ES&T OUTLOOK
State of the environment 1984 Conservation Foundation report calls for new understanding
"State of the Environment: An Assessment at Mid-Decade," a Conservation Foundation (CF) report, finds that the environmental problems facing this country are far more sophisticated and involved than ever imagined. It describes important changes in the nature of environmental problems and suggests broader, more inclusive ways of thinking about them. Referred to as cross-media pollution, the movement of pollutants from one part of the environment to another, causing damage to both, is a problem that presents the most difficulty today. It brings to mind a list of current issues: acid deposition, groundwater pollution, indoor air pollution, and cleanup of hazardous waste sites. In the seventies, environmental laws were enacted to protect specific individual media. The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are examples of this approach. Now, there is a long list of environmental legislation that is in need of reauthorization but is stalled in the Congress. William Reilly, president of the Conservation Foundation (CF) said, "Unfortunately, debate on amending some of our 250A
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most important environmental laws is stalemated." He explained, "This stalemate reflects, I think, the countervailing influences of environmental, business, and other interests competing on Capitol Hill to mold legislation to their liking. No community, no coalition of interests, seems to have enough clout to break the stalemate." The first two years of the Reagan administration turned away from the problems of the environment. The report points out that EPA's budget cuts have been echoed throughout all the federal environmental programs. In real dollars, 1982 expenditures were 23% less than their 1979 peak. These reductions have taken place in pollution abatement and control and in protection and enhancement activities, but perhaps more troublesome are their long-term implications in the areas of research and monitoring. Findings Edwin (Toby) Clark, project director of the report, said that the 1984 report is divided into two parts, a first on environmental conditions and
trends, including summaries of data for each state of the union, and a second part on issues for policy consideration. In the first chapter, under emerging trends, the report considers the aspects of population, economics, public opinion, and expenditures. In 1983, the population growth rate in the U.S. was at its lowest since the 1930s. On economics, the report states that smokestack industries have decreased, whereas high-technology industries have increased. Public opinion favoring environmental protection has increased since 1980. At the press conference at which the CF report was released, it was said that public opinion favoring protection of the environment is 50% higher today than it was during the 1970s. The bad news is that expenditures for environmental activity have decreased in every category. Water expenditures are down 23% from a peak year in 1978; EPA funding is back to the level that it was in 1972; and research expenditures also have decreased compared with previous years. The report makes the following observation: "Given the Reagan ad-
0013-936X/84/0916-0250A$01.50/0
© 1984 American Chemical Society
ministration's desire to continue reducing the federal budget for domestic programs, coupled both with its commitment to continue increasing defense expenditures and strong political pressure to reduce the federal deficit, there appears to be no prospect for the environmental programs to regain in the near future the resources they had available in the late 1970s." Specific trends According to the report, air quality in the U.S. continues to show improvement. Since 1975, the biggest improvements (30-35%) have been in carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide. But water quality in the majority of the nation's streams, lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries has not changed since 1972. For streams and estuaries, when changes have occurred, they have generally favored water quality i m p r o v e m e n t s — more miles of streams and more square miles of estuaries have improved than have degraded. Lakes and reservoirs, however, show the opposite trend—more acres have degraded than have improved. Reducing the risk to humans for a certain limited number of pollutants, such as DDT, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls, has been achieved. But even minimum data on 70% of the 6000 chemicals used in industry today are not available. On hazardous wastes, the report states that 2500 lb per person are generated each year. There are more than 500 sites on the Superfund list, and only 102 currently have permits. Although there is new information in the report on visibility, there is no information on groundwater, one of the serious problem areas that is growing worse. Although there are 60 000 lb of total wastes per person per year, most of them are innocuous. A substantial majority of waste is from agriculture and mining, both of which cause relatively limited environmental damage. On natural resources, the report states that over the past two years, since the earlier CF report in 1982, there has been flooding, but that the long-term problem will be a shortage of water. On energy, efficiency is up and consumption is down in all categories. Vice-president of CF, J. Clarence (Terry) Davies, discussed the second part of the report. He said that its five chapters deal with long-range topics and their implications, including risk assessment, cross-media pollution, water resources, and intergovernment relations. He mentioned also that six
studies taken together identified 47 major environmental problems. One of the studies, by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, produced a list of the 10 most important issues: management of hazardous chemicals, processes, and wastes; depletion of tropical forests; desertification due to overgrazing; control of pathogens from human wastes; river basin management; population growth and urbanization; acid deposition; species loss; protection of the marine environment; and the fuelwood crisis. In the area of risk assessment, the process of determining the adverse consequences that may result from the use of a technology or other action, Davies mentioned that almost all risk assessments are plagued by inadequate data. He said that there is a lack of scientific understanding on how cancers form in humans. A key to understanding and improving the risk assessment process is to distinguish between those aspects of the process that are scientific and those that are matters of policy or personal value, and to appreciate their complex interrelationships. Davies contends that the scientific component of risk as-
sessment is really a mixture of risk assessment and risk management, the policy component. He believes that the decision on which risk to assess involves a policy decision, which is a part of risk management. In chapter 5, on cross-media pollution, it was noted that EPA was created in 1970. The existing environmental laws have sought to control pollutants as if they remain in the same medium. This narrow focus can undermine the effectiveness of the laws. But the problem of cross-media pollution surfaced with toxics. Davies likened the control of toxics to a shell game, removing toxics from one medium to another. The need to control toxic substances that move between media encourages a more integrated approach to environmental controls. Institutions may need to be modified to carry out a cross-media approach; consolidation of environmental laws may be another option. Copies of the 586-page CF report are available for $16 each from The Conservation Foundation, 1717 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.20036. —Stanton Miller
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS ON SPECIAL PROBLEM AREAS IN REGIONAL AIR QUALITY STUDIES The Electric Power Research Institute's Energy Analysis and Environment Division is soliciting specialized research proposals pertinent to the following features of regional air quality: • Long-range transport of airborne gases and aerosols • Preferred chemical pathways for the formation of sulfates, nitrates and oxidants in the atmosphere • Meteorological factors in the transport and transformation of reactive pollutants • The magnitude of the random component of air quality variability Responses to this solicitation are to be in the form of a clearly stated scientific problem, the research approach, the time schedule, and a cost estimate. Proposals from educational institutions involving graduate student participation, and at a total level of effort in the range of one to one and one-half persons-years per year, are especially encouraged. The data bases on sulfates, precipitation chemistry, visibility, etc., generated by EPRI's Air Quality Studies subprogram (SURE, RAQS, UAPSP) are available for these projects. If you wish to respond to this solicitation, write to the address below requesting RFP1630-25. Ms. Virginia Hess, Proposals Office Electric Power Research Institute 3412 Hillview Avenue Post Office Box 10412 Palo Alto, California 94303 CIRCLE 3 ON READER SERVICE CARD Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 18, No. 8, 1984
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