ES&T
CURRENTS INTERNATIONAL Third World countries now solicit the World Bank's help to clean up the environment, World Bank President A. W. Clausen said at the annual Fairfield Osburn lecture sponsored by the Conservation Foundation. He stated that the World Bank is placing increasing emphasis on the environmental consequences of the projects it finances and estimated that between three and five percent of the total funding for a typical project is spent on environmental protection. He also believes that in Third World countries it is impossible to have economic growth without environmental regulations. Water supply and sanitation, energy, and population planning are three areas where "the goals of economic development and environmental enhancement coincide," he said.
manufacturers would relax the nitrogen dioxide emission standard from 1 g/mi to 2 g/mi. The more nitrogen dioxide emissions are controlled, the higher diesel particulate emissions become. The study states that a less stringent nitrogen dioxide standard would make it easier for diesels to achieve the particulate standard and would thus allow greater use of diesels. As a consequence, GM and Japanese manufacturers who are already in a position to expand their diesel production would capture more of the automobile market.
WASHINGTON Hazardous wastes contained in overpacked drums called lab packs may be disposed of in landfills according to an interim final rule issued by EPA. The rule is supposed to provide laboratories, schools, and other generators of small amounts of hazardous wastes with an environmentally sound alternative for waste disposal, an exemption to the ban on landfilling liquid ignitable wastes. The agency said that lab packs will not contribute substantial volumes of liquid to landfill leachate because material around the drums will absorb the liquid inside the containers. Relaxation of the automobile tailpipe emission standards might cause financial problems for Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors, but would benefit General Motors and foreign automobile manufacturers, according to a study by the Library of Congress. A bill introduced to amend the Clean Air Act favored by domestic automobile
Moffett: a cynical charade
The OMB has proposed cutting the EPA budget for fiscal year 1983 down to $780 million from the current $1.35 billion. This reduction would be on top of the 16% cuts already made at EPA for 1982 and would double the cuts proposed by administrator Anne M. Gorsuch for fiscal year 1983. Leaked OMB documents state that EPA's research staff will drop from over 1800 to about 1000 and funds for outside research will drop to $60 million or less. About eight EPA research labs will close and virtually all university and private research work will end over the next 14 months. Gorsuch contends that cuts of this magnitude would make her agency incapable of carrying out many programs mandated by law; she has appealed the budget "passback" to OMB director David Stockman. Rep. Toby Moffett (D-
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Conn.) commented: "The correspondence and feigned concern over the EPA budget by Gorsuch is simply a cynical charade." Unidentified agency officals state that Gorsuch will begin laying off over 700 EPA staffers within the next few months. The dangers posed by hazardous waste sites have been improperly estimated, according to testimony prepared by Congress' Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) for the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation. OTA contends that EPA's policy for Superfund provides little protection for public health and the environment from hazardous waste sites in areas where the population density is low; does not protect against the potentially high danger posed by relatively small amounts (up to 20 t) of highly toxic waste, even in densely populated areas; and does not correlate the degree of hazard from the waste sites near densely populated areas with protection for the public. In its testimony, OTA recommends what it calls an improved approach to ranking sites. Luck is as important as merit in determining which scientists are awarded research grants by the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to a major study supervised by the National Academy of Sciences. The study investigated the peer review system used by NSF to decide which scientific projects should be financed and found that different sets of qualified reviewers disagree sharply about the merits of proposed research projects much as movie reviewers do about a film. The lack of consensus shows "real and legitimate differences among experts about what good science is or should be," the authors concluded. Jack T. Sanderson, assistant director of NSF, called the study "very good" from an analytical point of Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 16, No. 1, 1982
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view, but said he didn't think a better peer review system could be found. EPA must complete regulations for hazardous waste land disposal facilities by Feb. 1, 1982. U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard A. Gesell has ordered. EPA had already missed two court-ordered deadlines and asked to be given two more years to produce the regulations because, according to administrator Anne M. Gorsuch, research conducted by the agency during the Carter administration was inadequate. Originally, the regulations were supposed to be finished by April 1978, 18 months after Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Gesell said that when Congress passed the law, it did not expect the agency "to resolve every conceivable problem before issuing regulations."
STATES Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Wash, is one of the 10 worst toxic waste sites in the country, according to the EPA. 250 000 tons of chlorinated chemical wastes were dumped in the bay from 19501972, and dangerous chemicals have seeped into the bay from land saturated by manufacturing spills.
Malins: monitoring needed
The bay also has significant amounts of arsenic, lead, and polychlorinated biphenyls. A study conducted by Donald Malins of Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Center found that up to 32% of the English sole examined in one area of the bay have liver tumors or skin mottling probably caused by pollution. He said he believed a system should be set up to monitor all of Puget Sound for pollution. Burning hazardous wastes as a fuel in the manufacture of cement—a new method of disposal for these wastes—is being demonstrated in 10A
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Cementon, N.Y., by a private company, the Energy Resources Recovery Corporation. Only waste solvents from the painting and printing industries have been used so far in the cement kiln, but state officials say that PCBs could be burned in the same way. Company president Walter J. Hinckley said the operation could cut its costs in half by using waste solvents, instead of coal, as fuel. State officials are monitoring the effects of the burning on the atmosphere and have found no additional pollution so far. Liquid waste has also been burned experimentally in a cement kiln in Michigan.
SCIENCE Diverse natural environments should be preserved, not only to protect endangered species, but also to make energy-efficient use of plant and animal resources, several University of Texas scientists say. They believe that 70-80% of the world's large mammals and many plant species probably will disappear before the year 2100 if present trends continue. Clark Hubbs, professor of zoology, states that "much of tropical Africa is very much on the edge of catastrophe." He deplores monocultures, or one-crop plantings, as an energy source because they require energy to maintain them. An advance in long-range weather forecasting has been made in a recent study performed by scientists at Entropy Limited (Lincoln, Mass). By use of average annual precipitation at selected weather stations and sea surface temperatures from the equatorial Pacific, above- or below-normal precipitation was predicted correctly 68% of the time. Also, 88% of the extremely dry years were forecast when the method was tested on 49 years of California weather. A method called entropy minimax derived from the mathematical field of information theory was used for uncovering these patterns. Analytical behavior of priority pollutants, such as phthalates in industrial or municipal wastewaters, is under investigation by EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Support Laboratory (Cincinnati). In this case, six specific compounds were studied. Common sample treatment is employed, and extraction
and chromatography studies are conducted. Phase I of the study uses clean water to obtain data to "give direction" to Phase II, which uses actual wastewaters, and to serve as a basis for comparison. Acceptable phthalate ester recovery was achieved, but apparently storage leads to loss problems. Lead and cadmium, found in trace amounts in soft water, may contribute to cardiovascular disease developments, say some scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Atherosclerosis and hypertension are examples of such diseases. Study director Michael Revis set out to determine these effects in a laboratory situation where environmental and genetic factors can be controlled. Cardiovascular effects seemed to be mitigated by addition of calcium and magnesium, which exist in soft water only at very low levels. One aim is to find out how much is needed to eliminate cadmium and lead disease effects. Is early diagnosis of genetic damage—say by toxic substances— possible: It may be coming, according to a symposium sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic. The key is to separate proteins in a sample of, perhaps, blood or urine. If normal proteins and their functions are known, abnormal proteins and functions or disappearances of normal ones could be detected. Protein data is in a unique location. The diagnostic system may eventually lead to treatment procedures; meanwhile, the data will be systematically catalogued.
TECHNOLOGY Even submicron airborne particles can be traced back to their sources, as well as analyzed and catalogued according to size and shape. The key is a combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, and image analysis, Edward Fasiska of the Mellon Institute of Science (Pittsburgh) told ES& T. Another key is proper computer software for "tagging" combustion products by their size, shape, and other properties. The STEM/computer technique can also pinpoint elements of atomic number >10, and can warn that organics are present and need more precise analysis, Fasiska said.
