not allowed in nonattainment areas. Under the new policy of the Reagan administration, bubble strategies have been approved for these areas.
STATES Florida's groundwater is being contaminated by an increasing number of aging gasoline storage tanks. Groundwater supplies more than 90% of the state's drinking water, and it is very susceptible to pollution because the water table is generally high in Florida. One gallon of gasoline can make a million gallons of drinking water unfit for consumption. Recently, the water
emissions by 1990. If a town's selectmen vote in favor of the petition, the citizens will then vote on it at the 1983 annual town meeting. Some sources say that the petition is important because it could increase grassroots support for acid rain controls before the nation's first presidential primary, which takes place in New Hampshire next year. Sites at nine military installations in Virginia have "the potential to be highly hazardous to health a n d / or the environment," according to a new study prepared by the National Wildlife Federation and funded by the Virginia Environmental Endowment. The pollution control compliance and toxic waste management practices of 13 federal facilities were analyzed. One conclusion of the report is that the Navy's list of materials defined as "hazardous wastes" is far shorter than that prescribed under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ( R C R A ) . Another conclusion is that the Navy's program for toxic site assessment may not be able to achieve its objectives because the budget for it has been reduced drastically in recent years.
SCIENCE Storage tanks contaminate groundwater supplies of the towns of Belleview and Stuart have become contaminated by gasoline. There are about 40 000 gasoline storage tanks in Florida, and an increasing number of leaking tanks are being reported. No one knows how many leaking storage tanks there are in the state. EPA will establish a toxic pollutant monitoring center in Philadelphia during 1983. This will be the first monitoring center for noncriteria (toxic) air contaminants, and it will be used to develop monitoring capabilities and to validate methods. Initially, a T e n a x - G C / M S system of air monitoring will be used. As the project progresses, other sampling and analytical methods will be tested. Selectmen in over 200 New Hampshire towns are expected to vote next month on a citizen petition concerning acid rain. The petition demands that the U.S. and Canada adopt a treaty committing both nations to a 50% reduction of S O 2
Black "smoke" to absorb sunlight and heat the surrounding air enough to drive a turbine is contained in a new solar energy converter developed by Arlon Hunt at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California. An assemblage of 550 mirrors, each one meter in diameter, is used to focus sunlight on a window. The sunlight heats carbon particles suspended in a fast-moving air stream which then absorbs heat from the particles. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory claims that an enlarged and modified version of this device could supply enough electricity for 10 000 homes. The beaver plays a much more important role in aquatic and forest ecology than had previously been known, according to research carried out by Robert Naiman and colleagues from the Woods Hole Océanographie Institution on Cape Cod, Mass. Beavers are "keystone animals in the shaping of stream ecosystems and surrounding landscapes in many parts of North
America," he said. Naiman found that nitrogen-rich woods such as willow, alder, and birch are carried to ponds by beavers. Nitrogen from wood enriches the pond water and attracts additional species of vertebrates and invertebrates. Naiman and his fellow researchers also discovered that beaver dams reduce soil erosion and mitigate the effect of periods of drought on the surrounding area by increasing the volume of water in the watercourse. Terrestrial test procedures for studies of bioaccumulation of contaminants in dredged materials will use the earthworm E. foetida. According to the U.S. Army's Waterways Experiment Station (Vicksburg, Miss.), this worm is useful because of its short generation time, amount of biomass for chemical analysis, and adaptability to a wide range of conditions. Also, a broad data base for toxicity of chemicals exists with this species. The choice of species for wetland test procedures may be more difficult. Lugworms, sandworms, and snails are among the alternatives under consideration. Contact tests will be the procedure used. Most of the 24 more prevalent or more concentrated organic priority pollutants found in representative municipal sludges are considered moderately toxic to very toxic. However, their maximum concentrations, in milligrams of chemical per kilogram sludge, may be one or two orders of magnitude lower than the LD 5 0 dose for rats, as expressed in m g / k g of body weight, L. Naylor and R. Loehr of Cornell University suggest. The scientists said that to ingest an L D 5 0 amount of the organic priority pollutants they had examined, the average rat would have to consume an amount of sludge 10-100 times its body weight.
TECHNOLOGY No landfill liner is impermeable; natural and synthetic liners will eventually leak, warns Kirk Brown of Texas A & M University. He was referring particularly to belowground landfills. Brown suggests that above-ground landfills are preferable. He believes that erosion and aesthetic problems can be overcome by proper construction and revegetation. Brown suggests that Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17, No. 3, 1983
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