Environmental News wide, claims 57,919 square miles annually, and is linked to rural poverty and population shifts. The U.N. Secretariat notes that 85% of Mexican territory is threatened by drought and desertification, leading to emigration of some 700,000-900,000 Mexicans annually to the United States. "Effective action to combat desertification requires an immediate response from the entire
international community," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Topfer at the Recife Conference. "The response must be equal to that demanded by global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, and the loss of biodiversity." IFAD president Fawzi H. AlSultan noted that, left unchecked, desertification will increase rural poverty. "The fight against desertification is a fight against pov-
erty. An estimated 1.4 billion human beings, the bulk of them in rural areas, struggle to live on $1.00 a day or less, and by 2015 this figure may rise to 1.9 billion. An estimated 65% of these poor and food-insecure live in dryland and mountainous areas," he said. A fourth Conference of Parties is expected to be held in Bonn in October 2000. —PATRICIA DEMPSEY
European ban on use of surfactant alarms U.S. producers U.S. chemical producers have sharply criticized a draft risk assessment by the European Union (EU) that recommends a European ban on many uses of nonylphenol ethoxylates, a commodity surfactant used worldwide in many cleaning and industrial products. The critical remarks were made at one of the first in a series of international meetings held in November to discuss different countries' approaches to risk management. The meeting, held in Geneva, was organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. chemical manufacturers allege that the assessment fails to use field measurements, and they object to the application of bans to control pollution, said Bob Fensterheim, executive director of the Alkylphenols and Ethoxylates Research Council, based in Washington, D.C. Fensterheim said that U.S. companies are using pollution prevention techniques, which often result in environmental improvements. Product bans simply substitute one possibly more harmful chemical for another, Fensterheim said. "Product bans are inappropriate risk management measures in cases where effective methods of pollution prevention and control have been demonstrated" he said. U.S. manufacturers fear that a European ban could affect them because products sold worldwide will use other surfactants
Government officials at the OECD expert meeting reviewed the differences between U.S., EU, and Canadian approaches to risk assessment and management of nonylphenol ethoxylates. EPA's screening level risk assessment compares the toxicity of nonylphenol with existing exposure information and concludes that the substance is not harmful to aquatic life nationwide, but could be in some localities where there are hotspots said Donald Rodier at EPA's Office of Prevention Pesticides and Toxic Substances A more detailed risk assessment has been stalled awaitinc further toxicity tests he said EPA is currently preparing draft water quality criteria for aquatic life for nonylphenol, which propose a chronic fresh-
water criterion of 6.6 pg/L. The Canadian risk assessment is still under way. The EU risk assessment, which was commissioned by the United Kingdom's environmental protection agency, estimated nonylphenol toxicity by using the most conservative toxicity test, whereas the U.S. assessment used a composite number based on toxicity testing and field studies, Rodier said. The assessment concluded that nearly all uses of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) present a significant risk to aquatic organisms. Based on this result the assessment recommends banning various major uses of NPEs in Europe. The nonylphenol risk ss~ sessment is one of the first to be completed under the EU program for existing chemicals REBECCA RENNER
Notable Quotes "The major environmental constraints of the future are two in number: arable land.. . and available fresh water." E. O. Wilson, Harvard University, commenting on natural resource shortages
"We do ambient monitoring 24-hours-a-day, every day of the year, in every American city, but still can't tell anyone much about their exposure because stationary background measurements don't reflect how people are exposed." Wayne Ott, Stanford University, discussing the need for direct human exposure monitoring
6 8 A • FEBRUARY 1, 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
