A NA LVT ICA L
Editor: H E R B E R T A. LAITINEN
EDITORIAL HEADQUARTERS Washington, D.C. 20036 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Phone: 202-737-3337 Teletype: WA 23 M a n a g i n g E d i t o r (acting): Virginia E. Stewart A s s i s t a n t Editor: Alan J. Senzel Editorial Assistant: Sylvia Crawford PRODUCTION STAFF Direction of Design: Joseph Jacobs P r o d u c t i o n Manager: B a d Guiley A r t Director: Norman W. Favin Associate P r o d u c t i o n Manager: Charlotte C. Sayre E d i t o r i a l Assistant: Patricia W. Kener NEW YORE OFFICE 733 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10017 212-867-3161 Associate Editor: Josephine M. Petruzzi EDITORIAL PRODUCTION OFFICE, EASTON,PA. Assistant Editor: Elizabeth R. Rufe
ADVISORYBOARD: Norman G. Anderson Klaus Biemann, C. G. Enke, James S. Fritz: John Funkhouser Walter E. Harris W. Wayne Meinke, kdwin P. Przybylohicz, William C Purdy Eugene M Sallee Donald T Sawyer Lee Smith Lloyd R: D. Snyder Samuel 'M.' Tuthill, jam, Winefdrdner
A
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY BOOKS A N D JOURNALS DIVISION Director, ad interim: John K Crum Head, Business and Production Department: Joseph H . Kuney Head, Books Department: Robert F. Gould Assistant to the Director: R u t h Reynard
REGIONAL EDITORIAL BUREAUS CHICAGO, Ill. 60603 36 South Wabash Ave. SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. 94104 57 Post St. LOS ANGELES, Calif. 90005 422 South Western Ave. HOUSTON, Texas 77002 514 Main Bldg. 1212 Main St. FRANKFURT/MAIN West Germany 32 Grosse Bockenheimdrstrasse LONDON, W. C. 2, England 27 John Adam St. TOKYO, Japan Iikura Central Building, 4th Floor 12 Iikura Kata-machi, Azahu Minato-ku, Tokyo
Analytical Chemistry in Environmental Science I.
The Meaning of Zero
ero pollution might appear to be simply an unrealistic goal of enyironmental idealists, if it were not for the fact that, a t least a t the state level, serious proposals are under consideration for zero levels of pollutants as legal limits in plant effluents or stack gases. It is obvious that such a limit can be enforced only if the analytical method is clearly specified. Not only must the general method be specified, but the exact procedure, and even the sensing apparatus, must be specified t o give the regulation practical significance. What it boils down to is that a legal enforcement agency, in an effort to guard the public against a harmful material, quite humanly insists that no level of pollution is acceptable, and, therefore, tries t o aroid the issue of setting a quantitative standard. But in precisely specifying the detection limit of an analytical method, one, in fact, does set a quantitative limit without consciously starting out to do so. Apart from the definition of a detection limit, the concept of zero brings up problems that the legal mind is not accustomed to considering. For example, whatever method is specified, even the most sensitive, detection limits are disappointing to the nonscientist when they are expressed in molecular terms. A simple calculation shows that a glass of water containing 0.5 part per billion of mercury (one-tenth the federal standard for drinking water) contains a million mercury atoms for each inhahitant of the U.S.A. ! Even one of the most sensitive methods, ion probe mass spectrometry, requires a thousand atoms in a microscopic sample for detection. But, most important of all, the sensitivity of an analytical method is not a rational basis for a pollution standard. Even if zero pollution were achievable and testable, the cost of reaching such a goal would be largely wasted, once the levels of purity existing in nature undisturbed by civilization had been passed. For life evolved and developed in a real world, with natural processes of extraction, distillation, etc. t h a t introduced finite amounts of all elements into the oceans. For manmade chemicals, the problem is different, hut even here the rational basis should be detectable damage, not an indefinable and unreachable zero.
Z
Advertising Management C E N T U R Y COMMUNICATIONS CORP. (for Branch Offices, see page 139 A)
For submission of manuscripts, see page 4 A . ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 43, NO. 4, APRIL 1971
497
