he's in another party and says he won't prosecute. In those cases, it's good to have the gorilla in the closet. You turn to your federal counterpart and ask them to take it on." Gade, however, bristled at recent EPA claims that the "environmental cop was off the beat" because of federal funding cuts {ES&T, March 1996, ,08A)) .This has been disingenuous," she said. "The bottom line is that it is not as if enforcement stopped during the federal furlough. The states are dominating this field." How this power shift will evolve as Congress proposes further environmental cuts and states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and others consider new budget cuts or adjust to past ones is a wild card. "The big risk we worry about is a huge unfunded mandate," Tulou said. "The federal statutory floor remains, but if all the responsibilities are given to the states and at the same time the resources are cut this is not a comfortable prospect for the states It is something we must watch closely" JEFF JOHNSON
One in three facilities violate Water Act One in three of 7053 major U.S. facilities regulated under the Clean Water Act committed "significant violations" of their discharge permit limits in 1994, according to a General Accounting Office study released in March. However, GAO found that EPA may have missed more than half of these violations in its internal compliance reports because of the way the agency screens data The report notes that EPA's internal measuring mechanisms for tabulating Water Act violations may have also resulted in unequal enforcement fines in some cases. Consequently, GAO urges EPA to correct both problems, and the agency says it has begun a reexamination of criteria to determine significant noncompliance. The report, Water Pollution: Many Violations Have Not Received Appropriate Enforcement Atteniion (GAO/RCED-96-23) is available from GAO at (202) 5126000
NEWS SCIENCE EPA drinking water research plan released; nine area-specific plans due by October As part of a comprehensive review of EPA science programs, the agency's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is preparing research plans for nine subject areas, which it hopes to use as a road map for setting funding priorities beginning in 1998. The first plan, covering microbial pathogens and disinfection byproducts in drinking water, was unveiled to a subcommittee of the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB) in March The rest will be submitted for outside review by October 1 said Joseph Alexander deputy chief of ORD
research strateev
health problems. Developing methods of measuring low levels of these pathogens in water is a key research need identified by the plan. Researching the health effects of water disinfectants and their byproducts is expected to be more difficult. Feasibility studies to be completed next year will help to determine if full-scale epidemiological studies of cancer and reproductive effects are possible. EPA estimates that the drinking water research plan will cost $72 million between 1996 and 2000. The research is to be conducted through "multiple, coordinated efforts," including work at EPA laboratories, cooperative agreements, EPA-funded grants, and industry-sponsored studies. EPA's research plans attempt to juggle the long-term research agenda of science managers with short-term demands for information driven by the program office's regulatory needs. The drinking water research plan presented to the SAB committee attempts to merge these two different organizational approaches: one following the risk model favored by ORD (health effects/exposure/risk assessment/risk management) and another prioritized according to regulatory demands of the Safe Drinking Water Act
Outside advisory groups, including the SAB and a National Research Council (NRC) committee, applaud ORD's strategic plan. The NRC committee, chaired by Raymond Loehr of the University of Texas, complements another panel chaired by Paul Risser of Oregon State University, which is also looking at ORD issues. Both groups are expected to complete reports by next March. The drinking water research plan is the first to be submitted for outside review. One key research goal identified in the plan is to understand the doses and conditions under which microbial pathogens such as Cryptosporidium and the Norwalk virus pose
Gail Robarge of ORD, who is coordinating the drinking water research plan, admitted that it was "very difficult to make those linkages" between research and regulatory agendas, and that it would require constant communication and cross-checking between EPA offices. "You can't have a sustained research program if you're zigging and zagging every year," she told the SAB. Alexander says the NRC panel should provide needed advice on EPA's environmental research priorities. In recent months the "reinvented" ORD has been criticized for the lack of specifics in how the office arrived at its own research priorities. Looking at the
Six of the research areas were identified as high priorities in ORD's draft strategic plan published last November: drinking water disinfection, particulate matter, endocrine disruptors, ecosystem protection, pollution prevention and technology, and human health protection. Three additional topics will be the subject of detailed plans: the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program global change and waste characterization and management According to Alexander ORD is preparing the plans in close consultation with its field laboratories and EPA prot?ram offices making them the closest t h i n g EPA har\rv w i d e
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list of six high-priority areas identified in the strategic plan, both the SAB and the NRC panel pointed out that two of the categories—"ecosystem protection" and "human health protection"— were too vague to be useful. But in its interim report, the NRC chalked that vagueness up to it still being early in the process. "It is possible that this first round of priority setting may have been influenced more by pragmatic considerations than by a strict application of the risk analysis," the panel wrote. EPA observers expect to see more specifics as the plans develop and are looking for followthrough—meaning a commitment to stable funding—once the research strategies are finalized. In a public comment at the March SAB meeting, Alan Roberson of the American Water Works Association, an industry group that sponsors its own drinking water research said that while ORD's plans were laudable "If the research isn't done it's just more A draft of the ORD Strategic Plan is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.epa.gov/ docs/ORD/WebPubs/stratplan. html. —TONY REICHHARDT
EPA again delays mercury risk report release; will seek new reviews, wait for more data A long-delayed EPA report on risk from mercury air emissions will be stalled for one to two more years, according to EPA officials, who cite "tremendous pressure" from industry, Congress, and other federal agencies to hold off on the report's release. EPA decided to put off the report in early April, agency officials said, backtracking from a judgment made only a month earlier to issue the draft report on April 15 in compliance with a judicial order The mercury report HUe Nov 15 1994 under the Clean Air Act 1990 Amendments is to include the emission rate health impacts and control tprhnolnpies for sources of mercurv air emision ( , EPA's draft woulH h a v e rprpntlv toucrhenpH m e r n i r v health qtan dard Aopnrv s r i p n r k r s belip
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HUMAN HEALTH Veterans study suggests dioxin, spina bifida link A National Academy of Science study of Vietnam War veterans has found "limited or suggestive" evidence of an association between a father's exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange and spina bifida in his offspring. The study was conducted by a committee of the National Institute of Medicine and is an evaluation of scientific information collected on health effects of soldiers exposed to the herbicide and to dioxin, its most toxic ingredient. The congressionally mandated report also provides further support for earlier findings that there is sufficient evidence to confirm a link between Agent Orange and soft tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and chloracne. New, however, is the possible association between a father's exposure and the higher risk to his children of spina bifida, a congenital birth defect characterized by spine and spinal cord deformity. Other diseases in the limited or suggestive category include prostate cancer; multiple myeloma; and respiratory cancers of the lung, larynx, or trachea. The spina bifida association is based on three epidemiological studies, according to the report, the largest of which is the Ranch Hand study, which looked at a group of veterans directly involved in spraying most of nearly 19 million gallons of defoliant in Vietnam. The report notes that in the two years since the committee's first examination of veterans and Agent Orange exposure, the Ranch Hand data have been reanalyzed by the U.S. Air Force, and that review bolstered the committee's conclusion that there is limited evidence of an association. —JEFF JOHNSON
Under the new plan, EPA will shortly send the draft report to the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) and a comparable Food and Drug Administration panel for review and will await release of other mercury studies. EPA sources, however, stood by the science in the draft report, noting that it had been years in planning and had been peer reviewed by scientists outside the agency. An EPA official said "political management" within the agency argued for the delay in order to calm objections from some fed~ eral agencies and to avoid contentious congressional hearings in which EPA s c i e n r p would b e attackpH in trie m o n t h s hpfore n a t i o n a l ptprtions
A scientist familiar with the study and the review process said no additional scientific information has been made available to change the agency's position and ascribed EPA's change of mind to "national and interagency politics." The source also added that it is unusual for such a congressional report to go to SAB for review. Meanwhile, EPA will move ahead on a related congressional report that lays out a regulatory scheme for a range of toxic emissions from electric utilities, which includes mercury. Also required by April 15 but under a different court order, the utility report will be issued in draft form May 30 and finalized Dec. 15, 1996, EPA said. How the utility industry and its allies in Congress will respond to the study is unclear according to utility and agency officials who note that portions of the stalled mercury report serve as basis for the utility report
Much will also turn on the response from environmentalists who successfully sued to obtain the April release date for both studies. An attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council said the organization was now considering its response but would demand that for "step one" EPA formally release the mercury draft risk report so it is available to the public. JEFF JOHNSON
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