NASA
News Briefs Superfund site risks
The modified DC-8 airplane that NASA used to sample transatlantic air pollution carries dozens of onboard instruments that allow scientists to instantly analyze air samples for a broad range of different pollutants.
“It’s almost like a kinetic experiment in the lab where you’re watching the chemicals evolve over time: The gas converted to particles, and the nitrogen oxides and VOCs to ozone,” he says. During the study, research planes monitored this evolutionary process. Meagher says they will be able to track the same air mass by zeroing in on pollution signatures. For instance, one air mass was tracked because it contained acetonitrile. “This air mass was contaminated by fires in Alaska and Canada,” says Meagher. “Acetonitrile is a marker for biomass burnings.” Another air mass was found to contain sulfate aerosols. The planes performed real-time sampling every second for dozens of parameters, including ozone,
nitrogen oxides, and carbon oxides. Canisters of air were also collected for later measurements of hydrocarbons. Lewis says the hardest part of the project was calibrating all the equipment out in the middle of the Atlantic. “It’s tough because you have to get the two planes to meet in the air and then fly together for around an hour in the same air mass while checking all the instruments,” he says. Data gathering ended in August, and the teams plan to meet to discuss results sometime in January. The study will resume in the summer of 2006 when many of the same scientists will track air pollution from Asia as it treks across the Pacific to North America. —PAUL D. THACKER
Evaluating the safety of a nanofuture Nanoscience and nanotechnologies hold great promise, but much more risk assessment and research into health and environmental ramifications are needed, according to the United Kingdom’s Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. In a much-anticipated final report, experts ultimately saw “no case for the moratorium which some have advocated on the laboratory or commercial production of manufactured nanomaterials.” The group also believes that the current
European Union and U.K. regulations are “sufficiently broad and flexible to handle nanotechnologies at their current stage of development.” However, the report recommends taking certain precautions, such as limiting exposure and regarding free nanoparticles as hazardous materials, until more is known about their risk. Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties, the final report released at the end of July, is at www.royalsoc.ac.uk/policy.
The U.S. government is failing to protect people from exposure to health-threatening chemicals at 111 of the nation’s more than 1200 Superfund sites, charges a report released by the Sierra Club, a nonprofit advocacy group. The Bush Administration is the first in the program’s history to oppose the polluter-pays principle established for picking up the cleanup costs, thus forcing ordinary taxpayers to bear the full burden of remediating abandoned corporate sites, says the group. Since the late 1990s, the rate of completed cleanups has dropped by 50%, according to the report. It says that the U.S. EPA has insufficient data to determine whether human exposure is under control at another 158 Superfund sites, and it documents that migration of polluted groundwater is not under control at 251 Superfund sites. To access Communities at Risk, which was released in July, go to www.sierraclub.org/toxics/super fund/report04/report.pdf.
Progress on pollution The number of cases of serious environmental pollution caused by industry in England and Wales dropped 12% to 613 in 2003, according to a United Kingdom Environment Agency report. The farming and waste management sectors made notable progress, cutting the number of cases by 27% and by 25%, respectively. But the July report says pollution incidents in the water industry rose by 25% and utility companies were the most frequent repeat offenders. The agency’s chief executive said fines for environmental offenses are still far too low to present any serious consequences to polluters. Spotlight on Business: Environmental Performance in 2003 is found at www. environment-agency.gov.uk/ business/444255/833726.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2004 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 345A
