Environmental▼News ethinyl estrogen, the synthetic hormone used in birth control pills. The ethinyl group blocks metabolic breakdown and hinders environmental degradation, which allows the hormone to hang around in streams for up to a couple of weeks. While previous researchers have documented estrogen excretion by farm animals, Raman says his study is the first to correlate estrogen with values of nitrogen and phosphorous in manure. “These nutrients are the basis of manure application, not the amount of manure in pounds or tons,” he says. American farms are highly industrialized and generate huge
amounts of waste. A big challenge of the study was figuring out how to acquire samples from large piles of muck and lagoons of liquid waste. “It stinks,” says graduate student Elizabeth Williams. “You gotta’ have a strong stomach.” The researchers designed a special pole with a trap on the bottom so they could collect samples from different layers of the muck piles. And to ensure they did not get edge effects on the lagoons, Raman built a radio-controlled boat to motor out to the center of excrement lagoons. Ecotoxicologist John Sumpter, with Brunel University in the Uni-
ted Kingdom, points out that the original research on estrogen pollution was done by Lawrence Shore, who sampled rivers and creeks in Israel in the early 1990s. “The fact that these researchers went around to all these farms, sampling different kinds of waste, seems like a significant step forward,” he adds. After mucking across numerous farms and almost being attacked by pigs, Williams is just glad the project is over. “I shared a lab with guys doing electronic work,” she says. “They hated to see me coming with more samples. I guess I got used to the smell, but they sure didn’t.” —PAUL D. THACKER
Americans receive wake-up call on oceans Policy received strong support from a bipartisan group in Congress upon its release in late April. What remains to be seen, however, is whether that support translates into the political will to implement the recommendations, which could radically change the way Americans do business. In many ways, the commissioners note, we’ve reached a crisis point. Fisheries are collapsing, the number of beach closures and adPHOTODISC
Coastal waters in the United States are unhealthy, underexplored, and poorly managed, concludes a report by a federally appointed commission. Its members are calling for sweeping reforms to U.S. ocean policy and more research to reverse the serious declines caused by human activities that range from pollution to overfishing to chaotic coastal development. The preliminary report issued by the U.S. Commission on Ocean
A national commission warns that the U.S. coastal waters are unhealthy, underexplored, and poorly managed and that major changes are needed soon to turn the tide. 242A ■ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / JULY 1, 2004
visories continues to rise, sprawling development gobbles up some 40,000 acres of coastal wetlands annually, and invasive species— transported by ballast water or escaped from fish farms—are increasingly crowding out native species and altering habitats. Moreover, new problems are emerging from sources such as offshore aquaculture, wind energy development, bioprospecting, and everdeeper oil and gas exploration. The Commission on Ocean Policy was created by Congress in 2000, with 16 members nominated by Congress and appointed by the president. The report, which is the first comprehensive look at U.S. ocean policy in 35 years, echoes findings reached last June by the independent Pew Oceans Commission (www.pewoceans.org). What is striking, say those familiar with the reports, is that the two commissions arrived at the same conclusion—U.S. coastal waters are severely degraded and significant policy changes must be made to restore and protect them. “We need to manage our oceans more holistically and for the common good, not just for special interests,” explains Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University who was on the Pew commission. A difficult task, she admits, given that U.S. ocean policy is currently regulated in a piecemeal fashion by more than a dozen
fer, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and one of the commissioners. As part of this thrust, a national integrated ocean observing system should be implemented and linked to an international observing system (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2004, 38, 198A–199A), the commissioners say. Other key recommended changes include creating measurable water pollution reduction goals by amending the Coastal Zone Management and Clean Water Acts to more heavily target nonpoint sources, such as agricultural and urban runoff, and reforming fisheries management by requiring regional fishery management councils to rely more on scientific data when setting fishing quotas. Underlying all the recommendations is a push toward ecosystembased management. “Instead of separating fisheries from pollution from coastal development, we need ways of looking at the oceans on an ecosystem basis and considering multiple activities affecting and disrupting the entire system,” Lubchenco says. Getting public support is another challenge. A survey by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which was released in February, found that 80% of the public believes the oceans are in trouble and that human actions are harming them, but only one-third believes that their individual actions are directly connected with the oceans. Most public concern and involvement has been focused regionally “on their own piece of the coast, which doesn’t necessarily translate into collective concern at the national scope,” notes Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science and a science advisor to both commissions. With atmospheric deposition of mercury, for example, “you run up against limits in what you can do [in the Chesapeake Bay] because of the lack of a clear, strong national policy,” he adds. In the same vein, Midwestern
News Briefs Who owns the west? Metal mining in the United States accounted for 46% of pollution reported by all industries in 2001, yet it comprised just 0.36% of the total number of industrial operations, according to an online analysis of government data by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG). The report lists by country the owners of current claims and patents to mine for gold, silver, and copper on federal lands in 12 western states. It shows that the prices paid are surprisingly low, ranging from $0.84 to $5.00 per acre each year, with no royalties paid for the minerals mined. The report was released in May on the anniversary of the 1872 Mining Law, which Congress passed to stimulate settlement of the western states. EWG is calling for an update to the law. To find Who Owns The West?, go to www.ewg.org.
Many shades of green building The 10 projects being showcased as notable examples of “green design solutions that protect and enhance the environment” by the American Institute of Architects in May and June make clear that architects consider renovations of existing structures to be green buildings. However, only two of these top green projects have been rated by the standards put forward by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system, in part because the system does not yet rate such building “recycling”. The renovation of an existing summer house on Cape Cod, Mass., to create a laboratory and office space for the Woods Hole Research Center was honored. For more information and links to pictures, go to www.aia. org/media/releases/040422.asp.
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federal agencies and 140 laws. What makes the job even harder is that “there is no one cause of current disruption,” Lubchenco notes. “It’s multiple causes, and it’s things that are happening in or under the water, as well as on land.” To tackle these problems, “We need a unifying statute that lays out the basic principles for ocean management in the same way we protect our national forests, parks, and wilderness areas,” says Christopher Mann, policy director for the Center for SeaChange (www.seachange center.org), a nonprofit organization established last year to advance the recommendations of both commissions. The government-sponsored report (www.oceancommission.gov) offers nearly 200 recommendations, which the commissioners estimate will cost $1.3 billion in the first year of implementation, $2.4 billion the second year, and $3.2 billion in ongoing costs thereafter. To pay for it, they would establish a trust fund from the $5 billion the government receives annually from offshore oil and gas royalties that currently flow into the general treasury. However, some environmentalists worry that using such a fund would create incentives to further exploit ocean resources. The commission calls for a national ocean council within the White House to coordinate the various related federal agencies. One of the council’s first tasks would be to reconfigure NOAA to consolidate overlapping programs. Additionally, the report recommends establishing regional ocean councils to link federal, state, and local marine protection efforts. The commission also recommends at least doubling the current annual federal ocean research budget of $650 million over the next five years, with additional investments in technology development and ocean exploration. “We need to significantly increase our understanding of oceans and our ability to monitor the kinds of changes that are happening to figure out how we might do a better job of monitoring them,” says Paul Sandi-
Environmental▼News agriculture, arguably one of the leading causes of water-quality degradation, is a long way from the oceans, notes Mike Hayden, secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and a member of the Pew Commission. Ultimately, farm state legislators and Congress
need to focus on this problem with the same vigor with which they concentrated on establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program, he says. Consequently, the federal commissioners are also pushing public education.
The House Oceans Caucus is drafting legislation for a national ocean policy act, Mann notes. The report has gone out for gubernatorial review, with a final report expected to reach the president and Congress by late summer, according to Sandifer. —KRIS CHRISTEN
Anastas to head Green Chemistry Institute broadened awareness of green chemistry throughout the world in the government, industry, and academia, Anastas says. For example, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first green chemistry bill in April, which will coordinate existing efforts by the U.S. EPA, the National Science STEVE RITTER/C&EN
Paul Anastas, who is widely credited with coining the term “green chemistry”, has been appointed head of the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Green Chemistry Institute (GCI). Anastas is leaving the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to take over GCI and is slated to begin his new role in mid-June. He believes that green chemistry “is poised for a major leap forward” during his tenure. GCI promotes the worldwide adoption of green chemistry, which is built around the principle of designing chemical technologies that reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous substances, and it has active chapters in 24 countries. Anastas says he plans to continue GCI’s mission to spread the word through research, education, outreach, conferences, and symposia, with an eye toward expanding the organization’s emphasis to include green engineering. “Green chemistry focuses on the next generation of molecules, materials, and processes,” Anastas explains. “In order for this to be implemented in industry and throughout society, engineering will be an essential component,” he says. This interdisciplinary approach is in line with the broadening focus of ACS, as articulated by its new executive director, Madeleine Jacobs. Jacobs says that she is “thrilled” by Anastas’s appointment and that she expects him to lead GCI “to an even higher plane of excellence in the future.” Under the previous director, Dennis Hjeresen, who stepped down in January, GCI helped catalyze many of the recent developments that have
Paul Anastas believes that the green chemistry concept is poised for a major leap forward.
Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Department of Energy, including funding research and development, promotion, and education. The United Kingdom’s Royal Society of Chemistry also published a report this year recommending that green approaches should be integral to the teaching, reporting, and practice of chemistry. Green chemistry is also making inroads into businesses, such as pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which recently announced that it is establishing the
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position of corporate vice president for green chemistry, Anastas says. The opportunities for further expanding green chemistry’s influence abound, Anastas says. For example, “While green chemistry has had some wonderful and notable successes in being incorporated in various ways into undergraduate and graduate training…green chemistry principles have not been systematically incorporated into chemistry training,” he says. Green chemistry is experiencing “tremendous growth” in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia, and Spain, Anastas says. The discipline is also starting to make significant inroads in South America, China, India, and Africa, he says. Anastas traces his interest in green chemistry to his graduate education as an organic chemist at Brandeis University, where he focused on developing anticancer drugs. “I started trying to create molecules that could cure cancer, but then I started wondering why not focus on molecular structures that could never cause cancer,” he says. Anastas played an instrumental role in GCI’s 1997 founding as an independent nonprofit organization, and he has been actively involved in the organization ever since. The institute became part of ACS in 2001. Anastas joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1999, where most recently he served as assistant director for the environment section. Prior to that, he directed EPA’s Green Chemistry program and was chief of the agency’s Industrial Chemistry branch. He has been a member of the ES&T Editorial Advisory board since 1999. —KELLYN BETTS
