ES&T
CURRENTS INTERNATIONAL The U.S. and Canadian Chambers of Commerce have jointly approved a resolution calling for an "immediate" effort between the two governments to conclude a bilateral acid rain treaty. The terms of the treaty should include phased-in sulfur dioxide emissions reductions and accelerated research, the resolution stated. This represents a major shift in policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which until now has supported a researchonly approach to the acid rain problem. The Chambers agreed in their resolution that unnaturally acidic deposition occurs, that bodies of water are being acidified by this deposition, and that acidification is related to damage to aquatic biota. In West Germany tree damage that is apparently caused by air pollution has more than quadrupled in the past year. Air pollutants are alleged to have injured one-third of this country's 17 million acres of forest. Friedemann Kaelble, director of forest services in Karlsruhe,
Damage has quadrupled said: "The trend is alarming, and unless it changes in the next five years, some of our woods will be completely gone." The damage is particularly acute in the Black Forest where one-half of the forest is now affected. As a result of the widespread forest decline, acid rain 40A
Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 18, No. 2, 1984
has become a key priority of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right government.
WASHINGTON Noncompliance with water control permits is "widespread, frequent, significant," according to a recent report by the General Accounting Office. G A O also found that thousands of dischargers have not been issued permits or have expired permits. In a random sample of 531 major dischargers, 31% of the facilities exceeded the limits for one or more pollutants for at least four consecutive months, and 82% exceeded their permit limits at least once during the 18-month period. G A O related these violations to declining federal funding of water quality programs at EPA and declining enforcement of the regulations. In fiscal year 1981, EPA received $318 million for water quality; for fiscal year 1984, EPA requested only $152 million. EPA has revised its plan for regulating benzene as a hazardous air pollutant. It has decided to control emissions from coke recovery plants and fugitive emissions from petroleum refiners and chemical manufacturing plants and has proposed to withdraw a 1980 plan to control emissions from maleic anhydride plants, ethylbenzene/styrene plants, and benzene storage vessels. Under the new proposal, over 70% of the benzene emissions from stationary sources would be regulated. The categories that were withdrawn contribute only 3.4% of the total emissions. Because these facilities are estimated to cause a very low health risk to the individual, they were exempted from control. The public is now exposed to 60 500 tons of benzene per year from stationary sources. EPA has announced a nationwide plan to deal with the problem of dioxin contamination. Under the new plan, a dioxin level of 1 ppb in the soil will trigger an investigation
of the extent of human exposure to the chemical. Production sites where dioxin was created as an unwanted by-product and sites where the waste materials from such production were disposed of were stated to be the most probable areas of dioxin contamination. The strategy includes no specific plans for cleaning up dioxin-contaminated sites and no additional funds for dealing with dioxin contamination. When the agency finds dangerous levels of dioxin, action will be taken through Superfund. EPA has drafted a strategy to protect the nation's underground water supplies. Rather than requesting broader legislative authority, for the most part the agency will try to protect groundwater with existing laws. According to the new plan, EPA could prohibit hazardous waste landfills, pesticide spraying, and chemical storage above some aquifers. The agency states that groundwater protection is largely a state problem, but that it will give increased support to the states for this effort. However, EPA requested no specific money in the 1984 budget to help the states with groundwater protection. Instead, the agency will obtain funds for this purpose from existing programs such as the Clean Water Act and the Resource, Conservation and Recovery Act. The panel investigating the coalleasing policies of former Interior Secretary James G. Watt broke ranks with its chairman and decided to revise large portions of a draft report that found little fault with Watt's program. The panel said the report in its present form does not answer the question posed by Congress: Did Watt obtain fair market value for federal coal resources? Last year critics accused Watt of putting so much coal on the market that the price was driven down. Congress has halted coal leasing until the panel finishes its investigation. At press time, the report was scheduled to be complete in about a month.
0013-936X/84/0916-0040A$01.50/0
© 1984 American Chemical Society
