuable species of fish,
shellfish, birds, and other aquatic and
terrestrial wildlife. Near-coastal waters
are particularly important as feeding
grounds for juvenile anadromous fish
such as striped bass, salmon, shad, and
sturgeon, as well as for young and adult
fish and shellfish that spend their entire
lives within 12 miles of shore. They
also support the great bulk of the
nation's clam, oyster, lobster, and
mussel harvests, and 100 percent of
blue crab, abalone, and bay scallops.
In our desire to be close to the
water, we are destroying the
unique habitats and living
resources that make it
valuable to us.
Estuaries provide yet other significant
values, such as their aesthetic appeal
and the unique and irreplaceable
species that inhabit them. Many species
of wading birds and wildfowl depend
on coastal wetlands and other
near-coastal habitats for food, breeding
space, or migratory rest areas. Seals, sea
lions, manatees, sea otters, and others
live exclusively in near-coastal areas.
These benefits are not necessarily
quantifiable, but they are priceless
nonetheless.
These conflicts among competing uses
and values have forced EPA to take a
broader view of coastal protection and
raised new questions about habitat
protection, resource management,
nonpoint-source pollution controls, and
land-use planning. Clearly, we must go
beyond the Agency's base clean-water
programs to a new focus on long-term,
comprehensive planning and
management.
Under the Water Quality Act of 1987,
Congress established the National
Estuary Program (NEP) to pioneer this
new focus. Congress directed the NEP to
identify nationally significant estuaries
threatened by pollution, development,
or overuse, and to promote innovative
management for addressing these
threats. Currently, 12 estuaries are
in the program. These are Buzzards Bay
in Massachusetts; Narragansett Bay in
Rhode Island; Long Island Sound in
Connecticut and New York; New
York-New Jersey Harbor in New York
and New Jersey; Delaware Bay in New
Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania;
Delaware Inland Bays in Delaware;
Albemarle/Pamlico Sounds in North
Carolina; Sarasota Bay in Florida;
Galveston Bay in Texas; San Francisco
and Santa Monica Bays in California;
and Puget Sound in Washington State.
Three characteristics distinguish the
NEP approach to addressing pollution
in estuaries. First, we target basin-wide
assessment of problems and causes.
Second, we integrate the use of all
available regulatory tools and clean-up
techniques addressing point-source
pollution, nonpoint-source pollution,
and coastal resource protection; an
example of this is EPA's new program
to establish requirements for
storm-water discharges. We will be
working closely on this effort, under
which a considerable number of coastal
municipalities will need to obtain
permits and minimize pollution from
their storm-water discharges.
Third, our approach incorporates
collaborative problem solving that
brings together all relevant government
agencies, public interest and user
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
17
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Pennsylvania has no ocean
coast, but agricultural practices
in the state definitely affect
Atlantic coastal water quality.
Pennsylvania farmers along the
Susquehanna and other rivers
are taking steps to reduce the
nutrients, including manure,
that drain into the Chesapeake
Bay, an estuary of the Atlantic.
Steve Williams p/iofo Penn Stale University
groups, and all other parties with an
interest in the estuary.
This approach can be tedious and
contentious. But it is starting to pay off
in terms of new attention and
commitments to estuarine concerns
from federal, state, and local agencies.
The Puget Sound Estuary Program, for
example, has had outstanding success in
focusing activities of various state
agencies to control toxic contamination
in the Sound. Its Urban Hay Toxics
Control Action Program has resulted in
the inspection of more than 380 sites,
monetary penalties, notices of violation
and orders for corrective action, and the
issuance of new and revised discharge
permits with more stringent effluent
limitations and monitoring
requirements.
In our Hux/ards Bay project, the
involvement of Massachusetts' Office of
Coastal Zone Management has served as
a model for linking its experience in
land-use issues with KPA's experience
in water quality. Similar activities are
underway in the other projects,
including use of natural and artificial
wetlands to control storm-water and
nonpoint-source pollution; improvement
of industrial production lines to reduce
toxics discharged in wastewater;
improved management of septic
systems; and development of land uses
that protect water quality.
Results like these are stimulating state
interest in joining the NEP. Estuaries are
chosen hased on their potential to
reflect and address issues of significant
national concern, as well as their states'
demonstrated institutional, financial,
and political commitment to supporting
a program. EPA may choose additional
estuaries for the NEP in response to
nominations from state governors or on
its own initiative in the case of
interstate estuaries. EPA has already
Estuaries are particularly
vulnerable because they trap
pollutants, concentrating them
to very high levels.
received a half dozen full-scale
nominations to the program, as well as a
number of serious inquiries about the
nomination process, and we expect to
include four new projects in Fiscal Year
1990.
For the 100 other major estuaries
along the U.S. coast that can't be in the
program, the NEP's role as a
demonstration program is especially
important. Estuaries share major
problems, and they can benefit from the
wide dissemination of successful
technical and managerial techniques.
The NEP is a young program, but we
have already learned an essential lesson
for dealing with environmental issues.
We've learned that coastal problems
share one critical common
denominator—intense coastal
development. Explosive population
growth is fueling a corresponding boom
in commercial, residential, and
industrial development, and this pattern
has generated increasing loads of
sediments, debris, toxic contaminants,
pathogens, and other pollutants.
Preventing further degradation will call
for a stricter, more protective approach
across a whole spectrum of activities,
and this can only happen with strong,
sustained public support.
Learning how to build public support
and understanding may well be the
NEP's most enduring legacy. The really
critical choices for our estuaries and
coasts are made by state and local
governments. We at the federal level can
provide leadership and technical
assistance; we can promote changes in
behavior, encourage innovations, and
focus resources. But the federal
government doesn't zone wetlands for
condominiums or barrier islands for
shopping malls and waterfront hotels.
These are local decisions, and it is clear
that the political and institutional will
to protect coastal resources must also be
local.
At a moment when the coastal
ecosystem faces irreversible damage, it
can be the NEP's contribution to offer
ready-made models of effective
environmental collaboration and
success. Q
18
EPA JOURNAL
-------
The Coastal Environment
Wetlands: An Interview with David Davis
Recently President Bush called for
"no net loss" of wetlands as a national
goal. What does that mean, both in
practical terms and for official policy?
J\ The no-net-loss goal the President
endorsed arose from findings and
recommendations made by the National
Wetlands Policy Forum, a group
representing a wide range of interests,
which EPA helped create. In the
forum's report, released last November,
the paramount recommendation was
that the nation set a goal of no overall
loss of wetlands in the short run, and a
net gain in the long run.
Shortly thereafter, in January,
then-EPA Administrator Lee Thomas
signed a Wetlands Action Plan in
which EPA officially adopted the goal of
no net loss. However, EPA has been
implicitly following that goal for quite a
few years. Using our role under Section
404 of the Clean Water Act (which
includes EPA veto power over activities
involving a discharge of dredged or fill
material into U.S. waters), we have been
trying to curtail wetland losses as
completely as possible.
And in effect, that is a no-net-loss
goal; it's just that previously we didn't
use that terminology. Having the
terminology sharpens the goal for us
and provides a way of accounting for it,
much like standard financial accounting
with debits and credits.
Arrow Arum growing in a coastal freshwater wetland near Williamsburg, Virginia.
(Davis is Director of EPA's Office of Wetlands Protection.)
Is the no-net-loss policy
specifically a tool for EPA?
ji\ Other organizations have also
endorsed the policy. The National
Governors' Association, the Association
of State and Interstate Water Pollution
Control Administrators, the National
Association of Counties and the
American Forest Council have endorsed
it. So it's not just EPA, and it's not just
the federal government, that support it.
In fact, I think it's important to note
that the Forum's recommendations were
made to all Americans, not just the
federal government or EPA. The
no-net-loss policy is essentially a goal
for our entire society to adopt.
It requires state, local, and tribal
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
19
-------
governments to do their parts. It
requires private citizens, in their
capacities as corporate people,
entrepreneurs, homeowners, and
landowners to do their parts as well. It
cannot be achieved and should not be
achieved solely by the federal
government or EPA.
because they are behind the dunes and
fed by ground or rain water, which is
fresh. Likewise, there are freshwater
wetlands just a short distance up major
coastal tributaries. There are also
forested coastal wetlands, such as
Florida's mangrove swamps.
Can developers find ways around
the no-net-loss goal?
/\ Well, yes, I guess you would have
to say they might try, although I don't
think they will necessarily feel
compelled to do so. The no-net-loss goal
grew out of a consensus process that
involved developers. In general, I think
developers recognized the new policy as
moving away from a system in which
each and every permit would be a
barrier to them. The process envisioned
by the Forum would look at
development proposals in the context of
the cumulative effects on wetland
ecosystems, with plans developed for
some gains and some losses that would
"net them out" over a larger area and
extended time period.
So, in effect, rather than creating an
additional restriction on development,
the no-net-loss policy gives a better
means of proceeding with
environmentally acceptable
development, then compensating for the
unavoidable impacts of that
development in ways that protect the
overall environmental resource.
I) How do you define a coastal
wetland? What makes it different from
other wetlands?
/\ The main distinction between
coastal wetlands and other wetlands is
that most coastal wetlands have salt or
brackish (a mixture of salt and fresh]
water, and most are tidal, while inland
wetlands are non-tidal and freshwater.
Coastal wetlands are an integral
component of estuaries. Since the
constant tidal action and high salt
content may create poor conditions for
the growth of some plants, many coastal
wetlands are salt or mud flats. But in
other areas hulophytic, or "salt-loving,"
plants thrive in coastal marshlands.
However, it is important to point out
that there are freshwater wetlands
within a stone's throw from the beach
What is the range of coastal
wetlands? Do they exist along the
Pacific Coast or in Alaska?
A Absolutely. They're everywhere
you find coastlines. They're going to be
different depending on whether you're
talking about the shallow, subtropical
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the
high-energy coasts of the Pacific
Northwest or New England, or the high,
cold latitudes of Alaska, particularly the
North Slope.
Historically, coastal wetlands
have sometimes been viewed as
expendable or worthless. Now we have
a truer understanding of their function.
What do you feel is the real importance
of a coastal wetland?
/\ First of all, here at EPA we don't
make a strong distinction between
coastal wetlands and other wetlands.
We're concerned with all wetlands, so
much of what I say would be equally
applicable to inland wetlands.
The values of wetlands are many, but
one primary value is their role as
wildlife and fisheries habitat. They
certainly provide homes, whether
permanent homes, migratory stopover
areas, or wintering areas, for a great
many types of birds and animals. They
provide important areas for spawning
and rearing of fish and shellfish.
The role of coastal wetlands as
fish-rearing and spawning areas is
critical because a great percentage of the
commercial fisheries of the Atlantic
and, to a lesser degree, the Pacific
depends on coastal wetlands for some
or all of their life cycle. Figures on this
vary, but some experts believe over 50
percent of the commercial catch in the
North Atlantic is dependent on
wetlands for some portion of its life
cycle.
A second important value of the
coastal wetland relates to water quality.
Wetlands serve as natural filters, much
like kidneys function in the human
body. They filter out certain kinds of
wastes, particularly nutrients, that flow
into them from polluted streams or
rivers and tidal waters. The plants, for
the most part, use these nutrients for
their own nutrition and growth, thus
cleaning up the water in the process.
but microorganisms growing on the
plants and in or on the bottom are
probably of equal importance.
Coastal wetlands also serve as places
where sediments are filtered out and
deposited, thereby removing some of the
sediment from the waters flowing into
or through the wetland. Of course, too
much sediment can be deleterious to the
wetland, but a certain amount is
actually necessary for the wetland's
health.
A third important value of the
wetland is storm and flood protection.
In coastal areas, wetlands often serve as
storm barriers. If you have a nice fringe
of mangrove forest, for example, along
the coast, that will significantly reduce
the impact of a hurricane coming
ashore. It will dissipate a lot of the
storm's energy. And since most people
don't build their houses in mangrove
swamps, wetlands provide storm buffer
zones that have low property values and
little or no human life to lose.
There are certainly other values of
wetlands as well. In areas where there
are a lot of wetlands, they seem to
provide certain climatic influences.
They can influence rainfall and
temperature in ways that are useful to
humans, because they tend to moderate
the extremes.
Wetlands also produce some
harvestable products such as wild rice,
shellfish, and finfish. In some cases,
wetland plants are used as a hay crop,
less so in the coastal areas—although
some coastal wetlands are still
occasionally used for haying.
(J How many coastal wetlands exist
inthe United States?
£\ Looking at U.S. wetlands resources
collectively, at least in the 48
contiguous states, we find that only
about five percent of our wetlands are
coastal. This amounts to less than five
million acres of coastal wetlands. So
with coastal wetlands we're dealing
with a very "minority" resource.
Except in Louisiana, most of the U.S.
wetland losses since the 1950s have
been non-tidal. However, before 1950, I
think wetland losses were probably very
high in coastal areas. At some point
they were probably the dominant loss
because that's where settlement first
took place, along the coastline.
20
EPA JOURNAL
-------
- •
Coastal wetlands, breeding grounds for fish and shellfish, are invaluable resources.
vj A recurrent theme in this issue of
EPA Journal is the mounting pressure
on marine coastal ecosystems created
by the influx of people and
development on our marine coastlines,
which you just mentioned. How has
recent development affected the coastal
wetlands?
/\ The general answer would be that
it affects the coastal wetlands in the
same way it affects the coast. Anytime
there is a buildup of population
pressure, construction, pollution, and
all the activities that coincide with such
development, wetland areas will be
affected. And because the wetland areas
are more fragile than other parts of the
coast and often have already been more
affected than other areas, they are
impacted more severely because they've
already suffered losses.
The only thing working for the coastal
wetlands is the fact that they often are
subject to more regulatory protection
than are the non-wetland areas such as
the beaches, sand dunes, or coastal
forests.
Also, I think in the past decade or so
we've turned the corner on encroaching
development. We haven't necessarily
brought the losses down to truly
acceptable levels, and we certainly
haven't stopped all coastal wetland
losses, but I think we have turned the
corner. Many coastal states now have
Speaking of losses, what are the
major reasons for coastal wetland loss?
I\ Losses were due primarily to the
development that coincides with
establishing cities and industry. Early
on, large wetland areas were filled
simply to build towns. These sites were
chosen because they were at the mouths
of major rivers which had navigational
value. And as nature would have it,
those areas tended to be wetland areas.
In more recent times, the loss of
coastal wetlands has been due to further
expansion and development away from
cities as we build industrial facilities,
marinas, navigation facilities, housing,
recreational facilities, and highways.
Every place there were wetlands, we
tended to fill them in or drain them to
get them out of the way.
Even with the regulations we have
today the problem remains that,
although individual wetland areas may
be intact and even protected in some
fashion, they are part of a larger system,
so they are very difficult to protect
totally. Certain coastal phenomena such
as estuary pollution from upstream
sources or from off-shore oil spills will
certainly affect the wetlands.
There is no way to fully protect the
entire coastal wetland area from all
types of assaults. You can't build berms
to keep the tides from washing
pollution into the area or you change
the whole system.
fairly strong laws protecting coastal
wetlands.
As a result, coastal wetland losses, in
many states are in the tens or hundreds
of acres per year, as opposed to the
overall national loss rate of total
wetlands, which is still in the hundreds
of thousands of acres per year.
Your answer — that we have
"turned the corner" in coastal wetland
protection — is somewhat surprising,
Would you say, then, that marine
coastal wetlands are not presently at
risk in a way that compares with
estuaries and other near-coastal
waters?
J\. When I say we have turned the
corner in terms of protecting coastal
wetlands, I mean this in relation to
non-tidal, or inland wetlands. The point
here is that the state, local, and federal
governments became concerned about
coastal wetlands long before they
thought about inland wetlands.
Some laws to protect coastal areas
were enacted in the early 1970s, such as
the Coastal Zone Management Act, the
Marine Protection, Research and
Sanctuaries Act. But we didn't get
serious about inland wetlands for the
most part until this decade.
Is there, for purposes of
development and regulation, sometimes
a quarrel about what a coastal wetland
is?
z\ Surely. And the quarrel hinges on
a couple of different things. One is ;i
biological question, about where does
the wetland end and the dry land
begin — which is something that even
professional biologists can disagree
over.
And then there are the legal or policy
questions. These have more to do with
whether the jurisdiction of a particular
statute or regulation extends to a certain
area. So, biologists might agree that a
place is a wetland, but the regulators,
for reasons concerning a particular
program's statutory limitations, say it is
not.
There's no absolute out there in the
world between the dry land and the
wetland. And that is the way Mother
Nature intended it, because the whole
concept of wetland or non-wetland is a
human construct. It's an abstraction we
have come up with. It's not something
that is always distinct in the natural
world, because we're dealing with a
continuum from very deep ocean
trenches to very dry mountaintops or
deserts, and we've got all gradations in
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
21
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between in terms of wetness, soil type,
temperature, climate, etc. Wetlands
occupy a place on that spectrum, but,
ecologically speaking, they don't have
firm, absolute boundaries.
Referring back to the no-net-loss
policy, does the policy imply that
coastal wetlands can be restored once
they are altered? Would it be physically
possible to create a coastal wetland to
make up for one that is being
destroyed?
/\ It's certainly physically possible,
and it's already been done. I think the
distinction that's important to grasp
here is that it's not easy to do, it's not
cheap, and the state of our scientific:
understanding and technological
capability is still such that we can't
guarantee that the wetlands we create
will have the same functions and value
as the ones we have lost.
We can approximate a wetland; we
can often satisfy ourselves in the
relative near-term, over the first two or
three years, that we have manufactured
a system that is at least similar to the
one that has been lost. But we don't
have enough experience to know
whether 20, 50, or 100 years down the
road the artificial system is still going to
be functioning. We don't know \s it will
provide the same ecological value as the
wetland we lost. Creating wetlands is as
much art as science. It's not something
that anyone and everyone can go out
there and do. It is also very costly.
Fortunately, we are somewhat better
at working with tidal marshes than with
inland wetlands because we have had
more experience and can learn from
past mistakes. Also coastal marshes are
influenced by predictable water
fluctuations caused by the tides whereas
restoring the water source to create
inland wetlands is generally more
difficult.
() What if a marine coastal wetland
islocated on someone's private
property and that someone wants lo fill
in the wetland and build a guest cottage
on the site? Do private property rights
prevail?
/v Private property rights prevail in
the sense that we don't take people's
land away, and they're still entitled to
use their land to the best of their ability.
However, private property rights do not
provide protection from regulatory
requirements. So all the federal, state,
and local regulations that apply to
public land also .ipplv to private land.
Private property rights are not a
shield behind which a property owner
By permission of the Daily Herald, Arlington Heights. Illinois
V
iifc-O^ W^W'
can therefore do whatever he or she
wants. The owner must still comply
with all environmental regulatory
controls and other requirements, but the
fact that an area is regulated under
public regulation does not take away
ownership and does not in any way
convey certain public benefits, such as
beach access.
If, using the example of the guest
cottage, a regulatory agency with
decision authority determines that the
cottage should not be built because of
impacts to the coastal wetland, the
individual would not be able to build it
in the wetland. But, by the same token,
we could not use that regulation to
create access for the general public to
that site for purposes of using the beach
or fishing or anything else. The rights to
keep private property private are not
extinguished by federal regulation.
(J Individual citizens may feel
helpless about the loss of coastal
wetlands. Is there anything they can do
to help turn the situation around?
/\ There is a lot the individual can
do. If you're lucky enough to be the
owner of coastal wetlands, you can do
your part by managing and protecting
your land in ways that ensure continued
health and vitality to the area. And
there are many information sources on
how to do that: state environmental
agencies, local environmental groups, or
your town hall are good places to start.
Also, there are incentive programs, like
tax relief or easements, to help make the
proper management more attractive.
Assuming most people are not coastal
landowners, they can do their part by
supporting local government programs
and initiatives through the ballot, public:
comment, and public participation in
the development and implementation of
wetland or estuary programs. And there
are also citizen activist groups that
research and collect data, disseminate
information, and lobby to protect coastal
wetlands within their communities. So,
as with any other environmental issue,
there is a role for individuals if they feel
strongly enough to take some action.
The coastal wetlands protection issue
does lend itself to public concern.
Coastal wetlands are a little more
tangible in some respects than air
pollution or hazardous waste. They are
places people want to go and experience
firsthand. They can see what they arc:
working to protect and preserve. This
makes people more concerned and
caring about the issue. 'J
22
EPA JOURNAL
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The Coastal Environment
Beaches
by Kathryn O'Hara
Hundreds of 30- and 55-gallon drums wash ashore on the Texas coastline annually.
About 20 percent contain hazardous substances or their residue.
The volunteers found a total
of 1,973,995 debris items
including nearly everything
imaginable ....
(O'Hara is Director of the Center for
Marine Conservation's Marine Debris
and Entanglement Program.]
Other articles in this issue of EPA
Journal focus on the problems
created by the influx of people and
development along our nation's coastal
areas. This article describes another
kind of influx—thousands of citizens
flocking to the beaches to participate in
a National Beach Cleanup during the
fall of 1988.
Some 47,500 volunteers participated
in the cleanup. Here's what they
accomplished:
• More than 3,500 miles of shoreline in
25 states and U.S. territories were at
least temporarily rid of nearly two
million pounds of beach debris.
• Detailed information on the types and
quantities of debris items found was
gathered on "Beach Clean-up Data
Cards," then compiled and analyzed to
assist in development of permanent
solutions to our nation's marine debris
problem.
• The National Beach Cleanup showed
how citizens, businesses, industry, and
government agencies—often in conflict
on coastal issues—can work together to
protect coastal areas.
National Beach Cleanup volunteers
found a total of 1,973,995 debris items,
including nearly everything
imaginable—from bedsprings and boats
to mattresses, munitions, and several
kitchen sinks. They even found 11
bottles with notes inside, including one
found in Connecticut with a note from
an author in France.
Plastics were by far the single most
abundant type of litter; approximately
62 percent of the debris collected was
plastic, far surpassing the items made of
glass, metal, paper, wood, rubber, and
cloth. The predominance of plastic is
not surprising, not only because of its
increasing use but also because it is so
lightweight and buoyant that it is easily
carried ashore by the currents. Equally
important, plastic is made to be durable;
so it has the potential to last much
longer than other materials in the
marine environment.
Over two-thirds of the 12 most
commonly found types of debris
recorded by the beach clean-up
volunteers were plastic. The 12 most
common items—the "Dirty Dozen of
1988"—included:
• 134,685 plastic fragments of larger
objects
• 125,725 small foamed plastic
(styrofoam-like) pieces
• 112,465 plastic eating utensils—cups,
spoons, forks and straws
• 99,847 metal beverage cans
• 95,807 foamed plastic (styrofoam-like)
cups
• 95,028 glass beverage bottles
• 90,998 plastic caps and lid.s
• 85,864 pieces of large paper items
• 78,025 plastic trash bags
• 74,672 miscellaneous types of plastic
bags
• 65,819 glass pieces
• 58,116 plastic soda bottles.
If just these items were eliminated,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
23
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Trash collected by just a few of the
47,500 volunteers in a fall 1988
national beach cleanup.
beaches would be at least 50 percent
cleaner.
Who is responsible for this trashing of
America's beaches? At least 16 percent
of reported items could be traced to
dumping by commercial ships,
petroleum industry operations, fisheries,
and recreational boats. This finding is
based on the number of "indicator
items" which were traceable to specific
debris sources. Such items include
As more and more people
move to coastal areas, and the
careless ones leave behind
their trash wherever they go,
how can the marine debris
problem be alleviated?
plastic fishing nets and cyalume light
sticks, for example, which are indicators
of debris generated by fisheries.
Hardhats and "write-enable protection
rings" are signatures for debris that
comes from offshore oil and gas
operations.
In addition, more than 1,000 items
were reported to have labels from
foreign countries—48 countries in
all- -from as close as neighboring
Mexico to distant places such as
Bulgaria and Japan. Much of this foreign
debris can be attributed to clumping by
the international fleet of commercial
ships. Ironically, the majority of these
particular items were empty bottles of
cleaning agents. Some volunteers also
found items such as plastic shampoo
bottles stamped with company names
that were traceable to passenger cruise
ships.
Fortunately, steps are being taken to
protect our coastal areas from trash
dumped at sea. On December 31, 1988,
an international treaty became effective
that halts dumping of plastic garbage
from ships at sea. Known as Annex V of
the International Convention for the
Prevention of Pollution from Ships (or
the MARPOL Treaty), the treaty
prohibits at-sea dumping of plastic
materials and regulates the distance
from shore that all other solid waste
materials may be dumped. It applies to
all ships of the 39 signatory nations.
The Marine Plastic Pollution Research
and Control Act of 1987 is the U.S.
implementing legislation for Annex V.
In U.S. waters no vessel of any size
(ranging from super-tankers to rubber
rafts) from any country may discharge
plastics within 200 miles of our
coastline. This should dramatically
reduce the amount of debris dumped at
sea that subsequently washes onto our
beaches.
What does beach clean-up data tell us
about land-based sources of debris, and
what does this mean with regard to
coastal development? One of the more
obvious sources of land-based marine
pollution is inadequate sewage systems.
Often cited as sources of bacteria and
toxins, sewage systems can also be
major sources of plastic and other solid
wastes.
Many of New York City's sewage
treatment systems, for instance, are
combined with storm water systems.
These "combined systems" mix raw
sewage with rainwater. Under normal
operating conditions these combined
sewage systems trap tens of thousands
of pieces of solid waste materials each
year, but during heavy rainfall their
capacities—often already overburdened
by increasing population pressures—are
exceeded. The overflow—untreated
sewage and accompanying solid waste
materials—is diverted directly into local
waterways.
Center for Marine Conservation photo
The presence of plastic tampon
applicators on beaches is often cited as
an indicator of the less visible
pollutants generated by sewer systems.
During the 1988 National Beach
Cleanup, 7,584 sewer items were
reported nationwide.
Although this is less than one percent
of all debris items reported, their
comparative abundance in some states
may reflect a coastal development
problem related to population increase
without a concurrent upgrading of
sewer systems. If coastal populations
increase without upgrading sewage
systems, such items as tampon
applicators, condoms, and other types of
sewage-associated solid wastes may
soon become a problem for nearby
shorelines.
Medical wastes have recently become
a visible type of debris in coastal areas
of the United States. In the National
Beach Survey, plastic syringes were
used as medical waste indicators. They
were found in all but two of the state
beaches cleaned up. While the 1,718
syringes reported amounted to less than
.'.1
EPA JOURNAL
-------
!
0.1 percent of the total debris collected
nationwide, cleanups conducted in New
York and New Jersey reported
approximately three times more syringes
than the national average.
New research suggests that most
syringes found during the summer 1988
were actually insulin-type disposable
units used by diabetics and often
discarded in toilets or trash. Since
sewage-associated wastes were also
prevalent in New York and New Jersey,
there may be a direct correlation
between sewage systems and medical
debris.
Less obvious than syringes, however,
are the untold quantities of man-made
debris that enter the ocean via rivers,
drainage systems, and estuaries. As
more and more people move to coastal
areas, and the careless ones leave
behind their trash wherever they go,
how can the marine debris problem be
alleviated in the face of growing coastal
development?
Some view degradable plastic
technology as a panacea. For example, if
62 percent of the trash on the beaches is
plastic, maybe that much of the total
problem will go away by itself! But
based on what we now know about
beach debris, this is not a solution.
From the "Dirty Dozen" list, we can see
that much of the debris on our beaches
is already in the form of fragmented
pieces. Degradable plastics will not help
to eliminate such items because
degradable plastics do not
disappear—they merely break down into
smaller and smaller plastic pieces.
Moreover, while the advent of items
such as biodegradable plastic six-pack
rings may help reduce the problem of
marine animals becoming entangled in
plastic devices, this does nothing to
mitigate the problem of ingestion of
plastic pieces by marine wildlife. In
fact, increased use of degradable plastics
may compound the latter problem.
Others consider recycling to be the
answer to the marine debris and larger
solid waste problem. A large portion of
the debris found on our nation's
coastline consists of beverage bottles
and other goods associated with
beverage packaging—plastic, glass,
metal beverage cans and bottles, plastic
six-pack rings, and metal bottle caps
and pull tabs.
Nationally, bottles and associated
items constituted approximately 17
percent of all debris reported. On the
state level, however, Oregon and
Connecticut had the lowest amounts of
such wastes. Both these states have
enacted "bottle bills" in which a deposit
of a few cents is added to the price of
the beverage. Since the deposit is
refunded when the container is returned
by the consumer, it is less likely that the
bottles will be thrown away.
Yet even bottle bills are not a
clear-cut solution if there is not
widespread public cooperation.
Delaware and New York have similar
laws, but the number of bottles found on
their beaches was higher than the
national figure.
Ultimately, the solution to the
problem of coastal debris requires a
change in people's behavior and
attitudes. Perhaps the very growth of
coastal areas, which further strains
coastal environments, may actually help
produce that change. As more people
move to our coasts, more and more of
them are realizing that the trash they
casually toss or leave behind does come
back to us, sometimes in very disturbing
ways.
Citizen beach cleanups are very
effective tools for increasing such
awareness and changing behavior. It's
hard to look at one's own trash in quite
the same way after spending several
hours cataloging someone else's! Beach
cleanups also foster a sense of
community stewardship for our coastal
areas, as growing numbers of citizens,
coastal businesses, and government
officials work together on such projects.
In short, citizen beach cleanups
demonstrate the power of the individual
to make a difference in attaining cleaner
beaches. D
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
25
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Are We Picking
the Right Targets?
by Harvey W. Schuitz
Coastal populations cause coastal
pollution. To get cleaner coasts,
given current population pressures,
shoreline communities must invest
substantial resources in water-pollution
control. But as the events of the summer
of 1988 show, coastal populations do
not easily acknowledge the problems
caused by their very presence. Without
comprehensive planning and concrete
priorities, clean-up efforts are
misdirected, resources squandered, and
real solutions delayed.
After state and federal funds for water
pollution control became available in
the 1970s, many communities in the
New York metropolitan area virtually
stopped routinely discharging raw
sewage into local waterways. But much
work remains. During storms, shoreline
communities in three states—with
hundreds of sewer outfalls ringing the
New York Harbor, the New York Bight,
and Long Island Sound—still discharge
untreated sewage and rainwater into the
marine environment. Various coastal
activities add floatable trash, and major
tributaries also carry pollutants from
inland areas.
The summer of 1988 offered an
excellent opportunity to build public
support for a regional plan to address
onshore sources of coastal pollution.
Public attention was riveted on the
beaches daily throughout the season.
Many days were marred by discoveries
of medical waste, rubbish, and dead
rats. Temporary increases in bacteria
levels were highly publicized, obscuring
general gains in water quality. Tourists
fled, consumers avoided seafood, and
local economies suffered. Fear of the
AIDS virus and the Greenhouse Effect
increased the sense of disaster. By
August's ominous heat wave, the public
was frightened and angry, desperate for
solutions, and eager to punish whomever
was responsible for a miserable summer.
(Schultz is Commissioner of the New
York City Department of Environmental
Protection.)
Throughout, "sludge" was the focus of
concern. The word "sludge" was
universally employed in reference to
any trash, grease, medical debris, or
other pollutant on the beaches. "Sludge"
was a label casually but firmly attached
to many different types of waste.
Elected officials and environmentalists
assured the public that a ban on "sludge
dumping" would cleanse the beaches.
The general public's confusion
over words only begins to
explain why slang, rather than
substance, guided national
policy.
Logically enough, at summer's end a
federal law was passed banning the
ocean disposal of "sludge" by 1992.
After the seasons changed and
tempers cooled, the distinctions among
different kinds of sludge began to be
acknowledged. The new law did
nothing to stop garbage and other
so-called "sludge" from polluting
beaches. It addressed an entirely
different type of waste—municipal
sewage sludge.
Municipal sewage sludge is the
meticulously refined byproduct of the
sewage treatment process. It contains no
trash or any other material that could
pollute a beach, and the federally
designated dump site 106 miles east of
Cape May, New Jersey, for sludge
disposal is in deep waters far from
coasts. New York City and other
communities in New York State and
New Jersey have disposed of sludge in
the ocean for 50 years with no effect on
the region's beaches, and the issue of
harm to deep ocean aquatic life has
never been substantiated by research.
Federal agencies testified before
Congress that the "106-mile site" was
safe in the short term, and a research
and monitoring commitment was made
to ensure its safe long-term use.
The new law requires municipal
sewage sludge to be moved from one
disposal medium to another, from water
to land. This resource-consuming
transition will cost hundreds of millions
of dollars, without doing anything for
the beaches. It has already, however,
caused considerable consternation in
inland communities that may be asked
to host new land-based disposal
operations. With pressing issues like
ground-water pollution, air pollution,
landfill space, and sludge transportation
unresolved, the environment gains no
overall benefit from the shift.
Despite a near-hysterical concern over
coastal pollution, nothing substantial
was accomplished after the summer of
1988, but significant resources were
diverted elsewhere. The confusion
between generic "sludge" and municipal
sewage sludge caused so complete a
separation of cause from effect, and
problem from solution, that no
meaningful action on the beaches was
possible.
One source of the intense confusion
was the simultaneous appearance of
different types of pollution throughout
the metropolitan region and beyond. In
May a lobsterman alleged that
municipal sewage sludge was harming
lobsters in New England, far from area
beaches. His story was widely
circulated, though he offered no
evidence, and no informed experts
backed him up.
By summer's end the beaches were
bombarded by other types of waste,
which were also called "sludge." The
word "sludge" lost its specific meaning.
It became slang for all beach pollutants.
To the general public—unused to
making distinctions between garbage
and sewage, and between raw sewage
and its treated byproduct—it seemed
that New York was dumping garbage at
the 106-mile site and that a ban on
"sludge dumping" was the solution.
However, the general public's
confusion over words only begins to
explain why slang, rather than
substance, guided national policy. The
26
EPA JOURNAL
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Greenpeace activists hung from New York's
Triborough Bridge in September 1988
during a week-long protest against oeean
dumping.
failure to recognize obvious differences
between various pollutants and
correctly identify the appropriate
clean-up methods was not confined to
the general public. Reporters.
spokespersons for environmental
groups, and elected officials, who have
ready access to experts and facts,
persistently entwined the 106-mile site
with beach pollution.
With the media, the confusion was a
natural result of the generally accepted
style of covering environmental issues.
Few reporters on the "sludge dumping"
beat sought the experts. Most paid little
attention to examining basic premises,
and too much to portraying the colorful
personalities who sought the media.
The focus on emotion over science
was exacerbated by New York City's
involvement. The city makes an
attractive villain when pitted against
newsworthy subjects like a crusty
lobsterman or daredevil protesters, who
obtained far more attention and
sympathy than researchers and
scientists who could have helped clarify
the issue.
The outreach efforts of environmental
groups also contributed to the
misdirection. National and international
attention focused on New York,
creating the opportunity to reach wide
audiences through publicity stunts.
Some groups were primarily concerned
with the 106-mile site and not with the
beaches, while others had the opposite
emphasis. Though well-intentioned,
their tactics emphasized drama over
accuracy and further inhibited the
public from grasping the issues.
Most importantly, elected officials
pushing for the new law refused to
acknowledge the true role their own
communities played. Behind the
confusion over words was a strong
resistance to admitting that coastal
populations still pollute their own
environs.
The stubborn existence of pollution
from onshore sources creates a dilemma
for communities vying for tourist
Pebecca Zilemigei photo, c Greenpeace
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
27
-------
Dumping sewage sludge at the 106-mile
site off the New Jersey coast. A newly
passed federal law will prohibit such sludge
disposal in the ocean by 1992.
Greenpeace photo
dollars, where the waters are portrayed
as clean and safe, and waterfronts are
heavily promoted for residential and
recreational use. Tourists avoid areas
where shortcomings in water-pollution
control facilities are openly discussed.
Prospective residents and businesses
hesitate to invest in communities that
need substantial capital infusions and
years of hard work to guarantee a
healthy environment and a strong
waterfront economy. But when coastal
communities fail to educate the public
on the true causes of their problems,
and fail to invest in their resolution,
then the pollution continues, and the
coastal environment eventually
declines.
To pursue environmental priorities
rationally, two things are necessary.
First, the public must be able to obtain
the facts needed to support long-range
regional planning. Government agencies,
environmental organizations, and
elected officials can work harder to help
clarify the issues, particularly in the
midst of a seeming crisis when
fundamental matters of fact become
confused. The media play an
invaluable role because the public relies
primarily on the media for information
about current environmental issues.
In New York City's recent drought
emergency, for example, many reporters
actively urged conservation and kept the
public up-to-date on reservoir
conditions, and their involvement was a
key factor in keeping consumption
down. Public education programs are
only effective when reporters dig behind
the emotions, personalities, and
publicity stunts, seek out the experts,
and lay out the basic facts.
Second, if the general public can
develop a concern for the global
environment, then elected officials can
discard the piecemeal approach and
commit to long-term goals. With vast
amounts of sewage sludge being moved
around the country, national policy is
needed on all disposal methods and
their relative environmental impacts,
and that policy must evolve from study
and research on a national level. The
problems we face are too massive, and
the solutions too costly, to dedicate
resources to short-sighted policies that
look good in news reports without
providing tangible benefits.
National policies are now being
formed on one of the truly significant
causes of coastal pollution: the
discharge of untreated sewage mixed
with rainwater during storms. These
combined sewer overflows are common
to all older cities. But no research has
been done on a national level, and there
are no quick solutions. As with the
"ocean dumping" issue, ill-informed
and hasty action on combined sewer
overflows can easily result in much
activity without any real
accomplishment.
Years of study and planning are
needed before combined sewer overflow
priorities can be identified accurately
and the needed facilities constructed.
Not all communities in the metropolitan
area, for example, even know where
their sewer outfalls are located. On the
other hand, New York City has spent
many years intensively studying its own
sewer system and has allocated $1.5
billion to reduce its combined sewer
overflows. Six projects in key tributaries
are already underway, and a seventh
project will commence later this year.
Along with this priority work, the city
is preparing for area-wide projects. Last
summer, the city also began a study of
every major potential source of floatable
trash in its waterways and beyond, the
first study of its kind in the nation.
New York's efforts will not cleanse
the entire metropolitan region. To
accomplish that, surrounding
communities must reinvest in their
sewer systems and treatment plants. In
the future, the region must examine
issues related to stormwater run-off,
which carries bacteria, trash, pesticides,
and other pollutants derived from
nonpoint sources.
Other sources of floatable debris,
ranging from recreational activities to
decaying piers, must be studied and
addressed on a regional basis, not by
New York alone. The cleanup of major
tributaries, and the possible need for
more stringent sewage treatment
standards, will also require years of
planning and large capital commitments
throughout the area.
In the summer of 1988 the battle cry
was: "Stop ocean dumping NOW!," with
little thought as to how the task was to
be accomplished or why it was
necessary in the first place. In reality,
the permanent solutions to coastal
pollution can arise only from careful
research and planning. Another few
years of thoughtless misdirection on the
coastal environment, and we will find
our population again turning inland,
away from the dirty waters, a
EPA JOURNAL
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A Forum
The Maryland Initiative: Lesson for the Nation?
In the early 1980s, several
reports were released
documenting severe problems
in the Chesapeake Bay and
its tida] areas, among them
nutrient enrichment, oxygen
depletion, Joss of submerged
grasses and fisheries, and
encroaching development.
Maryland legislators
responded by passing the
Critical Area Law in 1984.
The program mandated by
this legislation is considered
to be one of the most
extensive and innovative
coastal area protection plans
in the country.
The stated purpose of the
1984 law is to "restore the
quality and productivity of
the waters of the Chesapeake
Bay and its tributaries,"
which have suffered from
"the cumulative effects of
human activity." The law's
provisions focus on:
regulating further
development of the Bay area
through land-use policies
aimed at minimizing the
detrimental effects of growth;
Maryland passed a
controversial Critical Area Law
in 1984 to "restore the quality
and productivity of the
Chesapeake Bay and its
tributaries." Shown here is a
portion of undeveloped Bay
shoreline.
conserving wildlife habitats;
and controlling the water
quality problems caused by
pollutant discharge and
run-off from developed areas.
Specifically, the
Chesapeake Bay Critical
Area Law designated a
1,000-foot collar of land
surrounding the Bay and its
tidal waters as the "critical
area"—an area in which
development pressures and
frequent land-use changes
directly impact the Bay's
environment. (Technically.
the land beneath these
waters is also part of the
critical area.] Secondly, the
law created a 25-member
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
Bob Macomber photo
commission to set guidelines,
or "criteria," for
implementing the law at
county and municipal
government levels. These
commission members,
appointed by the governor,
represent developers,
landowners, state agencies,
and several county and
municipal governments with
land in the critical area. By
1986, a set of criteria crafted
by the Chesapeake Bay
Critical Area Commission
had been approved by the
state legislature.
Applying these criteria, all
counties and municipalities
within the critical area were
required to develop local
protection programs subject
to approval by the
commission. These programs
must include local zoning
and development plans for
minimizing the adverse
effects of growth, but the
counties and municipalities
retain some autonomy in the
process. The intent of the law
is to let land-use regulation
remain a local decision
while the state coordinates
overall protection of the Bay
waters.
Each local protection
program must have certain
features. For example, the
county or municipality must
identify and map, within the
critical area, agricultural
land, wildlife habitats, soil
types, endangered species
habitats, tidal and non-tidal
wetlands, forest areas,
streams, and fish-spawning
areas. In addition, the county
or municipality must classify
land within the critical area
according to its level of
development using formal
categories established by the
commission:
• The first category is
Intensely Developed Areas.
These areas are already
intensely developed
residential!)', commercially,
or industrially, and they
have minimal natural
29
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William D. Schaefer
habitat. Further development
must take into account
current and future pollution
and run-off problems and
minimize them. Any new
development should, when
possible, be clustered in
previously developed areas.
Also, man-made, impervious
surface area must be kept to
15 percent or less of the
development site.
• The second category is
Limited Development Areas.
These areas are
light-to-rnoderately
developed, but still contain
areas of natural habitat. New
development must take
measures to protect the
natural habitat areas, forest,
woodlands, and streams and
to maintain slopes with over
15-percent slope. In addition,
as with the Intensely
Developed Areas, the
man-made, impervious
surface area must be 15
percent or less of the
development area.
• The third category consists
of Resource Conservation
Areas. These areas are
dominated by wetlands,
forests, fishery activities,
aquaculture, and agricultural
activities. Only residential
development is allowed, and
it must be consistent with all
measures for Limited
Development Areas and
limited to one dwelling per
20 acres. No new or
expansive commercial or
industrial development is
allowed.
The criteria developed by
the commission also
designated three goals for
managing and restoring the
water quality of the
Chesapeake Bay. First,
counties and municipalities
should reinforce and bolster
existing state sediment and
stormwater control programs.
Second, forest areas in the
critical area must be
preserved and enhanced
because they play an
important role in filtering
run-off. Third, all
agricultural areas must
implement soil conservation
and water quality plans.
In addition, to help protect
water quality by filtering
run-off, the commission
designated a minimum,
100-foot wide "buffer zone"
consisting of trees and dense
grasses on land immediately
adjacent to the Bay. The
buffer must be preserved if it
exists; if there is no buffer,
one must be created and
maintained.
Despite heated debate
among the four constituents
of the program—the
legislature, the commission,
counties and municipalities,
and landowners—of the 16
counties and 44
municipalities affected by
the law, all but two counties
have local protection
programs in place. The
commission is currently
working with these counties
to develop a plan for them.
For this forum, EPA
Journal asked six people
concerned with the law to
answer the following
question: do the land-use
controls in Maryland's
critical area protection
program represent an
effective approach to
protecting coastal resources?
Their responses follow:
The Maryland General
Assembly made a bold
decision in 1984 when,
under the leadership of
former Governor Harry
Hughes, it enacted our state's
Critical Area Law. This law
reinforces Maryland's
commitment to protecting its
natural resources by
requiring controls and
specific land-use techniques
in sensitive areas.
Maryland's critical area
program is unique, both in its
goals and its organization. It
is unique because of its
emphasis on local leadership
and participation. Each
county adopts its own growth
management plans for areas
within 1,000 feet of the Bay
and its tributaries. Counties
also enforce their decisions
through local ordinances.
The state's role is to set the
guidelines and ensure
compliance, not to dictate
local policies. This approach
has not only fostered
cooperation between state
and local officials, but has
produced excellent plans in
each county.
To my mind, the program
makes sense environmentally
and economically. The
program is fundamental to
the state's Chesapeake Bay
restoration effort. For
instance, the 100-foot buffer
zone ensures essential habitat
for wildlife and acts as a
filter, absorbing sediment and
soaking up pollutants that
can harm the Bay.
The critical area legislation
has also set a precedent for
teamwork. Many caring
people and groups have
dedicated their talents and
energies to ensuring a
balanced and equitable
approach to the program.
Farmers, foresters, builders,
developers, realtors, and
homeowners, as well as local
officials, are working together
to plan for Maryland's future.
We have already learned a
great deal from our
experience with the critical
area program. The Non-tidal
Wetlands Protection Act,
passed by the 1989 General
Assembly, is a national
model for environmental
concern. This new law builds
on the precedent set in the
Critical Area Law and
establishes a net gain in
wetland acreage in Maryland.
As we face the challenges
that lie ahead, we will
continue to draw from the
critical area program as a
model for effective land-use
control and planning.
Protecting Maryland's
environment and the
Chesapeake Bay is an
immense challenge. It will
take teamwork, ingenuity,
and hard work by all of us.
But we can do it. The Critical
Area Law is a very good first
step in managing and
directing environmentally
feasible growth and
protecting one of Maryland's
most valuable resources, the
Chesapeake Bay.
(Schaefer is the Governor of
Maryland.]
30
EPA JOURNAL
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George Sheehan
Sarah J. Taylor
Even in the development
industry, most people
agree with the state of
Maryland's laudable intent in
the Critical Area Law. The
criticism of the law within
that industry, however, is a
result of the law's inequitable
targeting of and impact on
the development industry.
There are basic issues in the
law that deserve
reconsideration.
First of all, housing is no
less a vital necessity to life
than is farming or
employment. Yet, of all the
recognized contributors to
the problems of the
Chesapeake, the housing
industry is by far the most
severely restricted activity.
Ninety percent of the land
area within the critical area
is, for all intents and
purposes, removed from
inventory as available land
for housing by its being
designated as a Resource
Conservation Area —
i.e., one unit per 20 acres.
Agriculture, on the other
hand, is specifically
described in the legislation as
a preferred land use, despite
its significant pollutant-
loading of the Bay. Farming,
while subject to minor
restrictions, is permitted, and
even encouraged, for the
totality of the land within the
designated critical area. To
the extent that housing is
permitted in the small
percentage of the critical
area, its development is
further restricted by the
regulations adopted under
the law, including the
requirement of buffers from
100 to 300 feet wide, as
opposed to a "25-foot
vegetated filter strip" for
agricultural purposes.
Second, the housing
density of one unit per 20
acres in the Resource
Conservation Area is an
inappropriate and
unnecessarily restrictive
requirement. The single
rationale used by the
commission in adopting the
20-acre rule was based on
data provided by the
Maryland Department of
Assessment and Taxation,
purportedly showing that
agriculture required a
minimum of 20 acres.
Preservation of farmland is
not, ostensibly, the primary
goal of the law; protection of
the Bay from degradation is.
If you were to take 100
acres and build five houses,
each separated by 20
acres, it doesn't take much
imagination to understand
the amount of roadway
necessary to serve those five
houses. On the other hand, if
you have that same 100
acres, and you clustered, for
example, 40 units on 10 of
those acres, it is easy to
imagine the reduction of road
surface, the increase in
absolutely undisturbed area,
and the significantly
favorable economic impact
on housing costs.
Finally, in many cases, the
implementation of the
Critical Area Law is
confiscatory in nature, with
no provision for
compensation of property
value taken. In an actual case
example, a developer (who
had owned the subject land
for 30 years), applied for and
obtained, in 1976, local
governmental approval for a
large residential and
industrial park community—a
portion of which was located
on the shores of a Bay
tributary. The developer then
began the project, investing
millions of dollars in the
roads, utilities, and other
services necessary for such
an undertaking.
This investment was, of
course, based upon the
developer's reasonable
assumption that the land
would yield the number of
homes and acres of industrial
park previously approved.
Eight years later, with the
arrival of the Bay legislation,
the developer suddenly
found the ongoing and
successful project in financial
jeopardy. Almost 20 percent
of its previously available,
but yet to be developed, land
had been designated as
Resource Conservation Area.
Revenues lost will probably
exceed $8 million.
Legislation passed in the
heat of debate, more often
than not, requires
reexamination and
amendment after time
provides experience and
teaches us lessons.
Maryland's Critical Area Law
appears to fit this pattern.
Canada Geese are frequently
seen foraging on farmers' fields
in the Chesapeake Bay area.
(Sheehan is former Chairman
of the Critical Area
Committee of the Mary/and
Hornebuilders' Association
and currently Vice President
of American Landmark
Homes.)
Has Maryland's Critical
Area Law been effective?
Looking back over five years
of recent experience, I would
have to answer, "Yes, but
only if . . . ." You have not
lived until you try to develop
a set of guidelines, or
controls, to direct and
manage land use for the
protection of a resource or
critical coastal area. The
effort becomes a highly
visible and unpopular one,
and no one is fully content or
happy when the effort is
finally completed.
In order for land-use
controls to be successful in
protecting a resource, five
essential ingredients are
needed. First, there must be
an overall strategy that
addresses every land use that
affects and impacts every
interest. Farmers, foresters,
realtors, developers,
conservationists.
environmentalists, industry.
the legislature, and everyday
citizens must be involved in
the development of the
guidelines or controls.
Every interest must
perceive other interests as
having to "give up
something" dear to their
hearts to protect that
resource. How often have wo
heard, "It's the farmers'
fault!" or "It's the city's fault
with its sewage and
industrial dumping that
degraded the critical coastal
area!" We must stop
fingerpointing and take
responsibility for our own
actions.
Second, there must be a
tandem effort to restore
declining resources and to
handle specific problems.
These efforts could include
programs to replant
disappearing underwater
grasses or to upgrade failing
sewage treatment plants,
Land-use controls are not the
panacea for resource
protection; they are a part of
the overall picture. Reducing
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
31
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Joe Stevens
sediment run-off does not
necessarily guarantee that
underwater grasses will grow
and flourish. However,
planting of grasses coupled
with a reduction in sediment
may attain that result.
Third, there must be
federal, state, and local
coordination to see that these
controls or guidelines are
carried out. This is important
because federal laws and
programs influence state and
local land use, such as
federal funding for sewers
and flood insurance. In too
many cases, federal policies
dictate land uses sometimes
to the detriment of state
policy. State governments
must establish their own
programs, setting up a
framework upon which local,
state, and federal decisions
must be based. All levels are
essential: the federal for
funding and broad-based
policies; the state for the
overall framework; and the
local because that is where
decisions are made as to
what use goes where and
how it is to be designed or
managed. In fact, any
land-use control program
should require that local
Tylci Camptiell pholo
codes, ordinances, and
regulations be changed to
reflect the state's standards.
Fourth, land-use controls
will only be effective with a
continual effort to educate
the various interests and
publics. It is essential that
people know why they must
plant trees, reduce
impervious surfaces, or
maintain a protective buffer
between an activity and a
resource.
Finally, land controls are
only as good as they were
envisioned to be. Situations
change, and implementing
some controls may not result
in the protection of a critical
coastal area exactly as
envisioned. Reassessing and
evaluating becomes essential
to the overall effectiveness of
these controls, and all
interests and levels of
government must actively
play a role in making sure
that specific approaches are
still applicable.
The critical area program
has had several positive
effects. For instance, the
program has forced many local
governments and planning
departments to make a
serious evaluation of the
adequacy of existing
standards for protecting the
environment and managing
growth. Until the
implementation of local
critical area programs, many
rural jurisdictions around the
Bay had only minimal
planning programs and
land-use regulations. Many
local ordinances had
remained almost unchanged
since the late 1950s and early
1960s. The program has
provided both technical and
financial assistance to local
governments to help them
become more effective in
protecting the environment
and managing growth for the
entire county, not just in the
critical area.
(Taylor is the Executive
Director of the Chesapeake
Bay Critical Area
Commission.)
The critical area program
does, however, have serious
flaws which impact the
effectiveness of many of the
Chesapeake Bay clean-up
programs.
The first of the program's
flaws is the assumption that
managing development
activities within 1,000 feet of
tidal waters will have
anything but minimal impact
on water quality. The
nonpoint sources of pollution
reaching the Bay can only be
reduced through management
on a watershed basis. The
EPA studies conducted on
the Bay during the 1970s
clearly identified farming as
a major source of nonpoint
pollution within the
watershed. Ironically,
farming is noted as a
"protective" land use for the
waters of the Bay by the
Critical Area Law. Until
management standards are
implemented for agricultural
uses and land development
on a watershed-wide basis,
there will be minimal
improvement on nonpoint-
source pollution.
The criteria developed as a
result of the Critical Area
32
EPA JOURNAL
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Saunders C. Hillyer
Law attempt to address both
growth management and
environmental concerns, but
they cannot adequately
address growth management
issues on the present
1,000-foot basis. A density
limitation of one housing
unit per 20 acres, as imposed
by the criteria, has very little
relationship to water-quality
improvement and might be
considered a growth
management tool.
The criteria should be
more focused on technical
means for improving water
quality and protecting
wildlife habitat. Regional
growth management should
not be addressed in an
environmental protection
program.
For all practical purposes,
the program acts as a zoning
ordinance for that land area
within the 1,000-foot
boundary. The program
regulates zoning, land use,
density, and bulk of all
development. The critical
area criteria are not
equipped, however, to
effectively regulate such
issues. The criteria lack
adequate definitions and
procedural requirements to
implement effective overlay
zoning requirements. The
program should be more
concerned with the impact of
land uses rather than actual
use.
The program has
established several
performance standards
protecting important wildlife
habitat and limiting
disturbance. But by strictly
limiting development
potential along the Bay, it
has generated considerable
controversy. Although a great
deal of attention has been
focused on these issues,
proportionately the benefit to
the Bay will be minimal.
Unfortunately, the critical
area program has directed the
focus away from more
immediate and costly
problems such as sewage
treatment plant upgrading
and land-use management on
a watershed basis.
Although the program has
been in place since 1986, it
has not been changed. It is
time to constructively
criticize and revise the
program in order to make it
more effective.
(Stevens is the director of the
Queen Anne's County
Department of Planning and
Zoning.]
Due to disease and
over-harvest, Chesapeake Bay
oyster beds are severely
depleted.
The Maryland critical area
program, considered at
this early date in its
implementation, must be
tentatively judged a success.
Nearly all local jurisdictions
now have local protection
programs in place, approved
by the state's Critical Area
Commission, and that alone
is an accomplishment. The
most strictly controlled
subset of land within the
critical area, the Resource
Conservation Area, comprises
a total of 515,269
acres—another impressive
measure of achievement.
But there are reasons to be
cautious in judging whether
the program will be fully
adequate in the long run.
First of all, the criteria
established by the
commission for
implementing the Critical
Area Law at county and
municipal levels have a
number of loopholes, the full
significance of which is not
yet clear. Many of these
loopholes represent
deliberate compromises built
into the criteria through the
give-and-take of the political
process. However, many
other loopholes are
accidental, and these are now
emerging as the program is
being implemented in
Maryland's various counties
and municipalities.
For example, there are
intentional loopholes
concerning development in
the Resource Conservation
Area. Within this formally
designated area, thousands of
subdivided land parcels of
less than 20 acres were
"grandfathered-in," but we
do not know exactly how
many. Many of these
individual land parcels were
hurriedly created by
landowners who rushed to
subdivide before the criteria
set by the Critical Area
Commission took effect. In
general, development within
the Resource Conservation
Area must be limited to one
dwelling per 20 acres;
however, this will not
preclude the construction of
houses on these
"pre-existing" land parcels of
less than 20 acres.
In addition, the critical
area program criteria contain
"growth allocation"
provisions whereby,
according to a given formula,
each county may convert five
percent of its Resource
Conservation Area either to
Limited Development Area or
Intensely Developed Area.
As a result, islands of
development can be expected
to pop up in the midst of
land that most people now
consider to be protected for
agriculture or other
open-space use.
It is not unusual for
accidental loopholes to show
up in the first few years of a
new regulatory program,
when unforeseen questions
tend to arise. This is
happening now with the
Maryland critical area
program, and new questions
keep coming up every day.
For example, is a golf course
permissible in the Resource
Conservation Area? Can
septic systems be built in the
Resource Conservation Area
that service houses outside
the critical area? In the long
run, the case-by-case
resolution of these and
innumerable other questions
will significantly affect the
overall success of the
program.
Moreover, it will not be
possible to pass final
judgment on the long-term
success of the program until
local governments and the
commission have established
a clear track record regarding
the strict enforcement of the
local protection programs
now in place. If special
exceptions and program
amendments are routinely
granted, we will be back to
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
33
-------
Gerald W. Winegrad
"business as usual," and the
program will fail.
But perhaps the most
important point is that
Maryland's critical area
program is winning political
acceptance for the concept
that the state has a leadership
role to play in land-use
planning. The various myths
about land-use regulation
that clouded the birth of the
program are now being
dispelled; much of the
political opposition to the
program has been quieted.
This opposition was largely
based on misperceptions
about the effects of the
program on development and
property values. Many people
feared that all development
would be squelched and
property values in the critical
area would plummet. On the
contrary, considerable
development is allowed, and
recent studies have shown
that the value of land in the
critical area has appreciated
at a higher rate than property
outside the area.
Clearly, the use of land
anywhere in the vast
watershed of the Chesapeake
Bay—not just within the first
1,000 feet inland from the
shoreline—has the potential
to degrade water quality in
the Bay and to destroy
important habitat. This is one
reason why, in the long run,
comprehensive regional
land-use planning will be
needed to provide a viable
growth-managment strategy
for Maryland. The critical
area program does not
purport to be this kind of
comprehensive program.
However, in addition to
accomplishing some
important immediate
objectives, it may serve as a
valuable stepping stone to a
more broad-scale
land-management strategy in
the future.
One of the world's most
productive estuaries is
experiencing a significant
decline in many of its living
resources. The great
Chesapeake Bay, called a
"protein factory" by H.L.
Mencken, has experienced a
drastic drop in key fisheries,
moratoria have been imposed
for taking and possession of
striped bass and shad, and
the oyster fishery is at its
lowest ebb.
A 1983 interstate
agreement brought EPA,
Maryland, Virginia, and
Pennsylvania together in a
coordinated effort to clean up
the Bay, and over $400
million has been spent on
initiatives to deal with
pollution sources. But
continued population growth
and sprawl may undo the
Bay clean-up strategy. The
reluctance or inability of
county and municipal
governments to effectively
manage growth and limit or
prevent development of
sensitive areas led to
Maryland's Critical Area
Law.
Critics have charged that
the law and the criteria that
Maryland's Chesapeake Bay
Critical Area Commission
established for development
are unfair and prevent
growth. The criteria
governing the critical area do
not prevent development;
they do, however, limit
development, and what
development occurs must be
accomplished in an
environmentally sensitive
fashion. Even a strict
interpretation of the criteria
allows for the construction of
over 65,000 new housing
units, without considering
(Hiiiyer is Director of the
Lands Program at the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation.]
the exemption for lots
subdivided before the law
was enacted. This hardly
prevents growth.
The Critical Area Law is
the most controversial piece
of the state's massive Bay
clean-up plan. Land-use
decisions have long been
regarded as the exclusive
prerogative of local
government and private
landholders. But
former Governor Harry
Hughes and a Maryland
legislature formerly
committed to protecting local
land-use policies, recognized
the need to take action to
prevent land abuses of the
past from being repeated in
the critical area. The
legislation was
overwhelmingly passed over
the protests of organized
groups representing the
counties, realtors,
homebuilders, and the
Chamber of Commerce.
Despite resistance from
many local governments, the
law is working. Development
has been restricted, and any
development that occurs is
carefully scrutinized to
assure that the stringent
criteria developed to enhance
water quality are met.
Maryland found it absolutely
necessary to enact land-use
controls on some of our most
desirable and expensive real
estate because of the
realization that population
growth and related
development could overcome
our major efforts to restore
the Bay.
But still, critics argue that
residential development is
necessary to increase
revenues for local
government. This myth can
be put to rest; analytical
studies conducted throughout
the United States indicate
that residential development
is a net revenue loser.
Maryland counties are
already imposing impact fees
in recognition of this. A
study of Loudoun County,
Virginia, indicates that for
every $1 in new residential
tax revenue, $1.28 in services
are required. All taxpayers
must pay the cost of new
schools and roads to service
development.
Population growth, sprawl,
and development must be
limited and restricted if we
are to reverse the decline in
the Chesapeake Bay and all
of our U.S. coastal resources.
With the influx of people and
development to coastal areas
that is a recurrent theme in
this issue of EPA Journal, it
is no mere coincidence that
our coastal areas, including
the land adjoining the great
Chesapeake Bay, have the
greatest population
concentrations and the
greatest water quality
problems.
Further development must
be placed under stringent
environmental controls to
prevent the loss of forest
cover and wetlands and to
prevent the significant
increase of point and
non point-source pollutants.
The Critical Area Law
provides for growth
limitations and
environmentally sensitive
development in a 1,000-foot
zone around Maryland's
portion of the Chesapeake
Bay. The law works, but the
designated critical area needs
to be extended beyond 1,000
feet to further protect
Maryland's rivers and the
Chesapeake Bay. We face no
greater environmental threat
than that of overdevelopment
and sprawl, o
(Winegrad is a Maryland
State Senator from Anne
Arundei County and chairs
the Senate Subcommittee on
the Environment.)
34
EPA JOURNAL
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A View from Congress
by Gerry E. Studds
Two years ago, the House of
Representatives Subcommittee on
Fisheries and the Environment, which I
chair, began a series of hearings on
pollution of our nation's coastal waters.
We wanted to find out why, 16 years
and billions of dollars after passage of
the Clean Water Act, coastal water
quality seemed not better, but worse.
From Puget Sound to Boston Harbor,
the story was the same—trashed
beaches, poisoned waters, contaminated
fish. How could this be? Who is
responsible? What can be done?
We were not out to finger villains, but
to define problems and explore possible
solutions. In fact, rather than villains we
(Studds (D-Mass.J chairs the
House Subcommittee on Fisheries and
the Environment.)
We found that the nation's
capacity to regulate coastal
pollution is being outstripped
by its capacity to create
coastal pollution.
found only good intentions that had run
into brick walls of demographic,
budgetary, and political reality.
We found that the nation's capacity to
regulate coastal pollution is being
outstripped by its capacity to create
coastal pollution. Americans are moving
to the coasts, bringing with them their
automobiles, their garbage, their sewage,
a certain amount of carelessness, and
their needs for ever-increasing
commercial, residential, and
recreational space. By the year 2000,
two million more people will move into
areas along the Chesapeake Bay, enough
to populate two new cities the size of
Baltimore.
This fact alone confirms what the Red
Queen said to Alice in Wonderland: it
will take all the running we can do just
to stay in place!
We also confirmed the obvious:
stopping pollution costs money, and
nobody, especially the federal
government, has enough. It will take
tens of billions of new construction
dollars over the next decade to give our
sewage the treatment it deserves. In
addition, state and local governments
will need many more millions for the
enforcement, monitoring, and research
required for effective regulation of
existing and future industrial waste
discharge.
The hearings also disclosed how littli;
we really know about coastal pollution,
Estuaries and near-coastal
waters are plagued with
pollution from industrial and
wastewater outfalls, as well as
combined storm and sanitary
sewage overflow systems.
fcj
«• J^i*.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
years of federally funded research
notwithstanding. The fact is we know
very little about the source or extent of
the pollutants that are degrading our
coastal waters. Without such
knowledge, it is impossible to formulate
meaningful water quality standards and
implement effective pollution control
efforts.
We were told, also, that our laws are
not working the way they should. For
too long, the focus has been on cleaning
up rivers, while estuaries, harbors, bays,
and sounds have been ignored. EPA has
been slow to perform needed technical
work and timid about pressing states to
set water quality standards. As a result,
most states have failed to establish
standards for most pollutants, and the
state standards that do exist are often
vague and meaningless. Some
midwestern states, for example, bar
toxics "in toxic amounts" from the
waters of the Great Lakes. EPA has
accepted that vague standard as
adequate to ensure "fishable" waters.
Nevertheless, government health experts
are telling us not to eat some Great
Lakes fish.
Finally, we learned that a major
source of coastal pollution—perhaps the
single greatest source—isn't regulated at
all. Unimaginatively and inaccurately
described as "nonpoint-source"
pollution, it comes not from sewer pipes
but from urban streets, construction
sites, farmland, and even from the sky.
It may be responsible for 50 percent of
the toxics that end up in our coastal
waters.
Following the hearings, the
Subcommittee published an oversight
report entitled CoastaJ Waters in
Jeopardy, which documents what we
learned about the problems and how
some of them might be alleviated or
solved. One focus of the report is on the
need to encourage states to analyze
proposed development in or near
coastal areas in terms of its impact on
water quality, fish and wildlife habitat,
and wetlands. As a related matter, it is
also imperative to stop government
For too long, the focus has
been on cleaning up rivers,
while estuaries, harbors, bays,
and sounds have been
ignored.
subsidies for development in the most
environmentally fragile coastal areas.
(After all, if Mother Nature had wanted
casinos and high-rise hotels on our
coastal barrier islands, she would have
put them there.)
Our findings also suggest that funding
needed for construction of new and
better sewage treatment facilities really
can't be conjured up by the U.S.
Treasury, but might better come from
fees assessed against all those, except
municipalities, who discharge potential
pollutants into coastal waters. Such fees
would create a financial incentive not to
pollute (or to pollute as little as
possible) and could also provide state
and local governments up to $100
million a year to improve their water
quality and coastal management
programs.
In addition, there is a need to
establish a national coastal monitoring
program targeted at areas of special
importance. Such a program could be
designed not just to ensure compliance
with pollution-discharge requirements,
but also to assess the overall health of
the ecosystems involved. The program's
goal would be to trace pollutants back
to their source and to develop data that
will tell us more precisely what
pollutants are doing to our coastal
waters, and why.
Based on the findings of the
Subcommittee, it seems clear that
certain steps should be taken to improve
the overall effectiveness of water quality
control programs. For example, EPA
should issue minimum federal
standards for a broad range of
pollutants. In addition, those seeking to
discharge into pristine waters should be
required to meet special standards of
need to do so. Also, as an enforcement
measure, federal aid and contracts
should be suspended for coastal areas
and dischargers that continually violate
federal standards.
There is no question that the nation
will enter the 1990s with a far different
attitude than we had as the 1980s
began. After years of complacency, the
syringes and vials of blood, closed
beaches, and mutant fish have left their
mark on the national psyche.
For two centuries, Americans have
been drawn to the sea, where we have
battled the tides, enjoyed the beaches,
and harvested the bounty of our coasts.
The oceans are nature's greatest gift to
us. The time has come to reclaim that
gift for ourselves, for our children,
and—if we do the job right—for those
whose footprints will mark the clean,
white, wet sands of beaches from Maine
to California long after ours have
washed away, o
36
EPA JOURNAL
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Around the U.S.
Louisiana's
Wetlands Calamity
by Peggy Rooney
Islands of wetlands: aerial view showing the remnants of what was once solid Louisiana marsh.
The present rate of wetlands
loss in Louisiana represents
about 80 percent of coastal
wetland fosses annually in the
continental United States.
(Rooney is Public Information
Coordinator for the Coastal
Management Division, Louisiana
Department of Natural Resources.]
Within the next century, according to
scientists' predictions, the four
coastal Louisiana parishes of Lafourche,
St. Bernard, Terrebonne, and
Plaquemines may be mostly under
water. Wetlands in Plaquemines Parish
could be eroded away in only half that
time.
Louisiana has approximately 300
miles of wetlands-rich Gulf coastline,
stretching from the Pearl River
westward to the Sabine River. However,
Louisiana's coastal lands are being lost
(transformed into open water) at a rate
that presently approaches 60 square
miles each year. In recent years, the rate
of loss has increased dramatically—from
approximately 16 square miles annually
in 1970 to roughly 50 square miles
annually in 1980—and it continues to
accelerate. The present rate of wetlands
loss in Louisiana represents about 80
percent of coastal wetland losses
annually in the continental United
States.
There have always been wetland
losses along the Louisiana coast.
Historically—over thousands of
years—these losses have been largely
offset by buildup from sediment
deposition elsewhere along the coast.
Today, however, wetland losses in
Louisiana vastly outstrip any
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
compensatory buildup of new land.
This situation has interacting natural
and human causes.
Natural causes of wetland loss
include subsidence (sediment
compaction and sinking of the earth's
surface), rising sea level, normal wave
action, storm-driven surges and tides,
and the intrusion of salt water into
freshwater areas. Human-induced causes
of wetland destruction in Louisiana
include the leveeing of the Mississippi
River, dredging and spoil disposal,
mineral extraction, wave action from
vessel traffic, and deliberate draining of
wetlands for development purposes.
Consider the natural process of
wetland loss. Over thousands of years,
sediment from the Mississippi River has
fanned out to form several deltas in
Louisiana. Always seeking a shorter,
steeper route to the Gulf of Mexico, the
river has repeatedly shifted its course
and begun depositing sediment in
another area to form a new delta. The
river has shifted course in this way
several times over the past 5,000 to
7,000 years. Often, a new delta was
built on top of an older, abandoned
delta, or old and new deltas overlapped.
With time, the sheer weight of these
sediments caused them to "dewater"
and compact. When this compaction
was combined with the redistribution of
sediments by wave and current action,
the abandoned delta subsided (gradually
sank), creating bays and other areas of
open water.
Subsidence in combination with a
rising sea level results in an increase in
"relative sea level"—in other words, a
lowering of the earth's surface relative
to water level. Subsidence currently
plays a much greater role than sea-level
rise in Louisiana's wetland losses.
Recent studies indicate that subsidence
may account for 80 to 90 percent of the
relative sea-level rise in southeastern
Louisiana. While subsidence is a natural
tectonic process, it is exacerbated by
human activities such as the pumping
of oil and ground water.
Also contributing to wetland losses,
normal wave action and storm surges
cause erosion of shorelines by breaking
up sediment held together by the root
systems of wetland vegetation.
The levees have had the effect
of reducing or eliminating
many freshwater areas and
interfering with the deposition
of sediment in coastal
marshlands.
Hurricanes can be devastating to
wetlands—not only because they may
erode a coastline very quickly, but also
because hurricane winds force highly
saline water into freshwater areas,
damaging existing vegetation.
This influx of salt water into
freshwater areas also occurs to some
extent under less severe weather
conditions. As coastal wetland areas are
lost and barrier islands eroded, allowing
increased inflow of salt water, the
remaining fresh marsh and swamp areas
must support a different and more
saline-tolerant vegetation. If this new
vegetation does not establish itself
rapidly, the freshwater wetlands may
become open water as erosive forces
carry away the sediment. With no
vegetative root system to hold it
together, the organic root mat is
loosened and the substrate is easily
washed away by tides and storms.
In Louisiana, due to human
interference with the Mississippi River's
flow regime—through the construction
of levees along the main channel of the
river and its distributaries—new areas of
open water are being formed at
increasing rates. The levees have had
the effect of reducing or eliminating
many freshwater areas and interfering
with the deposition of sediment in
coastal marshlands.
This means new wetlands are not
being created to replace those lost due
to natural processes. Sediments that in
the natural course of things would be
deposited in coastal wetlands, as rivers
and streams overtop their banks, are
now being washed down channels into
the Gulf. Jetties, built at the mouth of
the Mississippi River for the purpose of
keeping sediment from building up,
serve to funnel the sediment carried by
the river off the edge of the Continental
Shelf.
As sediments are washed out into the
Gulf, Louisiana's beaches and barrier
islands are also subject to increased
erosion, again because there is little
sediment deposition to counterbalance
natural erosive forces. For the same
reason, more and more tidal inlets
(short, narrow passages connecting two
larger bodies of water) are being formed
and expanded. All of this has undercut
the role of our barrier islands and
beaches as the "first line of defense"
against hurricanes and other storms.
Thus, through a degenerative cycle, our
wetlands have become increasingly
vulnerable to the destructive effects of
such storms.
Wetland loss means loss of fish and
wildlife habitat, and for this reason, the
ongoing loss of wetlands in Louisiana
has tremendous implications for the
biological productivity of its coastal
areas. South Louisiana's marshes and
estuaries provide major nursery grounds
for fish and shellfish. Generally
speaking, about 75 percent of all
commercial marine species, such as
menhaden and shrimp, rely on coastal
marshes and estuaries to sustain part of
their life cycle. Louisiana's economy
relies heavily on commercial fisheries,
with its seafood catch having an annual
value of approximately $170 million.
Clearly, with the loss of its coastal
wetlands, Louisiana stands to lose not
38
EPA JOURNAL
-------
What says Mississippi River
more than an old-time paddle
boat? Engineering efforts to
tame the mighty river,
interacting with natural forces
in unforeseen ways, are causing
major wetland losses along the
Louisiana coast.
just land area, but resources that are
vitally important to the state's
commerce and industry. Nationally, the
state ranks very high in harvests from
commercial fisheries, accounting for
approximately a quarter of the total U.S.
catch. And thanks to its wetlands,
Louisiana leads the nation in fur and
alligator harvests.
The Louisiana coastal area is a
product of thousands of years of delta
growth. Unless we act swiftly and
effectively to prevent its further
deterioration, our wetlands and the vast
resources they support will be gone in a
very short time. Moreover, continued
wetland loss will affect not only the
state of Louisiana. These impacts would
be felt by the entire nation.
Federal and state agencies including
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, EPA,
and the Louisiana Department of
Natural Resources are currently working
together on a comprehensive plan to
address the problem of wetland loss.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
Delta Queen Steamboat Company photo
Earlier this year, a report entitled
Louisiana Comprehensive Wetiand
Study was completed by the Corps of
Engineers. The study concluded that in
addition to the continued cooperation of
the federal and state agencies involved,
a state/federal cost-sharing agreement is
needed for success in slowing the
present rate of wetland loss.
As part of the comprehensive plan
that is being developed, several
structural and non-structural measures
have been proposed, including
freshwater diversion and the creation
and restoration of wetlands. Revisions
to existing wetlands statutes and
regulations and changes in present
administrative procedures have also
been proposed.
It is impossible to overstate the
importance of these initiatives within
the context of an overall plan. For
without a coordinated state/federal
effort, the Louisiana wetlands will not
stand much chance for survival, o
The Atchafalaya
River Delta
In contrast to the rest of Louisiana,
where coastal lands are being lost
at a staggering rate, one coastal
area is experiencing a gain in land
area. This is the Atchafalaya Bay
region in Louisiana's central
coastal area, in southernmost St.
Mary Parish. As an exception to
the general pattern, the
Atchafalaya River delta is
particularly important in that it
represents the first progradation of
a major shallow-water delta in
Louisiana in 300 years. The delta
first emerged above water level in
1973, following one of the largest
floods on record.
To help protect this new
resource, Louisiana has designated
an Atchafalaya Delta Wildlife
Management Area, which
presently includes 15,000 acres of
exposed land and 120,370 acres of
open water. One of the unique
characteristics of the Atchafalaya
Delta is that saltwater and
freshwater organisms seem to be
able to coexist there. Larval and
juvenile shrimp, speckled trout,
menhaden, mullet, croaker, and
crabs may be found along with
freshwater catfish, sunfish, and
other species.
Scientists project that over the
next 30 to 50 years, about 120,000
acres of land may be created in
Atchafalaya Bay. These projections
are based on the Atchafalaya
system's not being significantly
affected by human actions, and on
the future occurrence of annual
flood events with the same
frequency as in the past.
39
-------
Around the U.S.
The Challenge to Protect a
Virginia Island
by Karen L. Mayne
The saying goes that time and tide
wait for no man. Perhaps nowhere is
this more evident than on the almost
400 islands, spits, and peninsulas that
form a protective fringe along 2,700
miles of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
These coastal barriers—ribbons of sand,
as they are called—are the first line of
defense against winter storms and
hurricanes for 18 states from Maine to
Texas.
These coastal barriers are also one of
our most important habitats for fish and
wildlife. Their extensive beaches,
dunes, and wetland complexes harbor a
greater variety of bird species than any
other ecosystem in the continental
United States.
But the effects of hurricanes,
northeasters, erosion, and sea-level rise
notwithstanding, they are the target of
developers seeking to capitalize on
America's love affair with the coasts.
Some of our largest coastal cities such
as Galveston, Miami Beach, Virginia
Beach, and Ocean City, Maryland, have
been built on what were originally
ephemeral coastal barriers. Concern
about the continued development^ the
remaining undeveloped barriers, and the
resultant costs to the federal government
for flood damage resulting from severe
storms, led Congress in 1982 to pass the
Coastal Barriers Resources Act. The Act
placed essentially undeveloped barrier
islands within a "Coastal Barriers
Resources System" and prohibited use
of federal funds for flood insurance
construction or projects such as water
supply systems, bridges, bulkheads, or
jetties.
Cedar Island, Virginia, is an Atlantic
barrier island that reflects in miniature
what is happening along much of our
nation's coasts. The island is a narrow,
(Mayne is with the Division of
Ecological Services, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Gloucester, Virginia.]
six-mile long coastal barrier on
Virginia's "Eastern Shore," a portion of
the Delmarva Peninsula that forms the
eastern boundary of the Chesapeake
Bay. There are approximately 35 to 40
summer houses on the island, some
built in the 1950s and others more
recently. Access is by boat and there are
no roads. With the exception of a few
houses at the north end of the island
that have service from a small electric
cooperative that served a former Coast
Guard station, residents must generate
their own electricity.
The island supports nesting colonies
of several species of terns and other
Cedar Island, Virginia, is an
Atlantic barrier island that
reflects in miniature what is
happening along much of our
nation's coasts.
shorebirds, as well as the piping plover,
a federally listed threatened species,
and the Virginia state-listed endangered
Wilson's plover. The island was
recently designated a national wildlife
refuge. Although named for the
extensive red cedar forests that once
flourished there, Cedar Island now has
little forest because of erosion that
washes away an average of 15 feet of
land per year.
Virginia's 80-mile string of barrier
islands and their associated barrier bays
and wetlands comprise the largest
remaining barrier ecosystem on the
Atlantic coast that is relatively
undeveloped.
Cedar Island is one of the 13 barrier
islands that run like a string of pearls
along the coast. Seven of them are
primarily owned and protected by The
Nature Conservancy and have been
recognized by the United Nations as an
International Biosphere Reserve. Four of
the islands are in federal or state
ownership. Only Cedar Island and
Assowoman Island are still privately
owned. Both were placed in the Coastal
Barrier Resources System in 1982.
While several of the islands were
targeted for development in the 1950s
and 1960s, only the plans for Cedar
Island made it past the drawing board.
In 1950, a large property owner
subdivided most of the island and sold
hundreds of small lots with the hope of
creating an "Ocean City, Virginia" to
rival its namesake in Maryland. But
plans for a bridge from the mainland
fell through and the development was
largely abandoned. Through the 1960s
and 1970s, only a few small beach
cottages had been built, and the erosion
of the island resulted in many property
owners losing their lots to the ocean.
In 1984-85 the daughter and
son-in-law of the original developer
bought back most of the island and
re-subdivided it into larger lots that
extended from the ocean to the
wetlands behind the island. Public
sentiment, reflected by a number of
environmental and conservation groups,
was decidedly against further
development of Cedar Island, which
became a test of whether all levels of
government could adequately regulate
the private development of an island
within the Coastal Barrier Resources
System and maintain natural resource
values.
Some regulatory actions were quickly
taken. The Virginia Marine Resources
Commission, which regulates the
development of primary dunes,
promulgated a special policy and
guidelines regarding the development of
barrier islands that would, among other
things, preclude permanent cuts or
roads through dunes and the beachfront
or the hardening of the beach by such
measures as bulkheads or groins.
Accomack County, of which Cedar
40
EPA JOURNAL
-------
As the recent history of Cedar Island
illustrates, it is not always easy to protect
fragile barrier islands from development.
Island i$ a part, amended its zoning
ordinances to establish a barrier island
district that included regulations on
vehicle use, lot and house size, removal
of sand and vegetation from primary
dunes, and solid waste disposal.
EPA and the Corps of Engineers
conducted an "Advanced Identification
of Wetlands and other Special Aquatic:
Sites" on Cedar Island. This Advanced
Identification, authorized under Section
404 of the Clean Water Act, notified the
public that the wetlands and
other special aquatic sites on Cedar
Island would be considered generally
unsuitable for the disposal of dredged or
fill material.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
initiated the study that determined
Cedar Island should be protected as a
national Wildlife Refuge and sent out
information packages on the endangered
piping plover to the approximately 250
property owners listed as having
purchased lots from the developer.
Despite these regulatory actions,
Cedar Island proved to be a regulatory
quagmire for governmental agencies.
Other actions notwithstanding, county
and state agencies have issued permits
lor septic systems, houses, and piers.
Accomack County does not have the
staff to enforce its own zoning
ordinance prohibition of activities such
as use of all-terrain vehicles and the
placement of snow fences.
While there is a general recognition
that the development of such an
erodible and narrow barrier island is
questionable at best, the development is
occurring because the activities are in
"technical compliance" with the various
agencies' policies and regulations. And,
as development is permitted, houses,
vehicles, and people are replacing the
nesting shorebirds and natural habitat.
Concern is now focused on a plan by
the current developers to construct a
community pier on the island. The pier
cannot be constructed without a permit
from the Corps of Engineers. Due to the
presence of the federally listed piping
plover on Cedar Island, the Endangered
Species Act requires that the Corps of
Engineers consult with the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service about how the
proposed pier would affect this
shorebird.
While construction of the community
pier would provide the island with easy
access by boat, the question is whether
the growth-inducing effects of a
community pier—which could be
detrimental to the piping plover and
other shorebirds—can be offset by
restricting vehicles and other human
uses of the island during the piping
plovers' nesting season.
The Cedar Island story raises
questions with no simple answers. For
example, do private individuals have a
right to develop barrier islands if they
are willing to accept the risks of flood
and storm damage with no guarantee of
government financial assistance?
What would happen if homeowners
became stranded on the island during a
storm and the local county couldn't
implement evacuation plans to get them
off without unduly risking the lives of
emergency personnel? How can
well-intentioned policies and
regulations be enforced when agencies
do not have adequate staff, and
regulatory boards are willing to permit
questionable undertakings because they
comply with the technical requirements,
if not the spirit, of those policies?
Cedar Island reveals that no matter
how well-intentioned are our current
laws and regulations, private
development of barrier islands will
continue, and agencies at all levels of
government will continue to spend
large amounts of staff time and financial
resources evaluating the appropriateness
of the development, responding to the
concerns of people who believe the
nation's remaining natural barriers
should remain that way, and monitoring
the development once it occurs.
Although no one has tallied up the
governmental costs for the review and
monitoring of Cedar Island
development, these could easily run
into thousands of hours of staff time
and hundreds of thousands of dollars in
cost to the taxpayer.
Meanwhile, time and tide are waiting
for no one, especially on Cedar Island.
In the last three years, three houses
have been lost to storms. The north end
of the island eroded approximately 300
feet in one year, forcing four houses to
be relocated to a less erosive part of the
island. The local electric cooperative
abandoned plans to run an electric cable
down the island when erosion resulted
in its right-of-way ending up near the
beach face. As the beach mules and
becomes narrower, the dead and dying
cedar trees that once gave the island its
name are being cut down and burned so
that vehicles can traverse the island.
Will the Atlantic Ocean do what
governments seem incapable of doing
and stop the development of Cedar
Island? Only time will tell, a
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
Around the U.S.
The Saga
of an Urban Marsh
by Peter Grenell
The Redwood High School
marsh near San Francisco
Bay—tiny but resilient.
I used to look at marshes and think
"swamps"—flat, muddy, uninteresting
places of no use to humans, except
possibly as sites for duck hunting. But
after several years of working to protect
our dwindling natural resources,
including marshes, I've come to
appreciate the immense biological,
physical, economic, recreational,
educational, aesthetic, and spiritual
values that marshes have.
The importance of marshes and other
wetlands has only recently been
recognized, In fact, most of this
country's coastal wetlands have been
lost—filled or dredged out for farms,
towns, ancl ports. Around San Francisco
Bay, for example, only remnants remain
of the once-great marsh system that
European settlers found when they
arrived a little over 200 years ago. Here,
briefly, is the story of how one of these
marsh remnants is being brought back to
life.
The 11-aero Redwood High School
Marsh is located in the suburban city of
Larkspur, a few miles north of San
Francisco in environmentally conscious
Marin County. Levees and streets border
the marsh on two sides, and a filled area
was recently developed as a community
athletic field. Drainage culverts enter
the marsh from the west side, bringing
in fresh water, especially during the
winter rainy season. Because of the
large freshwater inflow on this side,
plant species that grow in mixed salt
and fresh (brackish) water can be seen.
Salt rnarsh species are found closest
to the Bay and its much saltier water
near a tide gate. Birdwatchers like to
frequent sheltered marshes because they
are important refuge, feeding, and
resting places for migratory ducks and
shorebirds, during the twice daily
periods of high tide.
((JreiniiJ is Kxi'cutivi; Officer oj the
California Shite Consfdl Conservancy.)
Over the years, the value of the
Redwood High School Marsh (also
known as Tamalpais Marsh) as a
breeding and feeding ground and
general living place for a variety of
birds, fish, insects, and microorganisms
has been drastically
reduced—"degraded" to use the
technical term. Degradation was
caused by fill and construction
activities, dikes that constrict tidal
water flows, and storm and wastewater
run-off. And because of the marsh's use
as a flood control basin by the city of
TAis small marsh was
considered by resource
agencies to be too insignificant
and isolated to be worth
restoring and managing.
Larkspur, further damage to its sensitive
habitat and wildlife has occurred. In
short, the marsh was headed for gradual
but sure destruction.
Like many other wetland remnants
around San Francisco Bay, this small
marsh was considered by resource
agencies to be too insignificant and
isolated to be worth restoring and
managing. Nevertheless, a 1985 study of
Bay Area marshes, funded by the
California State Coastal Conservancy
and done with the help of organizations
like the nonprofit Marin Audubon
Society and Marin County Open Space
District, suggested that these small
marsh "islands" in the urban settlement
"sea" are still vitally important to the
Bay's wildlife and should be saved. Of
direct interest to the local people, too,
was the opportunity provided by the
Redwood High School Marsh for a
real educational experience for their
children, right in their own backyard,
There were technical problems: how
to restore the marsh to health and how
to resolve the potential conflict between
the needs of marsh habitat and those of
the city for flood control; how to
provide public access without damaging
the fragile marsh plants and wildlife
areas; what kind of educational program
should be established; and, of course,
how money could be raised to make all
this happen.
The Marin Audubon group decided to
"adopt" the Redwood High School
Marsh to demonstrate to other local
groups throughout the Bay Area that
marshes should and could be preserved,
revived, and maintained. The Coastal
Conservancy, a unique state government
agency with funds and powers to work
with local governments and nonprofit
groups, agreed to provide money and
technical assistance for the preparation
and implementation of a marsh plan.
Other money for the project came from
private foundations through local
fund-raising efforts, the Marin Audubon
Society, and most recently from EPA
through its San Francisco Estuary
Project, which has provided funds for
similar projects.
So the work began. For the next three
years—from the start of 1986 until early
1989—the plan slowly took shape, the
product of many cooperative efforts by
city employees, the Marin Audubon
Society, teachers and administrators,
Coastal Conservancy staff, technical
consultants, and local citizens.
Why did it take over three years?
Biologists and hydrologists needed to be
hired to study the year-round cycle of
tides, drainage, and wildlife habits; they
also had to determine how much to
increase tidal flow from the Bay to the
rnarsh to combat the ill effects of
stagnant water without upsetting the
delicate balances required to maintain
wildlife habitat. All of this takes time.
as did other efforts. For example,
enlarged and improved feeding
areas for shore and wading birds
had to be designed by increasing the
spread of tidal water. And plant cover
42
EPA JOURNAL
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•..****-.,,
State Coastal Conservancy photo, Oakland, California.
had to be provided for wildlife along
the drainage channel banks and flat
areas.
And work was needed on designing
improved drainage channels and tidal
flow mechanisms to determine how to
preserve the marsh's value as an aid to
local flood control. At the same time,
the planners had to consider how this
could be done without destroying
wildlife feeding and nesting areas. In
addition, a system of pathways had to
be designed providing useful public
access to the marsh—especially for high
school students who regularly used the
area in their studies—without intruding
on sensitive habitat areas. And, finally,
the high school biology curriculum had
to be modified to include the special
opportunities for real field studies in
wetland biology.
The plan was completed, in the
spring of 1989, with total costs
estimated about $217,000. After
extensive public review by the city of
Larkspur, its citizens and the Coastal
Conservancy, the plan was approved
and implementation funding from the
Conservancy authorized in April.
Work is now underway to turn the
paper document into reality. The
dredging, planting, trail-building,
fencing, and other construction work
will take months to complete. After that,
a program of continuous monitoring
will be carried out. Through this
monitoring, local project participants
will follow the progress of the marsh's
rejuvenation. The students will be able
to study the whole process of biological
restoration as it proceeds, and the
general public will be able to enjoy the
blessings of some of the last open space
available to them on the Bay shore.
Sometime soon I will be able to go
out to Redwood High School Marsh and
enjoy the fresh air and the once-again
abundant varieties of wildlife. I will be
able to see young people learning about
a vital part of their natural environment
which, in this increasingly
concrete-bound world, is rapidly
becoming less possible. Most
importantly, perhaps, I will be aware
that this has come about because a
diverse group of people knew enough
and cared enough to see a complex and
time-consuming challenge through to a
successful conclusion. That's how these
things get done after all—isn't it? u
Sometime soon I will be
able to go out to Redwood
High School Marsh and enjoy
the fresh air and the
once-again abundant varieties
of wildlife.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
-------
Around the U.S.
Where Erosion and
Development Meet
by David W. Owens
Close to the edge. Bay Ocean,
near Tillamook, Oregon, is mute
testimony to the consequences
of shifting sands. The entire
development was wiped out by
the Pacific. This house was last
occupied in 1950.
As America's love affair with the
coast continues unabated,
previously untouched coastal areas are
being developed for the first time, and
already developed areas are being
redeveloped at ever-higher density
levels. There are more hotels,
condominiums, and cottages for beach
visitors than ever before, and many of
our shorefront communities now have
sizeable and growing year-round
populations.
But the coastal beaches that are the
economic and social foundation of so
many beachfront cities are shifting.
From Long Island to Nags Hsad, many
beach cottages along the Atlantic teeter
near collapse into the sea. Hurricanes
and heavy coastal storms have brought
waves lapping against the foundations
of high-rise buildings from Ocean City,
Maryland, to Miami Beach and Padre
Island. Houses have been undermined
in Malibu and along Lake Michigan.
Coasial structures are increasingly in
danger of being lost to coastal storms
and erosion.
The cost of coastal erosion is high,
not only to individual shorefront
landowners, but to taxpayers as well.
The property involved is some of the
most expensive land in the country.
Costs incurred by erosion include
expenses of disaster relief, erosion
control projects, flood insurance claims,
and repair of streets and water lines—to
mention just a few. And there is the
social cost to the general public as
treasured recreational beaches are
gradually lost to the sea.
What exactly is happening and what
is being done about it?
Although a few beach areas are
expanding, approximately 90 percent of
sandy beaches nationwide are
experiencing some erosion. The national
scope of the problem is emphasized by
a recent survey in which 22 of 23 state
coastal management programs reported
coastal erosion to be a "serious concern"
in their states.
The 300 barrier islands of the Atlantic
and Gulf coasts have the most dramatic
erosion problems. Over the past 150
years, erosion of these islands and
beachfronts has averaged two to three
feet per year, with localized problem
areas losing 20 feet of beach area
annually. All too often, homes and other
structures wash away with the beach
areas.
The Pacific coast fares better overall
than the Atlantic and Culf coasts.
However, studies indicate that 86
percent of California's 1,100-mile
coastline is facing some erosion. Even
the Great Lakes are not immune.
Periodic high lake levels, as occurred in
mid-1970s and again in the mid-1980s,
have caused serious beach erosion and
bluff collapse, with many homes
damaged in the process. Two-thirds of
Pennsylvania's Lake Erie shoreline is
rated as "highly erodible."
Coastal erosion is a complex
phenomenon, and its causes vary.
Winter storms and hurricanes can
dramatically change the location of a
shoreline overnight. But longer-term
(Owens is Assistant Director at the
Institute of Government, University o/
North Caroli'mi, Chapel HiJJ.J
forces are also at work. A rising sea
level may well cause barrier islands to
become narrower and their sands to
"migrate" toward the mainland, filling
in the bays or channels they once
protected. Studies not only confirm the
reality of sea-level rise but indicate that
the rate of sea-level rise is
increasing—promising even higher
erosion rates in the future. By causing a
Greenhouse Effect that accelerates
sea-level rise, the same human activities
that lead to air pollution and
deforestation can also increase coastal
erosion. To further complicate matters,
the land itself is subsiding in some
places, particularly along the central
Gulf coast.
Human activities can also cause
erosion at local sites. When inlets in
Florida are dredged to maintain their
navigability and the sand is dumped
miles off shore, erosion on nearby
beaches increases. When dams halt
sediment flow down rivers to the
Pacific, beaches become narrower on the
California coast. Sand mining, the
trapping of sand by groins and jetties,
subsidence caused by oil and gas
extraction: all these can, and do,
significantly increase local erosion rates.
Until recently, if anything at all was
done to address coastal erosion
problems, the usual "solution" was to
try holding back the sea with massive
structures. After 6,000 lives were lost in
a hurricane that struck Galveston in
1900, the nation's most deadly weather
disaster to date, residents erected a
16-foot high sea wall to prevent further
losses. Huge wa'ls have also been built
along parts of the Jersey shore.
But seawalls do not stop erosion.
They only protect the upland
development landward of the seawall.
And if the erosion that created the need
for the seawall continues, the inevitable
result will be no beach left in front of
the seawall.
The historic lighthouse at Cape Hatteras,
North Carolina, may be moved because of
encroaching erosion. The National
Academy of Sciences recently prepared a
proposal concerning the Hatteras
lighthouse for the National Park Service.
44
EPA JOURNAL
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Tilla>~nook County Pioneer Museum pholo.
More recently, the trend has been
away from "hardening" the shoreline
with seawalls and other structures.
Maine and North Carolina have banned
seawalls, bulkheads, groins, and similar
"hard" erosion-control structures from
their ocean beaches. Where erosion
control is being attempted today, the
national trend is to pump in sand to
replace erosion losses rather than trying
to wall out the sea.
The most widely known example of
"beach nourishment" is Miami Beach.
There, in the late 1970s, sand was
pumped from off-shore to create a new
300-foot wide beach over a 10-mile
stretch—at a cost of over $65 million.
The high cost of beach nourishment
makes it financially impractical for all
but the most densely developed
beaches, especially since this is a
temporary measure that typically lasts
only two to 10 years. Environmental
concerns are also a limiting factor in
many places. Finding an
environmentally acceptable source of
suitable sand and transporting it to the
beach site is a difficult, time-consuming,
and costly task.
Furthermore, only very limited federal
funds are available for new projects—a
fact unlikely to change soon given the
budget deficit. In addition, the
Congressional study and approval
process for beach nourishment projects
generally takes at least eight years and
more typically 15 to 20 years.
For these reasons, more and more
states and localities are taking a
different tack. Rather than trying to
control the location of the shoreline,
they recognize its dynamic nature and
try to manage adjacent development in
order to minimize the loss of life and
property that would otherwise occur
when the shoreline moves. The point is
that by recognizing the erosion that is
taking place, and taking it into account
in development decisions, the need for
Although a few beach areas
are expanding, approximately
90 percent of sandy beaches
nationwide are experiencing
some erosion.
costly beach nourishment programs or
erosion-control activities that are
environmentally harmful can be
minimized or even avoided altogether.
Since the late 1970s, over one-third of
the coastal states have established
minimum oceanfront "setbacks" for new
construction. Rhode Island, New York,
New Jersey, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, and Ohio all require new
construction to be at least 30 to 100
times the annual erosion rate back from
the shoreline. (For example, if two feet
of the beach or shoreline are being lost
each year, the required setback would
be 60 to 200 feet.) Maine, Delaware,
Alabama, and Hawaii use a fixed
minimum setback. All of these laws are
intended to assure that buildings have a
modest "safety zone" to buffer them
from storm damage and to allow them
to enjoy a reasonable life span before
being threatened by erosion.
But what happens when erosion does
catch up to the structures, as is
happening now to older
developments—and as will almost
certainly happen to many new
shorefront developments 10 or 20 years
from now?
One possible answer that is getting
increasingly serious attention is
relocation of threatened structures.
Relocation is not a new idea. Some of
the older beach cottages at Nags Head,
North Carolina, have been moved back
two or three times over the years as the
ocean advanced. A National Academy of
Sciences committee recently
recommended that the historic Cape
Hatteras lighthouse be moved to a safer
location away from the beach.
What is new is the scope of the
problem. For example, North Carolina
officials estimate that some 5,000
existing structures in that state alone
may be lost to ocean erosion over the
next 60 years. Michigan officials
estimate that nearly 1,000 structures on
the Lake Michigan shoreline of their
lower peninsula were at risk during the
high lake levels of 1987.
As a result, new programs are being
developed to encourage and assist
relocation efforts. For example,
Michigan provided low-interest loans to
relocate structures threatened by high
lake levels in 1985. And on the national
level, there is also a significant new
loss-prevention initiative. Congress
amended the federal flood insurance
program in 1987 to provide coverage for
the costs of relocating imminently
endangered structures, rather than
waiting for them to fall in the ocean,
triggering far more expensive total-loss
claims. Extension of this relocation
program for two more years is pending
before Congress. The Federal Emergency
Management Agency, which implements
the program, is considering establishing
minimum standards for local land-use
management programs in erosion-prone
areas.
Much has been learned about coastal
erosion over the past 10 years as most
coastal states conducted detailed studies
to determine erosion rates. Scientists
have pinpointed many of the causes of
erosion and the likely impacts of
various alternatives for addressing the
problem.
For those of us who enjoy vacationing
at the beach and want our children to be
able to share the same experiences, the
most hopeful sign is growing public
understanding of coastal erosion issues.
With this better understanding, there is
a steady increase in the adoption of
forward-looking programs to better
manage beach development and
redevelopment in ways that respect
natural processes along the shore and
emphasize preventing problems rather
than trying to correct them after the fact.
We would be wise to consider this
approach for other coastal and
environmental issues, a
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
45
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Around the U.S.
Changing the Fate
of the Gulf
by Jack Lewis
The Gulf of Mexico is a key battlefield
in the war against coastal pollution.
One of America's most important
saltwater resources, this partly enclosed
sea provides 40 percent of U.S.
commercial fish yield, 75 percent of
critical habitat for migratory waterfowl,
and drainage for 66 percent of all U.S.
freshwater rivers.
Featuring all three types of
near-coastal environment—beaches,
wetlands, and estuaries—the Gulf has
long been a vital component of the
economies of Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
These five states, which contain 17
percent of all U.S. population,
accounted for a disproportionate 35
percent of U.S. population growth from
1980 to 1985. This rapid population
growth is especially prevalent in Texas
and Florida, and it takes its most coastal
form in the latter, where 99 percent of
the population now lives within 50
miles of the coast.
As a result of population pressures
and excessively rapid development, the
Gulf has in recent years suffered
extensive loss of wildlife habitats,
nutrient over-enrichment and resulting
oxygen depletion in bodies of water,
contamination by pesticides and toxics,
closure of shellfish beds, and other
forms of environmental degradation.
Since August 1988, EPA's Gulf of
Mexico Program Office—headquartered
near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, at
NASA's newly created Stennis Space
Center—has been working to develop
and implement a strategy that will
better balance the needs of human
development in the Gulf with those of
the threatened ecosphere. EPA Regions
4 and 6 have primary responsibility for
this huge "macro" environment that is
home to 1,63.1 miles of beaches, 13.7
million acres of wetlands, and 30
important estuaries. In conjunction with
state and local government, businesses,
and citizens' groups, these EPA officials
have been working to evaluate the
environmental problems of the Gulf and
to propose regulatory and management
options for dealing with them.
One Gulf Coast beach—the
Padre Island National
Seashore—had so many rusty
oil drums that it is now on
EPA's Superfund National
Priority List
During its first year, the Gulf Program
drafted a five-year plan and set up a
network of committees that draw
together relevant constituencies. There
is a Citizens' Advisory Committee, with
prominent and knowledgeable citizens
representing each of the Gulf's five
states; citizen selection is conducted so
there will be expertise in five key
subjects: fisheries, agriculture, tourism
and development, industry, and the
environment. A Technical Steering
Committee also exists, with eight
specialized subcommittees on problems
such as marine debris, coastal erosion,
public health, habitat degradation,
toxics, nutrient enrichment, public
outreach, and data information and
transfer. In addition, the program relies
for direction on a Policy Review Board
consisting of highly placed officials
from federal and state agencies,
academia, and the citizenry.
Not forgotten is the United States'
Gulf neighbor, Mexico. The
Gulf Program Office is working
with EPA's Office of International
Activities to implement the United
Nations' Caribbean Action Plan, a
subject that Agency Administrator
William K. Reilly discussed on his trip
to Mexico in August 1989.
By 1992, these committees and
constituencies will forge a
comprehensive strategy for dealing with
the enormous problems of the Gulf's
beaches, wetlands, and estuaries, where
some admirable efforts are already
underway:
Beaches: Because of the Gulf's
looping, criss-crossing currents, waste
discarded by boats or oil rigs tends to
become trapped, later to wind up on the
area's beaches. More than any other in
the nation, the beaches of the Gulf
regions' five states are disfigured by
styrofoam cups, plastic bags, oil drums,
and other forms of marine debris. In
September 1987 and again in September
1988, 15,000 volunteers removed
approximately 500 tons of waste from
beaches in the five Gulf states. However,
one Gulf coast beach—the Padre Island
National Seashore—had so many rusty
oil drums that it is now on EPA's
Superfund National Priority List.
Wetlands: The extraordinary plight of
Louisiana's wetlands is described
elsewhere in this issue of EPA Journal
(see article on page 37). The wild card
for the future is the Greenhouse Effect,
which could bring almost total
obliteration to the wetlands not just of
Louisiana but the entire Gulf.
For the time being, however, the
threats to Gulf wetlands outside
Louisiana appear manageable. Though
development pressures are being felt in
most parts of the Gulf, particularly in
Texas and Florida, federal and state
regulation—along with a change in
(Lewis is an Assistant Ed/for of EPA
journal.)
46
EPA JOURNAL
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public attitude—is subduing them to a
greater extent than before.
Estuaries: The Gulf of Mexico is also
home to 30 important estuaries, two of
which—Galveston Bay, Texas, and
Sarasota Bay, Florida—are the target of
special restorative efforts today. Both
were recently named part of EPA's
National Estuary Program, and as a
result, they are now in the
organizational stage of establishing
management committees and drafting
the five-year work plans required by
EPA.
Galveston Bay—Texas' largest
estuary—is a particularly interesting
example of the conflict between man
and nature: a project has been proposed
Office of Sea Giant.
to widen the Houston Ship Channel to
make it better able to deal with foreign
trade. Unfortunately, if approved, this
would almost certainly lead to a great
increase in the quantities of saSt water
in Galveston Bay, with disastrous
impacts on fisheries and tourism. The
Galveston Bay management committee
has put at least temporary roadblocks in
the path of the developers. Q
/ef/and Resources, Louisiana State University photo
An offshore oil rig, a familiar
sight in parts of the Gulf of
Mexico. EPA's Gulf Program
Office is developing strategies
to protect the Gulf environment
from pollution.
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1989
47
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How the Coastal Migration Began
by Richard Delaney
and Jack Wiggin
New York Harbor in olden days. Like
Boston and Philadelphia, New York housed
a busy port by the 1790s.
(Delaney is flu; Director and Wiggin a
sto/f member of the Urban Harbors
Institute (it the University of
Massachusetts ut Boston.)
Development along the world's
coastlines today reflects patterns of
settlement begun during the earliest
days of civilization. Since ancient times,
the oceans and resources of coastal areas
have been used by man for
transportation, food, recreation, and
waste disposal. The earliest sites of
human settlement were the river valleys
and shorelines of the seas, which
offered important natural advantages.
In the United States, the earliest
urban settlements began as mercantile
outposts of Europe along the banks of
navigable waters such as the
Connecticut, Delaware, and Hudson
Rivers and the Chesapeake Bay and in
sheltered estuaries and small bays along
the Atlantic coast. By 1790, America's
major cities—New York, Philadelphia,
and Boston—were the most successful
of these ports, and together with
Baltimore and Charleston, these cities
made up one-half of the nation's
population. By the mid-19th century.
New Orleans (which by 1840 had
become the fourth largest city in the
United States) and San Francisco grew
as commercial coastal gateways of the
Mississippi basin and the central valley
of California.
Up until industrial revolution, the
impact of human activity on the coast
consisted of modifying the shoreline to
accommodate marine-based industries
or creating buildable land for expanding
cities. However, the impact of these
activities, although significant, was
generally limited to the local
environment. The industrial revolution
led to rapid urbanization and economic
expansion—greatly increasing the
number and magnitude of problems.
This was the beginning of a major
environmental crisis which, because of
historic patterns of settlement, was felt
first and most profoundly in coastal
areas.
Between 1870 and 1920,
Industrialization transformed many of
the older commercial centers of the
United States such as Boston, Baltimore,
and New York. The semi-enclosed
waters of the harbors and bays that were
ideal for the shipping trade on which
EPA JOURNAL
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these cities were founded and prospered
became depositories for the wastes of
rapidly expanding populations and
industries. During this period, when
world population increased by 55
percent, the population of the United
States rose by 357 percent, with 80
percent settling in the Northeast.
The new manufacturing facilities were
deliberately sited on rivers and estuaries
to take advantage of water in the
manufacturing process and to facilitate
the discharge of industrial waste.
Sanitary sewer systems slowly replaced
individual privies as the means for
collecting and disposing of human
waste. The earliest municipal sewers
were adapted from storm drainage
systems that, in some cases, had been in
existence since the 17th century and
discharged directly into the nearest
waterway.
Sewer systems that diluted wastes
and carried them away by water were a
significant advance for the sanitary
conditions of cities. But these systems
introduced large quantities of fouled
water into the rivers and estuaries.
Initially, receiving waters had the
capacity to assimilate wastewater.
However, this method of purification by
assimilation was, invariably, relied on
long after it ceased to be successful.
Solid waste was also deposited in the
waters along city shorelines. In Boston
and San Francisco, for example, refuse
and material from excavations were
disposed of in the low-lying marshlands
which were considered to be of little
value. At New York's waterfront,
garbage was loaded onto scows and
shipped out to sea. A less costly
alternative was to let the refuse spill
into the water at the berths, eventually
creating new waterfront real estate.
Following World War I, petroleum
and its products were used to meet the
growing demands of production and
consumption. This led to what has been
called the Sea Pollution Era. Oil
transported by ship reached the ocean
waters through leakage, accidents,
flushing of tankers, and mishandling
during loading and unloading. The
spiraling demand for oil in the United
States was satisfied in part by shipping
from distant sources and increasing
off-shore exploration of the continental
shelf, both of which heightened the
potential for accidental spills.
During the middle of this century,
large-scale metropolitan growth
continued, and as the impacts of
20th-century technology were felt on the
quality of inland waterways and ground
water, the ocean received renewed
attention as a disposal site with an
apparently infinite capacity. Bulk
material such as sewage sludge from
treatment plants was dumped offshore,
Following World War I,
petroleum and its products
were used to meet the growing
demands of production and
consumption. This led to what
has been called the Sea
Pollution Era.
along with its burden of phosphates and
other contaminants. Although the
dumping of garbage in the waters off
New York City was discontinued in the
1930s, the practice continued off the
Pacific coast. Dredging of harbors and
rivers to maintain navigability
contributed the greatest volume of waste
material dumped in the ocean.
The most serious threat to the ocean
resources came from less visible
sources. Toxic chemicals and heavy
metals from industry were discharged-
directly to coastal waters. Chlorinated
hydrocarbons such as DDT, which was
widely used to control insects, and
PCBs found their way into marine
sediment and into the food chain, where
they become concentrated through
biomagnification. The potential effects
of mercury and PCB on humans who
consume seafood contaminated by these
substances is well documented. And
greater amounts of petroleum
increasingly reached the ocean by
atmospheric transport of the vaporized
product.
In recent decades, pressures on
coastal resources have intensified. With
advances in technology, rising incomes,
and increasing leisure time, more
people have moved from urban to
coastal areas, particularly in the states
along the south Atlantic, Gulf of
Mexico, and the Pacific Southwest.
Census figures reveal that in 1980, 118.4
million people lived in the cities and
counties within 50 miles of the
coastline, compared with 60.5 million
in 1940. This is an increase of over 95
percent; Gulf coast counties alone grew
by 200 percent.
The rapid development of coastal
areas has strained the natural resources
that provide protection from flooding
and have been a primary source of food
and purified water. From the mid-1950s
to the mid-1980s alone, approximately
480,000 acres of tidal wetlands were
lost to urban development, agriculture,
port and marina expansions and other
causes. Development of coastal barriers
increased from 5.5 percent of the total
acreage in 1945 to 14 percent in 1975.
What do these trends forecast for the
next chapter of coastal history?
Demographers' predictions vary, but by
2000, up to 75 or 80 percent of the U.S.
population may reside in coastal areas.
The dumping of industrial waste has
decreased substantially. Thousands of
industrial and municipal facilities
currently discharge to coastal waters
along with a significant contributions
from nonpoint sources.
Will we adopt more comprehensive
planning and management strategies to
promote sustainable growth? Will we
reverse the propensity to direct wastes
to the ocean? Will sea level rise and
again dramatically alter the physical
shoreline? Whatever the course, it will
require more knowledge, extensive
cooperation, and respect for the limits
of the natural environment, a
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
49
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People Power
by Tom Armitage
In 1972, Congress enacted the landmark
Clean Water Act to clean up our
nation's polluted waterways. Now,
nearly 18 years later, the state and
federal agencies responsible for
administering water programs are
unable to determine with certainty how
effective those programs have been.
Even with increases in federal spending,
water quality may be getting worse in
some areas of the country.
Nowhere is water quality more
problematic than along our coastlines, a
point that is underscored by other
articles in this issue of EPA Journal.
Thus state and federal coastal water
program managers are faced with
difficult questions. Where should
limited resources be directed to obtain
the most benefit? What programs have
worked? What is the status of our
coastal waters?
Scientists and agency managers agree
that additional data are required to
answer these questions. Moreover, the
success of our programs will depend not
only on good databases, but also the
support of an aware and informed
citizenry.
In some coastal areas of the country,
the public has begun to help state and
federal agencies collect the data needed
to assess how well clean water programs
are working and to help governments
make effective decisions concerning
coastal water clean-up efforts.
An army of trained volunteers has
taken to the waters of Rhode Island's
coastal lagoons, the tributaries of the
Chesapeake Bay, North Carolina's
Albermarle and Pamlico Sounds, the
beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, the
beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and
other coastal areas to provide scientists
with answers to some important
questions. These volunteers have
(Dr. Armitage is a marine b/oJogist in
EPA's Office of Marine and Esfuarine
Protection.]
diverse and varied backgrounds. Some
are retired college professors, research
scientists, and engineers. Others are
high-school and college students,
teachers, community activists, and other
people who may have little technical
training but share concerns about
coastal pollution. Pooling their
resources, they have become allies in a
campaign to prevent further degradation
of the coast.
Federal and state environmental
program managers were initially
Pooling their resources, they
have become allies in a
campaign to prevent further
degradation of the coast
skeptical of the value of data collected
by volunteers, but are gradually
accepting and using the new
information to support their activities.
Yet the use of volunteers to collect
environmental data is not really a new
idea. For example, the National Weather
Service has been using volunteers for
the past 100 years to collect temperature
and rainfall data from many remote sites
across the country.
Today, the Weather Service has
11,500 volunteers nationwide collecting
weather information on a daily basis.
The data they collect have been
extremely useful in determining trends
for climatological analysis. Likewise the
U.S. Geological Survey uses volunteers
to monitor earthquake precursors.
Another highly successful volunteer
monitoring effort is the National
Audubon society's "breeding bird
survey," which has become one of the
most widely used measures of bird
population status in the United States.
Ross Toney, a retired manufacturing
engineer, and George Vinal, a
self-employed Rhode Island locksmith,
who are gathering water-quality
information to describe the status of
Rhode Island's coastal lagoons or "salt
ponds," typify the thousands of
volunteers who have joined the growing
number of active monitoring groups
across the country. In summer, the
recreational opportunities afforded by
the Rhode Island salt ponds and their
beaches attract more than 165,000
people a day. Intensified residential and
commercial development in this area
has resulted in serious water quality
problems.
The resulting decline in the quality of
fishing disturbed Toney and Vinal, avid
fishermen who found that they were
coming home with fewer fish and
clams. They decided to do something
about it and joined the Rhode Island
Salt Pond Watchers, a group of
volunteers collecting data on
environmental parameters such as water
clarity, water temperature, nutrients,
chlorophyll, and bacteria levels.
As Toney, Vinal, and others like them
see it, coastal waters do not belong to a
state, a nation, or a town, but represent
a resource that is part of their own
"backyard." This kind of feeling has
created a widespread sense of urgency
for environmental action and is
generating a groundswell of public
support for stewardship groups around
the country. Many citizens have
recognized that, as individuals, they
have a hard time being heard, but by
joining volunteer environmental
monitoring organizations, they have
collective clout and access to the people
empowered to take action.
The data collected by the Rhode
Island Salt Pond Watchers are in fact
being used by state decision-makers.
Bacteria-monitoring data have been used
by the Rhode Island Department of
Environmental Management in making
decisions regarding closures of areas to
shellfishing or swimming. The
50
EPA JOURNAL
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Citizen monitoring and data collection
efforts are making a difference. In Anne
Arundel County, Maryland, volunteers are
supplied with water-testing kits and
practical training.
"time-series" information provided by
the volunteers will also be applied to
state agency permitting and planning
decisions.
In Maryland and Virginia, volunteers
are collecting time-series data on water
quality in tributaries of the Chesapeake
Bay. The Alliance for the Chesapeake
Bay began a pilot water-quality testing
project for volunteers in July 1985 as
one of the activities funded through
EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program.
Two objectives of the pilot effort were
to determine whether volunteers could
As Toney, Vinal, and others
like them see it, coastal waters
do not belong to a state, a
nation, or a town, but
represent a resource that is
part of their own "backyard."
in fact collect water-quality data that
met rigorous quality-control standards,
and to evaluate the feasibility of
establishing a permanent Bay-wide
citizen monitoring network. Volunteers
collected weekly data from piers, docks,
and the shoreline to determine water
temperature, pH, water visibility limits,
dissolved oxygen content, and salinity.
Simple data-collection methods were
chosen, and sampling kits were
distributed to the volunteers.
The results clearly indicated that,
with adequate training and properly
selected sampling methods,
environmental data collected by
volunteers can be just as reliable as data
collected by government agencies. The
Chesapeake Bay Citizen Monitoring
Program is now well established. It has
enlisted a growing number of volunteers
and received funding from the state of
Maryland.
Information collected by the
volunteers is expected to provide
Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Program photo.
scientists with a better picture of what
is happening to the Bay because the
volunteers can gather samples at remote
sites and frequent time intervals. They
may also be able to respond quickly to
events such as storms, providing
valuable information about the impact
of stormwater run-off on water quality.
All of this information will be used in
assessing the health of the Bay and
evaluating the effectiveness of state and
federal programs.
Recent coastal clean-up campaigns
have been organized for the dual
purpose of creating public awareness of
the problems caused by marine debris
and collecting data on the types and
quantities of the debris. (See article on
page 23.) These campaigns have been
highly successful. For example, during
one recent effort, 28,000 volunteers in a
single day filled 7,900 trash bags with
124 tons of debris taken from 122 miles
of Texas beach. As the debris is
collected, the type and amount of
material are recorded.
These data have been used to develop
recommendations for government and
industry to find long-term solutions to
the floatable debris problem. The beach
clean-up campaigns have also opened
the eyes of hundreds of volunteers to
the problem of plastic debris in coastal
waters.
Some volunteers have indicated that
the experience has changed their lives.
Many express a new appreciation of the
need for changes in lifestyle; and for
waste minimization, pollution
prevention, and recycling initiatives in
order to solve coastal pollution
problems. And many are committed to
continued participation in
environmental monitoring and clean-up
activities. In fact, Congress has
recognized the important role of
volunteers in beach cleanups. Recent
legislation called upon the Department
of Commerce and EPA to establish
citizen pollution patrols to clean up the
beaches.
In the Pacific Northwest, volunteer
monitoring programs are providing a
valuable link between state and federal
programs to protect the coast and local
communities. The "Adopt-a-Beach"
program established to promote
environmental education and beach
enhancement has proved an effective
public education program. Through this
program, volunteers participate in the
restoration of degraded beaches to their
original condition. These projects have
instilled in the volunteers a sense of
stewardship for their adopted beaches,
thus promoting a conservation ethic that
can work to make the environment
cleaner and safer.
In Massachusetts, volunteers recently
began twice weekly measurements of
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
51
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dissolved oxygen, water temperature,
salinity, and transparency in Boston
Harbor. This program, coordinated by
the Massachusetts Audubon Society, is
a cooperative effort of citizens and
nonprofit organizations working to find
solutions to the Harbor's
well-publicized pollution problems.
Measuring the amount of dissolved
oxygen present is important because
marine life depends on oxygen to
survive.
Sewage contains large amounts of
organic matter and can reduce the
amount of oxygen dissolved in the
water. The data will become part of a
long-term water-quality database needed
to improve scientific understanding of
the harbor and to assist decision-makers
in tracking the progress of harbor
clean-up activities.
EPA is greatly encouraged by the
success of these new coastal volunteer
monitoring programs. Coastal area
environmental problems confronting the
Agency will he difficult to solve.
Finding solutions to many of the
problems associated with population
growth and development along our
coasts will require public education,
consensus building, and augmented
data-collection efforts. It is clear that
concerned citizens, responding in
ever-increasing numbers, can help
gather information to meet many of our
data needs.
For some people, collecting scientific
data may be a daunting task, but there
are still other ways in which the public
can provide support to state and federal
agencies.
•'
•
In addition to the priority pollutants
listed in the 1977 amendments to the
Clean Water Act, EPA has identified
more than 600 hazardous or toxic
chemicals that may require regulation.
Volunteers can help out by locating bird
and fish kills, collecting specimens for
tissue analysis, and locating pipes that
discharge toxic substances into
estuaries.
EPA will also need additional
information to identify and characterize
nonpoint sources of pollutants. Such
sources contribute heavily to the
degradation of estuaries and near-coastal
waters, which are threatened by nutrient
and pesticide run-off from agricultural
fields, faulty septic systems, urban
runoff, and seepage from hazardous
waste sites. Volunteers collecting
samples at remote sites throughout the
year can provide scientists with a better
understanding of the origins and impact
of nonpoint-source pollution.
At monitoring sites in Rhode Island,
for example, seawater samples collected
during the winter disclosed unusually
high nitrate and nitrite levels. This
nutrient enrichment has been linked to
ground-water contamination from
intensifying development and on-site
sewage disposal. The data provided by
the volunteers will be used by planners
to assess the impact of future growth on
estuarine water quality.
EPA will also need additional data to
demonstrate the environmental results
of pollution-control investments in the
coastal zone. Sustained volunteer
monitoring programs can provide the
extended time-series data required at
"Adopt-a-Stream" groups are painting
storm drains, such as these in Bothell,
Washington, with this explicit warning. The
goal is to restore polluted water bodies
such as Puget Sound.
numerous sites and frequent intervals to
support such analysis.
Recognizing the valuable role
volunteers can play in supporting the
Agency's mission of protecting and
improving water quality in estuaries and
near coastal waters, EPA's Office of
Marine and Estuarine Protection is
currently working, through its National
Estuary Program, to encourage the
establishment of a network of volunteer
monitoring organizations to collect data
that will assist in developing
comprehensive conservation and
management plans for estuaries. Citizen
volunteers can aid decision-makers
charged with managing estuarine
resources in a number of ways: by
collecting data needed to characterize
resources and proceed with planning
and policy development, by functioning
as "watchdogs" for enforcement, by
helping to educate the public about
environmental problems, and by
collecting information for special
research projects.
Volunteers can support National
Estuary Program projects by reporting
fish kills, precipitation levels, and the
number of fish caught by recreational
fishermen and by acting as "expert
witnesses" concerning trends, past
practices, and conditions in a given
area. They may also form constituencies
for legislative or political initiatives and
thus influence local actions or
ordinances.
In their capacity as "watchdogs" for
enforcement, volunteers can help the
regulatory community by red-flagging
illegal pipes or discharges and dumping
sites, collecting observations of
excessive erosion and failed sediment
control structures, and compiling data
collected for compliance with discharge
permits.
Along all of our coasts, citizen groups
are beginning to take effective action to
help solve pollution problems. They are
gathering invaluable scientific data and
educating people about the dimensions
of pollution problems that affect their
lives. They are serving as facilitators for
open discussion about coastal pollution
and helping to build the local and
area-wide political will needed to
support effective action. Q
52
EPA JOURNAL
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Cleaning Up
a New York Hot Spot
by Miles Kahn
When people talk about New York's
hot spots, usually they are
referring to places like South Street
Seaport or Greenwich Village, not a
Woodside, Queens, building next to the
Brooklyn Queens Expressway—that is,
not until recently. Last year, the
abandoned building, which belongs to
the Radium Chemica] Company, was
found to contain what may be the
world's largest concentration of radium.
It is also the site of one of the few
Superftfnd removal actions directed at
radioactive contamination.
The one-story brick building, on
27th Avenue, is located in a light
industrial area that includes several
small factories and businesses and a
popular athletic club. Nearby are two
densely populated residential areas that
begin, respectively, about 500 and 1,000
feet away.
Beginning in 1955, the Queens facility
was used to mix luminous paints and to
package and distribute radioactive
source materials, usually in the form of
needle-like containers or other small
diameter cylinders for use in treating
cancer. In the late 1970s, however, the
medical community began to use other
radiation sources. Consequently,
Radium Chemical found itself with a
large supply of radium that it was
unable to lease or sell.
In 1983, after years of inspections
revealed continual violations including
lost radium shipments and excessive
radiation levels in the plant, the state
suspended the company's operating
license. Despite repeated efforts
thereafter to bring the plant into
compliance with state regulations, the
situation did not improve, and
community sentiment began to mount
for corrective action. Radium Chemical
was apparently insolvent, and after the
(Kahn is a Public Affairs Specialist with
EPA's Office of Radiation Programs.]
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
company failed to comply with a
court-ordered cleanup, the State
Attorney General obtained a second
court order declaring the building
"abandoned." This set the stage for the
state to request direct assistance under
Superfund.
In August 1988, EPA Region 2
initiated a Superfund action. The first
step was to secure the area by installing
a barbed-wire-topped fence around the
site and posting a 24-hour guard,
augmented by constant video
surveillance. The next step was getting
They found a radiation hazard
far greater than expected.
into the building and determining the
extent of the radiation problem. That job
fell to two Region 2 staff members who
entered the building outfitted in
protective clothing and armed with
radiation-monitoring equipment.
They found a radiation hazard far
greater than expected. The working area
of the building contained between 120
and 125 curies of radium, or about
one-fourth pound of the extremely
dangerous substance. To put the hazard
in perspective, a person could exceed
the yearly occupational exposure limit
after only one hour in the worst parts of
the building. Even the administrative
offices were contaminated, although not
to the same level.
The radium sources were held in lead
containers, called "pigs," and stored in
a concrete vault. But many of the
sources leaked, and even with the lead
shielding, radiation levels were
dangerously high. Contaminated
equipment was everywhere; highly
contaminated debris had been swept up
and put in boxes that were left out in
the open. To make matters worse, EPA
staff also discovered a significant
amount of hazardous chemicals,
including potentially explosive
ethyl-ether.
Fortunately, the acute radiation
hazard did not extend beyond the
building. However, there was a definite
potential for hazardous radioactive
materials to be taken from the building,
exposing many unsuspecting people to
possible harm. For example, if someone
were to break into the building and steal
some of the radium sources or
contaminated equipment, the thief
could be in serious trouble.
Furthermore, anyone coming into
contact with the stolen goods would be
at risk from radiation exposure.
The potential for such an incident
was illustrated by an event that did
occur in the early 1980s. A significant
amount of radioactively contaminated
gold, used to package a radiation source,
was discovered to be missing—either
lost or stolen—from the very same
Radium Chemical Company facility.
Following this discovery, the state
offered free testing of jewelry to allay
the public's fears and, in fact, found
some contaminated items in New York
City. Although the origin of the
contaminated gold was never positively
established, many suspected the source
to be the Radium Chemical Company.
There was also the possibility of
radioactivity being spread as a result of
a fire at the building. Fire could be
caused by an arsonist, by cars or trucks
crashing into the building from the
adjacent roadway, or by someone
carrying out one of a number of bomb
threats that were received. The primary
danger from radioactivity spread by a
fire would be a possible increased
long-term risk of cancer.
However, if a fire were preceded by
an explosion, some of the actual radium
sources could be dispersed, possibly
causing severe injury. In the event of a
fire, the expressway would have to be
closed immediately and, depending
upon atmospheric conditions, health
authorities could be required to take
immediate steps to protect the public
over an area extending one-half mile
53
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Queens, New York,
found itself with a hot
spot of radioactive
waste after Radium
Chemical Company
became insolvent.
Special containers
were designed to
encapsulate the radium
sources for
transportation to
disposal sites.
from the building. There would be no
time to evacuate the area. On two
occasions over the years, cars did crash
into the building, but, fortunately, no
radiation escaped into the surrounding
neighborhood.
Due to the seriousness of the
situation, Acting Regional Administrator
William J. Muszynski requested that
Superfund's Environmental Response
Team, a headquarters operation, take
responsibility for directing the removal
action. To perform the field work, a
team of people was drawn together from
EPA's Region 2 office and various
components of the Office of Radiation
Programs, with support from contractor
personnel.
With the team assembled and tin:
support organization established, work
began on removing (lie radium. The firs!
order of business was sorting and
rearranging the chemical wastes
according to type and storing them for
future removal, if they were not
radioactively contaminated. The
ethyl-ether was carefully placed in
special explosion-resistant containers
and stored separately.
Another priority was the detailed site
characterization and radium inventory,
which were begun in March 1989 anol
completed in April. In June, the actual
removal was begun by personnel from
Chem Nuclear Systems, Inc. For some of
this work, protective clothing was
necessary, sometimes in combination
with several types of breathing
protection apparatus. To aid in picking
up the awkwardly shaped lead pigs and
emptying them of their dangerous
contents, a special, remotely controlled
apparatus (dubbed a pig flipper), with
supporting equipment, had to be
improvised.
In addition, special containers were
designed for encapsulating the radium
sources for transportation to disposal
sites. These 1,600-pound containers
were 55-gallon drums filled with
concrete, containing a core vessel of
steel surrounded by an inch of lead and
another 1/4 inch of steel; each container
had a special lid. It took 36 containers
to haul away approximately 10,000
radium needles to a site in Nevada.
Also, 150 drums and steel boxes of
contaminated debris were removed to a
low-level radioactive waste disposal site
in Richland, Washington.
As a follow-up to the removal action,
EPA recommended that the state
conduct health surveys of former
Radium Chemical Company employees
and test their homes. One precedent for
such follow-up would be the studies
done in Ottawa, Illinois, of the women
who worked at Luminous Processes,
Inc., painting radium on watch dials in
the early 1900s. Based on those studies,
many cancers caused by ingested
radium have become textbook cases of
occupational hazards that existed earlier
in the century. Interestingly enough,
Luminous Processes was owned by the
father of Radium Chemical Company's
present owner.
Meanwhile, the Region 2 Public
Affairs Office began implementing a
public information program. The first
priority was to contact all of the
adjacent businesses and explain the
situation to their employees. Once this
was accomplished, and the immediate
neighbors were satisfied that they would
not be exposed to excessive radiation,
the next step involved contacting civic
and community groups representing
interests of the nearby residential areas.
In addition, a walk-in public
information center was set up at the site
to reinforce the message that there was
no hazard outside of the building. The
public information program helped calm
any apprehensions about the Agency's
actions.
Now that the acute radiation hazard
has been removed, the Agency is
evaluating the Radium Chemical site for
listing on the Superfund National
Priorities List. Once listed, the site will
be subject to studies to determine the
best method of decontaminating the
building and making the site useful
again.
The Agency's quick action at the
Radium Chemical Company site
provided a valuable opportunity for
EPA personnel to gain field experience
in handling radiation emergencies and
to test different organizational
approaches to problem-solving. Both
kinds of experience could prove
important, since the Radium Chemical
site is only one of dozens of
radioactively contaminated sites around
the country, although none may be as
potentially dangerous as the Queens
location. There may also be many
unknown sites remaining to be
discovered, n
EPA JOURNAL
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Fisher
Davies
Sidamon-Eristoff Crampton
Gleason
Linda J. Fisher is the new
Assistant Administrator for
Pesticides and Toxic
Substances at EPA.
Prior to her appointment,
she served as Assistant
Administrator for the Office
of Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation since January
1988, where she had primary
responsibility for developing
the Agency's position on
global climate changes.
Fisher joined the Agency
in July 1983 as Special
Assistant to the
Administrator for Solid
Waste and Emergency
Response.
From January 1985 to
January 1988, Fisher served
as Executive Assistant and
Chief of Staff for
Administrator Lee M.
Thomas. She was the
principal policy liaison with
Congress and the White
House during the rewriting of
the Superfund law in 1986.
A 1974 graduate of Miami
University of Ohio, Fisher
earned her master's of
business administration from
George Washington
University in Washington,
DC, and her law degree from
Ohio State University's
College of Law in 1982.
}. Clarence ("Terry") Davies
is the EPA's new Assistant
Administrator for Policy,
Planning, and Evaluation.
Davies served as an advisor
to EPA from 1973 to 1981 on
the Executive Committee of
the Science Advisory Board
and from 1986 to 1989 on the
Science Advisory Board's
Integrated Environment
Management Subcommittee.
Since 1976, he has served as
the Executive Vice President
of the Conservation
Foundation.
When the Council on
Environmental Quality was
created in 1970, Davies began
a three-year assignment as
Senior Staff Member. During
1969 and 1970, he was a
consultant to the Ash
Commission, where he
co-authored the
reorganization plan to create
EPA.
He is a 1959 graduate of
Dartmouth College and
earned his doctorate in
American government from
Columbia University in 1965,
He was a faculty member at
Bowdoin College from 1963
to 1965 and at Princeton
University from 1967 to
1970.
Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff
is the new Regional
Administrator for EPA's
Region 2, which is
headquartered in New York
City.
Eristoff has been a member
of the Metropolitan Transit
Authority of the State of New
York since 1974. He is a
practicing attorney,
specializing in
environmental, land-use, and
administrative law.
From 1968 to 1973, Eristoff
was Administrator of the
New York City
Transportation
Administration. He has been
Commissioner of the New
York City Department of
Highways, an assistant to the
mayor of New York City, a
Commissioner of the New
York State Judicial
Commission on Minorities.
and has served on the New
York Governor's Council on
the Hudson River Greenway.
Eristoff earned his
bachelor's degree in
geological engineering from
Princeton in 1952, and his
law degree from Columbia
Law School in 1957.
In a recent reorganization at
EPA, three new Associate
Administrator positions were
created:
Lewis S. W. Crampton is the
Associate Administrator for .
the new Office of
Communications and Public
Affairs.
Since January of this year,
Crampton served as the
Special Assistant to the
Administrator on solid waste
and emergency response
issues. Previously, he was
Director of the Agency's
Office of Management
Systems and Evaluation from
1981 to 1984.
A former Commissioner of
the Massachusetts
Department of Community
Affairs, Crampton has served
as Executive Director of the
National Institute for
Chemical Studies. He has
worked as an environmental
consultant to the National
Safety Council, the Arthur D.
Little Company, the Rand
Corporation, the University
of Pittsburgh, the Chemical
Manufacturers' Association,
ABT Associates, and the
National Environmental
Technology Applications
Corporation.
Crampton earned his
bachelor's degree from
Princeton University's
Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International
Affairs in 1965, and his
master's degree from Harvard
University in East Asian
Studies in 1967. In 1972,
Crampton earned his
doctorate in Urban and
Regional Planning from the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
Judith I. Gleason is the
Associate Administrator
heading the Office of
Regional Operations and
State/Local Relations.
Prior to joining the Agency,
Gleason was an associate at
the Kirkland and Ellis law
firm's Washington, DC,
office. From 1975 to 1983,
she worked on the staffs of
Congressman William S.
Cohen (R-ME), Congressman
Paul N. McCloskey, Jr.
(R-CA), and Congresswoman
Marge Roukema (R-NJ) and
served as Administrative
Assistant for McCloskey and
Roukema.
In 1971, Gleason earned
her bachelor's degree in
English from Bucknell
University in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania. She earned her
law degree from the
University of Virginia School
of Law in 1986.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1989
55
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Quinn
Vogelgesang
Hecht
Patrick Quinn is the
Associate Administrator of
the Office of Congressional
and Legislative Affairs.
Quinn first came to the
Agency in 1986 as Assistant
to the Deputy Administrator.
Since 1987, he has been the
Director of EPA's Office of
Congressional Liaison. Prior
to joining EPA, Quinn served
for one year at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture as
Assistant to the Deputy
Secretary.
Quinn earned a bachelor of
arts degree in history from
the University of Virginia in
1978. From 1978-80, he
served as legislative assistant
to Senator John H. Chafee
(R-RI).
Quinn also worked as
legislative liaison for the
Washington, DC, office of
Seyfarth, Snaw, Fairweather,
and Geraldson, a
Chicago-based law firm,
before becoming, in 1983,
Executive Vice President of
the National Council of
Agricultural Employees, a
trade association representing
the fresh fruit and vegetable
industry.
Last issue, KPA journal
reported the nomination of
Timothy B. Atkeson as
Assistant Administrator for
International Affairs. Since
then, he has been confirmed
by the U.S. Senate, and two
Deputy Assistant
Administrators have been
appointed:
Sandy Vogelgesang. a
Senior Foreign Service
Officer at the Department of
State, is on special
assignment to the Agency as
a Deputy Assistant
Administrator for
International Affairs.
At the State Department,
she served as a member of
the Policy Planning Staff for
former Secretaries of State
Henry Kissinger and Cyrus
Vance and as a Special
Assistant on Policy Planning
for the Soviet Union and East
and West Europe.
Vogelgesang has also served
as Minister-Counselor for
Economic Affairs at the U.S.
Embassy in Canada and held
positions in the Bureau of
European and Canadian
Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in
Helsinki, and the Bureau of
Economic and Business
Affairs.
Vogelgesang earned her
bachelor's degree in history
from Cornell University and
her doctorate in International
Economics and Politics from
the Fletcher School of Law
and Diplomacy.
Alan D. Hecht was Director
of the National Climate
Program Office at the
National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration
prior to joining EPA as a
Deputy Assistant
Administrator for
International Affairs.
From 1976 to 1982, Hecht
was Program Director of the
Climate Dynamics Research
Program at the National
Science Foundation. He is
Beardsley
co-chair of the Climate
Working Group for the
U.S./U.S.S.R. Bilateral
Committee on Environmental
Protection and a member of
the World Meteorological
Organization's working group
on climate research.
Hecht was chief editor of
the Journal of Climate, an
associate editor of CJimate
Change, and an editorial
board member of Climate
Digest. He earned his
bachelor's degree from
Brooklyn College in 1966 and
his doctorate in geological
sciences from Case Western
Reserve University in 1971.
The new Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Policy,
Planning, and Evaluation is
Dan Beardsley,
Beardsley joined EPA in
1980 and has been in the
policy office since then,
except for a brief assignment
at The Conservation
Foundation, where he
worked on Eastern European
environmental issues. At
EPA, he started the
Regulatory Integration
Division, eventually became
responsible for waste policy
analysis, and has written
about and sponsored
conferences on risk
assessment/risk management
issues.
From 1969 to 1972, he was
chaplain at the University of
Florida and pastor of a
Congregational church. In the
next four years, he directed
drug rehabilitation programs
for the City of Atlanta. From
1976 to 1978, he managed
criminal justice programs for
the National League of Cities,
and from 1978 to 1980, he
was special assistant to the
Director of the Federal
ACTION Agency.
Beardsley is an alumnus of
the Yale Divinity School and
of Kalamazoo College, where
he earned a bachelor's degree
in philosophy, n
56
EPA JOURNAL
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FEIFFER
*f989 Jutes Feiflet. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate All rights reser\red
Back Cover: Peeking through sand dunes
on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Photo by Everett C. Johnson for Folio, Inc.
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