trash, and in rural unincorporated areas, about 70% burn trash. Many residents said that burning trash on their own land was their right. Local ordinances banning burning were frequently ignored in these communities, the study found. Other environmental and public health groups, such as Physicians for Social Responsibility, say that the results point to the need to get PVC out of the waste stream, in part, because burning is likely to remain the option of choice in rural areas. Allen Blakey, a spokesman for the Vinyl Institute in Arlington, VA, which represents vinyl producers, countered that the EPA study shows that barrel burning should be banned because fewer than 50 burn barrels produce more dioxins than a large municipal incinerator. These results
clearly demonstrate that "it's not what you burn, it's how you burn," he said. EPA should not be deterred by the apparent difficulties in regulating burn barrels, said Maria Zannes, president of the Integrated Waste Services Association (IWSA). "Regulating burner barrels may be more difficult than regulating waste-to-energy combustors, but these appear to be substantial emissions," she said. IWSA, based in Washington, DC, represents companies that operate waste-to-energy incinerators. Additional EPA research, presented last year at the Dioxin '99 meeting in Venice, Italy, confirms the broad results in EPA's study, according to Tom Webster at the Boston University School of Public Health. At that meeting, EPA researchers said that, to adequately characterize dioxin and
furan emissions from barrel burning, additional research is necessary to find out the common composition of waste burned in barrels, typical burning procedures, and how many people engage in barrel burning. Although EPA has estimated that backyard barrel burn sources annually contribute 1000 TEQ, making it potentially one of the largest sources in the United States, this estimate is too uncertain to include it in the agency's official dioxin emissions inventory, said David Cleverly in EPA's Office of Research and Development. "We have no good information on how many people burn their garbage," Cleverly said. EPA is contacting waste management organizations and other groups as part of initial efforts to improve these estimates, he added. —REBECCA RENNER
Reconciling trade pacts with multilateral environmental agreements The fallout from the tent with MEAs, as well failed trade talks in Seatas increase the transpartle, WA, late last year has ency of WTO operations, illuminated the World particularly in dispute Trade Organization's settlements. They dis(WTO) shortcomings— agree, however, on the namely, lack of attention degree to which the conon issues related to the troversial precautionary environment and develprinciple should be apoping countries. When plied in trade policy. the talks will resume is WTO rules already not yet certain. Meancontain an exception while, trade negotiators, clause allowing countries regulators, industry, and to put environmental, activists worldwide are health, and safety goals focusing on how lessons ahead of general obligaDuring the Seattle trade talks, Klaus Tbpfer (left), executive direcfrom Seattle might make tor of the United Nations Environment Programme, and Michael Moore tions not to raise trade trade more environmen- (right), director-general of the World Trade Organization, agreed to restrictions or apply discooperate on issues of mutual interest. tally sustainable and criminatory trade meahow to alleviate developing counsures. But, whereas environmenta recognize that MEAs are a very letries' concerns that these actions treaties rely on the precautionary gitimate expression of the internaare really protectionism in disguise. principle as the agreed standard tional community, and the WTO To make greener trade a reality, of proof, current trade rules are must stop undermining them," said nongovernmental organizations based on risk assessments and Remi Parmentier, head of Greenhave been pushing for multilateral so-called "sound science". Consepeace International's political unit. environmental agreements (MEAs) quently, WTO rulings on cases The European Union (EU) and to be placed on equal footing with involving both trade and the enUnited States would both like to WTO rules. "WTO members must vironment tend to find that the see trade measures more consisMARCH 1, 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 0 7 A
Environmental News level of environmental protection a country is trying to achieve is not a problem, but the measures they use to attain the high standards could be less trade-restrictive, said Jim Salzman, a law professor at American University in Washington, DC. And in the beef hormone case filed against the EU in 1996, the WTO dispute panel decision showed that the trade organization may have "lifted the bar a little higher than others would" in the scientific proof it requires to justify measures taken for human, plant, and animal protection, Salzman said. In that case, which was brought before the WTO by the United States and Canada, the dispute panel found that the EU could not ban hormonetreated beef premised on the fear that the hormones could cause health problems. But although the WTO has ruled that a number of national environmental measures such as this one violate international trade rules, it is unclear whether the level of environmental protection has suffered as a result. To date, MEAs have never been trumped by WTO rules, but there is potential for such a case to arise because many MEAs use trade as a stick for being effective, such as with the treaty on persistent organic pollutants, which seeks to reduce or eliminate the production of 12 particularly hazardous chemicals. "The reason there have not been many direct conflicts with the WTO is because nobody is doing anything with the MEAs," said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Center for International Environmental Law. "If they were doing what they were supposed to—implementing and enforcing MEAs— then you might get some serious problems if the WTO doesn't accept the need to defer to MEAs." And deferring to the environment in each of the cases that has gone before the WTO dispute panel thus far would have had no serious implications on trade, Zaelke maintained. "Yet the implications for the environment may be cata-
Greener trade: Getting developing countries to sign on Developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, are indeed the wild cards in sustainable trade discussions. They are reluctant to add environmental issues to the international trade agenda because they are afraid that they will have fewer opportunities to develop themselves and compete in terms of trade. "Developing countries are right to be afraid of green protectionism," saic Sabina Voogd, a campaigner with the Greenpeace, Netherlands, trade and environment program. To make environmental protection measures more palatable to developing countries, Voogd recommended that industrialized countries consult with those exporting the products to which new standards would apply, discussing how best to set up the standards and how to implement them. In addition, industrialized countries could offer these countries more time to implement the new standards, as well as share technical knowledge and offer funding. "Developing countries need to have some assurance that there will be help," Jessen acknowledged, "but they also need to realize that they don't need to repeat the mistakes of the industrialized world in achieving economic development; newer technologies are available." Zaelke admitted that mustering the political will to incorporate environmental issues into the trade agenda will be difficult. He suggested that the EU and United States might need to develop a bilateral agreement first to open up disputes between them to the public. Likewise, he suggested creating separate standards for multinational companies and local companies, because large corporations have the financial ability to invest in more sustainable processing methods. —K.C.
strophic [such as with species extinction], so trade needs to give deference. Because of mat different dynamic for environmental regulation, the WTO is going to have to accept the need to defer to environmental experts." Some movement toward harmonizing trade and environmental protection was achieved during the Seattle talks when an agreement was announced between the WTO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the heads of both organizations pledging to improve cooperation on issues of mutual interest. Klaus Topfer, UNEP's executive director, went so far as to say that "MEAs must be on the same footing as the WTO," with increased enforcement and dispute settlement capacity linked with precautionary action. Michael Moore, WTO's director-general, agreed that trade and environmental agreements will have equal status, but said that this relationship still has to be tested. On its Web site, the WTO
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notes that although it supports multilateral solutions to global and transboundary environmental problems, "trade restrictions are not the only nor necessarily die most effective policy instrument to use in MEAs." Industrial trade groups, for their part, said that they support exceptions for MEAs, but only under certain conditions. For instance, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the biggest trade organization in the United States, asserts that environmental treaties should only incorporate trade measures if they are necessary to achieve the agreed environmental objective and only if the objective is scientifically justified. Likewise, trade measures used should have a positive cost-benefit ratio, restrict trade as little as possible, and be proportionate to the desired environmental objective, said Marino Marcich, NAM's director of international finance and investment. The EU takes a softer stance. Clarification of the relationship between MEAs and WTO rules was
one of the EU's main priorities going into the Seattle talks and remains a top issue of concern. "We want to ensure that these agreements and WTO rules are mutually supportive, so that we can avoid having arduously negotiated MEAs subsequendy sabotaged by WTO rules," said Anders lessen, head of the environment section for die European Commission's Delegation to die United States. "It's still unsetding to many that this issue is left to panels, appellate bodies, and nonelected officials to decide on a case-by-case basis," lessen added. In addition, the EU wants to see the precautionary principle integrated more fully into trade agreements. "The precautionary principle is a key element in our environmental policies, so it's very important to us," lessen said. The European Commission issued a policy statement in February clarifying to some extent how it will apply the precautionary principle in the future. The United States generally supports the precautionary principle, but asserts that it is already integrated into such WTO rules as the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement and Technical Barrier to Trade Agreement. And in trade negotiations, the United States places an emphasis on standards based on risk assessment, of which it claims the precautionary principle is already a part. As for requiring trade rules to distinguish among goods produced by more sustainable processing methods, another demand made by environmental groups, lessen said the EU would like to see WTO rules at least recognize that voluntary labeling systems based on a life-cycle approach and compulsory labeling schemes describing nonproductrelated production processing methods are legitimate. lessen added that this approach is seen by some as a way of leveling the playing field for those companies that have already invested in cleaner production methods. Marcich, however, voiced reluctance toward making such a distinction. "The idea of telling
others how they should produce their goods or harvest their natural resources in their own territory would produce a real patchwork quilt of conflicting environmental regulations and environmental preferences that would really pose a serious challenge to trade." But some compromise will be
necessary in figuring out how to appropriately integrate labor, environment, and social concerns into trade policy, said John Audley, EPA's environment and trade policy coordinator. "We have to recognize that it's not only important to liberalize trade, it's equally important to protect the environment." —KRIS CHRISTEN
Effects Perchlorate's drag on frog development could contribute to population decline Scientists are investigating whether perchlorate in the environment may be contributing to the decline in amphibian populations. Perchlorate is a potent thyroid disrupter that has a well-documented ability to block amphibian metamorphosis. Preliminary findings from toxicity tests indicate that perchlorate in concentrations that accumulate in some aquatic plants could prevent amphibian populations from maturing and ultimately reproducing in certain aquatic environments, according to results presented at the Society for Environmental Toxicologists and Chemists annual meeting in November. Perchlorate drastically slows metamorphosis, as measured by the rate of tail resorption, doubling or tripling the time depending on dose, according to Douglas Fort, who, along with colleagues from the U.S. Air Force and Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, performed the toxicity tests discussed at the meeting. However, perchlorate is probably not responsible for frog malformations, first reported in the Midwest in 1994, he explained, because it is not a teratogen. Fort, a toxicologist with the Stover Group, a firm of toxicology consultants in Stillwater, tested ammonium perchlorate using Fetax (Frog Embryo Teratogenesis Assay Xenopus), a well-accepted toxicity testing protocol that uses Xenopus, an African frog that has become the laboratory rat of amphibian studies. During a tadpole's metamorphosis into a frog, its biochemistry and DNA changes, according to Fort, who theorizes that such thyroid effects could give frogs a bad start. This weakening could be involved in their decline, Fort suggested, because it makes the animals more vulnerable to other environmental threats, such as pesticides or ultraviolet light. Fort and colleagues are broadening their investigation to find out whether aquatic plants, such as parrot feather, which hyperaccumulate perchlorate, can deliver enough perchlorate to frogs to perturb their development, particularly in aquatic environments with deficient or marginal iodine levels. The researchers are currently looking for frog species that consume aquatic plants that hyperaccumulate perchlorate to begin laboratory feeding studies, according to toxicologist Gregory Harvey, who works on environmental restoration at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, OH. Perchlorate differs from most of the fat-soluble chemicals that have been studied in connection with frog deformities and declines because it is water soluble. Perchlorate has been found in groundwater, drinking water, and soils, mainly in the southwestern United States. The primary source of contamination appears to be spills and leaks from industrial and military operations that use ammonium perchlorate as a major component in solid rocket fuel. Perchlorate has also been found in some fertilizers (Environ. Sci. Techno/. 1999, 33 (19), 394A-395A), but there is currently no evidence that this has led to environmental contamination. —REBECCA RENNER
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