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Green building's clean air could help set indoor standards For the next four months, the air inside the award-winning environmental studies building on Oberlin College's rural northern Ohio campus will be carefully monitored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Almough indoor air regulations for nonindustrial buildings are virtually nonexistent, the monitoring program may one day help create long overdue standards. Oberlin's Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, which opened in January, is considered the nation's greenest campus structure. Its air is about as pristine as it could possibly be, thanks to the mandate to maximize indoor air quality set forth by the community the building now serves, including faculty, staff, and students at the small liberal arts college, as well as local residents. When the building was being designed, the group charged William McDonough + Partners, a recognized leader in sustainable architecture, with using only nontoxic and odorfree materials to create the structure. Because of the building's design, as well as the materials used within it—such as the low-VOC paints and stains on the walls—the newly opened structure does not smell like a new building. In fact, visitors to the building agree that it has no recognizable odor. Building materials are one of the four main sources of indoor air pollution, along with activities that take place inside the building, people, and outside air, explained Andrew Persily, NIST's Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation group leader, who is in charge of the monitoring effort. Oberlin's new building is the greenest structure from which NIST has collected data, he said. The students and instructors entering the new Oberlin building, like all people, may carry substances like © 2000 American Chemical Society
dog or cat dander into the classrooms with them. But the likelihood that one student's animal dander or perfume will trigger another's allergies is minimized by the structure's high-tech ventilation system, said
Air inside the new environmental studies building at Oberlin College is being monitored to show just how clean indoor air can be.
Cheryl Wolfe, facilities manager for Oberlin's environmental studies program. The system features an energy-saving air-exchange controller made by Siemens that is triggered by C0 2 sensors to turn on only when a room is occupied to ensure that students are almost always breathing 100% fresh air. The air sucked into the classrooms by the ventilation systems is relatively free of contaminants because the predominant winds carry breezes from unpolluted farmlands to the college, said Leo Evans, Oberlin's assistant director of facilities planning and construction. To reduce the pollution from activities like cleaning, only select low-toxicity products may be used inside the building.
NIST will be monitoring for at least 24 VOCs, including alkanes, aldehydes, and aromatics, as well as looking at C0 2 levels to assess how well the ventilation system is working, Persily said. The program will also evaluate air flow patterns using tracer gases. NIST may eventually investigate the indoor movement of small particles less than 10 pm in size, he added. The measurements that NIST is taking are important, even though there are few standards for air quality inside nonindustrial buildings, said Bob Thompson, an environmental engineer with the EPA's Indoor Air division. He foresees little chance that Congress will call upon EPA to formulate regulations anytime soon, but said that the data that NIST are collecting could be useful if and when there is a call for such standards. Because the Oberlin building could demonstrate the level of air quality possible with state-ofthe-art technology, it could also be useful in developing guidance, he added, noting that his agency already has collected an extensive database of indoor air quality through its Buildings Assessment Survey and Evaluation program. Oberlin and NIST also hope to evaluate the productivity-enhancing effect that being in a room with carefully monitored C0 2 levels could have on its inhabitants, Evans said. They have yet to work out a protocol for taking such measurements, however, and Evans acknowledged that it would straddle the border between quantitative science and qualitative psychology. "Productivity is a big motivation in this area," Persily said. "People's salaries are always the most expensive commodities in an office building." Although the state of the art of green architecture has advanced in the two years since the Oberlin building was designed, the criteria Continued on page 217
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Environmental News Disastrous cyanide spill could spawn liability reforms however, that the nature of he collapse of a gold the mineral market puts mine in Baia Mare, tremendous pressure on Romania, in January is producers to reduce produca grim reminder of the tion costs, including tiiose risks of modern mining of containment. But compapractices. The question of nies could be motivated to who will pay for the ecoimprove security if they logical disaster has only were held liable for the constarted to be answered, but sequences of their activities, it may serve to catalyze Krauss said. In this way, much-needed legal resound environmental pracforms concerning environtices would become more mental liability and the financially attractive than hardrock mining industry. the cost of eventual cleanup Esmeralda Explorations, and damage compensation. the Australian operator of Assessments compiled in the Romanian mine has 1999 by Europe's World repeatedly denied responsiWide Fund for Nature bility for the disaster, which (WWF) and the U S Naleaked nearly 100 000 cubic tional Research Council potent mixture (NRG both concluded that of cyanide and heaw metals improving the environmeninto the Szamos Tisza and Almost 500 tons of fish died after a Romanian mine collapsed, tal impacts of hardrock Danube rivers causing the spilling toxins into several major rivers. mining will reauire better subsequent death of almost information networks stricter en500 tons of fish tory reforms in both Europe and forcement of existing laws and Although Hungary was the the United States. regulatory reform country hardest hit by the disasOther examples of mine acciter, it looks unlikely that the comdents include much-publicized In the European Union (EU), pany can be held liable for damspills in Guyana in 1995 and in regulation of mining waste falls ages in any of the affected southern Spain in 1998, where under the 1991 Framework Direccountries other than Romania Europe's largest reservoir of bird tive on Waste. The WWF study on because no international agreespecies was affected. Both accimining waste disposal in Europe ments on environmental liability dents were caused by collapsing claims, however, that this legislaissues exist, said Jxirg Bally of the tailings dams. And the Sumtive framework is ineffective in Swiss Agency for the Environmitville gold mine in southern protecting the EU's environment ment, Forests, and Landscape Colorado began leaking cyanide and people from pollution result(SAEFL). SAEFL plans to push forand heavy metals into the Alaming from mining activities. As a ward international agreements on osa River soon after opening in result, WWF proposed an action environmental liability as part of 1986. The Canadian operator has plan to the European Commisthe United Nations' Helsinki con~ declared bankruptcy, leaving besion (EC) that includes compiling ventions on the protection and hind a Superfund site and an estia comprehensive inventory of mated $200 million cleanup cost. metal mines and tailings ponds of transboundary waters and within the EU and its accession transboundary effects of indusAll of these spills were caused countries and adding mining trial accidents Bally added by engineering failures and, as waste to the European Hazardous such, were avoidable, according to This mine spill and a second Waste List which would make Raymond Krauss, former environsmaller spill in mid-March were disposal operations subject to mental manager of California's caused by the collapse of tailings more stringent requirements. The state-of-the-art McLaughlin gold dams after heavy rains. The acciproposed inclusion of mining mine and now an independent dents are the latest in a worldtivities under the Eurporean resource management consultant. wide string of disasters that have Union's Seveso II directive which Krauss stressed the importance of stirred up a debate over the curcontrols major accident hazards proper containment engineering rent legal situation of hardrock involving dangerous substances for mining operations, admitting, mining and the need for regula-
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© 2000 American Chemical Society
vironmental liability, adopted by the EC in February, proposes various measures for introducing a strict liability regime for environmental damage based on the polluter-pays principle. In the United States, an ongoing battle over reform of the 1872 Mining Law, which regulates the availability of public land for mining purposes, is not likely to end soon. The 1999 NRC report, Hardrock Mining on Federal Lands, emphasized the need for an advanced information system on mining operations and environmentally sensitive federal
would initiate various measures to prevent tailings lagoon spillages, limit their consequences, and breach the current lack of information on such incidents. According to Pia Ahrenkilde, EC's environment spokesperson, the inventory of mining hotspots and practices has already been started and may be finished by year's end. Also, discussions with member countries about possible extensions of the Hazardous Waste List and the Seveso II directive to cover mining waste and mining activities, respectively, are under way A white paper on en~
land. The report concluded that stricter enforcement of existing regulations is needed, as well as firmer regulations of small mining operations and clearer distinctions between temporarily idle and abandoned mines. A much-awaited 1998 EPA Toxics Release Inventory report will, for the first time, include releases from the metal mining industry. So while the path toward greater global environmental responsibility for mining operations still looks rocky, there are some signs of change. —ANKE SCHAEFER
Natural attenuation's popularity outpaces scientific support, NRC finds The surge in the use of natural tance of natural attenuation was where it can't work or shouldn't attenuation over the past decade happening too quickly, according work." has outpaced the development of to NRC Committee Chair Bruce What the committee found, he adequate guidelines for its use, Rittmann, an environmental engisays, is that natural attenuation according to a National Research neer who specializes in bioremehas the potential to remediate a Council (NRC) report released diation at Northwestern Univerwide range of contaminants— March 1. As a consequence, natusity in Evanston, IL. "Many including nitrate, nickel, and ral attenuation is being applied at groups were concerned about lead—although the scientific and sites where its effectiveness has 'bandwagoning'—that natural technical understanding for how not been adequately demonattenuation was being used to handle these contaminants has strated, NRC found. not yet been established. Natural attenuation, Natural attenuation is well which relies on natural bioestablished as a remediation The growing use of natural logical, chemical, and physiapproach for only a few types attenuation cal processes to treat groundof contaminants, primarily At Superfund sites, the use of natural attenuation to water or soil contaminants the gasoline components remediate contaminated groundwater has increased. rather than engineered treatBTEX (benzene, toluene, ethData from 1997 continue the upward trend but were ment systems, is now the ylene, and xylene) and some incomplete when the NRC report was published. leading remedy for groundchlorinated solvents, accordwater contaminated by gasoing to the report. line from leaking underNRC found that the inground storage tanks. In creased use of natural atten1997, it was used at more uation has been accompathan 15,000 sites. In EPA's nied by a proliferation of Superfund pr02r3.n1, the use policy statements, state reguof natural attenuation as a lations, and technical docuremedy for contaminated ments dealing with this remgroundwater $?rew from 6% edy. The committee reviewed in 1990 to more than 23% in 14 such documents and 1997 found many instances of inadequacies in, or misuse of, The NRC study was trigthe protocols. "The level of gered by apprehension documentation that is being among some academic and accepted often has not been industrial scientists, regulahigh enough," said Rittmann. tors, and environmental Source: National Research Council. "There are too many situagroups that regulatory accep'
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Environmental News tions in which natural attenuation is accepted as a remedy not because there is documentation that contaminants are actually attenuating but because there is no obvious evidence that it is not occurring," said Rittmann. In addition, natural attenuation is often approved for the remediation of an increasing number of contaminants even when the use of natural attenuation for those contaminants is an active research topic, according to the
report. Regulators have approved natural attenuation for the treatment of the explosive trinitrotoluene and the carcinogen vinyl chloride, once thought to be extremely recalcitrant to natural degradation, the NRC panel reported. The Department of Energy has also proposed using natural attenuation to clean up groundwater tainted by uranium and other contaminants. Now is the right time for EPA to take the lead in crafting national
consensus protocols, says committee member Richard Luthy, an environmental engineer at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA, who compared the natural attenuation situation to that of analytical methods. "There needs to be a standard, consensus approach so that people ciEfree on a. common starting place. EPA does this for analytical methods and the agency has an important role to play in doing this for natural attenuation " REBECCA RENNER
England tries to make polluters pay A new regulatory regime to clean up England's legacy of contaminated land went into effect April 1. The program is designed to achieve a local, collaborative remediation plan, ideally paid for by the polluter. Under previous planning laws, land developers who voluntarily remediated contaminated land had to meet "pristine" cleanup standards, explained Department of the Environment spokesperson Jean Train. Under the new program, remediation is required only to a standard that is "suitable for use," a step down from remediating to pristine conditions, required under the voluntary cleanup scheme. But now regional governing bodies and the environment agency can force remediation of land that is not being actively redeveloped "if it is causing a problem," said Train. The law defines land as contaminated if there is a significant risk, or likely to be a risk, to humans, controlled waters, or the wider environment. Within the next 15 months, local authorities must develop a strategy for inspecting their areas to identify contaminated land; then they must find the polluters). Once identified, polluters have three months to agree to a remediation plan. If the local authorities cannot locate the polluter, the cleanup liability falls on the land owner, and if there is no owner, the local authority will have to foot the bill. Failure to
The U.K/s program could result in the same kind of legal tangles troubling Superfund, say some company lawyers.
cooperate is now a criminal offense, and the polluter/ owner will incur fines or remediation costs, but there will be some technical exclusions. In 1998, in anticipation of the new cleanup program, local authorities were allocated approximately $146 million (U.S.) over three years to implement the regime. The authorities can now also bid for $32 million in cleanup grants if they own polluted land themselves. In 1998/99, $320 million was voluntarily spent by developers on remediation of contaminated land
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for new buildings and other developments. But because the local authorities are just beginning to identify contaminated land, no one can estimate the acreage that might be ripe for remediation. Sarah Barnard, of the U.K. Chemical Industries Association, is concerned that the law will not produce results, as local authorities will find it very difficult to identify and chase polluters. "There is a degree of uncertainty over what is expected from everybody," she said. David Gilliland, an environmental lawyer with the law firm Eversheds in Newcastle that mostly represents companies, fears the same kind of legal tangles as those that have engulfed the U.S. Superfund program. "The regulations are so complicated that people will be able to appeal. So much is left to the judgment of individuals and ultimately the courts," Gilliland said. The legislation is a step in the right direction, says Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, although he points out that this definition of contaminated land will ignore much polluted land. He would also prefer to see the highest remediation standards for all sites irrespective of use. As he expects local authorities to struggle in finding resources for their work, he predicts that in 3-4 years, a tax on existing polluters may provide extra money for remediation. —MARIA BURKE
MTBE phaseout: A boon for ethanol producers As the nation moves toward phasing out methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in gasoline, ethanol is emerging as a potential replacement in reformulated gasoline (RFG). Such an outcome poses questions about ethanol producers' readiness to meet the expanded demand. Ethanol's use as an oxygenate in RFG is well established, as it is used in 17 states and Washington, DC. Its biodegradability in the environment, insist those in the ethanol industry, makes it a safer gasoline additive man MTBE. Terry Jaffoni, ethanol commercial director of Cargill, Inc., who spoke in February at the Clean Fuels 2000 conference held in San Diego, CA, discounted any problems associated with ethanol's solubility in groundwater, saying, "The only thing you are going to end up with ethanol in the water is a lot of happy fish." She noted also that because ethanol contains twice as much oxygen per volume as MTBE less ethanol is required to mppt
the oxygen requirement A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report, Economic Analysis of Replacing MTBE With Ethanol in the United States, concluded that ethanol could successfully replace MTBE nationwide by 2004—with negligible effects on gasoline prices and no disruption in supply. In another recent report, Ability of the U.S. Ethanol Industry To Replace MTBE, John Urbanchuk, executive vice president of AUS Consultants, a consulting firm serving industry and utilities, found that the construction activity due to the switch to ethanol will add $11.7 billion to the nation's gross domestic product bv 2004 and create more than 47 800 new jobs At the Clean Fuels 2000 conference, Leslie Watson, an international energy consultant with Purvin & Gertz, Inc., cast doubt on ethanol producers' and refiners' readiness "to get into this MTBE-free environment". As EPA Administrator Carol Browner is urging Congress to amend the
vjiean /\ir /\ct to eliminate ivi i jjii from the fuel supply and to replace it with renewauie fuels, particularly ethanol (see accompanying story on p. 208A), ethanol producers need to make the necessary investment in expanding production capacity. "If we don't see any kind of investment from the ethanol producers, it could really drive the cost up [for oil refiners], come year-end 2002," Watson said. Jaffoni contends that the transition between MTBE- and ethanolblended RFG may not be as problematic as refiners envisage, referring to Getty Petroleum Marketing, Inc.'s recent switch to ethanol-blended RFG as "seamless". According to Tancred Lidderdale, refining industry analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, current ethanol production capacity is 110,000 barrels per day. If MTBE and other ethers were banned nationwide, an estimated 91,000 barrels-per-day ethanol shortfall would occur Lidderdale said. This estimate however does not include the 400-600 million gallons
The production of ethanol, a corn-based fuel additive, will likely increase with the phaseout of MTBE.
of ethanol that could be brought on line through plant expansions and new plants within 1-2 years, said Bob DeNeen, vice president of the Renewable Fuels Association. Despite the needed $1.9 billion investment, Urbanchuk assesses ethanol production capacity as more than exceeding the demand within two years. —LEONA A. KANASKIE
Quantifying the benefits of biodiversity could help prevent extinction A National Research Council (NRC) report that shows human activities are driving the nearterm extinction of between onethird and two-thirds of all species is among the most urgent warnings from scientists about the rapid loss of biodiversity. Nature and Human Society: The Quest for a Sustainable World, released in March, warns that loss of biodiversity could lead to ecosystem collapse, calling for immediate action to account for the full economic costs of resource exploitation. Human population growth and destruction of natural resources have boosted the rate of extinction of living organisms to somewhere between 1000 and 10,000 times greater than natural
background rates of extinction, explained Stuart Pimm, ecologist at Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation and one of the authors of the NRC report. If current trends continue, this will be the sixth major extinction in the planet's history, rivaling the magnitude of the episode that exterminated the dinosaurs some 70 million years ago, he said. In as few as 50 years, we can expect to see widespread extinctions in fragmented habitats, with biodiversity in the tropics hit hardest, Pimm concluded. If we start throwing away the components of ecosystems, we will eventually lose their services, and "we're unlikely to duplicate
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Biodiversity hotspots in the tropics contribute to the "gross natural product" of goods and services resulting from biodiversity, which, at $33 trillion per year, exceeds the world's aggregate gross national product of $28 trillion, according to Oxford University researchers.
what nature already supplies," said Gary Meffe, editor of Conservation Biology at the University of Florida-Gainesville. A team of economists and ecologists recently estimated the value of goods and services from biodiversity at $33 trillion per year, compared with a global gross national product of $28 trillion, said Norm a n Meyers, a conservation biologist at Oxford University.
But the current economic system, which privatizes profits from use of natural resources but makes society pay the cost of environmental cleanup and restoration, does not recognize the value and has driven much of the extinction crisis, according to Michael Bean, director of the Wildlife Program for Environmental Defense, an environmental organization. "Loss of biodiversity
is the result of a lack of clear economic incentives to conserve biodiversity," he said. Providing new market-based mechanisms, such as ecotourism, to conserve biodiversity is expected to be a top priority at this month's Convention on Biodiversity meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, said Hans Verolme, project director of Bionet, a nonprofit organization. —JANET PELLEY
Internet tool reaches beyond politics to address climate change In hopes of spurring more businesses to address climate change, the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), a nonprofit alliance of large businesses concerned about environmental issues, unveiled in March a Webbased tool to help companies evaluate their sources of greenhouse gas emissions. GEMI created the tool "regardless of science and policy" because of the worldwide significance of climate change, said Richard Guimond, vice president of Environmental Health and Safety for semiconductor manufacturer Motorola, Inc., and chair of GEMI's Climate Change Work Group. "This is an issue that all
businesses must eventually come to grips with," Guimond added. The tool debuted the same week that General Motors Corp. became the third major auto company to defect from the Global Climate Commission, a nonprofit organization that opposes the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. For environmental organizations, the new tool "is another really promising signal that the debate on climate change has shifted—businesses are no longer talking about whether or not we should act, but how we should act," said Elizabeth Cook, codirector of the nonprofit World Resource Institute's Management
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Institute for Environmental and Business, an organization that provided input for the tool's creation. The advice proffered by the interactive tool, which resides on the Web at www.businessandclimate. org, might appear fairly elementary to some observers. For example, the site's self-assessment survey asks users whether they use powerful greenhouse gases like perfluorocarbons (PFCs) or sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Any company that uses those compounds is probably very aware of their climate change impact; after all U.S. semiconductor companies set a goal more than four years ago of reducing its PFC
emissions by 10% from 1995 levels by 2005. But only a dozen companies have completed corporate-wide greenhouse gas inventories, attesting to the importance of providing such seemingly basic information, Cook said. None of the GEMI companies involved in the tool's rollout, including Motorola, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Occidental Petroleum Corp., and Eastman Kodak Co., had completed a corporate-wide inventory. Although the tool's ostensible purpose is to "help companies that don't have the resources of multinational companies," Guimond noted that it is also likely to be valuable for large companies. Many multinational organizations are cutting their environment, health, and safety (EHS) programs to reduce costs, Guimond said. EHS professionals are under pressure to show value,
agreed Jim Thomas, executive director of Health, Global warming potentials for different Safety, and Environment business conference options for pharmaceutical giant Novartis Corp. He conVideo-teleconferencing generates less than 1% of the greentended that the facts and house gases of air travel, according to research conducted figures found on the new by Kodak, a vendor of the equipment and a member of the GEMI Web site could help Global Environmental Management Initiative. EHS staffers justify their existence. The Web site includes information about products, processes, and procedures that GEMI's member companies have employed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including energy conservation measures. Some of the products deSource: Eastman Kodak Co. scribed, such as GEMI member Kodak's video-teleThe tool is a work in progress, conferencing tool, may appear selfGuimond said, promising that it serving. But Cook stressed that will be updated and improved avoiding airline travel of based on feedback from users. the most important ways that WRI —KELLYN S. BETTS reduces its climate impact
Toxics Emissions data weaken public support for U.K. chemical industry Britain s Chemical industries ASSOCldllOn l.v^Lf\J n d b pUDHCly
admitted that an environmental groups vveb sue nsting emisidctones in Englaiiu diiu vvales nds damaged me sectors midge. Earth (FoE), launched its Factory Watch Wet) site featunng a nes in February and received considerable media coverage. data reported annually to the U »Ax. s
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