Masselli, and M. Gilbert Burford, of the Chemistry Department at Wesleyan University, and published in July 1959, by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission. We refer specifically to 36 items in Tables I1 and 111, and many of the data on p 40. Correspondence with Professor Porter reveals that he had given full acknowledgment to this work in his original manuscript, but that in the final editing this reference was removed. We would appreciate appropriate indication in your publication.
M. Gilbert Burford Chemistry Department Wesleyan University Middletown, CT 06457 Territorial animals
DEARSIR: Your March editorial on environment, interprofessional rivalry, and interdisciplinary teamwork is well taken. There are, of course, many factors which have contributed to environmental degradation. One such factor has been the attempt to employ single-purpose solu-
tions. As you suggest, “the answer, of course, lies . . . in interdisciplinary teamwork.” Universities, through teaching and research, will hopefully contribute to new approaches and solutions. Their past ‘‘sins” have to some degree at least been directed by the policies of governmental research funding agencies; therefore the latter’s attitudes must change if better solutions are to be tried. Specifically, it appears to me that it was not until the IRPOS program (Interdisciplinary Research Related to Problems of Society) of the National Science Foundation, which gave birth to the present RANN program (Research Applied to National Needs), that a researcher could be funded to investigate more than one aspect of a problem. As I read it, bureaucratic agencies tend to subdivide an entity and consider as sacrosanct and inviolable the defined areas of interest of another subdivision, even within an agency-Le., they are highly “territorial animals.” For example, I know of a case where neither of two agencies would even consider funding a look at sewage sludge conditioning and solid waste disposal combined, for the stated
reason that this would involve violation of the other’s “territory.” The NSF can shoulder only a small portion of the required interdisciplinary effort. The principal burden is EPA’S. They have some new, capable administrators aware of what is required-e.g., Stanley Greenfield-but the task of drastically altering the attitudes of inherited bureaucratic heads is tremendous. The solutions that they must consider in-house as well as “out-house” must in many cases involve several disciplines, including political science, sociology, economics, agriculture, geochemistry, and medicine, in addition to numerous capabilities they now havefrom engineering to science to law. It would indeed be instructive to see the results of a thorough objective evaluation of how well this crucial agency is doing itself and with other agencies at what society and your editorial demand-“interdisciplinaryizing. ” Roger M. Jorden Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Unicersity oj’Colorado Boulder, CO 80302
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392 Environmental Science & Technology
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