how easy it is to insult it." One aim is to see if toxicity increases with ingestion/metabolism of the chemicals, and how and to what extent they may act synergistically. Vegetables being tested are onion, pea, radish, spinach, and tomato; animals undergoing tests include hens, pigs, and dairy cows.
TECHNOLOGY Hard-to-burn wastes might be disposed of with spouted-bed combustion, now being tested at Battelle Columbus Laboratories (Ohio). Battelle scientist Herbert Arbib notes that additional energy is needed to incinerate low-heat-value wastes. He said that with spoutedbed combustion, the added energy and equipment are not needed. The technique uses air injected through
Spouted-bed combustion a small opening at the burner's base. The movement of the particles—forming a spoutlike structure—allows a systematic cyclic movement that promotes burning of low-heat-value substances, as low as 4500 Btu/lb. Such substances could comprise carbon black gas, used oils, and many others. Certain chlorocarbon compounds leached from organic wastes can be attenuated by clay liner materials, S. S. Iyengar and his colleagues at D'Appolonia Consulting Engineers, Inc. (Pittsburgh, Pa.) recently concluded. They investigated four volatile and four involatile chlorinated organics, plus Mirex and Kepone. Known concentrations of the 10 substances were equilibrated with
clay samples for 48 h at the leachate's "natural" pH of about 8.5 and at pH 5. pH seemed to have no significant effect. Water solubility and octanol/water partition coefficients did seem to be factors. It may be that the main interaction between the liner and chlorocarbons is hydrophobic and that these compounds were adsorbed onto the organic fraction of clay liners. More knowledge concerning toxic effects of specialty gases is needed, Neil Mann, a specialist in environmental medicine, told the Compressed Gas Association (Arlington, Va.). Mann is a leading expert in the diagnosis/treatment of toxicgas exposures. He said that a major problem in pinpointing gas exposure is found in the resemblance of symptoms to those of common respiratory ailments. Another is the latency period between the onset of initial symptoms and the appearance of more severe symptoms, which could be several hours to two weeks depending upon the gas(es) involved. Most incidents of exposure were ascribed to human error, rather than equipment failure. Control of pine beetles may be helped by a pheromone mimic that can disrupt the beetle's communication system. Pheromones are insect secretions that affect the behavior of other insects of the same species. The pheromone mimic, which was discovered by R. Marshall Wilson of the University of Cincinnati, is a peroxide that undergoes a chemical transformation to the natural pheromone. The pheromone signals the pine beetle to attack living trees, and concentrates their population, thereby ensuring successful mating. These functions can be disrupted by the pheromone mimic. Beetle populations could be reduced although elimination is not necessarily desirable since the beetles could serve as food for birds, for example.
INDUSTRY A bill amending the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) may impede efforts to recycle/reuse wastes, and detract from the goals giving the RCRA its name, says the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA, Washington, D.C.). C M A especially scored one section of H.R. 6307, which it says intrudes on industrial processes.
"EPA only needs to regulate as necessary to protect human health and the environment by focusing on activities that historically have caused harm in these areas," CMA said. The association also opposes certain notification and insurance provisions of the amendment to RCRA.
Harrison: "search for the truth" Electric utilities' efforts to understand acid precipitation are not a delaying tactic, but a search for the truth, William Harrison of Southern Company Services (Birmingham, Ala.) said. "There is no evidence whatever" that substantial money and manpower expenditures would achieve any noticeable change in acid precipitation, he added. What is needed, he said, is a better knowledge of the factors that lead to acid precipitation, including atmospheric chemistry, transport, emissions, and deposition mechanisms. Knowledge of mobile and stationary, and of distant and local source contributions is also needed, Harrison suggested. A Senate bill, S. 1706, if it becomes law, could mandate extensive acid precipitation abatement actions by utilities in 31 states. EPA's decision to regulate hazardous-waste incinerators to the 99.99% standard of destruction/ removal efficiency "is absolutely the right decision," Charles Johnson, technical director of the National Solid Wastes Management Association ( N S W M A , Washington, D.C.), said. He praised the way in which this decision eliminates discrimination between new and existing facilities, which has hampered new facility siting. Johnson added that the tough antipollution standard should reassure neighbors of any facility and noted that simplification and expedition of the permitting process were also helpful additions to the standards. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 16, No. 9, 1982
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