between measurements, exposure, and human health. —JASON GORSS
Florida, EPA slammed for regulatory failures A series of decisions has raised questions about federal and state environmental regulatory oversight of Florida’s waters. In the most recent incident, a Florida grand jury blasted U.S. EPA Region 4’s Superfund program for failing to protect drinking water in the western part of the state. The jury found that residents have unwittingly been drinking water contaminated with radium, dry-cleaning chemicals, pesticides, and petroleum products for at least eight years. The grand jury—the second in the past five years to criticize the Region 4 office—also condemned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and the local water company for allowing Escambia County’s drinking water source to become so polluted that the area could be forced to find an alternative water supply. In a 43page report released on May 4, the jury described how regulators failed to address pressing drinking water pollution issues. Escambia County is one of the United States’ most polluted counties, encompassing six Superfund sites, hundreds of petroleum storage facilities, and numerous abandoned sites. The area is at special risk because its sole drinking water source is a shallow aquifer that is highly susceptible to contamination. Despite this susceptibility, EPA Region 4, based in Atlanta, Ga., approved natural attenuation as the remedy of choice at three Superfund sites. In one case, the grand jury has charged that ConocoPhillips, the corporate owner of the Agrico Chemical Co. Superfund site, avoided paying for cleanup by using a consultant who persuaded government officials to approve natural attenuation. Florida’s two senators called on the agency to investigate the grand jury findings. “The EPA must examine its role in prolonging the health
threat posed by the contamination,” Sen. Bob Graham (D) and Bill Nelson (D) wrote. EPA Region 4 is preparing a response to the grand jury’s report and won’t comment, says spokesperson Laura Niles. Meanwhile, in a case involving Clean Water Act discharge permits, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups have notified EPA that they intend to sue because Region 4 has turned a blind eye to Florida’s longstanding failures to obey the act. And, in a March 8 ruling on a dairy permitting suit, Florida Circuit Judge L. Ralph Smith wrote that the FDEP’s regulation of dairies, which has included voluntary agreements to reduce pollution, “is so inadequate as to closely resemble a delegation of its duties to the industry it is required to regulate.” “If EPA allows states to pick and choose when and how they enforce federal environmental laws, then, in effect, we have no federal standards and we encourage states like Florida to ‘race to the bottom’ as a way to please existing industrial polluters and attract more,” says University of Alabama law professor Robert Kuehn. “Failure to enforce standards also perversely punishes industries that spend the extra money to comply,” adds Kuehn. EPA takes the allegations seriously and is currently investigating them, according to a May 13 letter to the environmental groups from Region 4’s director of water management James Giattina. When it comes to enforcement of environmental regulations, Florida “is pretty third world,” says an environmental scientist who moved south several years ago. Linda Young, southeast regional coordinator of Clean Water Network, one of the groups that brought the dairy lawsuit, agrees, “In most cases FDEP’s purpose is to protect illegal polluters from the public,” she says. —REBECCA RENNER
News Briefs Biotechnology for pollution prevention Genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) have the potential to dramatically reduce industrial pollution, according to a report by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), an industry group. New Biotech Tools for a Cleaner Environment, which was released in June, claims that using such organisms and enzymes in place of traditional technologies is a cost-effective way to prevent the creation of pollution. For example, GEOs can produce ethanol from crop residues, and the resulting fuel generates 8–10 times as much energy as required for production. The report claims that the benefits of using GEOs outweigh their risks in industrial settings, because the engineered organisms are contained and the chances that they will be accidentally released into the environment are minimal. The report is at www.bio.org/ind/pubs/cleaner 2004/CleanerReport.pdf.
Assessing PVC with LCA The best way to determine the environmental impacts of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is by comparing life cycle assessments (LCAs) on the basis of how the plastic is used, concludes a German consultancy in a report published in June for the European Commission. For example, PE Europe GmbH’s report found that in flooring, linoleum had fewer environmental impacts than PVC had, whereas in roofing, PVC polymers had lower environmental impacts than bitumen systems had. The report also found that LCAs should be complemented by risk assessments as LCAs do not evaluate the effects of exposure and hazard-related data. Life Cycle Assessment of PVC and of principal competing materials is at http:// europa.eu.int /comm/enterprise/ chemicals/sustdev/pvc-executive_ summary_lca.pdf.
AUGUST 1, 2004 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 285A
RHONDA SAUNDERS
which is combining exposure studies with data from rapid indicators to get a clearer picture of the link
