Air Quality Fuller accounting of ecological systems needed to quantify air quality benefits EPA's first report to estimate the future costs and benefits resulting from the Clean Air Act (CAA) concluded that by the year 2010, the benefits will exceed their costs by a margin of 4 to 1. But that figure would be much higher if the ecological benefits were included, according to the report's two lead economists. During a two-year, multimilliondollar effort, the economists gathered published scientific data on human health and the environment related to air toxics, then attempted to put a dollar value on the damages blamed on pollution and on the benefits gained from less pollution, balanced against the cost of emissions controls. They analyzed the effects from emissions of volatile organic compounds, ozone, sulfur dioxide (SO,), nitrogen oxides (NO ), carbon monoxide and fine and course particulate matter They concluded that by 2010, the air rules will have prevented 23,000 premature deaths; more than 1.7 mil-
lion asthma attacks; and 4.1 million work days lost due to air pollutionrelated illnesses. The costs of attaining these benefits, valued at $110 billion, is approximately $27 billion, EPA estimated. The calculations include numerous assumptions, including an as-yet-to-be implemented N0 X cap and trading program, but no congressional changes to the CAA are assumed. However, the report's conclusions regarding ecological benefits are scant, the economists told a panel at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry's annual meeting last November. In fact, the ecological advantages accounted for less than one-half of 1% of the total value of the environmental benefits they were able to quantify, said Brian Heninger, an economist in EPA's Office of Policy. There are so little published data on the ecological effects of air pollution that EPA's attempt to conduct an assessment for the entire nation was "a daunting if not impossible task "
he said. The economists called on the conference scientists to publish more of their work and to seek funding for projects that provide a broader geographic coverage of impacts and emphasize ecosystem structure and function. But the problem will not be solved with new research. Society has not decided how to value, in dollar terms, most ecological benefits, such as improved fish stocks due to acid deposition decline. And there is no agreement on how to model ecological benefits, Heninger added. "This means that the benefits [in the report] are not as high as they should be," Heninger said. "They would be higher had we quantified the ecological benefits that we have seen. But the question is how much higher." The Final Report to Congress on Benefits and Costs of the Clean nir Act, 1990 to 2010, can be found on the Web at www.epa.gov/oar/ sect812. —CATHERINE M. COONEY
Split United Nations vote slows fight to save fertile lands Delegates from 165 countries attending last November's Conference of Parties of the Convention to Combat Desertification held in Recife, Brazil, were divided in opinion—wealthy nations versus poor—over the approval of a twoyear $19 million budget, which was proposed by the Bonn-based Secretariat of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification. Donor nations discussed cutting the proposed budget to $13.7 million and earmarked $2.65 million for the Rome-based Global Mechanism, which is housed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and channels funds to developing countries where desertification is severe. This was the first review of desertification, the degradation of drylands from natural C311SCS and unsustainable human activities such as overcul-
Unsustainable land use and management practices contribute to the alarming rate of desertification.
tivation and deforestation, since it was first identified as a global threat, along with global warming and biodiversity, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Despite the rift in budget discussions, delegates passed a Recife Initiative, agreeing to set deadlines by October 2000 for reports on specific antidesertification priorities. The delegates also
called for more indicators to evaluate progress made in the fight against desertification. According to documents distributed at the Recife Conference, antidesertification programs are estimated to cost $22 billion per year for 20 years. The programs integrate traditional agricultural practices, such as terracing and water harvesting, with modern technologies, such as satellite imagery and genetic engineering. According to Global Environment Outlook 2000, a report released in September from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), desertification is most acute in Africa, where 65% of the agricultural land is degraded. It is also a growing problem in Latin America and Asia. Degradation has affected some 1900 million acres of land world-
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Environmental News wide, claims 57,919 square miles annually, and is linked to rural poverty and population shifts. The U.N. Secretariat notes that 85% of Mexican territory is threatened by drought and desertification, leading to emigration of some 700,000-900,000 Mexicans annually to the United States. "Effective action to combat desertification requires an immediate response from the entire
international community," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Topfer at the Recife Conference. "The response must be equal to that demanded by global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, and the loss of biodiversity." IFAD president Fawzi H. AlSultan noted that, left unchecked, desertification will increase rural poverty. "The fight against desertification is a fight against pov-
erty. An estimated 1.4 billion human beings, the bulk of them in rural areas, struggle to live on $1.00 a day or less, and by 2015 this figure may rise to 1.9 billion. An estimated 65% of these poor and food-insecure live in dryland and mountainous areas," he said. A fourth Conference of Parties is expected to be held in Bonn in October 2000. —PATRICIA DEMPSEY
European ban on use of surfactant alarms U.S. producers U.S. chemical producers have sharply criticized a draft risk assessment by the European Union (EU) that recommends a European ban on many uses of nonylphenol ethoxylates, a commodity surfactant used worldwide in many cleaning and industrial products. The critical remarks were made at one of the first in a series of international meetings held in November to discuss different countries' approaches to risk management. The meeting, held in Geneva, was organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. chemical manufacturers allege that the assessment fails to use field measurements, and they object to the application of bans to control pollution, said Bob Fensterheim, executive director of the Alkylphenols and Ethoxylates Research Council, based in Washington, D.C. Fensterheim said that U.S. companies are using pollution prevention techniques, which often result in environmental improvements. Product bans simply substitute one possibly more harmful chemical for another, Fensterheim said. "Product bans are inappropriate risk management measures in cases where effective methods of pollution prevention and control have been demonstrated" he said. U.S. manufacturers fear that a European ban could affect them because products sold worldwide will use other surfactants
Government officials at the OECD expert meeting reviewed the differences between U.S., EU, and Canadian approaches to risk assessment and management of nonylphenol ethoxylates. EPA's screening level risk assessment compares the toxicity of nonylphenol with existing exposure information and concludes that the substance is not harmful to aquatic life nationwide, but could be in some localities where there are hotspots said Donald Rodier at EPA's Office of Prevention Pesticides and Toxic Substances A more detailed risk assessment has been stalled awaitinc further toxicity tests he said EPA is currently preparing draft water quality criteria for aquatic life for nonylphenol, which propose a chronic fresh-
water criterion of 6.6 pg/L. The Canadian risk assessment is still under way. The EU risk assessment, which was commissioned by the United Kingdom's environmental protection agency, estimated nonylphenol toxicity by using the most conservative toxicity test, whereas the U.S. assessment used a composite number based on toxicity testing and field studies, Rodier said. The assessment concluded that nearly all uses of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) present a significant risk to aquatic organisms. Based on this result the assessment recommends banning various major uses of NPEs in Europe. The nonylphenol risk ss~ sessment is one of the first to be completed under the EU program for existing chemicals REBECCA RENNER
Notable Quotes "The major environmental constraints of the future are two in number: arable land.. . and available fresh water." E. O. Wilson, Harvard University, commenting on natural resource shortages
"We do ambient monitoring 24-hours-a-day, every day of the year, in every American city, but still can't tell anyone much about their exposure because stationary background measurements don't reflect how people are exposed." Wayne Ott, Stanford University, discussing the need for direct human exposure monitoring
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