Environmental t News PBDEs and PCBs in computers, cars, and homes time, in October 2004, most researchers familiar with brominated flame retardants believed that the only PBDEs found in computers were associated with the heavier Deca formulation. “This paper highlights the problem [of] relying upon information STUART HARR AD
O
lder computers can be a significant source of toxic polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants, according to research published in this issue of ES&T (pp 7584–7589). The study also finds that air inside older automobiles is an important source of PBDEs and that newer homes can harbor unidentified sources of PCBs. Stuart Harrad, who is an environmental chemist at the University of Birmingham (U.K.) and the paper’s corresponding author, stresses that serendipity played a major role in his discovery that older computers can be a significant source of lighter PBDEs, which are more toxic than their heavier counterparts. Harrad and his coauthor Sadegh Hazrati stumbled across the new data only because they happened to be monitoring PBDE levels in an office where a computer purchased in 1998 was replaced with a newer model. After the new computer was put in place, total PBDE concentrations in the office air dropped by more than 75%, from 431 picograms per cubic meter (pg/m3) to less than 95 pg/m3. These indoor air PBDE levels aren’t terribly high in comparison with what is being found in North America, where people’s PBDE levels tend to be 10 times those of Europeans. But the sharp drop that Harrad’s group recorded is particularly noteworthy because the researchers did not measure levels of the heavier PBDE compounds, or congeners, associated with the Deca formulation of PBDEs used in electronics products. Hazrati, who analyzed the data as a graduate student, was “very worried that he’d done something wrong,” Harrad remembers. At the
This passive air sampler measured the levels of PCBs and polybrominated diphenyl ethers for 10 months.
from industry sources regarding applications of commercial [PBDE formulations] to specific types of products,” says Heather Stapleton, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. In recent months, other researchers have also reported that both older computers and televisions can be significant sources of the lightweight PBDEs associated with the commercial Penta formulation, which has been banned in Europe and discontinued in the U.S. since 2004. Researchers have known that older computer monitors can contain the Octa formulation, which also includes a small amount of the lighter PBDEs found in the Penta formulation. However, Harrad’s group conducted their tests with passive polyurethanefoam samplers, which are known
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to underestimate levels of the heavier PBDE compounds associated with the Octa formulation. Rene Montaigne of the European Chemical Industry Council acknowledges that the Penta formulation was previously used in printed circuit boards and microprocessor packaging. However, none of the researchers contacted for this article were aware of this use of Penta PBDEs. The presence of these lighter PBDEs in older computers raises the question of whether their hot, volatile air emissions could contribute to the inexplicably large concentrations of PBDEs sometimes found in house dust, says Miriam Diamond, a professor at the University of Toronto. Harrad’s new paper also provides one of the first peer-reviewed reports of levels of PBDEs in cars. The paper shows that the levels varied by 2 orders of magnitude. The highest level of 8200 pg/m3 represents “the most contaminated microenvironment of all the homes, offices, and cars studied,” Harrad says. “Given that the average American spends a lot of time in their car, [which can] get pretty darn hot in the summer, cars might be an important source of PBDEs for some people,” points out Tom Webster of the Boston University School of Public Health. Although PCBs have been banned for more than 30 years, Harrad says that his paper—when considered together with other research—also suggests that some as-yet-unaccounted-for sources of these compounds may be present in newer homes. For example, the levels inside his 1994 home are more than five times the levels outside the home. —KELLYN BETTS © 2006 American Chemical Society
News Briefs
Explosives and other nitrogen-containing compounds can now be tracked as they break down in the environment.
compounds. The team determined the nitrogen fractionation during the reduction of four different nitroaromatic compounds (NACs), which are used as pesticides, explosives, and dyes and which contaminate soil and groundwater worldwide. Isotope enrichment factors were large and virtually identical, regardless of reactivity and chemical structure of the NAC and the reductant. The results suggest that CSIA can be used to assess the abiotic transformation of NACs in complex anoxic environments. “A nitrogen–oxygen bond is broken during this reaction, so that we could not have used carbon or hydrogen for isotopic analysis,” explains corresponding author Thomas Hofstetter of ETH Zurich. He points out that many other interesting contaminants, such as pesticides and antibiotics, have nitrogen-containing functional groups at the sites relevant to degradation, whether biological or not. Even if carbon or hydrogen fractionation occurs in some organic compounds, nitrogen fractionation may be a better choice for tracking
Because science is built on the sharing of information, decisions to sequester data can hinder scientific advances and jeopardize public health, concludes the nonprofit Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP). The U.S. government and corporations often seek to conceal scientific knowledge from the public, either to preserve national security or to protect business practices or individual confidentiality. But these practices have costs, SKAPP argues. In several papers published in the summer 2006 issue of the Duke University School of Law journal Law and Contemporary Problems, well-known scholars explore sequestered science related to pharmaceuticals and environmental health and safety.
Mice and disease
New data from 15 mouse strains used for biomedical research have been trumpeted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and its partners as a novel tool to tease out the link between genetics and the impacts of environmental contaminants in disease. A 2-year project to sequence the mouse DNA found 8.3 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (known as SNPs). These basic genetic variations could lead to different levels of susceptibility to varying conditions and diseases in the 15 types of mice studied. The patterns in mice could lead to breakthroughs in understanding human “counterpart” genes and the varying pathways that make people susceptible to disease agents. Go to www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/SNP to view the data.
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Compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA) is rapidly gaining importance for assessing fate and degradation of organic contaminants in the environment. New research published in this issue of ES&T (pp 7710–7716) moves the field a crucial step forward by applying this sophisticated technique to nitrogenbased compounds instead of those containing carbon and hydrogen. The results open up the door for the use of CSIA on important new classes of compounds. At many contaminated sites, determining whether and to what extent troublesome pollutants are degraded can be difficult. Local geochemistry and hydrology can lead to sorption and dilution, and degradation pathways are sometimes complex and variable. CSIA detects changes in the bulk isotopic composition of a specific element (such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) that occur during an enzymatic or chemical reaction. So-called isotope fractionation arises because of the faster cleavage of bonds to light isotopes compared with their heavier counterparts and, generally, leads to an enrichment of heavy isotopes in the residual substrate. In contrast, phase-transfer processes, such as sorption and dissolution, change the isotope ratio to a much lesser extent. CSIA can provide evidence for natural attenuation at field sites, and, in some cases, it can be used to quantify the extent of degradation. Because CSIA has been restricted to tracking organic pollutants containing the elements carbon and hydrogen, the method has
Sequestering science
been applied mainly to petroleum hydrocarbons and chlorinated solvents. Now, for the first time, researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) have used the technique on nitrogencontaining JUPITERIMAGES
Nitrogen isotopes reveal degradation
Environmentalt News degradation because most organic compounds have many nonreactive carbon and hydrogen atoms, which leads to a dilution of isotope effects, Hofstetter says. “This is an important paper that makes a real breakthrough in this area,” says Barbara Sherwood Lollar, who directs the Stable Isotope Laboratory at the University of Toronto. “Many nitrogen-bearing pollutants have complex degradation pathways and no unique degradation products, which makes their
degradation particularly difficult to determine in the field,” she says. Hofstetter stresses that the new results are only the first step toward an application of nitrogen fractionation at complex field sites. “We are going to verify our results by measuring a larger variety of NACs with other environmental reactants, then move on to other substance classes exhibiting reactive nitrogen atoms,” he says. Another important challenge for future research is to increase the
More nitrosamines in drinking water Researchers have detected two new nitrosamines in drinking water. The results, published in this issue of ES&T (pp 7636–7641), point to the need for alternative methods for measuring potentially carcinogenic drinking-water disinfection byproducts (DBPs). In regulating DBPs, the U.S. EPA has concentrated on trihalomethanes (THMs), which have been associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer, although they are unlikely to be the direct cause. But researchers and water regulators have expected to find nitrosamines—nonhalogenated DBPs that can be 100–10,000-fold more carcinogenic than THMs—in drinking water treated with chloramines. By using chloramination to reduce THMs, “you provide a nitrogen source, [so] you have the possibility of increasing nitrosamines,” says Steve Hrudey, a coauthor of the new research and associate dean of the school of public health at the University of Alberta (Canada). The best known of these nitrosamines is N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), but researchers have recognized that they need to search out other known and unknown forms of nitrosamines to determine whether they too are problematic. The team, led by Xingfang Li, tracked water from a Canadian treatment plant and distribution system. They drew samples at the
plant and then from three points downstream. The researchers detected four nitrosamines—NDMA, N-nitrosopyrrolidine (NPyr), N-nitrosopiperidine (NPip), and N-nitrosodiphenylamine (NDPhA)—by LC/MS/MS. The levels increased the farther the water traveled into the system, indicating that the nitrosamines kept forming faster than they degraded in the pipelines, possibly in the presence of excess chloramine. This report is the first to find NPip and NDPhA in a drinking-water system; levels were 33–117 nanograms per liter (ng/L) and 0 to almost 2 ng/L, respectively. NPyr levels were 18–75 ng/L; NDMA started at 0 but was measured at 108 ng/L downstream. These levels are considered quite high. LC/MS/MS analyzes samples at a much lower temperature than more commonly used methods, such as GC/MS or GC/MS/MS, which can miss NDPhA. That nitrosamine is thermally labile, and Li and colleagues have developed a “milder technique, which doesn’t tend to destroy compounds” that are sensitive to higher temperatures, says Susan Richardson, an EPA chemist who specializes in DBPs. Richardson points out that EPA will likely require utilities to measure only six nitrosamines (the EPA method includes seven), not including the two newly detected ones. Most utilities use GC/MS. “I think it’s important to broaden
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analytical sensitivity, which is not yet satisfactory, Hofstetter notes. Although CSIA may appear to be a rather expensive method because of the need for sophisticated analytical instrumentation, it is very cost-effective, according to Sherwood Lollar. “This is not a monitoring tool,” she says. “With regulators gradually buying into this as well, I believe that CSIA will become a routine method within the next decade,” Sherwood Lollar predicts. —ANKE SCHAEFER
that,” Richardson says. She also underscores the quality-assurance methods used by Li’s team, including isotopically labeled standards, which could account for changes in the samples’ matrices. The method is “interesting” and “novel” even if detecting these two nitrosamines is not particularly surprising, says Stuart Krasner, a chemist for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Krasner notes that the water treatment plant studied had abnormally high levels of nitrosamines. “I think it would be useful to evaluate their method in more typical waters with regard to NDMA” and other nitrosamines, he comments, to see whether NDPhA is present in other waters. Krasner says he would also like to see the sensitivity of the method improved for N-nitrosodiethylamine (known as NDEA), a nitrosamine that has a California notification level of 10 ng/L. With GC/MS, water utilities can measure NPip but have yet to find it, he emphasizes. Richard Bull, an independent consultant and toxicologist who has worked for EPA and Battelle, says that NPip and NDPhA are about 100 and 1000 times less potent, respectively, than NDMA. Because this system is so atypical in its NDMA levels, this single study “doesn’t imply a broad risk”. This work is “an alert that maybe somebody should get more serious about the potential occurrence of more ubiquitous secondary amines in even pristine water sources.” —NAOMI LUBICK
RHONDA SAUNDERS
Canada is poised to release an assessment of 23,000 chemicals, making it the first country in the world to systematically review all of the chemicals in current use within its borders. Coupled with the impending adoption of a new chemicals policy in Europe, the Canadian action could change the mix of products on store shelves worldwide, experts say.
Canada’s list of 4000 suspect chemicals includes those used in pacifiers, lip balms, perfumes, hair sprays, and cleaning products.
In 1986, rules in Canada mandated that all newly introduced substances undergo toxicity screening. At the time, 23,000 chemicals already on the Canadian market were “grandfathered” in without proof of their safety. Now, after 7 years of study, Environment Canada and Health Canada officials have combed through all 23,000 substances. They flagged 4000 that are toxic and either persistent or bioaccumulative or that present the greatest potential for human exposure. Of these, 400 were found to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals, a combination that calls for immediate action, says Fe de Leon, a researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Although the list was submitted to the ministers of environment and health in September, it won’t be made public until the end of the year, says Steve Clarkson, director of the Bureau of Risk and Impact Assessment at Health Canada. The
government will conduct another screening process for the 4000 chemicals, based on the scientific literature and other existing data, to determine whether they need to be managed. Clarkson predicts that it will take 10–15 years to get through all of them. In Europe, an even slower pace of risk assessments—5 years for only 150 substances—led in part to the EU’s proposed chemicals law, Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH), says Rob Donkers, an environment counselor with the European Commission’s delegation to the U.S. Instead of the government taking responsibility for proving that a chemical is “unsafe to handle”, which is the practice in the U.S. and Canada, draft REACH legislation puts the onus on industry to prove that products are safe (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2005, 39, 171A–172A). Expected to be adopted sometime in 2007, REACH will require companies to register roughly 30,000 high-production-volume chemicals. Companies will have to seek authorization to use the more than 1500 chemicals that are either PBT or cause cancer, genetic mutations, or birth defects, Donkers says. “This information from Canada is very important because that will enable us to quickly establish a list in Europe for these 1500– 2000 chemicals,” he says. REACH was further strengthened on October 10, when the European Parliament’s environmental committee approved new rules compelling chemical producers to replace dangerous chemicals with safer alternatives when those alternatives exist. The establishment of a list of 4000 suspect chemicals in Canada has already raised doubts for industry over the continued use of some of the substances, de Leon notes. Even before a chemical is listed as being of concern, simply the fact that information is requested about it could cause
News Briefs U.K. politicians embrace climate-change concerns
A report on climate change by the U.K. government’s chief economist has been greeted as a political watershed, with Britain’s most senior politicians accepting publicly that climate change is likely to cause massive economic damage and upset. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change’s main conclusion is that the cost of tackling climate change would be only 1% of global GDP by 2050 but that the cost of business as usual would be far more. It warns that inaction could cause a worldwide recession as damaging as the 1930s Depression but stresses that cutting carbon emissions must be a global effort. Tony Blair is to send the report’s author, Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, to the U.S. early next year to urge politicians and industry to take action now.
French joint venture
Two French companies recently announced that they will join forces to create what is expected to be one of the largest holders of carbon emissions credits worldwide. The companies, chemicals firm Rhodia and banking group Société Générale, announced in October plans to establish a 50–50 joint venture called ORBEO. The venture will initially market pollution reductions achieved at Rhodia’s chemical plants in Brazil and South Korea, generating between 11 and 13 million metric tons of carbon credits per year from 2007 to 2012. Rhodia generates carbon credits by destroying the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, a byproduct of nylon manufacturing. The 2 plants in Brazil and South Korea are among the world’s 10 biggest such Kyoto projects worldwide.
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Chemicals management getting tougher?
Environmentalt News manufacturers to decide that sales in Canada are not worth the trouble, says Karen Levins, vice president of the chemicals group at Cantox Health Sciences International. However, environmentalists fear that little will change unless the government sets aggressive timelines for further assessment of the chemicals and takes steps to ban or eliminate PBT substances, de Leon says.
The measures taken by Canada and the EU should be adopted by the U.S., says Mike Wilson, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. California is getting ahead of the U.S. EPA by crafting a comprehensive chemicals policy. In a report commissioned by the California legislature, Wilson found that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is at the root of flaws in the regulation of the U.S.
CDC finds perchlorate–iodide connection In a broad sampling of the U.S. population, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found an association between measurable levels of perchlorate—a compound best known for its use in rocket fuel—and thyroid function in women with low but normal iodide levels. The study, published online in Environmental Health Perspectives on October 5 (2006, doi 10.1289/ehp.9466), suggests that some women, particularly those of childbearing age, may need to increase their consumption of iodine. The data also show that perchlorate is readily detected in most people. The sources and human health effects of perchlorate are being hotly debated in the U.S. The strong oxidizer has percolated into groundwater near military installations and has been released by fireworks and roadside flares. It occurs naturally in Chilean nitrate deposits, which were used extensively for fertilizer until the 1950s, and also results from atmospheric deposition. The chemical has surfaced in milk, lettuce, and other foods around the world. Perchlorate at high doses blocks the uptake of iodide in the thyroid, and this interferes with the production of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). TSH regulates metabolism by stimulating production of the hormone T4. That hormone is produced at higher
levels in pregnant women, causing them to need more iodine. CDC researchers examined data from the 2001–2002 National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey. They followed 1111 women within a larger sample set of more than 2500 people throughout the U.S.; data were reported in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology on October 18 (2006, doi 10.1038/ sj.jes.7500535). Women with urinary iodine levels (a proxy for iodide uptake) of less than 100 micrograms per liter (μg/L), who had relatively low levels of perchlorate in their urine, showed depressed T4 levels and elevated TSH. The same association was not found in men. “This is the first time a relationship between perchlorate and thyroid function has been observed at the low levels of exposure found in the general population,” says James Pirkle, who is the deputy director for science at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and a coauthor of the paper. The study is also the first to examine a large enough pool of women with lower iodine levels to get statistically valid results, he says, adding that “we expect these women to be more vulnerable” because of their lower iodine levels. The World Health Organization sets the bar for median population levels of iodine at 100 μg/L in urine; about a third of women in
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chemical market. Wilson’s critique was echoed in testimony from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) at an August 2 Senate oversight hearing on TSCA. EPA hasn’t adequately screened chemicals, because the burden of obtaining data is on EPA rather than on chemical companies, said John B. Stephenson with GAO. —JANET PELLEY
the U.S. fall below that level. “This is, of course, one of the most important papers to come out in the perchlorate saga,” says Purnendu “Sandy” Dasgupta of the University of Texas, Arlington, who has been instrumental in developing analytical methods for perchlorate. “The quantity and quality of data are such that it leaves very little doubt. It shows very clearly that when your iodine intake is low and perchlorate is high, in the context that the authors have defined it, your TSH levels are elevated.” Now, he says, the debate will move to whether this extent of change in TSH levels is important in a clinical sense. Robert Utiger of the Harvard Institute of Medicine agrees that the new CDC results suggest that women with low iodine intake exposed to perchlorate may have impaired thyroid function. However, he asks, “Is it enough to be harmful? The answer I would have to give is ‘possibly.’” Previous studies have looked at only a handful of women who were exposed to perchlorate and had low to normal iodide levels, for example, in Chile and Israel. Elizabeth Pearce of Boston Medical Center, who has examined perchlorate in Boston women, says that other issues could confound the correlation between TSH and perchlorate. Women are more likely than men to have autoimmune hypothyroidism, but antithyroid antibodies were not measured in this research, Pearce says. She also notes that the research re-
Ingestion. Pirkle and others emphasize that about a half teaspoon of iodized salt per day meets the daily iodine requirement for most people. California Sens. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have asked the U.S. EPA to revisit perchlorate standards in light of the new CDC research. Current EPA regulations adopted the NRC reference dose for perchlorate of 0.7 μg per kilogram body weight per day. California has proposed a 6 μg/L maximum contaminant load, and Massachusetts set its regulation at 2 parts per billion last July. —NAOMI LUBICK
California law sends signal to coal power other states. “A creative lawyer could make the case that it violates the Interstate Commerce Clause,” which ensures the free exchange of commodities across state lines, says Gordy Erspamer, chair of the energy group at the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP.
Gov. Schwarzenegger signs a bill capping greenhouse gas emissions.
JOHN DECKER / OFFICE Of GOV. SCHWAR ZENEGGER
Developers’ dreams of building new, traditionally designed coalfired power plants in western states to satisfy California’s burgeoning demand for electricity have been sent back to the drawing board. On October 1, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a law forbidding electricity providers in the state from purchasing long-term contracts for power from CO2-spewing generators, even if they are located outside the state. Designed to help California meet its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, the law is likely to force the coal industry to invest in innovative technologies to slash CO2 emissions, some experts say. The new law (SB 1368) will prohibit electricity generators from entering into any contracts longer than 5 years unless the power sources meet new GHG emission performance standards. Equivalent to emissions from a new natural-gas combined-cycle plant, the performance standard will apply to all California-based utilities and power providers by June 30, 2007. Because the legislation applies to out-of-state power purchases in addition to in-state sources and new construction, it appears to impose California standards on
Although the new law applies to all fuel sources, it is aimed squarely at coal-fired power plants, says John Galloway with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental advocacy group. In 2004, roughly 29% of California’s energy came from coal, imported almost entirely over transmission lines, he says. Utilities have proposed building more than 35 new or expanded coal-fired plants throughout
News Briefs The trade-offs of eating fish
Mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants commonly found in fish can offset the benefits of eating them, according to a report released in October by the U.S. Institute of Medicine. The levels of contaminants in fish vary substantially in different regions, and farmed fish can contain significantly higher levels of toxins than their wild counterparts. Therefore, consumers need to know the origin of the fish they eat, and whether they were farmed or wild-caught, the report states. The report, Seafood Choices: Balancing Benefits and Risks, recommends that women of childbearing age and children eat no more than two servings of seafood a week.
Great Lakes ship spills
A joint commission has called for better cooperation between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to dealing with spills from ships and other environmental health issues on the Great Lakes. In a recommendation stemming from its July Report on Spills in the Great Lakes Basin with a Special Focus on the St. Clair–Detroit River Corridor, the International Joint Commission (IJC) said in October that communication and risk criteria between the two countries need to be strengthened. Many of the commission’s findings were echoed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a separate report, Better Information and Targeted Prevention Efforts Could Enhance Spill Management in the St. Clair–Detroit River Corridor. The IJC points out that the responsibility for cleanup costs for spills on the Great Lakes remains unclear. The controversial topic has been simmering since April 2002, when more than 100,000 gallons of lube oil and diesel fuel were dumped into the Rouge River and later spread to the Detroit River.
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lied on two separate labs that used two different assays, which could lead to very subtle differences in outcomes. Regardless of the perchlorate– iodide connection, researchers recommend sufficient iodine consumption. “We know that, worldwide, iodine deficiency is the leading factor in mental retardation,” Pearce says. “My private opinion is that all vitamins should contain iodine,” says Utiger, who was part of the National Research Council (NRC) panel that recommended iodine supplements in prenatal vitamins in a 2005 report, Health Implications of Perchlorate
Environmentalt News the West, representing more than 23,500 megawatts of electricity. These plants’ owners are targeting California, the sixth largest economy in the world, as their next market, because demand there is projected to grow by 1–2% per year, Galloway says. “This policy really puts a crimp in their plans,” he comments. On September 27, Schwarzenegger signed a separate law capping GHG emissions at 1990 levels by 2020 and at 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The emission performance standards in SB 1368 make these targets a true cap, because they prevent utilities from buying cheap power generated by de cades-old, out-of-state plants that don’t meet the new standards, says Margaret Taylor, an environmental
policy analyst at the University of California, Berkeley. Although the state has not yet established a numeric emission performance standard, the average natural-gas combined-cycle plant in the West emits 549 metric tons (t) of CO2 per gigawatt hour (GWh), Galloway says. Those CO2 emissions fall well below those of an average western conventional pulverized-coal plant, at 998 t/GWh, and an integrated coal-gasification combined-cycle plant, at 815 t/GWh. The only way that coal-fired plants could meet the new standard would be to add carbon capture and storage technology, says Ed Rubin, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. “What this legislation does, for the
Pedro Alvarez, an environmental engineer at Rice University, will be bringing his broad experience and worldly view to ES&T when he becomes an associate editor in January. Now teaching courses in environmental engineering and biotechnology, including wastewater treatment and bioremediation, Alvarez chairs the civil and environmental engineering department at Rice. He recently completed his tenure as president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors and relinquished editorial positions at European Journal of Soil Biology and ASCE Journal of Environmental Engineering to join ES&T. He plans to do less consulting, something he has done around the world, including as an honorary consul to Nicaragua, where he was born. In his ever-changing career, Alvarez has worked on assessing the risks of nanotechnology as well as on bioremediation and phytoremediation for cleanup. He is currently pursuing ideas on how environmental nanoscience and environ
Pedro Alvarez, one of two new asso ciate editors for ES&T.
ERIK ARVIN, TECHNICAL UNIVERSIT Y OF DENMARK
A passion for something new
mental engineering might be tweaked for biomedical uses. “What Pedro tends to do,” says Joseph Hughes of Georgia Institute of Technology, a close friend and collaborator, is to work “on the edge of discovery rather than refinement. A good example is the work that both of us are doing at this nanotechnology center. It’s really not traditional for an engineer to be considering [new technology] at this stage of development.” Hughes and Alvarez co-lead the Rice University Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology, one of more than
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first time, is to provide incentives to build and deploy these technologies,” he says. In addition, it “creates a market for the kinds of technologies that are needed to keep coal in the picture in a severely carbon-constrained world.” No commercial-scale CO2 storage projects currently operate in the U.S., but utilities probably can find good storage sites in many western states, says Sally Benson, a hydrogeologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There’s a tremendous amount of interest in this set of technologies, and they would not be able to compete economically without putting a value on carbon emissions,” she says. “What they’ve done in California will stimulate that.” —JANET PELLEY
a dozen such academic centers across the U.S. funded by the National Science Foundation. Alvarez is “somebody who enjoys learning,” Hughes says, and because he is extroverted and outgoing, Alvarez seeks out research partnerships. “As you develop collaboration, it pulls you into new areas,” Hughes comments. Just as Alvarez’s interests continue to be international in scope—for example, in consulting pro bono for water treatment plants and other programs in Nicaragua—he says that environmental scientists “need international partners” to make sure that “science will be a key player [and that] scientists provide input to key decision makers. We need to be louder.” He feels strongly that scientists in developed countries need to find ways to “penetrate” the policy-making process, but he admits, “I don’t know how.” “We need to start thinking about the environment in systems much larger than national boundaries,” Alvarez says. “In order to do that, we need to understand the context of research being done in other parts of the world.” —NAOMI LUBICK
