Environmental News Scientists elucidate role elements play in eutrophication New findings that silicon and iron play an important role in coastal eutrophication were announced at a September conference of the Estuarine Research Federation, an international educational organization. Water managers for too long have focused only on nitrogen and phosphorus as a cause of excess algal production, overlooking the significant role played by other nutrients scientists said. A drop in the ratio of silicon to nitrogen in the Mississippi River has altered the composition of the food chain in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico's oxygen-poor dead zone, said Gene Turner, an ecologist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Thanks to human activities such as farming and dam building, nitrogen levels have tripled, while silicon levels have lowered to half of their historic values in the Mississippi River he said. Scientists hypothesize that when algae containing silicon die and drop to the river bottom dams hold back sediment and prevent the silicon from reentering the system Farm fertilizers have elevated historic levels of nitrogen Turner's research shows that when the silicon-to-nitrogen ratio falls below 1 to 1, diatoms—algae with silicon coatings—cannot grow. Diatoms are the favorite food of zooplankton, whose numbers decline along with falling diatom levels. This reduction in turn depresses the populations of small larval fish that feed on the zooplankton. The problem with nutrient loading in die Mississippi River is not just excess algal production but a change in nutrient ratios mat has altered the aquatic community favoring less edible species of algae and perhaps PVPT1
harmful Turner said The conventional wisdom that nitrogen availability limits algal growth in most estuaries has been challenged by new results from Alan Lewitus, physiological ecologist at the University of South Carolina's Baruch Institute. Lewitus has shown that forests
Experts expect that eutrophication conditions will worsen in more than half of the nation's estuaries, and along all of the coasts, by 2020.
provide the organically bound iron needed by algae. Clear-cutting coastal forests reduces the amount of biologically available forms of iron, which limits the growth of algae. Lewitus suspects that iron limitation leads to the loss of diatoms, a favorite food species, and excess production of less desirable blue-green algae. These results are "extremely significant" in light of die just released National Estuarine Eutroph-
ication Assessment, said Suzanne Bricker, physical scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA's assessment found tiiat 84 of 139 estuarine systems have moderate to high levels of eutrophication. Many of tiiese estuaries have not been well studied, and the new research highlights die need for a comprehensive approach to monitoring and studying tiiese systems, she said. JANET PELLEY
Legislators, environmentalists, and states up in arms over anti-environmental rider Because a rider signed into law this fall as part of the fiscal year 2000 defense appropriations bill could shield the Pentagon from penalties for violating environmental standards, some influential groups are agitating for its repeal. Proponents of a bill introduced in the House of Representatives this November to repeal the rider have vowed to renew their efforts to defeat the law when Congress reconvenes this month. Despite calls for a veto over the rider by Congress and environmentalists, President Bill Clinton signed the $268 billion Defense Appropriations Act in late October. Days
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later, fears that the rider could affect ongoing work at dozens of Pentagon facilities across the country, including the Massachusetts Military Reservation and South Weymouth Naval Air Station in his home state, spurred Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) to introduce a bill repealing it. By mid-November, Delahunt had rallied 62 cosponsors from both parties and had launched a Web site to inform citizens about his bill (www.house. gov/delahunt) The National Association of Attorneys General, the Environmental Council of the States, and a number of environmental orga-
nizations support the provision in Delahunt's bill repealing the rider. Many of these organizations cite the federal government's dubious distinction of being the nation's largest polluter in letters they have sent to key legislators calling for the rider to be rescinded. The rider, which is known as Section 8149 of the appropriations act, exempts the Department of Defense (DOD) from the 1992 Federal Facility Compliance Act, subjecting federal agencies to the same environmental laws as private parties. Instead, the rider forbids the Department of Defense from paying fines for environmental violations on military installations in 2000 without congressional authorization, according to Delahunt's Web site. Clinton said he was "troubled" by this provision but he directed DOD to circumvent it by seeking authorization for all fines and penalties that result from any environmental violations Paul Yaroschak, director of Environmental Compliance and Restoration Policy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, said the congressional authorization clause "is essentially the same as the one we've used for cleanup-related fines for a few years. The only difference is that it has been extended to all fines in other media." The Defense Department has been paying the fines that resulted from the existing cleanup-related clause Yaroschak said. He argued that an advantage of section 8149's congressional oversight clause is that it provides "full visibility of our failures to complv for DOD leadershin Congress and the nnhlir " According to a review of Section 8149 by the Congressional Budget Office, most of the environmental fines paid by DOD in the past two years have been to state and local governments. The Environmental Council of the States is urging the rider's repeal because such fines and penalties "are extremely important in helping to assure compliance with environmental requirements,"
members of the group wrote in a letter to their federal representatives. And the National Association of Attorneys General said in a letter to congressional leaders that the rider "could be interpreted by federal agencies to strip states of the power to penalize the DOD in the coming year. In so doing, such an interpretation would place federal facilities above the law." The environmental groups demanding that Congress repeal the
rider include the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. In a joint letter, these groups called the rider "outrageous" because it "could actually undo existing court awards and settlements against the DOD that have yet to be fully paid, and halt the implementation of supplemental environmental projects already in progress." KELLYN S. BETTS
Laureate extols genetic engineering's value for aiding hungry developing nations Expressing a view that contrasts efits in agriculture, food quality, sharply with the perspectives of nutrition, and health," Swamimany environmental groups, renathan said in a speech in India nowned plant geneticist Monklast winter. But in the same ombu Sambasivan Swaminathan speech he also emphasized that praised genetic engineering's po"there are genuine public contential for helping developing nacerns about the potential adverse tions feed themselves, during a impact of GMOs on the environconference that culmiment, biodiversity, and nated in his receiving human health." the 1999 Volvo EnviSwaminathan's poronment Prize. sition on genetic engineering is at odds with "The benefits of many experts and biotechnology far farmers in the develoutweigh the risks," oping world, said PeSwaminathan said at ter Rosset, executive the "Planet at Risk director of the InstiPartnership at Work" tute for Food and Deconference, which was velopment Policy, a held in New York City M. S. Swaminathan nonprofit organization in late October and focused on international food iscosponsored by Columbia Unisues. "There is close to as much versity and Volvo. Swaminathan is opposition to using GMOs in the widely credited with transforming developing world as there is in India from a nation with chronic the [developed world]" Rosset food shortages in the 1960s to its said Countries like India Brazil current self-sufficiency and the Thailand and Mexico consider Volvo Prize Committee cited him CMOs to be a threat to their food for his "international leadership Qpnirity and to their pvnorts he in agriculture and resource consaid servation" He holds the United Nations Educational Scientific Many environmental groups and Cultural Organization's Cousare dubious about biotechnoloteau Chair in Fcotechnoloev gy's ability to help the struggling l
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of sustainable agriculture. "Genetically modified organisms [GMOs] can confer real ben-
subsistence farmers most in need of aid. Swaminathan is taking "a much more optimistic approach to biotechnology" than many environmentalists, explained Brian Halweil, a staff researcher at Worldwatch Institute. He faulted
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