Confirming what has long been suspected, the Pan American Health Organization reports that Latin American and Caribbean nations fail to adequately h a n d l e hazardous wastes. The report is based on a 1993 survey of 21 countries in the region, w h i c h found that a few industries—textile, tanning, paper, printing, basic chemicals, foundries, a n d metal finishing—produced most of the hazardous waste in the area. With few exceptions, effluents containing potential hazardous wastes are treated inadequately or not at all. Often these dangerous wastes are disposed of w i t h domestic garbage. Institutional a n d legislative controls are being initiated in most countries, although the infrastructure to h a n d l e hazardous wastes is still lacking. Copies of "Hazardous Waste a n d Health in the Americas a n d t h e Caribbean" are available from PAHO, 525 23rd St., N.W., Washington, DC 20037; attn: H. de Koning.
FEDERAL EPA issued several final rules March 1 under the 1990 Clean Air Act. Toxic air emissions from chemical manufacturing was the target of a national emission stand a r d or HON rule that regulates 111 of the 189 h a z a r d o u s air pollutants listed in the Act. T h e n e w standards are expected to r e d u c e emissions by 8 8 % , or 506,000 tons annually. T h e final rule allows emissions averaging, b y w h i c h companies can lower emissions at one plant to offset the o u t p u t of another. Existing facilities have three years to comply w i t h the HON rules. The Agency estimates that the cost of meeting the n e w rules will r u n $450 million for the first five years, a quarter of that a m o u n t covering monitoring requirements. EPA also is requiring operators of certain k i n d s of utility boilers (dry bott o m wall-fired a n d tangentially fired) to install a costly control technology aimed at r e d u c i n g N O x emissions. T h e control technology, k n o w n as overfire air, w a s not favored by utilities because it impedes boiler performance a n d makes the resulting fly ash less marketable. Here, too, emissions averaging is a possibility. Emissions averaging has d r a w n strong criticism from the American Lung Association, w h i c h charges that
the practice will not adequately protect public health. A compromise Clean Water Act reauthorization bill has made its w a y out of a Senate committee and onto the floor for a vote. On February 25, the Senate Environm e n t a n d Public Works Committee approved by a vote of 14—3 a bill that follows m a n y of the Clinton administration's proposals. Significant a m e n d m e n t s w o u l d do the following: exempt n e w sources from meeting n o n p o i n t pollution best m a n a g e m e n t practices if they are located near unpolluted water bodies, prevent EPA s e d i m e n t quality criteria from being used as a c l e a n u p standard u n d e r Superfund unless specified by EPA, require EPA to create guidelines for the training a n d certification of wastewater treatment plant operators, and keep federal funds from going to any nongovernmental organization for t h e p u r p o s e of identifying w e t l a n d s violations. The Clinton administration has proposed that hazardous wastes exported from or imported into the United States be returned if m i s h a n d l e d or disposed of inappropriately. The policy fulfills obligations u n d e r the 1989 Basel Convention on t h e T r a n s b o u n d a r y Movements of Hazardous Waste a n d Their Disposal. EPA's Office of Criminal Enforcement w o u l d be charged w i t h tracking shipm e n t s , a n d the Agency w o u l d share information w i t h Interpol. The Department of Energy's Hanford, WA, site cleanup is eating up one-quarter of the department's total funding. DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Thomas Grumbly characterized the current c l e a n u p as w h a t his predecessors undertook in the M a n h a t t a n Project. About the size of Rhode Island, the Hanford site is the oldest, largest, a n d most expensive DOE c l e a n u p site. Nuclear b o m b material was p r o d u c e d at the former w e a p o n s complex for 50 years, a n d more t h a n 60 million gallons of highly radioactive waste w e r e generated there. The waste is n o w a chemical "collection" of radioactive liquid, sludge, a n d solid salt-cake. T h e objective is to remove more t h a n 9 9 % of the liquid a n d solid waste from the tanks a n d separate the two phases.
The first meeting of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a byproduct of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) treaty, took place in Vancouver in March. The Commission, w h i c h will i m p l e m e n t the environmental provisions of NAFTA, agreed to select an executive director for the Commission and appoint five members from each of the three signatory countries to the Joint Public Advisory Committee w i t h i n 60 days. Canada will be the p e r m a n e n t location for the Commission. The first regular session a n d public meeting of the Commission has been set for July 25 in Washington, DC. Ambassador Richard Benedick, former chief U.S. negotiator for the 1987 Montreal Protocol, has been named the first president of the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment (CNIE). The nonprofit organization claims 6000 members. A bill to establish the National Institute for the Environment has been submitted in the House, a n d one is expected shortly in the Senate. Supporters say that hearings on these bills will take place this year. Groundwater restoration, a key part of the Superfund reauthorization bill n o w in Congress, will be addressed in a report from the National Research Council (NRC) d u e out in August. "Alternatives for Ground Water C l e a n u p " will address w h e t h e r pump-and-treat systems can restore contaminated groundwaters.
STATES
"The integrity of the Great Lakes and life forms that depend upon them remain at an unacceptable Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 28, No. 5, 1994
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level of risk from persistent toxic substances." In February, a strongly worded report from the International Joint Commission (IJC), the U.S.-Canadian group charged with improving the health of the Great Lakes Basin, argued that the continuing pres ence of pollutants such as PCBs, DDT, and hexachlorobenzene could be linked to human health problems including a dramatic decrease in sperm count, in creases in breast cancer and male genital tract disorders, and lower learning performance and in creased behavior problems in children. The commission has announced a program of "virtual elimination" of these pollutants, but the new report recommends that the two countries adopt a specific and coordinated strategy within two years to stop the input of persistent toxics. It also recom mends that federal, state, and pro vincial governments publish a biennial report on the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem, allow local groups rather than agencies to develop remediation plans, study the role of groundwater, inventory air toxic emissions in the region, and add relevant radi onuclides to the list of persistent toxics. Industry is asked to help in the cleanup by performing en vironmental audits, developing new guidelines, and investigating the costs of eliminating these chemicals. The "Seventh Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality" is available from the IJC, 1250 23rd St, N.W., Suite 100, Washington, DC 20440. Λ swift and harsh response to the IJC report was issued by Robert Burnett, executive director of The Vinyl Institute: "The Interna tional Joint Commission has lost touch with reality. It is obvious that they have totally ignored all of the scientific information pro vided by industry while at the same time giving weight to infor mation that is outdated, has been proven wrong, or is suspect. By reiterating their radical position and allowing themselves to be co-opted by Greenpeace, they do great harm to efforts to improve the environment. What we need in North America now is a strong united effort of business, govern ment, and the environmental community to build on initial successes in cleaning up the Great Lakes." Burnett and The Vinyl 212 A
Institute can take some comfort from a resolution of the American College of Occupational and Envi ronmental Medicine that said in March that the mere presence of organic chemicals containing chlorine does not constitute an adverse impact on public health or the environment.
SCIENCE
"Hazardous waste sites seem to present a small to moderate in crease in the risks of birth defects and cancer," warns B. L. Johnson, assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Given that approximately 41 million people live within four miles of one of the estimated 35,000 toxic waste sites in the United States, that risk could have significant political consequences. Speaking at the national American Chemi cal Society meeting in March, Johnson said that recent epidemi ological studies using large com bined databases have shown an association between living near one of these hazardous waste sites and increased risks of lung, blad der, and gastrointestinal-tract can cers. In addition, epidemiological studies in New York, California, and New Jersey have linked haz ardous waste sites to increased risks of birth defects. Johnson warns that these studies are crude—"They do not show causal effects." However, taken together they are a "troubling body of in formation." Not surprisingly, groundwater is considered the primary source of contamination. ATSDR has also surveyed Superfund sites and found that 2% pre sented an urgent health hazard, 35% were a health hazard, and 4 1 % could not be classified at present. ATSDR has also ranked contaminants based on the fre quency of occurrence on the na
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tional priority list, the known and suspected health hazard, and the likelihood of exposure. Inorganics (Pb, As, and Hg) top the list; vinyl chloride, benzene, chloroform, and benz[a]pyrene are also in the top 10. Johnson pointed out that 60% of these hazardous waste sites are near communities with primarily African-American and Hispanic populations. PCB concentrations in the atmos phere have not changed in the past 20 years, according to Ron Hites of Indiana University. Hites and doctoral student Sandra Panshin based their conclusion on air samples they collected in Ber muda between May 1992 and July 1993. Comparing the PCB concen trations with values in the litera ture, they determined that there had been no change over the past two decades. Some seasonal vari ations were observed, with high PCB concentrations in the sum mer when the air samples origi nated in Africa and the eastern Atlantic. Hites presented his anal ysis at the recent national ACS meeting in San Diego.
By the year 2025, 30-75% of the world's cereal crops will be grown in areas with potentially harmful levels of tropospheric ozone, according to a new com puter model study by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Oceaninc and Atmospheric Adminis tration's Geophysical Fluid Dy namics Laboratory {Science, April 1). Currently as much as 35% of these crops are grown where ozone levels exceed 50-70 ppb, the threshold value that can cause reductions in crop yields. Accord ing to coauthor William Chameides, "The problem appears to
