Environmental assessment of Antarctic research The consequences tend to be localized, affecting the research program itself rather than native ecosystems Charles E. Myers N a t i o n a l Science Foundation Division of Polar Programs Washington, D . C . 20550
Roger F. Hatcher Richard C. Tucker Natalie S. Waugh Dames & Moore Bethesda, M d . 2001 4
The only major activity that takes place on the Antarctic continent is the scientific research conducted by the United States and a dozen other nations. The United States Antarctic Research Program, funded and managed by the Nationai Science Foun668
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dation (NSF), is an expeditionary program on the continent of Antarctica and aboard ships in the oceans of the region. The N S F recently deemed it important to assess the environmental impact of this activity. Although at the time the assessment began there were no legal requirements for it, the President has since issued an executive order requiring many U.S.-run foreign programs to file environmental impact statements. The U S . has also accepted and enacted into law many of the approximately 60 conservation and environmental protection measures adopted by parties to the international Antarctic Treaty, which provides the framework for Antarctic research.
The environmental impacts discussed here apply only to the U S . program, though many of the impacts can be generalized and extended to predict the effects of programs which may take place i,n Antarctica in the future, such as mineral exploration and exploitation, commercial activities, and extensive land-based tourism. Such activities are not taking place now, however. Support activities Over half of the potentially significant environmental effects are associated with support activities: fuel handling and storage, solid waste disposal, sanitary waste disposal, and construction, operation, and maintenance of stations and field camps.
0013-936X/80/0914-0668$01.00/0
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1980 American Chemical Society
Core sampling (aboue). Ice core f r o m Dome C is placed in a shipping container Under the ice (aboue left). Investigators diving in Lake Hoare to study and sample algal mats on the lake bottom Field camp ( l e f t ) The base of operations f o r a study o f t h e geologic history of the Darwin Glacier
The U S . maintains four year-round stations, McMurdo, Palmer, Siple, and Amundsen-Scott South Pole, along with a varying number of temporary field camps established during the southern summer and a research vessel, RV Hero. Transportation of personnel and supplies within Antarctica is largely by air. Every year, some 2000 tons of cargo and food and 5 000 000 gallons of petroleum products are brought in to Antarctica (90% of it by ship), and only a small portion is ever removed. Everything else remains as buildings, machines, solid wastes, particulate matter, and gases. Solid wastes are disposed of by burial in ice holes at South Pole and Siple Stations, or by burial in landfill. Antarctic soil and aquatic communities a r e easily affected by sanitary waste disposal. In addition to adding nutrients to the environment, waste disposal adds foreign chemicals and organisms to the soil and water. The addition of foreign organisms limits the usefulness of affected areas as sites for future study of native communities. In environmentally sensitive areas, human wastes are now packaged and returned to the stations for disposal.
The 5 000 000 gallons of petroleum products taken annually to Antarctica are used to heat shelters, generate electricity, distill water, and power motors ranging from small portable electric generators to large jet engines. Most fuels used in Antarctica are unleaded. A few automobiles and trucks use regular gasoline that contains lead. The main products of burning these fuels are heat, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, hydrocarbons, and particles. Wherever the products are emitted, they increase background concentrations in the air and become incorporated into the seas, ice, snow, and soils of Antarctica. Because concentrations of combustion products are low, the addition of these materials to to the environment affects only certain research projects. Not all of the oil transported to Antarctica is burned, however. When diesel fuel is used as a drill fluid, local contamination of soil, ice, or water results. A large oil spill could also be produced by the penetration of a hydrocarbon layer during scientific drilling operations. The probability 'of this occurring is extremely low, however.
The impacts of routine oil spills vary considerably with amounts and locations. At McMurdo Station, such spills will have relatively little additional impact on a local environment-on the scale of a few square miles-that has been subjected to some pollution for 20 years. At South Pole and Siple Stations, as well as ice-bound field camps, oil spills will cause local contamination of the ice and a loss of volatile hydrocarbons to the air, but these are not serious effects. Oil spills in ice-free land areas and marine environments are, however, potentially significant. Due to the vast size of the southern ocean, even a relatively large oil spill at sea is not likely to have catastrophic effects on the marine ecosystem as a whole. Local effects, though, could be severe. Penguins are particularly susceptible to hazards of oil spills because they are dependent upon their feathers for insulation. Thus a large oil spill in an open ocean area where penguins are feeding or a t a near-shore area adjacent to the penguin rookery would have severe impacts on local populations. By their very presence, people introduce bacteria, fungi, and viruses into the Antarctic environment. Furthermore, their implements-airVolume 14, Number 6, June 1980
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Highlights of the 16/9-80 US. Antarctic Research Program
More than 300 investigators traveled to Antarctica last season (October 1979March 1980) to conduct about 80 science projects. Geological studies centered on the Ellsworth Mountains, a rugged chain located about 2000 km from McMurdo Station, between the ice plateau of West Antarctica and the Ronne and Filchner Ice Shelves. The highest mountains in Antarctica, the Eiisworths reach elevations of 5100 m. Geologists are interested in the Ellsworths because they represent a bridge between the geologically older shield areas of East Antarctica and the younger province of West Antarctica. Because the Ellsworths OCCUT precisely at the dividing line between the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Ronne Ice Shelf, glacial geologists find the region useful for monitoring i6e recessions and advances in the Weddell Sea area. Ellsworth Camp was open for six weeks beginning in mid-December. During that period, geoiogists obtained samples of
fossil flora and fauna particularly from the top of the Precambrian and base of the Cambrian sedlmentary beds. They examined the evolution of landforms in the Ellsworth Mountains and charted the sequence of major structural geologic events there. Data gained this season may clarify the history of this portion of Antarctica as well as its tectonic relationship to the Antarctic Peninsula area. Glacial geologists tested the hypothesis that during glacial periods the West Antarctic Ice Sheet expands to the edge ofthe continental shelves in the Ross and Weddell Seas and that during interglacials the ice sheet retreats to about its present position and maintains large ice shelves. During particularly warm interglacials-the last was 124 000 years ago-they think the West Antarctic Ice Sheet loses its ice shelves and collapses rapidly. They looked at traces of the ice sheet left nearly 300 m above the current ice surface to test the theory about the collapse during the last interglacial period. The meteorite search which has proved so successful in the past two seasons continued this time in the Ellsworth Mountains, as well as in new areas on the East
Antarctic ice Sheet near the McMwdo Sound region. Once again, researchers looked for areas where ablation has uncovered meteorites long buried In the ice. As in the past, the meteorites wwe handled carefully to keep them from contaminatim and to preserve their scientific value. Elsewhere In Antarctica, scientists continued to examine how human beings and other life forms adapt to Antarctic conditions. One medical doctor studied the surprisingly persistent shedding of parainfluenza virus by persons isolated at South Pole Station throughout the winter. Other investigators studied the synthesis of proteins in certain Antarctic fishes: one of them, a glycoprotein, enables the fish to survive in ice-laden seawater. The researchers examined the synthesis and molecubr structure of this glycoproteinand other plasma proteins and the way specific levels of the antifreeze are maintained in fishes at different temperatures. The goal was not only to determine the structures of these glycoproteins and the processes involved in their synthesis, but to describe protein synthesis in general . Such a description is important because protein synthesis is one of the most fundamental
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