News Briefs
PHOTODISC
The United States recently joined Australia, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Baltic states in getting tough on a longignored problem—ships that illegally dump waste oil from bilge and storage tanks into the ocean. Record fines and jail terms have proven to be effective deterrents in these
Approximately 10–25% of commercial ships violate international regulations and discharge millions of gallons of oil at sea.
countries, but weak enforcement of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) by other countries, such as Canada, China, and India, creates havens for illegal dumping of oil that threatens seabirds worldwide, say environmentalists and government officials. Over the past year, the U.S. crackdown has resulted in more than $7 million in fines and more than 2 years in prison in seven cases on the West Coast alone. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on April 16 that Ta Tong Marine Co. Ltd., a Taiwanese shipping firm, and its chief engineer face $1 million in fines and a maximum of 5 years in jail for dumping more than 20 tons of oily waste at sea. According to Norm Davis, supervisor of spill prevention for the Washington state Department of Ecology, the United States’ get-tough policy began after whistleblowers reported in the mid1990s that cruise ships were illegally discharging wastes at sea. This enforcement is significant because approximately 10–25% of commercial ships violate MARPOL and discharge more than 65 million gallons of waste oil at sea each year, nearly 3 times the amount spilled
in catastrophic oil tanker accidents, reports a 2001 study from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). “According to what we hear from ships’ crews, illegal discharge is rampant, and the true amount is far higher than the NAS estimate,” says Davis. Because it only takes a drop of oil about 2.5 centimeters in diameter to kill a seabird, the volume dumped is not as important as where and when the oil is discharged, explains Jon Stone, communication manager for Environment Canada. The overlap of intense ship traffic and high concentrations of seabirds in Atlantic Canada translates into 300,000 dead seabirds each year, nearly the same number of oiled birds that perished from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, he says. The source of the discharges targeted by the MARPOL convention is the oily sludge from fuel oil that cannot be burned in the ship’s engines. In properly maintained ships, this fuel gets stored for later incineration or disposal at a treatment facility on shore, Davis says. In addition, oil leaking from machinery on the ship is captured in bilge tanks that collect seawater runoff. A separator then removes the oil from the bilge water for later incineration or disposal, but polluters bypass the separator and dump the mixture at sea. By illegally pitching wastes overboard, ships can avoid $50,000– 400,000 in yearly environmental compliance costs, according to a June 2002 report from the United Nation’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. High fines in the United States and other countries outweigh these profits from cheating, but uneven prosecution of MARPOL has led countries, such as Canada, to come under increasing informal international pressure to boost enforcement against polluters, says Francis Wiese, marine ecologist at the University of Washington. At international meetings, Canada and other countries appear to be mov-
Biotechnology fellowships To foster transatlantic collaborations for developing new approaches to remediating environmental contamination, the United States–European Union (EU) Task Force on Biotechnology Research is soliciting applications for young U.S. scientists to spend one to six months in a host EU laboratory engaged in microbial environmental research. The fellowship includes funds for travel, housing, and living, but not salary or the funds for routine laboratory supplies. The exchange is open only to U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are at least in their third year of predoctoral studies or have been awarded their Ph.D. no more than four years from the September 1 application deadline. For more information, go to www. biochem.missouri.edu/ EU-US-BiotechFellow.
Wind farms down under Australia plans to begin constructing the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere before the end of this year. The 120 wind turbines slated to be installed at Yambuk, which is located on Australia’s southeastern coast about 250 kilometers west of Melbourne, will provide 180 megawatts of energy, enough power to supply around 200,000 homes. The project’s developers, the renewable energy group Pacific Hydro Ltd., predict that it will reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 800,000 tonnes a year. The state government gave its final approval to the $170 million project in May, after federal approval was granted last October. It should start producing electricity in 2004, six months later than originally planned.
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PHOTODISC
Cracking down on oil dumping at sea
Environmental▼News ing slowly on the issue as the Baltic states and the Netherlands introduce plans to speed waste treatment services at ports and include disposal charges in general port fees, he says. Nevertheless, on April 17, Canada dropped charges against the Tecam Sea, a Panamanianowned ship caught dumping bilge oil off the coast of Newfoundland, saying the evidence was not good enough to prosecute. The evidence was clear, but the government lacks the will to convict because the lead agency in these cases, Transport Canada, does not have protection of
marine life as its primary objective, charges Bob Rangeley, a marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund. Another problem is that Canadian government prosecutors are not interested in pursuing cases based on falsified record books and lying to inspectors, a line of attack that has been successful in U.S. prosecutions, says Wayne Turpin, chief of enforcement for Environment Canada’s Atlantic Region. From 1994 to 2001, Canada successfully prosecuted only 24 cases, collecting on average a $30,000 fine, Rangeley says. Most of these cases relied on aerial detection and photographs of
As of June 27, Christie Todd Whitman has left her position as U.S. EPA administrator. Despite a reputation as an effective leader during her governorship, Whitman’s two and one-half year tenure as head of EPA garnered mixed reviews. In her resignation letter to President Bush, Whitman wrote that it was “time to return to my home and husband in New Jersey, which I love just as you do your state of Texas.” She praised EPA employees, calling them “as dedicated and committed a group as can be found in federal service.” Whitman’s accomplishments at EPA include a recent proposal to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines, legal settlements with large electric companies, including pledges to reduce emissions, and a decision to require General Electric Co. to pay for the cleanup of PCBs in the Hudson River (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 231A). Also during Whitman’s tenure, Congress approved legislation to reclaim abandoned, polluted land known as brownfields, a victory since the law had been in the works for almost 10 years. The agency also took the lead in working with water utilities to protect drinking water supplies following the September 11, 2001, attack, and to decontaminate congressional office buildings after anthrax was found in the mail.
U.S. EPA
U.S. EPA chief resigns
spills, evidence that is very hard to obtain for a crime that is usually perpetrated at night far out at sea, he says. Two record fines in the past year of $93,000 mark an improvement, but Canadian officials still need to ratchet up the frequency of their ship inspections and put more money into spill detection, Rangeley says. Meanwhile, the European Commission has proposed a directive that would make it easier for European signatories to MARPOL to file criminal charges against polluters. —JANET PELLEY
Former U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman
Environmental groups found fault with a good deal of EPA’s work under Whitman. In 2001, they decried EPA’s announcement to pull a Clinton-era rule to reduce arsenic in drinking water, which EPA officials later decided to keep in place. The same groups still vehemently oppose Bush’s Clear Skies proposal, an ambitious plan to replace key Clean Air Act requirements with several “cap and trade” programs for nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and mercury emissions from electric power plants (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 181A). Whitman came to her job in 2001 with a reputation as a moderate Republican following two terms as New Jersey governor, where she earned praise for her knowledge of environmental laws, political acumen, and business-friendly atti-
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tude. However, Whitman’s first few months at EPA were tumultuous as White House officials quickly “corrected” her for acting on Bush’s campaign pledge to control carbon dioxide emissions. The White House backed away from the pledge, saying that Bush had changed his mind. Bush also publicly dismissed EPA’s report on global warming, calling it the work of government bureaucrats. Nevertheless, in interviews given just before her resignation, Whitman asserted that she and the president had always been “on the same page,” and said she was proud of the agency’s work. Business groups, including the American Water Works Association and the Association of Manufacturers, praised Whitman for her noncombative style and knowledge of industry needs. But political groups representing the far right wing of the Republican Party criticized her, with the libertarian Cato Institute blaming the administrator for “her unwillingness to help construct a compelling Republican platform for environmental protection.” Criticism from environmental groups was kinder. “Whitman was not the force behind the Bush administration’s unprecedented assault on our landmark environmental protections, and her resignation is not the solution,” noted Gregory Wetstone of the Natural Resources Defense Council. —CATHERINE M. COONEY
