ES&T CURRENTS INTERNATIONAL
Alarm at the spread of photochemical smogs this summer has prompted Germany's opposition Social Democrats (SPD) to call for a speed limit on the country's autobahns. Despite Germany's intense interest in green issues and its ministers' demands for fossil fuel taxes and tough emission standards across the European Union, support for speed limits has long been regarded as political suicide. However, in the run-up to the German general election campaign, the SPD is now calling for a limit of 130 km/h (81 mph), the same as that on France's autoroutes, because cars burn fuel more efficiently at lower speeds. The decision was taken at a meeting of state environment ministers with party leader Rudolf Scharping. His political opponents in Chancellor Helmut Kohl's coalition government claim the SPD policy switch is an overreaction. Federal environment minister Klaus Tôpfer said speed limits would not significantly reduce ozone pollution. The argument that Germany's unrestricted autobahns help the country's high-performance car industry is also popular. World emissions of carbon dioxide declined slightly in 1993, according to the London-based World Energy Council. Emissions of 6.09 billion tons of carbon last year compare with 6.11 billion tons in 1992. The decrease results mainly from a 249 million-ton decline in emissions from the former communist countries in eastern and central Europe, which more than offset the 162 million ton increase from the Asia—Pacific region. Emissions also rose in North America, the Middle East, and Africa, but they fell in western Europe mainly as a result of a switch away from coal burning in Britain, Germany, and Italy. The
western European declines are considered temporary. British researchers are developing the use of earthworms as "biomarkers" to detect the buildup and impact of soil pollutants such as heavy metals and dioxin. The biomarker techniques, pioneered largely in aquatic environments, are now being applied to contaminated land. The proponents hope biomarkers will prove more costeffective and informative than current techniques based on chemical analysis. The method requires that a sample of the earthworms' cells be taken from body fluids. The cells are exposed to a dye that is absorbed internally. Cells that are stressed by pollutants tend to release the dye rapidly as they work to remove the contaminants and restore natural balances. The dye is released much more slowly in normal earthworm cells. A program to develop these biomarker techniques and create a range of new "molecular probes" forms part of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC's) recently launched strategy for terrestrial and freshwater science and technology. The NERC is a government-funded agency based in Swindon, England. Health risk from water supplies may affect 110 million of Europe's 850 million people. Ministers from the 50 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe heard this assessment at a recent meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Some 5% suffer sulfur dioxide and particulate pollution in excess of WHO guidelines, and at least 2 million people are exposed to excessive lead in air. The ministers agreed to prepare national environment and health action plans by 1997. The Helsinki meeting was the first WHO Europe summit since the countries of the former Soviet bloc, where most of the environmental problems exist, became members. The national action plans will contain short-, medium-, and long-term objectives aimed at meeting targets set by WHO in 1984. The aim is to ensure "effective prevention and
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control of environmental health risks and equitable access to healthy environments" by the year 2000. The next summit will be held in London in 1999. Eleven European power and engineering companies have signed an agreement to finance what they say is the world's most advanced clean coal power generation project. The $675 million project at Puertollano, Spain, will use integrated gasification—combined cycle technology. The coal is first pulverized and then gasified before passing through gas turbines. The 335 MW of electricity will be generated at 45% efficiency, compared with less than 40% for conventional technologies. In addition, 99% of the coal's sulfur will be removed and refined to make chemical industry feedstocks. The project, to start up in 1996, has received a $75 million grant from the European Union's THERMIE program for innovative energy technologies. The joint venture, called Elcogas, includes companies from Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, and Britain. The largest non-Spanish shareholder is Electricité de France, with a 29% stake. Nineteen contaminated sites were undergoing cleanup last year by France's Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) at a cost of FFr70 million ($13 million), more than double the amount spent in 1992. Cleanup costs will rise to around FFr100 million this year, the agency says. Some of the funds come from voluntary contributions from industry, which has the incentive of an exemption from a tax on the use of landfills for municipal solid waste. Further payments are made by French government agencies and the European Union. ADEME had completed 15 site cleanups by the end of 1993. The Agency has powers to obtain funds from liable parties through the courts. According to the newsletter Haznews, some 21 lawsuits worth about FFr70 million are under way. To date, ADEME has won nine such cases and lost two. ADEME is compiling information on contaminated land to be held in an inventory. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 28, No. 9, 1994
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FEDERAL
A four-member Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board was appointed by the president July 22. The board is responsible for investigating the cause of chemical accidents and issuing reports of its findings to Congress; federal, state, and local agencies; and other interested parties, according to the White House. The four members are Paul Hill, president of the National Institute for Chemical Studies in Charleston, WV; Devra Lee Davis, senior advisor to the assistant secretary for health, Department of Health and Human Services; Gerald V. Poje, scientist with the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences; and Andrea Kidd Taylor, industrial hygienist with the United Auto Workers. President Clinton appointed Hill to chair the board. Along with investigations, the board will propose corrective steps to reduce the risk of injury in the production and use of chemicals and may conduct related research. These appointments require Senate confirmation. The board was created by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, but the appointments were never made. The House Appropriations Committee refused to provide funding for the board in the 1995 appropriation, noting the administration's failure to institute the chemical board. Adoption of a "national prevention-oriented policy" to reduce exposure to dioxin was urged July 13 by a coalition of medical doctors and environmentalists. David Rail, past director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, called the current regulatory system a "patchwork of regulations to control dioxin sources." Speaking at a press briefing, Rail noted that EPA is near completion of a lengthy review of dioxin's effects on humans but, he
added, the review is far from finalized. EPA officials have predicted that the fruits of the new review may not be reflected in regulations for several years. Meanwhile, there is no national policy to reduce the public's exposure to dioxin, said Rail, speaking for Physicians for Social Responsibility. He was joined by representatives of the Environmental Defense Fund at the briefing. Most human exposure to dioxin comes through the food chain, they noted, yet fish is the only food regulated for dioxin content. Also, these regulations are set at the state level and consequently vary widely, as do dioxin water quality standards. Despite these variations, health concerns about dioxin have not lessened, the scientists said. They pointed to a draft of the dioxin risk characterization, made public in May, that showed the existing human body burden of the compound is at levels that trigger adverse health affects. The coalition recommends that EPA work to reduce dioxin from all controllable sources by using a control model similar to that which the agency used when cutting lead in the environment. Noting that dioxin refers to a family of some 75 chemical compounds, many of which are byproducts of industrial processes, the coalition recommended the Agency take aim now at processes such as chlorine bleaching of pulp and paper, chlorinated pesticide manufacture, and incineration of chlorinated materials while the review is being finalized and regulations developed. Further, EPA should closely monitor all types of incinerators to ensure they are operated at optimal conditions, put the pulp and paper industry on a schedule that will lead to the replacement of chlorine-based processing with nonchlorine technologies, apply pollution prevention strategies to processes that reduce dioxins and furans, identify improved methods for treating and disposing of dioxin-contaminated sediments and soils, and add dioxin-like compounds to the federal Right-To-Know list of chemicals. Six industries have agreed to take part in an EPA pilot program to look into the potential for multimedia, facility-wide regulations and permits, the Agency adminis-
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trator announced July 20. The demonstration project could have far-reaching possibilities, EPA officials noted, and could lead to a single operating permit and a set of regulations tailored to a particular industry or facility. Currently, industries must comply with a host of media-specific environmental regulations that sometimes conflict with one another, said EPA Administrator Carol Browner. The administrator noted that this can lead to pollution control technologies merely transferring pollutants from one media to another. When announcing the program, called the "Common Sense Initiative," Browner acknowledged that there may be limits to the legality of aspects of the project simply because of the media-specific nature of environmental laws. Currently, industries are regulated by 16 separate national environmental laws, Browner said, that have been written and overseen by 74 different congressional committees and subcommittees. Browner said six teams, corresponding to the industry sectors and led by EPA assistant administrators, will began looking into the issue and will report back to her within one year. The teams consist of representatives of the industries, community leaders, environmentalists, and state and local regulators. The six industry sectors are auto manufacturing, computers and electronics, iron and steel, metal finishing and plating, petroleum refining, and printing. If successful, Browner said the initiative would end the "crisisby-crisis, issue-by-issue" regulatory approach of the past. Sen. Max S. Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised the EPA initiative and noted that Congress must add "flexibility" in future environmental laws to "let EPA focus on how best to achieve environmental goals." Baucus has prepared provisions somewhat similar to Browner's initiative as part of the Senate Clean Water Act bill (S 2093). His proposal would set up industrial demonstration projects and allow facility-wide, multimedia permitting and enforcement schemes for a limited number of pilot sites. EPA officials announced June 21 a major change in how the agency will process proposed reg-
ulations, claiming that the new approach will be more efficient and result in stronger and more scientifically supportable rules. The new process divides EPA's pending regulations into three tiers based on the political sensitivity and the complexity of the rule. Tier 1 regulations cover controversial regulations affecting major groups and many agency programs; Tier 2 regulations affect more than one EPA program office, assistant administrator, or statute; and Tier 3 regulations are limited to a single office, assistant administrator, or statute. Placement of regulations in the top tier is left to the EPA administrator or deputy administrator. For Tier 1 and 2 rules, work groups drawn from the affected EPA offices will, early in the process, map out a blueprint describing the internal planning and scientific reviews required for the proposed regulation. Tier 3 rules will be handled only by the affected office. According to EPA officials, the new process will involve senior agency officials earlier in the rule development process and limit the likelihood of last minute problems with difficult regulations. EPA officials acknowledged stalled rules have been a problem in the past. The tier process will be overseen by a council chaired by the deputy administrator and 22 senior EPA staffers drawn from headquarters and the regions. In EPA's first test of this system, 27, 158, and 167 pending rules fell into Tiers 1,2, and 3, respectively. EPA plans to require manufacturers and processors to conduct health-effects studies for 25 hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) listed in the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) under authority of the Toxic Substances Control Act. In total, 189 HAPs are be regulated under CAA, but EPA has acknowledged that the Agency lacks the data needed to regulate many of these chemicals. Health tests on the 25 proposed chemicals could cost manufacturers $25 million. The 25 HAPs being proposed for testing are biphenyl, carbonyl sulfide, chlorine, chlorobenzene, chloroprene, cresols, cumene, dibutyl phthalate, diethanolamine, ethylbenzene, ethyl chloride, ethylene dichloride, ethylene glycol, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen fluoride, maleic anhy-
dride, methyl isobutyl ketone, methyl rnethacrylate, naphthalene, phenol, phthalic anhydride, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, 1,1,2-trichloroethane, vinyl acetate, and vinylidene chloride.
STATES A research study suggesting high levels of lead were in drinking water from certain wells was challenged by the National Ground Water Association (NGWA). In April, EPA issued an advisory to owners of new submersible pumps with brass parts (made in part with lead) to drink bottled water after a University of North Carolma-Asheville laboratory study reported high lead concentrations in water caused by leaching from these pumps. The federal government does not regulate private wells, but in public water systems sets a limit for lead at 15 ppb. "It is doubtful that submersible pumps, under real world conditions, leach lead that is of any health concern," said toxicologist Ron Block. NGWA reported that survey data from several states reveal that high lead levels were rare. For example, Kansas reported that only four (3.4%) of the 118 wells tested in 1992 exceeded the lead limit, and Michigan found that only 1.7% of the 347 water samples tested this year exceeded the 15 ppb limit. Although the studies do not discriminate between new or old submersible pumps, they indicate that lead in drinking water in general is not a problem. North Carolina state officials are currently testing wells to evaluate whether submersible pumps are a problem. The NGWA argues that the North Carolina researchers overestimated the probability of leaching and that their laboratory experiments failed to account for all the variables.
SCIENCE There has long been speculation that soiled disposable diapers in landfills could be a source of human disease. However, researchers from the University of Arizona, the Upjohn Company, and the Orange County Water District (CA) report in this month's ES&T (p. 1767) that enteric viruses seem not to survive in landfills. The study tested 110 diapers collected from three landfills. Samples from
the diapers were cultured for the enteroviruses and specifically analyzed using cDNA probes for polio, hepatitis A, and rotaviruses. No viable cultures were observed with the cell cultures, and only three diapers showed positive results for poliovirus with the DNA probes.
The first direct evidence that water vapor over warm tropical waters triggers a "super greenhouse effect" that heats the ocean surface is raising questions about whether a natural thermostat mechanism prevents runaway climatic warming. The observation (Science, July 8, p. 224) comes as part of the 1993 Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment (CEPEX). Researchers with CEPEX found that in colder waters approximately 80 to 90 W/m 2 of energy is radiated away from the ocean surface to the upper atmosphere under clear skies, but that this value drops to between 30 and 50 W/m 2 over tropical waters because of the buildup of water vapor, a greenhouse gas. As a result, heat builds up on the ocean surface, yet the tropic water temperatures rarely exceed 85 °F. "We suggested the reason the ocean has such an upper limit is because as the ocean gets warmer and warmer, it produces highly reflective cirrus clouds that shield the ocean from sunlight and, thus, regulate its temperature," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, chief scientist for CEPEX. Adds the paper's author Dan Lubin, a research physicist in the California Space Institute and the Scripps' Center for Clouds, Chemistry, and Climate, "It also lends support to the idea that nature comes up with self-regulating mechanisms for its climate."
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