Government▼Watch Barring aquatic invaders An electrical barrier will keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, thanks to $300,000 in grant money from three U.S. federal agencies, the International Joint Commission, and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Although the action is welcome, it ex-
habitat coordinator for the Lake Michigan Federation, an environmental group. His organization has called for $10 million to stop the Asian carp, which could be used to create a permanent barrier by adding a second one of a different type, such as acoustic bubblers used in Europe, or separating the canal from Lake Michigan by treating
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emplifies the piecemeal, insufficient funding and policy approach that the United States has used to tackle invasive species, critics say. On Nov. 18, 2002, the U.S. EPA provided $150,000, the Department of State gave $100,000, and the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) contributed in-kind services to install backup power for a temporary electrical barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which provides a passageway from the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan. The Corps has already installed cables along the bottom of the canal to create a micropulsed direct current electric field, which will hopefully prevent fish passage, says Steven Hawkins, brigadier general with the Corps. The backup power will keep the electric field operational if there is an outage in the public power grid that provides energy for the barrier. The carp, which can grow to 100 pounds and up to 4 feet long, are currently in the canal, less than 50 miles from Lake Michigan and about 17 miles from the barrier. The project’s funding is small considering the enormous problem of invasive species, says Joel Brammeier, © 2003 American Chemical Society
water between the locks, or closing the connection to the lake. Brammeier’s group is demanding a more comprehensive, nationwide management plan with strong funding and regulations to fight all aquatic invasive species. This point is echoed in a new report from the International Association for Great Lakes Research, a scientific organization of researchers studying the large lakes of the world (www.iaglr.org/scipolicy/ais/). The report’s authors challenge the U.S. and Canadian governments to establish a 10-year goal to eliminate introductions of new aquatic invasive species and calls for $30 million annually to fight invasive species in the Great Lakes region. —JANET PELLEY
Surveying the underworld Scientists began heading underground in December in one of the largest efforts yet to systematically collect and classify soil-dwelling organisms in the tropics. The five-year project is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility at a cost
of $26 million. Countries targeted by the survey include Brazil, India, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda. “We’re surveying these areas to first try to understand something about what biodiversity is there in the soil, and then we’ll look at ways in which that biodiversity can be conserved by managing agriculture in more sustainable ways,” says Jonathan Anderson, an ecology professor at the University of Exeter and chair of the program’s technical advisory group. The clearing of forests for farmland and a push toward increasing intensification of agriculture have led to the widespread destruction of habitats across the tropics, along with the loss of critical ecosystem services such as water storage and carbon sequestration, according to Nick Nuttall, UNEP spokesperson. The idea behind the project is that by better understanding the role that below-ground life—such as beetles, fungi, nematodes, and termites—play, researchers might be able to restore the fertility of some of these damaged and degraded lands. At the same time, crop yields could be raised without the heavy pesticide and fertilizer inputs so common in the United States and Europe. Burrowing by earthworms and termites, for example, helps to better structure and maintain the soil, allowing plant roots to go deeper and water to percolate through the soil to recharge groundwater aquifers and springs, according to Anderson. He points to a project in India where the reintroduction of earthworms at a 100-year-old tea plantation has increased previously stalled yields by as much as 282%. The seven countries where the soil surveys are now under way were chosen because they already have some scientific capacity to carry out the work themselves, Nuttall says. Moreover, these sites were thought to be among those with the highest subterranean biodiversity. KRIS CHRISTEN
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EC proposes sulfur limits on marine fuels
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The European Commission (EC) has proposed regulations to reduce air pollution from seagoing ships. If approved, it would mark the first regula-
The EC predicts that by 2010, SO2 emissions over the seas could be three-quarters of land-based emissions.
tion of maritime emissions. The move is a reaction to projections in an ECcommissioned report that by 2010, emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) over European seas could be three-quarters of land-based emissions, and emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) could
be two-thirds of land-based emissions. The EC’s top priority is to reduce ship SO2 emissions over EU seas by 500,000 tons annually, officials say. The proposals include a 1.5% sulfur content limit for fuels used by all vessels in the North Sea, English Channel, and Baltic Sea; currently used marine fuels have an average sulfur content of 2.7%. To improve air quality around ports and coasts, the same limit would apply to fuels used by passenger vessels on regular service to or from any port within the EU. Ships at berth in EU ports would have to use fuel with a 0.2% limit. Once adopted, member states would apply these laws to all vessels in their ports and seas, says Nicola Robinson of the Commission’s environment directorate. With these proposals, the EC is putting pressure on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to speed up ratification of its MARPOL Convention on air pollution from ships, (Environ. Sci. Technol. 1999, 33, 9A), says Melissa Shin of the European Environmental Bureau, an association of environmental organizations. This sets a 1.5% limit for SOx emission
control (SEC) areas like the Baltic Sea. To reduce NOx emissions, the EC intends to press for tougher engine standards through the IMO. The EC also wants to develop market-based instruments, such as differentiated port dues based on emissions, to encourage ship owners to use NOx reduction technologies. The oil industry supports lowsulfur fuels for SEC areas, but not elsewhere, such as around the Mediterranean Sea, where acidification is not an issue, says Manuel Bravo of Europia, the European oil industry association. He also points out that the costs of low-sulfur fuel would jump substantially if industry had to produce more than the 4–5 million tons per year required for the SEC areas. Shinn points out that a 1.5% limit addresses only the cumulative emissions from the current fleet but does not address the emissions produced by a projected 3% growth in the fleet by 2010. “We are concerned that this strategy will not stop emissions exceeding the critical loads for acidification and eutrophication.” MARIA BURKE
Governments of the six countries that share the 4880kilometer-long Mekong River—China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma—have agreed to form a regional power grid that environmentalists fear would lay the foundation for an ambitious program of hydropower development. The $4.6 billion plan will involve 32 projects, including the construction of vast transmission lines to create a regional grid, encouraging private-sector investment in power, and developing a regional system of power trading. Officials with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which will provide loans for some projects, touts regional electricity trade for its “significant economic and environmental benefits”. For example, substituting coal and oil with hydropower, natural gas, and other energy sources will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Although the ADB does not have a specific budget for hydropower investment in the region, hydropower development is likely to be one of its favored options. However, officials stress that any project must meet its guidelines on environmental and social safeguards. “If you are going to develop hydropower, you have supply countries like Laos and demand countries like Thailand and Vietnam,” says Rajat Nag, director-general of the ADB’s Mekong Department. “It makes much more sense to take a regional, holistic approach.” Environmentalists are concerned that this agreement is the first step toward a fresh spurt of dam building in
54 A ■ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / FEBRUARY 1, 2003
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Southeast Asia development raises concerns
Thailand and Vietnam could benefit from new projects that collect and transport water from Laos.
the Mekong basin. “Further dam development along the Mekong and its tributaries will result in destruction of the valuable Mekong fisheries, widespread downstream erosion, flooding of important conservation areas, increased flooding downstream, and reduction of soil fertility along the banks of the river and in the Mekong delta,” says Aviva Imhof, director of the Southeast Asia Program of the International Rivers Network, a campaigning organization. Already, at the Theun-Hinboun hydropower project in Laos, fish stocks in affected rivers have fallen as much as 90%, and severe erosion along the river downstream of the dam has resulted in the loss of farmland, riverbank vegetable gardens, and the destruction of fisheries, says Imhof. —MARIA BURKE
