:ioration increment system should be eliminated in all areas except those such as national parks, a sitr ple requirement for best available control technology would take its place. The automobile standard for CO should be relaxed from 3.4 to 7 g/mi. Four new initiatives were suggested: consideration of a fine particle standard, controls on SO to reduce acid rain, acceleration o the regulation of hazardous pollutants, and examination of indoor air pollution and resolution of federal jurisdiction over the matter. The National Academy of Sciences bas meanwhile defended the PSD system in a study commissioned by Congress in 1977. The report called the prevention-of-significant-deterioration system “basically sound”; the problem has been a twnarrow interpretation of the increments allowed. “The increments were not intended to be absolute constraints,” said John T. Middleton, chairman of the academy panel and a former EPA administrator. eting the increments as marks,’’ rather than as rigid standards, would allow the system to work as intended in “managing h consistent with air quality rns,” he said. Another key to e system’s working, the report wnciuded, was having the states
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era1 agencies and serves as an aL cate of environmental posit’ , within the Executive Off President. Council staff said that the budget cut make it impossible for it out these tasks. Citing the complexity and unrealis tic deadlines of the Clean Water Act, a House subcommittee has proposed amendments that woulc give local authorities greater responsibility and provide greater flexibility. The Investigations an( Oversight Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation reported that “current efforts are still beset by such an array of problems as to call into grave question whether the EPA is truly capable of putting into effect a . . . workable scheme.” The subcommittee recommended that local authorities be allowed to prescribe pretreatment requirements, and that direct dischargers be excused from the latest cleanup requirements if they can demonstrate that no threat to aquatic life will result. The act is up for reauthorization during this Congress. A Florida building contractor, Thorn Auchter, was named to bead OSHA. Auchter, 35. has no government experience or professional training in occupational safety. He did, however, serve on an industry task force on occupational safety and health in the early 19709 and has worked as labor negotiator and chief safety officer of his familyowned construction business. (That business has been cited for 48 OSHA violations and fined a total of S I200 since 1972, according to the Department of Labor.) Auchter said he will work to get rid of regulations that are found to be nitpicking or whimsical and that distract from the agency’s job of protecting health and safety of workers. IS, . .NUW . .. : ....
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ion control devices were tamwitb in two-thirds of the vehicles examined in a survey of eight areas across the country conducted by EPA in 1979. The survey found virtually no change in the tampering rate from 1978. Only onethird of the 100-350 vehicles examined in each area were found to have all control equipment working. Equipment was missing or disconnected in 18% equipment had apparently been modified in 46%.
Marine plants may provide a large sink for global carbon, according a report published in Science by S. V. Smith of the University of Hawaii. Smith suggests that growth, burial, and oxidation of marine macrophytes, along with oxidation-induced CaCO3 dissolution and metabolically accelerated transfer of gas from air to sea. could account for I O9 t of carbon absorbed per year, and could explain at least part of the existing discrepancy in the global carbon budget. Fossil-fuel burning is a source of 5 X IO9 t per year: 50% remains in the atmosphere; 40% is dissolved in the oceans; and the re maining 10%had been thought to be taken up by increasing terrestr al biomass until studies suggested that terrestrial biomass may in fa be shrinking.
STATES An EPA-imposed ban 011 new source construction in California .The US.Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal sought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, rgued that the ban was un-
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I L Summertime haze: a boo
Summertime haze in t US.originates in the Northeast. George T. co-workers at General Motors plain the high conce ozone and sulfate in of midwestern and n sources. They found
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Air pollutant measurement over wide nrens, and in three dimensions-previously infeasible-has been successfully field-tested under Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) funding. The new instrument, a differential absorption lidar (DIAL), sweeps ultraviolet laser light across a plume and measures concentrations of gases present. Lidar stands for light direction and ranging. EPRI estimates that one hour of DIAL operation could collect a quantity of data equal to that gathered by IO00 ground-based air sampling stations. The system, developed by SRI International, can also be used to ascertain gas distribution in temperature inversion layers.
Two disposal fncilities to destroy PCBs in high eoncentrntions have been approved h EPA Both use h i g F t e m p e r a t u h n e i s 3 Deer Park, Tex., owned by Rollins Environmental Services. The other, owned by ENSCO, is at El Dorado, Ark. Tests on both incinerators showed that they could destroy more than 99.9999% of PCBs in waste oils without risk to public health and the environment. “Burns” are made at more than 1200 “C under highly controlled conditions, A “giant eggbeater” wind turbine bns been built by Southern California Edison to test wind po cepts. Its axis is vertical, a capacity of 3 M W of e The generator was made for SCE by Alwa. SCE is also evaluating a propeller-type turbine made by Bendix. The aim is to have 120
port margins of safety that the EPA presently requires.
