Environmental▼News sampling was difficult, because microarrays were developed for geneexpression work. “We initially wanted to handle this with off-the-shelf technology, using microarray techniques for expression analysis,” he says. “We found that this just wasn’t working.” After almost two years of work, the lab has already evaluated thousands of samples and is now awash in data. The researchers now have to figure out what to do with it all. DeSantis says they have just enlisted the help of a statistician and are building a website so that scientists can ask questions with different parameters. For instance, a wildlife biologist in Louisiana studying avian disease might want to identify which bacteria are present in the local environment, while an epide-
miologist at a hospital in Minnesota might want to know the seasonal fluctuations of pathogenic bacteria in a nearby city. “We’re just squirreling away a lot of data and trying to put together an ftp site so that people can select cities and download information,” he says. The LBNL researchers recently analyzed data collected during the summer of 2003 from two cities in Texas. Separated by only 80 miles, Austin and San Antonio show some significant differences in their bacterial biota. Both cities have airborne bacteria from the genera Pirellula, Pseudomonas, Rickettsia, Clostridium, and Bacillus. But San Antonio has a much greater diversity of bacteria and also supports Denitrovibrio, Legionella, and Acti-
nomyces. It is not known why two cities so close geographically differ so dramatically in their bacteria. “There must be some local reservoirs for the bacteria,” speculates Andersen. “We’re looking at weather patterns to see if that might explain it.” Although the sampling phase of the project will end in the summer of 2005, analysis of the data could take years. In the future, the research might be expanded, according to Pete Pesenti, a project officer with the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. “We’ll take a look at the project next year and then decide if we might need to look at other things in the air like viruses and fungi,” he says. —PAUL D. THACKER
U.K. to tackle endocrine disrupters in wastewater ethinylestradiol, which are excreted from women either naturally or as a result of taking medicines such as the contraceptive pill or hormonereplacement therapy. PHOTODISC
England and Wales are likely to become the first places in the world to actively remove endocrine-disrupting chemicals from their sewage. The Environment Agency of England and Wales has proposed a £40 million demonstration project to assess how estrogenic substances can be prevented from entering sewage effluent or can be removed from effluent. The effort follows a report released in July that finds that sexual disruption in fish is widespread throughout rivers in England and Wales (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37, 331A–336A). “We know fish are affected, and the source is sewage effluent,” says Geoff Brighty, the science manager of the Environment Agency’s ecosystems section. “We now have enough data to act as a policy trigger for taking action. But what we need to do to sewage treatment to remove these chemicals is not well understood and potentially very costly. We now need water companies to evaluate the potential for sewage treatment to remove these substances.” The most significant substances were the natural steroid hormones 17-estradiol and estrone and the synthetic hormone
Responding to reports of sexual disruption in fish, England and Wales hope to strip estrogenic compounds out of their wastewater.
The agency is working with water companies and advocating the construction at two sites of fullscale demonstration projects that will use enhanced granular-activated-carbon treatment. The proposal also calls for 17 smaller projects in which existing treatment options will be monitored. “This would be ground-breaking and could result in a step change in sewage effluent treatment,” says Brighty. “Treatment would be applied to achieve environmental benefits, not to meet
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specific standards or regulations. Applying drinking-water treatment technology to effluents put back into rivers for environmental purposes has never been done before.” Zoologist Louis Guillette of the University of Florida agrees that enough data now exist to warrant action of some kind. “[The report] now shows categorically for the first time that the [endocrine-disruption] phenomena is widespread, not just isolated to a few rivers or species or sewage treatment facilities,” he adds. “It is the definitive work in this field.” However, he is optimistic that the endocrine disruptors can be treated. “It should take a couple of years for demonstration projects to tell us what we need to know. But fish could start feeling the benefits of any removal technology after three or four years,” he says. However, Thomas Ternes at the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde in Koblenz, Germany, points out that although the activated-carbon technology removes endocrine disrupters very efficiently, it is an extremely expensive option for wastewater treatment because the carbon needs to be replaced regularly. He favors ozonation techniques instead. “We found in two pilot ozone trials that this technique removed 99% of estrogens,” he reports.
News Briefs
because endocrine-disrupting effects are additive. No other country has set standards for steroid estrogens in sewage effluent. Some sections of the water industry remain to be convinced that endocrine disrupters are a priority and have voiced concerns about how their removal could be managed and funded. However, a spokesperson for the industry association Water UK took a more cautious approach: “We are taking the issue very seriously and are committed to investigating implications for wastewater treatment.” The move to treat wastewater arises from research by the agency and Exeter and Brunel Universities, which surveyed more than 1500 roach fish at 50 river sites and found that over one-third of male fish exhibited female characteristics and were less able to reproduce (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 270A). “This is the only complete data set of its kind in the world, with a long history and significant findings,” says Taisen Iguchi from Japan’s National Institute of Basic Biology. “The whole world is following closely this research.” —MARIA BURKE
EPA certifies hybrid SUV The first hybrid sport utility vehicle (SUV) to be sold in the United States, Ford Motor Company’s Escape Hybrid, will be one of the least polluting cars on the road, according to the U.S. EPA. The Escape Hybrid earned a 9 out of 10 on the agency’s 2005 green vehicle ratings, which use emissions levels and fuel economy values to determine environmental scores. Ford attributes the Escape Hybrid’s fuel efficiency and low emissions to components in the vehicle’s powertrain, including its dual overhead cam engine, continuously variable transmission, electric motor, nickel–metal hydride battery, and its vehicle controller system, which shuts the engine down when coasting and at stoplights. While the conventional 2004 model year SUVs average 17.9 miles per gallon (mpg), even the 4-wheel drive Ford Escape Hybrid version gets 33 mpg in the city and 29 mpg on the highway, according to EPA. For more on the EPA’s green vehicle ratings, go to www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/05 escape-hybrid.htm.
Two key electronics industry associations in Taiwan, which is one of the world’s top manufacturers of semiconductors, have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The country’s government is promoting the move as helping to ensure that companies are able to meet the Kyoto Protocol GHG standards, but Taiwanese environmentalists say the government isn’t going far enough. The agreements also involve manufacturers of the thin-film transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) technologies that have become very popular for use in computer screens. Both the semiconductor and the TFT-LCD industries have committed to sign memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (Taiwan EPA) by the end of the year.
RHONDA SAUNDERS
Taiwan to reduce some greenhouse gases
In a country where electronics manufacturing is big business, two important segments have agreed to emit less perfluorocarbons.
Taiwan is the 14th-largest exporting country in the world, and Taiwanese companies command more than 30% of the global market in the semiconductor and TFT-LCD industries, according to the Taiwan EPA. The country is a major producer of laptops, motherboards,
Temperature affects child mortality Public-health policies aimed at protecting adults from air pollution may not help children, concluded researchers in a new report (J. Occup. Environ. Med. 2004, 46, 768– 774). Using data collected from 1986 to 1997 in Madrid, researchers linked mortality of children under 10 to low temperatures and high levels of particulates in the winter air. In the summer, mortality was linked to high levels of both particulates and nitrogen oxides. The analysis contradicts relationships between temperature and mortality typically observed in older people, who seem to die more often in extreme heat and cold.
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FORD MOTOR CO.
The independent water-industry regulator in the United Kingdom will decide in September whether to include the removal program in the industry’s plan of work for 2005–2010. Funding would come from water companies’ customers through higher bills. Full costs for installation and operation of the additional treatment over a fiveyear period are on the order of £20 million per plant. But Brighty says that only a “few tens of plants” would need this highly effective, top-of-the-range approach; other plants that emit lower estrogen levels could use cheaper techniques. The program would also study the most appropriate regulatory approach. “We have set a threshold exposure limit for steroid estrogens, which we use in risk assessment, but because of estrogenic substances’ interactions, a bioassay may be the best regulatory approach for discharges,” says Brighty. The thresholds are 0.1 nanograms per liter (ng/L) for ethinylestradiol, 1 ng/L for 17-estradiol, and 3 ng/L for estrone. A total threshold value based on 17-estradiol has also been set,
