Government Watch: Low-level perchlorate exposures - Environmental

EnvironmentalM Ne Polar sunrise provides clues to dynamic mercury cycle

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It turns out that although mercury loss in the Antarctic tracks ozone depletion, just as in the Arctic, the mercury depletion events in the Antarctic are less intense and seem to occur earlier than those in the Arctic, even after shifting the timescale by 182 days so that the two hemispheres are seasonally comparable. In the Antarctic, the researchers observed mercury depletion events as early as midAugust, which corresponds to mid-February in the northern hemisphere. In contrast, in the Arctic, researchers have reported such events beginning in midMarch.

COPYRIGHT BY ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUTE FOR POLAR AND MARINE RESEARCH

hen the sun appeared after weeks of darkness, signaling the end of polar winter, scientists at the German Antarctic research station Neumayer began to observe significant losses in tropospheric elemental mercury (Hg0). This unusual springtime phenomenon, first noted in the Arctic, has now been observed at both poles. Although the ultimate fate of the mercury is uncertain, these so-called mercury depletion events may be an important removal pathway for atmospheric mercury, and a better understanding of them could lead to improved global mercury-cycling models. Depletion of Hg0 in the lower atmosphere was first observed at Alert in the Canadian Arctic in spring 1995 by a group of scientists led by William Schroeder of the Meteorological Service of Canada (Nature 1998, 394, 331–332). The team was investigating losses in tropospheric ozone, which are known to occur each year in the Arctic following polar sunrise. From April to early June, the researchers found that mercury concentrations in the lower atmosphere dropped in tandem with ozone levels. In the March 15 issue of ES&T (pp. 1238–1244), Ralf Ebinghaus of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Centre, in Geesthacht, Germany, and co-workers report the first observation of mercury depletion events in the Antarctic. According to Ebinghaus, ozone depletion events had previously been reported in the Antarctic following polar sunrise, but no one had looked at mercury. So, in January 2000, he and his colleagues traveled to the Neumayer station in the Antarctic to investigate whether tropospheric mercury levels decrease with decreasing ozone.

events in the Antarctic are less intense than in the Arctic, Ebinghaus says, “It coincides fairly well with the ozone depletions, which are also less in the Antarctic.” Scientists have been trying to understand this ozone–mercury connection ever since mercury depletion events were first discovered. Although some researchers argue that chlorine plays an important role, the most generally accepted theory is that in the presence of sunlight, bromine on sea ice surfaces is photolytically decomposed to bromine atoms, which react with ozone to form oxygen and bromine oxide (BrO) radicals. Unlike ozone, mercury cannot be chemically destroyed, so if mercury is depleted from the atmosphere, it must be accumulating elsewhere. Indeed, this is what researchers have found.

Lossesin tropospheric elementalmercuryfollow ing polarsunrise have been observed for the firsttime in the Antarctic atthe German research station Neumayer.

One explanation for this difference could be that polar spring begins earlier at lower latitudes than at higher latitudes, says Ebinghaus. The measurement site in the Antarctic is located about 70°S, whereas the Alert site in the Arctic is about 80°N. As to why mercury depletion

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / APRIL 1, 2002

Apparently, BrO radicals oxidize atmospheric Hg0 to Hg2+, which is then deposited onto snow, but the actual mechanism of the oxidation reaction is still unclear. Some researchers have observed Hg2+ as reactive gaseous mercury (RGM), which can be deposited directly © 2002 American Chemical Society

in a fairly short period,” Ebinghaus observes. “When the snow starts to melt, there are two places the mercury goes. We know some of the mercury is lost to runoff, probably as HgCl2 or HgBr2, and the other part is re-emitted to the air as Hg0,” Lindberg says. Although Lindberg and colleagues estimate that only about 10% of the mercury in snow is re-emitted to the atmosphere as Hg0, some researchers say that figure is closer to 100%. Janick Lalonde and co-workers at the Université du Québec in Canada recently reported that once deposited in snow, mercury can be rapidly reduced to Hg0 and re-emitted to the atmosphere (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 174–178). On average, they saw mercury levels in snow decrease by 54% within 24 hours after deposition. According to Lalonde, the work has been criticized because they examined snow from a suburban area in Canada, rather than the remote Arctic. Suburban snow has higher levels of mercury and could be complexed differently than snow from the Arctic, she acknowledges. For example, there could be more particles associated with the mercury because of pollution from nearby cities. Since then, however, Lalonde and colleagues have ventured out to remote areas like northwestern Ontario and the high Canadian Arctic. Although data from those studies have yet to be published, Lalonde says they observed the same phenomenon—mercury in snow being rapidly reduced to volatile Hg0 and re-emitted to the atmosphere. If that is indeed what happens to the mercury once it is deposited onto snow, mercury depletion events would have less of an impact on polar ecosystems than previously anticipated. Nonetheless, several researchers have shown that mercury does accumulate in snow at an accelerated rate following polar sunrise. Although what happens to the mercury after that is still unclear, such events seem to be an important sink on a global scale. —BRITT E. ERICKSON

Governm Low-level perchlorate exposures Perchlorate concentrations greater than 1 part per billion (ppb) in drinking water pose risks to human health, according to the U.S. EPA’s draft toxicological report issued January 16. The draft recommendation reflects EPA’s determination to ensure that mothers who drink perchlorate-contaminated water do not give birth to children with lower-than-average IQs, according to EPA toxicologist Annie Jarabek. Manufactured perchlorate salts have been found in ground and surface water, mainly in the southwestern United States. Perchlorate persists in the environment and is not readily removed by conventional water treatment methods. EPA’s review determined a revised reference dose (RfD) of 0.00003 milligram of perchlorate per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg-day). Converting the reference dose to an action level, measured as a water concentration, requires assumptions about exposure—how much a person weighs and how much water they drink. The standard assumptions taken to represent an average adult are 70 kg and 2 L, respectively. These assumptions yield water concentrations of 1 ppb based on the new draft RfD. The January draft is a revision of a 1998 draft review that could have supported a 32-ppb standard concentration (Environ. Sci. Technol. 1999,33, 110A). Neurodevelopmental effects, first noted in the 1998 review, form the basis for the new draft reference dose. Laboratory studies conducted for the toxicological review related to this neurobehavioral outcome may be intensely scrutinized in an external peer review workshop on the reassessment scheduled for March 5–6, predicts toxicologist Joan

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onto snow, whereas others have observed it associated with particulate matter. In the March 15 issue of ES&T (pp. 1245–1256), Steve Lindberg of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and colleagues report some of the highest levels of RGM (>900 pg/m3) ever recorded in the world, with the exception of inside a chloralkali plant, following polar sunrise in the remote Arctic troposphere of Barrow, Alaska (see also Environ. Sci. Technol. 2001, 35, 434A–435A). “As soon as you start to see Hg0 depletion, you see RGM build up,” says Lindberg. RGM has a short lifetime in the atmosphere, however, and rapidly deposits onto snow. “We still don’t know what RGM is. It could be HgCl2 or HgBr2. I think it could be mercuric oxide (HgO),” he adds. The accumulation of mercury in snow has some scientists concerned because some of it is in a form that is biologically available to bacteria. Using a reporter gene assay, in which genetically engineered bacteria produce light when Hg2+ enters their cells, Lindberg and colleagues were able to distinguish between bioavailable and inert Hg2+. In January 2000, before polar sunrise, bioavailable Hg2+ was undetectable in snow at the Barrow monitoring site, the researchers report. By May, however, the bioavailable Hg2+ levels had reached 8.8 ng/L (or about 13% of the total Hg) in the Barrow snow. Although the assay indicates that mercury can be taken up by a particular microbe, it does not indicate the potential for mercury to become methylated, acknowledges Lindberg. Methylmercury is the toxic form of mercury known to bioaccumulate in the food chain. Nonetheless, “it’s probably the closest thing anybody’s come to in trying to identify the nature of different mercury compounds with respect to their ability to be utilized by bacteria,” he says. Because snowmelt in polar regions occurs during a short period of time, some researchers view it as a large pulse that releases dissolved compounds, like toxic mercury, into the environment. “It is a high input

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EnvironmentalM News Treated wood linked to aquatic damage

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a dilemma for disposal now that many homeowners and public parks are projected to jettison their CCAtreated tables and playground equipment, says Bill Walsh, national coordinator for the Healthy PEDDRICK WEIS

A December 31, 2003, phaseout of wood treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) has focused attention on its alternatives, some of which may threaten sensitive aquatic ecosystems. Although alternative wood treatments are much safer than CCA-treated wood for terrestrial uses, they are five times more toxic to aquatic organisms because of their high copper content, say Florida researchers. The potential for damage has led some government regulators to limit the use of copper-treated wood in poorly flushed (low rate of turnover) coastal areas where the copper is not rapidly diluted. Mounting public concern over arsenic poisoning from exposure to CCA-treated wood in jungle gyms and decks led the U.S. EPA and the wood treatment industry to announce a gradual phaseout of all residential use of the product in February. Research has shown that arsenic, which is highly toxic and carcinogenic to humans, can be released from pressure-treated wood by rubbing and exposure to rainfall, says Tim Townsend, a solid waste engineer at the University of Florida, Gainesville. In the first study to systematically compare a range of treated woods across the board, Townsend and colleagues tested the leaching and toxicity of metals from CCAtreated wood and alternative wood treatments, including alkaline copper quat (a quaternary ammonium compound), copper boron azole, copper citrate, and copper dimethyldithiocarbamate. A draft of this report was released on the Web in January. The results confirm earlier findings that CCA-treated wood, because of its arsenic content, qualifies as a hazardous waste and “has a strong potential to contaminate groundwater if disposed in an unlined landfill,” Townsend says. EPA exempted the wood from hazardous waste disposal requirements at the request of industry. The CCAtreated wood remains exempted—

Leachate from w ood treated w ith chromated copperarsenate (CCA)istoxic to aquatic organisms,such asthese oystersfrom (right)a residentialcanallined w ith CCAtreated w ood bulkheading and (left)a rock outside the canal.

Building Network, an environmental organization. Because the alternatives contain no arsenic or chromium, they are much safer to landfill. The potential risk to human health from soil contamination with the metal is 2000 to 20,000 times lower than for CCAtreated wood, the study finds because the metals in CCA-wood, arsenic, and chromium are much more toxic than the metal copper in the alternative products. Unlike terrestrial organisms, aquatic plants and animals are exquisitely sensitive to copper and may be put at greater risk by the al-

ternative wood treatments, which leach from 2 to 20 times more copper than CCA-treated wood, Townsend says. Marine communities that cling to pilings and submerged rocks experience declines in biodiversity within several meters of decks and bulkheads made of pressure-treated wood in poorly flushed estuaries and marshes, according to Peddrick Weis, an aquatic toxicologist with the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey. Snails fed oysters grown on the wood ate more slowly, accumulated copper, and didn’t gain as much weight as snails from a control group, he says. Over the long term, treated woods only leach from 0.15 to 0.50 micrograms of copper per square centimeter per day, posing little risk to aquatic environments, counters Ken Brooks, an environmental toxicology consultant from Port Townsend, Wash. Although water under treated wood bridges may exceed EPA’s copper limit by more than 30 times immediately after construction, within two weeks the levels fall below the standard, he says. Nevertheless, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has banned the use of pressuretreated wood in New Jersey shellfish beds unless the wood is coated with plastic to prevent leaching of copper, says Stan Gorski, fisheries biologist with NMFS. A copy of the Florida study can be found on the Web at www. ccaresearch.org/publications.htm. —JANET PELLEY

Taiwan questions need for incinerators Taiwan is currently facing an unusual problem for a densely populated island nation: Because of the unexpected success of its recycling programs, there is not enough garbage to burn in the country’s incinerators. Environmentalists charge that the situation is forcing the country to generate pollution unnecessarily. The problem dates back to 1997, when Taiwan embarked on an ambitious program of building incinerators to ease the increasing pressure


on its landfill sites. Environmental officials expected that by the time 36 incinerators had been completed in 2003, about 90% of Taiwan’s household garbage would be burnt. The Taipei-based anti-incinerator group Green Citizens’ Action Alliance (GCAA) calculates that by 2003, Taiwan’s incinerators, which are both publicly and privately operated, will be capable of burning 30,400 metric tons of household waste per day. However, last year,

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failing to carry out thorough assessments of health risk from incineration. They charge that Taiwan’s practice of disposing of the fly ash and bottom ash generated by the incinerators in regular landfills puts the country at risk. The 36 incinerators that the country hopes to have operating by the end of next year will generate 7600 metric tons of this ash each day, they point out. In 1999, German dioxin expert Olaf Papke, managing director of the ERGO Laboratory in Hamburg, warned the Taiwanese government that failing to bury incinerator ash in specially designed landfills could lead to environmental contamination. “In Europe, none would try to treat toxic fly ash and bottom ash like the way Taiwan does,” says John F. Lee, managing director of Germany-based DFI Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. Activists are agitating for the fly ash and bottom ash collected from incinerators to be treated separately. Although they applaud the country’s EPA for beginning to investigate options for recycling fly ash last year to create products like roads, walls, artificial reefs, and bricks, the activists complain that the project has not moved forward. In the meantime, even legislators are beginning to question the EPA’s

Dollarhide, with the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a nonprofit risk assessment consulting firm that monitors the review on behalf of a group of perchlorate users and manufacturers. Once finalized, the assessment would be a major factor in the possible development of drinking water standards for perchlorate, a process that would take several years, according to EPA officials.

Ecological GDP

JYE-YOU CHIOU

Taiwan generated 19,932 metric tons of household waste per day. Groups like the GCAA credit the recycling program operated by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) for the dramatic drop in the amount of waste generated in recent years. According to the EPA, the country’s household garbage recycling rate was 7.3% from January to August of 2001, up from 5.1% in the same period in 2000. “The amount of waste generated in Taiwan is still in decline due to the promotion of recycling. So, what are we going to burn?” asks Jian-zhi Chen, director of the GCAA’s waste policy committee. The situation has changed dramatically in less than a decade. In 1993, according to the country’s EPA, about 90% of household waste was chucked out at landfills. Now, the EPA is poised to meet its goals of recycling 13% of its household waste and incinerating 85% of the waste in 2004. As a result, anti-incinerator activists like GCAA claim that many of the country’s incinerators—some of which are under construction— are unnecessary, and they are pressuring the Taiwanese government to reconsider its burning-oriented waste management policy. The activists fault Taiwan for

Visitorsto the restaurantatop thistow erin one ofKaohsiung City’sprime touristareasare treated to a view ofone ofthe city’sincinerators(circled in red).Although the incinerator isable to treat900metric tonsofhousehold w aste perday,cityofficialssayitactually burnslessthan 700metric tonsofw aste each day.

Trading between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, worth U.S.$9 trillion annually, has damaged the environment on which it depends, according to a new report from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an environmental oversight agency set up by the North American Free Trade Agreement. The North American Mosaic: A State of the Environment Report (www.cec.org) is the first comprehensive scorecard on the condition of North America’s natural capital. With data drawn from other analyses, the CEC uses indicators, such as trends in endangered species, pollutant emissions, and population growth, to paint an often-bleak environmental portrait of the three countries. The CEC recommends that the three countries should adopt an ecological gross domestic product (GDP) to better measure the true costs of producing goods and services. By measuring only the amount of goods and services produced and not counting pollution and environmental degradation, the GDP is overestimating economic wealth, according to the report. For instance, from 1985 to 1992, Mexico’s GDP grew at 2.2% per year, but an ecological GDP for the same period cut the growth rate to 1.3% per year after integrating environmental accounting. Released in January, the report is projected to boost efforts, such as Continued on Page 129A


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EnvironmentalM News

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Huei-Min Tsai, deputy directorgeneral of the EPA’s incinerator engineering bureau, counters that a comprehensive mechanism to inspect all waste sent to incinerators has been established. He says that it helped operators at the Peitou incinerator discover toxic solvents

that were mixed up with nonhazardous industrial waste. Despite the outcry against it, Taiwan EPA officials told ES&T in January that the country’s burningoriented waste management policy would not be changed in the near future. —YU-TZU CHIU

Mapping out the Populus genome Sequencing the Populus genome, under which hybrid poplars, cottonwoods, and aspens fall, could have widespread implications for carbon sequestration, phytoremediation, and biomass production for conversion to biofuels. But obtaining strong support for any resulting transgenic trees from a skeptical public burned by the first wave of genetically modified plants will require “engineering human and environmental safety right”, says Don Doering of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. Populus will be the first tree, and only the third plant, to have its complete genome sequenced, and researchers are excited about the information the sequence may reveal. It “should be a big shot in the arm for basic research into forest biology,” because trees’ large size and long growth times make them so difficult to breed, says Toby Bradshaw of the University of Washington, who is providing the DNA for the project, which got under way in January. “A plant’s performance in whatever environment it exists is at least partially dictated by its genetic makeup,” says Jerry Tuskan of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the technical contact for the project, which is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Better understanding of how individual genes work could allow


scientists to manipulate their performance in an effort to remove carbon from the atmosphere more quickly, fixing it into a chemical form that resists microbial degradation to keep the carbon below ground for longer periods of time, Tuskan says. Likewise, with more knowledge of the tree’s biology and metabolic processes, scientists might be better able to optimize the uptake of heavy metals and conversion of organic solvents into nontoxic compounds or even engineer the tree to obtain higher yields and more efficient conversion of its biomass into biofuels. “It’s having access to the suite of all the genes that control how the plant grows that will allow us to intentionally manipulate those genes to a point where we can customize the plant for the contaminant and/ or environment in which it’s going to be grown,” Tuskan says. Getting the genome sequenced is a powerful tool for understanding the environmental effects of tree plantations, tree breeding, and the genetic manipulation of trees, Doering says. “I tend to be optimistic on the subject of trees just because we’ll learn from the mistakes and lessons of faster-growing transgenics.” Brian Johnson of English Nature, the U.K. government’s environmental agency, adds that “we’ll want to ask some very serious questions about the stability of any transgenic trees, their ability to persist in the wild, and how they behave in the PHOTODISC

waste-burning policy. “Counties are fighting for garbage to burn,” laments Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chin-lin Lai. In Kaohsiung County in southern Taiwan, for example, two incinerators with a combined capacity of 2700 metric tons fight for the 1200 metric tons of waste residents generate each day. And its neighbor, Kaohsiung City, the country’s largest industrial city, produces only 1400 metric tons of waste daily, but operates two public incinerators with a combined daily treatment capacity of 2700 tons. Such scrap squabbles are the result of build-operate-transfer agreements mandating that local governments guarantee the delivery of set amounts of garbage to incinerator operators. The incinerators need a steady supply of garbage, Lee explains, because burning unfixed amount of garbage can lead to incomplete combustion, which can in turn generate toxic dioxins. To help make up for the shortfalls being experienced in places like Kaohsiung County and Kaohsiung City, the EPA revised the Waste Disposal Act in January 2001 to allow incinerators to accept nonhazardous industrial waste and noninfectious medical waste. The agency’s rationale is that the law prevents illegal dumping. The new law prompted Taipei City’s Peitou waste incinerator to increase the charge for treating nonhazardous industrial waste by 400 New Taiwan dollars (NT$) to NT$2000 per metric ton. In the south, however, incinerators in Kaohsiung City vie for garbage, with prices ranging from NT$580 to NT$1700. Because the fee for handling and treating toxic solvents in Taiwan is about NT$10,000 per metric ton, environmentalists warn that the ruling could inspire incinerators to begin accepting toxic waste. “We suspect that incinerators now under construction are designed to burn toxic industrial waste because it’s more economical for the industry,” says George Cheng, executive general of Taiwan Watch Institute, an environmental group.

wild.” On the whole, however, he says he views the Populus sequencing as basic fundamental research that is likely to “give us some fascinating insights into a whole range of scientific questions.” The sequence is expected to be

complete within two years, and all of the data will be made publicly available on the Web. Other participants include DOE’s Joint Genome Institute, Genome Canada, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. —KRIS CHRISTEN

Noted water researcher dies Robert Vance Thurston, the founding director of the Fisheries Bioassay Laboratory at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman, Mont., and a research professor at the school’s chemistry and biochemistry department, died on February 16, 2002. Thurston was a water quality expert and author of one of ES&T’s most highly cited research papers (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2001, 35, 488A–494A). Thurston was an internationally recognized authority on ammonia toxicity, says Rosemarie Russo, director of the Ecosystems Research Division at EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga., who collaborated with Thurston for more than 25 years. His research specialties also included fish physiology, laboratory and field aquatic

toxicity testing, water quality monitoring, and chemical limnology. Thurston is widely cited in national water quality regulations, Russo says. At the time of his death at age 75, Thurston was the project manager on a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) grant to conduct field studies in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The research team has been gathering data on oxygen-consuming nutrient inputs into the rivers that feed into the Baltic Sea, a major water body suffering from hypoxia. He was also one of the principal leaders of a 19-nation NATO study on nutrient loadings to rivers and estuaries. Thurston helped establish the first U.S.-Lithuania environmental research and education agreement in 1989, while Lithuania was still a Soviet republic. He was a mentor to many Lithuanian researchers, whom he brought to Montana State University for technical training, and he

Crittenden named to NAE ES&T Associate Editor John C. Crittenden was recently inducted into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). NAE acknowledged Crittenden’s development of theory and application of processes for removing toxic organic compounds from air and drinking water. He and his colleagues have developed methods, software, and two new technologies that may be used to remove hazardous compounds such as benzene from drinking water supplies. They are also currently involved in the design of the drinking water treatment system for the space station. Crittenden, who is a presidential professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Technological University (MTU) and director of the EPA-sponsored National Center for Clean Industrial and Treatment Technologies (one of its research bases is located at MTU in Houghton, Mich.), says “I’m happy that people have found our work to be useful, especially in developing technologies and expertise that provide safe drinking water.” Membership to the NAE is conferred on engineers who have made important contributions to engineering theory and practice, as well as on those who have demonstrated unusual accomplishment in pioneering new and developing fields of technology. —LEONA KANASKIE

Governm those in Canada, to adopt environmental sustainability indicators, says David McGuinty, president of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy, an advisory council to Canada’s Prime Minister, Jean Chretien.

Lessons in precaution Officials in Europe and the United States need to reach an agreement on how much evidence of harmful effects is needed to justify preventive action, according to a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The report Late Lessons from Early Warnings: The Precautionary Principle 1896–2000 analyzes how policy makers have and haven’t applied the principle over the last century, particularly when addressing hazards where there is scientific uncertainty. Fourteen case studies show where warnings were ignored and regulatory inaction led to costly and unforeseen consequences, such as fishery collapses and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from the asbestos cancer mesothelioma. Other case studies involve mad cow disease; the use of growth hormones and antibiotics in farm animals; the use of benzene, MTBE, and tributyltin; chemical contamination of the Great Lakes; and air pollution from sulfur dioxide. The EEA draws a number of lessons from the case studies, including the value of preventing one or two materials from monopolizing the market, as was the case with asbestos, CFCs, and PCBs; ensuring that “lay” and local knowledge is used along with scientific expertise in risk evaluations; and being realistic about how materials will be used and disposed of. The report can be downloaded from http://reports.eea.eu.int/ environmental_issue_report_2001_ 22/en. Continued on Page 130A


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EnvironmentalM News Loss of no net loss?

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) updated permits for wetlands development sparked accusations from environmentalists and government agencies that the permits ignore the impacts of mountaintop removal mining, and they renege on the Bush administration’s promise to protect wetlands under a “no net loss” policy (http://pubs. acs.org/subscribe/journals/ esthag-w/2001/oct/policy/cc_corps. html). The 43 permits, renewed on January 15, speed approval for development projects that cause only minimal impacts on wetlands (Fed. Reg. 67 (10), 2020−2095). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in written comments, told the Corps that nationwide permit (NWP) 21, which covers mountaintop removal for mining coal, authorized the destruction of 14,000 acres of aquatic habitat and the burial of 88 miles of streams in the year 2000 alone. The Corps does not have the scientific basis to claim that NWP-21 causes no more than minimal impact to the environment, the FWS added. But the Corps argues that NWP21 does not need to be strengthened because other regulations, such as the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and state laws, do a sufficient job of protecting the environment. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, an environmental group, have filed a lawsuit over NWP-21, alleging that the Corps does not have the authority to permit companies to dump mining waste in streams. More information on the Corps’ new permits can be found at (www.usace.army.mil/inet/ functions/cw/cecwo/reg/nw2002dd/ index.htm).

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was instrumental in providing much scientific equipment, computers, and laboratory supplies to the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, Russo says. “Thurston was truly a ‘hands-on’ instructor in the water quality monitoring field expeditions he helped organize in Lithuania with Vilnius University and the Lithuanian Environmental Protection Ministry,” recalls J. Jackson Ellington, a research chemist with EPA’s Ecosystems Research Division who began traveling to the Baltics with Thurston in 1989. Thurston spent “countless days” working with local personnel in the country’s laboratories and at river and lake sampling sites, Ellington says. Thurston earned his Ph.D. in zoology from MSU and held degrees in economics, science education, chemistry, and limnology. Before joining the MSU faculty in 1971, he held

positions at the University of Maine– Farmington, the University of Wisconsin, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also served as a visiting scientist at the University of British Columbia, the University of Guadalajara, the University of Baja California, and the University of Washington. Thurston was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, and he served as chair of the Water Quality Review Committee of the American Fisheries Society, which honored him with a distinguished service award in 1980. Thurston’s long and varied career also included a six-year stint as a high school science teacher and service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. “He was a truly remarkable man who touched the lives of people all over the world,” Russo says. KELLYN S. BETTS

Ocean fish energy recovery rates are falling Beef feedlots are the only animal food source that is less energy-efficient than fish caught in the ocean, claims Reg Watson of the University of British Columbia (UBC). As part of the Sea Around Us Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trust, the UBC researchers have calculated “energy recovery” rates for ocean fish by comparing the amount of fuel needed to catch them with their edible protein content. “As fishers go into deeper water and use more extreme methods, the amount of energy [they must use] has increased substantially,” Watson says. “We’re not only burning more fuel, we’re pursuing resources that are more thinly dispersed,” explains Peter Tyedmers, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University also involved with the Sea Around Us Project. Tyedmers estimates that the amount of energy recovered from ocean fish has plummeted by a factor of 5–10 over the past 40 years. —KELLYN S. BETTS

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Catch /fuel energy %

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Japanese squid fishery1

1 Sato et al. 1989 2 Mitchell and Cleveland, 1993 3 Tyedmers, 2001

30 New Bedford fleet2 Icelandic fleet3 Atlantic Canadian fleet3

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0 1980 Year Source: Peter Tyedmers, Sea Around Us Project.


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News MBriefs change regionally and how complex ecosystems will respond. Aquatic Ecosystems and Climate Change: Potential Impacts on Inland Freshwater and Coastal Wetland Ecosystems in the United States is available at www. pewclimate.org/projects/aquatic.cfm.

Citizens from across the globe believe that environmental quality has deteriorated over the past 10 years, according to a survey of public opinion conducted by Environics International Ltd., a research firm. The poll reflects the views of 1000 people in each of 23 nations on 6 continents representing 67% of the world’s population; the majority of the citizens in 60% of these countries said environmental quality was worsening. In a separate poll that was released simultaneously with the public opinion poll, sustainability experts in half of the countries included in the citizens’ poll said that without faster progress toward sustainable development, it is unlikely that humanity can avert irreversible damage. To order a copy of the report, go to www. environicsinternational.com.

Global warming models overestimate the greenhouse gas emissions of junked refrigerators, according to a new analysis sponsored by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers in conjunction with the U.S. EPA. Computer models have assumed that 100% of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used inside refrigerators enter the atmosphere when the appliances are decommissioned. When researchers from Denmark Technical University in Copenhagen measured emissions after refrigerators were shredded, however, they found that less than 40% of the greenhouse gases were actually released over six weeks. For more information, go to http://aham.org.

Over the next 100 years, changes in climate will pose serious risks for inland freshwater ecosystems and coastal wetlands in the United States, predicts a new report by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Variations in temperature and precipitation patterns will likely alter the geographic distribution of aquatic species, affect ecosystem productivity, reduce water quality, and further stress sensitive areas already impacted by human activities, says the report. However, the report acknowledges that critical uncertainties still exist regarding how climate will

report, go to www.gbrmpa.gov.au/ corp_site/key_issues/water_quality/ index.html.

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Almost 1200 public schools in five states are located within a half-mile of a hazardous waste site, according to a report by the Child Proofing Our Communities Campaign, a national coalition of grassroots organizations. The report finds that these schools, which are attended by more than 600,000 children, are one potential source of the rising numbers of children afflicted with asthma, cancers, lower IQs, and learning disabilities. For a copy of Creating Safe Learning Zones: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions, go to www.childproofing.org.

Pollution in Australia’s coastal floodwaters poses a serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef, finds a study by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, a government agency. Pollution levels are 4 times worse than 15 years ago. Nutrients, sediment, and pesticides in flood plumes exceed safe levels, thereby stressing the world’s largest coral reef, depressing coral reproduction and even killing corals outright. Flood Plumes in the Great Barrier Reef: Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Composition and Distribution concludes that river pollution must be cut more than 30–60 percent to protect the reef. To see the

Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., expects to become the first college in the world to meet the Kyoto Protocol standards for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Beginning next fall, students have voted to begin paying $10 annually into a fund that will be used to purchase “offsets” from the Climate Trust, a nonprofit environmental group that supports green energy projects. An inventory of the school’s greenhouse gas emissions has shown that the fees collected will be sufficient to allow the school to meet the Kyoto standard of emissions 7% below the 1990 level. The school joins a growing roster of colleges and universities that have committed to meet the stipulations of the Kyoto Protocol. This year’s Environmental Chemistry Graduate Student Awards went to 11 students at 10 universities, the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced in February. Graduate advisers can nominate students who have been enrolled for at least a year in a program that emphasizes environmental chemistry at a U.S. university. Award winners are chosen by the merit of their course work and research productivity, and recommendations regarding their potential as professionals. A one-year membership to the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry and a one-year subscription to ES&T were awarded to Yi He, Queens College of CUNY; Sharon Walker, Yale University; SunLin Yang and James Day, Georgia Tech; Christina Friedel, Southern Illinois University; Brian Quinn, University of Florida; Tanita Sirivedhin, Northwestern University; Joseph Bushey, Carnegie Mellon University; Michael Gershenzon, Boston College; Qingguo Huang, University of Michigan; and Jian Zhan, University of Massachusetts–Dartmouth.


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EnvironmentalM News

Fiscal Year 2003 Budget resident Bush asked for a record total of $111.8 billion for federal research and development (R&D) funding for fiscal year 2003 (FY ’03), a whopping 8.3% increase beyond what Congress approved for the current fiscal year. Bush’s emphasis on the war against terrorism is clear in his budget request, where he awards nearly the entire increase in R&D ($45 billion) to the Department of Defense (DOD). Most of these funds would go to weapons systems in the military services, rather than to research, according to a preliminary analysis by the the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Another large increase is proposed for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ($3.7 billion), a remarkable increase that fullfills a commitment to double NIH’s budget between FY ’98 and ’03, according to AAAS. Without the NIH increases, total nondefense-related federal R&D would fall by 0.4%, to $26.7 billion (see table). As a result, all other government programs would see flat or declining funding in their R&D budgets under Bush’s request. In three separate stories, ES&T takes a look at the budget request for environment-related funding in three key agencies: the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and EPA.

P

Research funding in the FY 2003 budget Most federal agencies would see flat or decreased funding for their research programs under President Bush’s proposal. Budget allocations are given in millions of dollars. Research (basic + applied) Defense (military; including medical) Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health NASA Energy National Science Foundation Agriculture Commerce NOAA NIST Interior Transportation EPA Veterans Affairs Education Agency for International Development Smithsonian All Other

FY 2001 Actual

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FY 2003 Budget

Percent

4944

4961

4952

–0.2

20,665

23,432

26,846

14.6

19,491 4185 4720

22,182 4675 5294

25,748 5397 5383

16.1 15.4 1.7

3075 1846 818 505 305 590 462 475 733 174

3285 1848 890 549 334 628 535 488 780 180

3441 1826 868 542 317 596 421 532 829 213

4.7 –1.2 –2.5 –1.3 –5.1 –5.1 –21.3 9.0 6.3 18.3

249 108 246

268 111 249

182 114 235

–32.1 2.7 –5.6

Total research

43,290

47,624

51,835

8.8

Total research excluding NIH

23,799

25,442

26,087

2.5

Source:AAAS, based on OMB data for R&D for FY 2003, agency budget justification, and information from agency budget offices.

Bush proposes shifting $74 million to NSF The Bush administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2003 (FY ’03) increases the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) budget 5% over current levels. The $5 billion budget highlights support for new equipment for environmental studies that hint at homeland security measures, a new climate change research initiative, raising graduate fellowships, and an increase in NSF staff for the first time since 1990. The budget also includes controver-

FY 2002 Estimate

sial transfers of $74 million in funding control for three environmental programs from federal agencies to NSF. The American Association for the Advancement of Science estimates that these transfers are half of NSF’s 3.6 % R&D increase. NSF is an independent agency that distributes grants on a competitive basis and, according to the agency’s statistics, currently provides 49% of all federal money for basic research in environmental science.


That percentage could change, thanks to a new management rating system put in place by the Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Under a system known as the Executive Management Scorecard, NSF ranked higher in financial management than any other U.S. federal agency (see sidebar on p. 134A). When announcing Bush’s budget request, NSF director Rita Colwell commented that 95% of all funds allocated to NSF go directly to researchers. When presenting his budget request to Congress, Bush said, “When

objective measures reveal that government programs are not succeeding, those programs should be reinvented, redirected, or retired.” The proposed transfers support Bush’s interest in reforming the federal government and are not related to supporting the nation’s war on terrorism, according to OMB press officer Jennifer Wood. According to OMB, high praise regarding NSF’s low overhead costs and competitive process explain why NSF is slated to take over a $55 million Sea Grant program from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a $10 million toxic substances hydrology program currently operated by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and a $9 million environmental education program aimed at grades K–12 now managed by the EPA. The Sea Grant program is a partnership between U.S. universities and NOAA that promotes research projects, education, and technologies that preserve oceans, lakes, and bays. NOAA’s Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr., noted that the program is not new to NSF. “Sea Grant started with NSF and moved to NOAA, and if you look at it honestly, you can see the pros and cons of having it in each of those organizations.” He adds, “We are going to work as hard as we can to ensure that [the Sea Grant program] continues to serve the purposes it was designed for [by working with NSF].” But others say they worry that shifting this program from NOAA to NSF could compromise the research. In a recent letter to the OMB, Carolyn Thoroughgood, acting president and chair of the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education, a nonprofit organization that promotes ocean research and education, reminded officials that a 1994 National Research Council (NRC) study of the Sea Grant program oversight recommended elevating the program within the ranks of NOAA. “Sea Grant supports applied, objective-driven science, an approach that is inconsistent with

the basic research mission of NSF,” she states. With the transfer, Sea Grant extension projects that move science and technology from the lab to practice in the public and private sector, such as diagnosing toxic algal blooms, face elimination, warns Thoroughgood. Sea Grant researchers estimate that one-third of the program’s funds go to these extension projects.

toxics program and reduce NAQWA in FY ’02, Congress restored the programs in final appropriations. Environmentalists quickly voiced their criticisms in response to the proposal. The USGS transfer is “inappropriate, and hopefully, it won’t happen,” says Sue Gunn, director of budget and appropriations at the Wilderness Society. She argues that it is “ridiculous” to move

NSF budget for FY 2003 Excluding transfers and educational programs, proposed R&D spending at NSF increases 3.6%. Budget allocations are given in millions of dollars.

NSF account Research and related activities Education and human resources Major research equipment and facilities construction Salaries and expenses Office of Inspector General Total, NSF1 1

FY 2002 current plan

FY 2003 request

Percent change between request over plan

3598.64

3783.21

5.1

875.00

908.08

3.8

138.80 176.40 7.04 4795.88

126.28 210.06 8.06 5035.79

–9.0 19.1 14.5 5.0

Includesproposed Pension and Healthcare costsunderthe Bush Administration’sCostsIntegration Legislation,w hich requiresagenciesto payfullshare ofaccrued costofretirementbeginning in FY 2003.

Source:National Science Foundation.

A USGS hydrologist speaking anonymously says he is also worried about the future of their unique water quality monitoring programs. A 1996 NRC review cited USGS as one of the few organizations (including universities, other federal agencies, and states) that can do long-term field studies. Moreover, the same review states that discontinuous funding and limited infrastructure restricts what universities can study. In a statement reacting to the proposed budget, USGS officials says that $10 million of the $13.9 million allotted in FY ’02 to the USGS Toxic Hydrology program will go to NSF. In addition, USGS’s long-term National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAQWA), which has monitored pollutant levels across the United States, would have to secure about $6 million in outside funding to maintain its schedule and scope. However, the hydrologist recalls that although Bush proposed to cut the

a long-term program that studies toxic substances in water from a scientific organization to a granting agency characterized by basic research initiatives. “Under the NSF model, all [Sea Grant and hydrology] funding will [now] be allocated through a competitive, merit-based process,” says Wood. The environmental education program was used more for advocacy under EPA, whereas at NSF, it can better serve educators and students, she adds. With a proposed 13.4% increase, the NSF Geosciences Directorate (GEO) did much better overall than other NSF programs that received percentage increases that barely approached inflation. Partnering with such agencies as NOAA, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, GEO is expected to receive $15 million to support a new multiagency Climate Change Initiative directed toward


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EnvironmentalM News analyzing risk and “other knowledge gaps”. According to assistant NSF director Margaret Leinen, GEO will also fund new major research equipment by allocating $35 million for Earthscope, a project for monitoring events like earthquakes and landslides in North America, and $12 million for the National Ecological Observatory Network,

an array that can detect abrupt environmental changes and long-term trends. Colwell commented that these instruments will help “take the pulse of the environment” and could “serve as early biological detection systems”. NSF has also identified various priority areas that will get money from its other directorates. The En-

vironmental Biocomplexity priority area will garner $75 million in total to focus on such projects as microbial genomic sequencing and ecology of infectious diseases, invasive species, and biological weapons. Colwell is “truly delighted” that the budget would add $37 million to graduate stipends, saying that these increases are “key to develop-

Green means go? Selected scores from the Executive Management Scorecard The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) According to the Bush administration’s ranking system of federal departments and used a rating system for governagencies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) got the only green light of all 23 ment agencies and cabinet offices federal departments and independent agencies. as a decision-making tool for planFederal Budget ning the FY 2003 budget. department Human Competitive Financial E-govern- performance OMB applied the five criteria or agency capital sourcing management ment integration of the Executive Management NSF Scorecard in order to identify where federal dollars were not EPA managed well. The system supCommerce ports President Bush’s emphasis (oversees NOAA) on government reform. In a speech Defense to Congress on February 4 when Energy he released his FY ’03 budget request, Bush said, “From the beHealth and Human ginning of my administration, I Services (oversees NIH) have called for better management of the federal government. Interior (oversees USGS) Now, with all of the demands on our resources, better management is needed more sorely than ever.” flecting the state of the government we inherited.” Using the rating system, departments and independent But Daniels said that the National Science Foundation (NSF) agencies across the federal government were judged on deserved to be singled out. “NSF is one of the true centers of their ability to use human resources; apply competitive outexcellence in government where 95% of funds that taxpayers sourcing; show good financial performance, such as limited provide goes out on a competitive basis directly to researchbookkeeping error; expand the public’s electronic access to ers who pursue the frontiers of science. This is all at a very government; and demonstrate that budgeted money was low overhead cost,” he said. NSF received a green light for fiactually used effectively (see table). In addition to overall nancial management, the only one awarded across all 23 deranking, several agencies had specific program initiatives partments and agencies in the federal government. evaluated, including an assessment of research and develThe Democratic staff of the House Committee on Science opment projects within the Department of Energy (DOE). calls into question the effect of the rating system on research Compared to a “traffic light” in budget documents, the and development spending. According to budget documents, scorecard is considered important to governing with accountDOE and the Department of Health and Human Services, ability. “The scorecard employs a simple grading system: which oversees the National Institutes of Health (NIH), each green for success, yellow for mixed results, and red for ungot increased funding despite earning five red lights (see satisfactory” and reflects performance through September table). In a written analysis, the committee charges that 30, 2001, said Mitch Daniels, director of the OMB, when he “[management] metrics have become a cloak behind which released the assessments late last year. politics, both Presidential and Congressional, can carry on In an October 30, 2001, memo to heads of executive departas before with a new patina of impartiality.” ments and agencies, Daniels warned that “clearly, the September More information about the FY ’03 budget is available at 30 baseline will show a lot of poor scores for current status, rewww.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/index.html.

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• • • • •

• • •

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ing our nation’s talent”. Previously set at $21,500, stipends would now award $25,000 annually to those with NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, Graduate Teaching Fel-

lowships in K–12 Education, and Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeships. The budget also includes “overdue investments in NSF workforce”, says Colwell,

Bush highlights transfer of EPA funds to the states President Bush requested $7.7 billion to fund the EPA in the upcoming fiscal year (FY ’03), just $200 million more than what he requested last year and $400 million less than what Congress approved ($7.9 billion) for FY ’02. The budget includes $685.2 million for science and technology projects, a slight drop from the current budget of $712.8 million. Bush is seeking $650 million for EPA’s R&D program, a 6.2% boost over the current level. Much of the increase, $77.5 million, is attributed to research related to homeland security, according to the AAAS. “Fostering Environmental Partnerships” was EPA’s theme on February 4 when EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced the budget. Developed in the current era when the cost effectiveness of federal funding is under intense scrutiny, the partnership approach helps the agency leverage federal money and effort, according to one EPA budget analyst. “The idea of partnerships is growing in the government. It is one of the principles of this administration that not all of the answers lie in Washington,” the analyst says. This theme was seen in the agency’s proposal to designate $21 million for the new Targeted Watershed program. EPA staff would consult with state and local governments and groups to develop voluntary strategies to improve the watershed’s condition. Bush is also seeking $200 million for states to clean up abandoned industrial sites known as brownfields. The funds would provide an increase of $100 million from the FY ’02 request, but they would actually fulfill the authorization included in a new brownfields law signed by the president in January.

Whitman called the brownfields program “a cornerstone of EPA’s partnership[s]”, noting that the funds will go toward additional assessments of hazardous waste- and petroleum-contaminated properties, and for state-run voluntary cleanup programs. Under Bush’s request, another $15 million would be shifted from EPA’s enforcement program to the states.

that permit 67 full-time employees and provide travel money that would be allocated for site visits essential for better assessing grant proposals. —RACHEL PETKEWICH

remain relatively stable when the request is compared with the current budget. These items include $1.29 billion for the Superfund program, $2.1 billion for Environmental Programs and Management, $1.2 million for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, and $850 million for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, the last two items being state loan programs. Whitman touted the importance of developing better and cheaper

Summary of EPA’s resources by goal More than half of EPA’s budget supports programs designed to improve air and drinking water quality and to better handle hazardous waste. Budget allocations are given in thousands of dollars. FY 2002 enacted

FY 2003 request

FY 2003 versus FY 2002

Clean air $593,361.8 Clean and safe water $3,738,990.3 Safe food $109,071.7 Preventing pollution $319,915.1 Better waste management $1,520,683.8 Global and cross-border risks $276,588.0 Quality environmental information $197,067.8 Sound science $336,066.9 Credible deterrent $386,539.6 Effective management $424,928.0

$597,977.3 $3,214,674.2 $109,814.6 $326,651.9 $1,711,279.8 $269,727.2 $199,124.0 $327,837.9 $402,462.9 $460,963.2

+$4615.5 –($524,316.1) +$742.9 +6736.8 +$190,596.0 –($6860.8) +$2056.2 –($8229.0) +$15,923.3 –($36,035.2)

Goal 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Grand total budget authority

$8,006,801.6 $7,723,600.8 –($283,200.8)

Source:U.S. EPA.

States are eager to receive the enforcement funds, says R. Steven Brown, deputy executive director of the Environmental Council of States (ECOS). In a survey of state budgets for the current fiscal year, ECOS found that state legislatures reduced their environmental funding in response to the recession, and the average cut of the 35 states who answered the national survey was $6.5 million. “Eighty percent of the enforcement is carried out by the states now,” Brown adds. Overall, however, funding for the agency’s large programs would

environmental technologies for assessments and cleanups when she announced Bush’s $10 million National Environmental Technology Competition. If EPA receives this funding from Congress, the agency would issue competitive solicitations for technologies in several areas, including arsenic treatment technologies for drinking water systems that serve small communities and research to reduce the bioaccumulation of PCBs and VOCs, Whitman says. The president requested $3.2 million for the National Computational


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EnvironmentalM News Toxicology Project, which would bring the total funding to $8 million. The program, which began in FY ’02, uses gene arrays to identify how an animal’s system responds to toxic exposure. Researchers will build on the work done by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences with computer chips and high-performance computers, says Office of Research and Development’s Assistant Administrator Designee J. Paul Gilman (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2000, 34, 244A− 245A). The agency’s endocrine disrupter screening program will act as a pilot program for the toxicology project. The budget includes $124 million for projects related to homeland security, including $75 million earmarked for research into improved techniques for cleaning up buildings contaminated by biological agents. The remaining funds would be directed toward the security of drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities. EPA already received $175 million in the current fiscal year to address the at-

tacks on September 11, Whitman says. As was the case with the Clinton administration’s budgets, this request has zeroed out all $510 million in “earmarks” Congress inserted into the current budget to support local projects. Some of those funds ($59 million) would affect local research projects, and $343 million would reduce funding to drinking water and wastewater treatment projects, EPA staff says. Environmentalists criticized the request saying that the zeroing out of the earmarks, if enacted, would take money from clean water research. An analysis from the environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOE) notes that $124 million is being cut from the current budget of the Office of Science and Technology (OS&T) for clean water research. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that funding the $21 million Targeted Watershed program would reduce funding for a controversial regulatory program for watersheds, known as the Total Maximum Daily

DOE budget marks new approach to cleanup In keeping with the general belt tightening and focus on fiscal efficiency flavoring President Bush’s entire budget request for FY ’03, the Department of Energy’s envi-

ronment programs are targeted to receive only slight increases in the agency’s $21.9 billion request. Although the overall DOE budget, which was unveiled in early Febru-

Department of Energy FY 2003 budget request Comparing the budget request for 2003 with the appropriations for the last two years shows that DOE's funding for energy, science, and environment is relatively flat, while national security spending is growing.

Dollars in billions

25

$20.2B

$21.3B

$21.9B

$0.76

$0.81

20

$1.01

15

$6.8

$7.6

$8.0

$12.4

$13.0

$13.1

FY 2001

FY 2002

FY 2003

0 Source: U.S. Department of Energy.

I

National Nuclear Security Administration

10 5

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Other


Energy, Science and Environment

Load program. Another $124 million would come from OS&T’s budget for clean air research, according to FOE. The groups also bemoan Bush’s request to shift $15 million from EPA’s oversight enforcement programs to the states. “The federal government provides an essential backstop for the states ... especially in cases that are tough to handle, such as intrastate cases, or those where a company has an unwieldy influence,” says NRDC’s Wesley Warren, formerly an associate director at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. But it’s unclear whether Congress will approve Bush’s request. Several key senators in February complained of what they considered low funding for the state clean water and drinking water grants and inadequate funding for clean air research. They also criticized the enforcement grants program. Last year, Bush requested $25 million for the same initiative, but Congress shelved the idea. —CATHERINE M. COONEY

ary, reflects a 2.7% increase over last year’s appropriation, the agency’s Energy, Science, and the Environment division is slated to receive only a paltry 0.7% raise to $13.1 billion in 2003. The 2003 budget codifies DOE’s new approach to dealing with environmental management, which covers cleanup of the environmental contamination at sites throughout the country. At $6.7 billion, environmental management is the agency’s largest line item. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham says that the agency’s new “expedited cleanup plan”, which was announced in late January before the budget was unveiled, will result in “faster, cheaper, and better” cleanups. The new cleanup plan takes a triage approach to dealing with wastes at contaminated DOE sites. Significant health and safety risks are to be eliminated as soon as possible, with the remaining risks reviewed on a case-by-case basis in

PHOTODISC

conjunction with state and local ofcrease for hydrogen energy producAlthough the fossil energy reficials. To encourage DOE sites to tion, a 14% hike for wind—where search and development budget is participate in the program, DOE is the focus has shifted to lower-speed down by 7%, environmentalists offering participating sites a greater technologies suitable for less windy blasted its inclusion of $325 million share of its cleanup resources, at areas—a 2% cut for biofor coal research, including funding least in the short term. mass/biofuels, and a 2% cut for for three “failed programs of the Environmentalists caution that solar. The request also extends expast”: the coal research R&D prothe expedited strategy could lead to isting wind and biomass tax credits. gram, the clean coal technologies laxer cleanup standards. “Instead of The DOE budget’s inclusion of program, and the power plant imimproving the [environmental $71 million for nuclear power R&D provement initiative, Pica says. management] program by agDOE’s core mission is national gressively addressing the security, Abraham says. But worst risks first—such as Wesley Warren of NRDC’s Air buried transuranic waste & Energy staff faults the overaround the nuclear weapons all budget for reducing fundcomplex or the leaking highing to some of the programs level waste tanks at Hanford— that would have the greatest DOE is proposing a program impact on reducing that dethat, if implemented, would pendency—energy efficiency, rely on expedient, short-term which sustained an 8% cut— approaches and encourage while actually increasing subregulators and communities sidies to “dirty” forms of to agree to less stringent envienergy. “Simply examining the ronmental standards to ensure numbers paints an incomcontinued funding,” claims plete picture of where the the Natural Resources Defense White House’s priorities lie. Council (NRDC), a nonprofit Polluting energy companies environmental group. will rake in more than $28 bilAbraham counters that the lion in tax breaks over the next 70-year cleanup time frames 10 years,” Pica adds. associated with existing The watchdog organizacleanup schedules are simply tions note that the ultimate too long. He says the expeditfate of H.R. 4, a bill proposed by President Bush last year ed plan provides a “better and passed by the house that focus” for cleaning up agency gives subsidies and tax breaks sites. NRDC notes that DOE’s to the fossil energy compaHanford Reservation in nies, is unclear. Although the Washington state, Savannah The DOE’sfiscalyear2003budgetrequestincludesa 35% Bush budget banks on the River in South Carolina, and increase fornuclearpow erresearch and development.A Los Alamos in New Mexico are majoragencygoalisto w ork w ith the private sectorto $1.2 billion from drilling in the all slated for significant cuts in build advanced nuclearpow erplantsby2010. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge their cleanup budgets. The encalled for in H.R. 4, the budget vironmental management budget represents a 35% increase. The maomits much of the $38 billion in tax request is for 0.2% more than last jority of the new funds are for the breaks and handouts to polluters year’s appropriation. agency’s new nuclear power 2010 that are in the bill, Pica says. Because the DOE budget coninitiative, which aims to build adIf H.R. 4 passes, “you’re going to tains many cuts, environmental vanced nuclear power plants in the see an increase of the tax credits groups generally praise the DOE for United States by 2010. The DOE and tax breaks that the oil, coal, continuing funding for energy effistresses that nuclear power is a gas, and nuclear power companies ciency and renewable energy, alCO2-free energy source, but Erich are going to receive, as well as an though they charge that the modest Pica, director of the Green Scissors increase in the authorized levels for 0.8% increase didn’t go far enough. Campaign, a program run jointly by the R&D programs that were cut,” Still, Dave Garman, assistant secrethe Friends of the Earth and other Pica says. Even if the H.R. 4 isn’t retary for renewable energy and enernonprofit groups, faulted the 2010 suscitated, he points out that there gy efficiency, says that this is the initiative pushing for the developare major supporters of fossil fuel division’s largest budget request ment of new nuclear power plants research on Capitol Hill, which since 1981 (in real dollars, not addespite their inherent security risks. means that the fossil fuel funding justed for inflation). The budget also includes a $2.1 bilcould be reinstated as the budget Funding for renewable resources lion tax credit for nuclear power bill makes its way through Conresearch is up 6%, with a 37% inplant decommissioning. gress. —KELLYN S. BETTS APRIL 1, 2002 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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Government Watch: Low-level perchlorate exposures - Environmental

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