United States Office of Volume 11 Environmental Protection Public Affairs (A-107) Number 2 Agency Washington DC 20460 March 1985

The Silhouetted against the w aters of Lake Supenor, strollers en1oy the sunset in Ouimet Canyon Provincial Park, , . The Great Lakes

Fifteen yea rs ago, it was w idely Canada's approach to dealing The efforts by EPA Region 5 to EPA-related legislative matters. believed that the Great Lakes with pollution of the Great Lake's make a cleaner fu ture for the The story of how an EPA were dying. This issue of EPA is spelled out by J. D. Kingham, Grand in the water quality specialist, Leroy Journal exa mines the si tuation the Ca nadian Co-Chair of the IJC area are reported by " Bub" Loiselle, Jr., has helped to now. What cleanup progress has Water Quality Board. Kathleen Osborne Clute of that control pollution from gold been made? Wh at remains to be The lessons scientists have region's Office of Public Affairs. placer mining in Alaska is re lated done7 lea rned in their far-flung This is the sixth in a seri es in the by Roy Popkin, a w riter in the In the first article, Valdas laboratory-the five lakes- are Journal by EPA regional offices. EPA Office of Public Affairs. Adamkus takes an overview . He explained by William Richardson, In other stories, the Journal Loiselle won an agency gold is Administrator of EPA Region chief of EPA's Large Lakes includes excerpts of the medal for his w ork on this 5, and is Co-Chair of the Water Laboratory in Grosse lie, Mich. A statement by EPA Administrator problem. EPA's steps to Quality Board of the Great Lakes ecologica l puzzle is Lee M. Thomas at his safeguard divers in polluted U.S.-Ca nadian International Joint discussed by Lee Botts, a confirmation hearings February 6 waters are explained by Susan Commission (IJC). planner and long-time participant before the Senate Committee on Tejada, Associate Editor of the The next article focuses on the in the effort to protect the lakes. Environment and Public Works. Journal. personality of the Great Lakes The Great Lakes environmental Also included is an article Concluding the issue are a region, describing its history, challenge for the 1980s-toxic analyzing the President's book review and the magazine's culture, and economy. The piece substances-is described by L. proposed budget for EPA in regular featu res, Update and is by Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor Keith Bulen, U.S. Commissioner Fiscal Year 1986 Appointments. [] of the Journal. of the IJC. In another article, Senator Congressman Henry J . Now ak, Three journalists present their John H. Chafee, R-R.I., gives his D-N.Y., forecasts the views on Great Lakes problems view s on the ou tlook for environmental fortunes of Lake and progress. The writers, who environmental legislation in the Erie, which borders his home report on environmental affairs, 99th Congress. Chafee is city of Buffalo. are Pa ul M acClennan, Buffalo Chairman of the Senate News; Casey Bukro, Chicago Subcommittee on Environmental Tribune; and Dean Rebuffoni, Pollution, which oversees Minneapolis Star and Tribune. Office of Volume 11 Environmental Protection Public Affairs (A-107) Number 2 Agency Washington DC 20460 March 1985 oEPA JOURNAL

Lee M. Thomas, Administrator Josephine S. Cooper, Assistant Administrator for External Affairs Paul A. Schuette, Acting Director, Office of Public Affairs

John Heritage, Editor Susan Tejada, Associate Editor Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor Margherita Pryor, Contributing Editor

EPA 1s charged by Congress to Restoring Thinking Ecologically Environmental Outlook protect the nation's land. air. and water systems. Under a mandate of The Great lakes in lakes Protection in the New Congress national environmental laws. the by Valdas V. Adamkus 2 by Lee Botts by John H . Chafee l6 agency strives to formulate and implement actions which lead to a The Five Sister Toxics: Today's Safe Diving in compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural Lakes: A Profile Great lakes Challenge Polluted Waters systems to support and nurture life. by J ack Lewis 5 by L. Keith Bulen '" by Susan Tejada 28 The EPA Journal 1s published by the U.S. Environmental Protection The Benefits of a Views from Fighting Waste Agency. The Administrator of EPA has determined that the publication Cleaner Other Vantage from Gold Mining of this periodical 1s necessary in the by Henry J. Nowak 7 Points by Roy Popkin 0 transaction of the public bu siness reqttired by law of this agency. Use How Canada Controls Cleaning up the Update: Recent of funds for printing this periodical 31 has been approved by the Director Great lakes Pollution Grand Calumet River Agency Developments of th e Office of Management and by J .D. Kingham 9 by Kathleen Osborne Budget. Views expressed by Clute 21 Appointments at EPA 32 authors do not necessarily reflect Learning in the EPA policy. Contributions and Great lakes "lab" inquiries should be addressed to the Thomas States Book Review 32 Editor (A-107). Waterside Mall. 401 by William Richardson 11 Goals for EPA M St. , S.W, Washington. D.C. 20460. No permission necessary to EPA's Budget: reproduce con tents except copyrighted photos and other An Analysis materials by Jack Lewis

Front cover: Wading into Lake Design Credits: Robert Flanagan; Huron at daybreak, a smelt Ron Farrah. fisherman tries to net his catch. Every spring the smelt run 111 the lake near East Tawas Ciry, Mich. Photo by Don Emmerich.

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INDIANA OHIO

A SC 11 \ V'v ' r

2 EPA JOURNAL Lakes water to arid southwestern states; EPA's Chicago-based Great Lakes framework to integrated resource and questions about how to balance National Program Office (GLNPO) has management was pioneered for the appropriately the demands of our worked for several years with the U.S. Great Lakes by the International Joint economy with the needs of our Department of Agriculture and the states Commission {IJC). a six-member board environment. of Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana on established by the U.S. and Canada in The most immediate problem facing us conservation farming programs designed 1909 to protect the waters shared by in the 1960s was accelerated to reduce the amount of fertilizer-laden both countries. eutrophication: the premature aging of topsoil washing into Lake Erie. A major The IJC, through the Water Quality the lakes due to the overproduction of feature of that program has been the use Board I co-chair, is concerned w ith microscopic plant life and algae. This of farming methods which leave crop maintaining and improving the quality of plant life was being nourished by raw res idues on the surface of fields after the Great Lakes ecosystem. This will and partially treated sewage, which they have been harvested. These happen as we move steadily forward in contained hefty loads of phosphorus, to residues keep the soil bound together our efforts to identify and to control toxic the detriment of fish and other aquatic and help trap topsoil during rainstorms. pollutants and to preserve the wetlands life. The Lake Erie project, which operates in that are so vital to the growth and health The U.S. and Canada, in 1972, signed a the 31 counties thought to be of the 92 fish species that exist in our Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement contributing the most phosphorus to lakes. pledging both countries to a series of Lake Erie, has shown that conservation It is unacceptable to me, as I'm sure it actions designed to save the takes. The farming can cut soil losses 75 to 90 is to most of you as well, that people in most significant of these was the percent. eight near-shore areas of the Great Lakes specification that both countries would EPA's Great Lakes efforts are anchored are advised by health authorities not to make massive improvements in their in GLNPO. This office, with an annual eat certain kinds of fish and to limit their sewage treatment plant systems. Both research and operating budget of $4 consumption of others. It is unacceptable nations, true to their word, have spent a million, coordinates federal water quality to me that chubs cannot be caught or total of $7.6 billion since 1972 to improve research concerning the Great Lakes, sold by commercial fishermen in Lake or replace 1,079 sewage treatment plants gives research grants, and works w ith Michigan because of high PCB and along the shores and tributaries of the Canadian environmental professionals on pesticide content; that lake trout still Great Lakes. problems of concern to both countries. cannot reproduce naturally in the lakes These improvements, coupled with When we look at the efforts we are and exist only because the federal strict controls on industrial wastewater, making in the Great Lakes and the results government and the states spend have largely freed the lakes from their we're getting, we realize that it's more millions each year on stocking programs. oppressive nutrient burden and allowed than the mere prodding of our We have identified more than 800 toxic them gr

MARCH 1985 3 Lakes water to areas of the U.S. where bordering Lake Erie, for example, depend limited existing water supplies are being on the water levels in that lake for their depleted. Diversion is not new. It began existence. Also, consumption kills fish as in 1829, when the original they are sucked into water intakes, and was opened to provide a navigational diversion sends them off somewhere link between lakes Erie and Ontario. The else, probably equally lethal. two other diversions occur at Chicago, Economic, environmental, and political where the Chicago Sanitary and Ship interests will always be colliding over the Canal funnels water from Great Lakes, and that is as it should be. to the Mississippi via the Our concern here at EPA is that the Waterway; and in Canada, where the environmental interests be defended. Our Long Lac and Ogaki rivers flow into Lake "cluster of inland seas" are too valuable Superior. for us to have it any other way. D None of these, however, begins to approach the scale of diversion that would occur if we were to pipe Great Lakes water across part of our continent. The cost of such a move, very Helping preliminary analyses show, could be in the billions of dollars, but the impact on the Cleanup our lakes could be even greater. Large-scale diversion could lower the PA's Great Lakes National water level, to the benefit of coastal zone EProgram Office (GLNPO), located interests which would gain shoreline and in Chicago, monitors the lakes and to the detriment of those who depend on United States performance under existing water levels for navigation and the terms of the U.S. -Canada Great power generation. Diversion also would Lakes Water Quality Agreement. reduce the amount of water available to The GLNPO reports to the Reg ional dilute pollutants and maintain water Administrator of Region 5 in his quality. One study has calculated the loss role as the agency's national program manager for the Great action in other areas. (See related story of economic benefits from all this at on page 21). upward of $74 million a year. Lakes. The Water Quality Agreement While we're out cruising the lakes in Complicating the whole thing is the and GLNPO address the lakes as a our 122-foot research vessel, the Roger international nature of the water total system affected by R. Simons, mighty lake and ocean-going resource. A 1909 treaty prohibits contamination from water, land, are out there too. Stretching more large-scale diversions from any and air sources. The lakes. serve as than 2,200 miles from the mouth of the U.S.-Canada boundary water without the traps for pollutants carried by rivers St. Lawrence River, in Canada, to the consent of the IJC or both governments. from watersheds containing head of , the lakes and their The treaty also provides for redress if approximately 20 percent of our connecting channels allow previously either government diverts lakes (such as nation's industry and population. landlocked ports to engage in Michigan) or streams which flow into Also, toxic contaminants international trade. , Chicago, boundary waters. concentrate by factors of hundreds , Duluth, and Toledo are Because of this, the question of of thousands to one as they move among the Midwest's port cities. diversion can only get bigger and more through the food chain from water The Lake Carrier Association, a trade contentious as the water crisis worsens into fish eaten by millions of group representing the operators of in certain parts of the United States. The people. Great Lakes bulk cargo ships, says 149.6 Midwestern resolve on this issue was GLNPO monitors water, air million tons of cargo were shipped on recently demonstrated when eight states deposition, sediments, and fish the lakes last year. Shipping, of course, and two Canadian provinces formed a tissue to identify hot spots and carries with it environmental problems, compact to review any proposed trends, using its research vessel as we saw by the invasion of the sea diversions. and through cooperation with lamprey which reached disasterous Of more short-term concern is the levels after the St. Lawrence Seaway extent to which Great Lakes water is various states, federal agencies, was christened. Other dangers include oi l withdrawn for uses such as irrigation and and universities. Other recent and chemical spills. The U.S. Army Corps industrial cooling and never put back. In activities include: preparation of of Engineers has been studying the 1975, such uses accounted for 4,950 phosphorus control plans in possibility of extending the winter cubic feet per second (cfs). In the year cooperation with the states to meet navigation season from mid-December 2000, the figure is expected to rise to target loads identified in the until late January, a move that would 8,420 cfs, and in 2035, these uses could Agreement; providing funds and involve some ice breaking and possible account for 16,000 to 37,000 cfs, largely technical support for the binational shoreline erosion and damage, along beca use of expected increases in thermal Toxics Committee with possible disruption of the normal power plant cooling needs. For and its report; achieving agreement winter habitat of Great Lakes fish. comparative purposes, let me mention on uniform fish consumption I think I've touched on the major ways that 238,000 cfs flow out the St. advisories by the four Lake the lakes affect our lives. These will not Lawrence into the . Michigan states; and initiation of an change, but what will change are the Consumption and diversion make a intensive binational and interagency kinds of issues we as a nation must face significant impact on fisheries. The lower study of the Upper Great Lakes in connection with the lakes. water levels reduce the marshes and connecting channels between lakes Perhaps the most emotionally charged littoral waters so vital to fish spawning Superior, Huron, and Erie. D of these issues is that of diverting Great and growth. Ha lf of the wetlands

4 EPA JOURNAL The Five Sister Lakes: A Profile

by Jack Lewis

ake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake LHuron, Lake Erie, : five sister lakes, five "Great Lakes." And the word "great" is not at all inappropriate to describe their size and their importance: Consider the following facts: •Together the Great Lakes form the largest surface expanse of fresh water in the world (94,560 square miles); •All five of the Great Lakes are ranked among the fifteen largest lakes in the world: in terms of surface area, Lake Superior ranks second; , fifth; Lake Michigan, sixth; Lake Erie, eleventh; anci Lake Ontario, fourteenth; • Completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 connected the Great Lakes to form the largest freshwater transportation network in the world. This barrier to navigation of the Great Lakes. to his disappointment, only Indians were deep waterway stretching 2,200 miles Indian canoe travel was the most on hand to greet him when he stepped from Duluth, Minn., to the Atlantic Ocean ambitious form of shipping the Lakes ashore! handles over 350 million tons of cargo witnessed for most of their long history. French exploration of the Great Lakes every year; Various tribes contended for control of never led to China, but it did lead to the the region. The powerful Iroquois tribes foundation of a massive new colony •United States and Canadian cities along monopolized Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and known as Canada . Jesuit missionaries, the shores of the Great Lakes comprise Lake Huron, while the Chippewa who played a great role in settling the the largest industrial complex in the dominated Lake Superior. Lake Michigan Canadian wilderness, called the Great world. More than 40 million people-15 was home to several tribes: the Lakes "seas of sweet water. " At the time, percent of the U.S. population and 25 Winnebago, the Sauk, the Menominee, this was not poetic hyperbole. Before the percent of the Canadian population-live and the Miami. onslaught of the Industrial Revolution, and work in these communities. Some Legend has it that another primitive the Great Lakes "seas of sweet experts predict that a single Great Lakes were tribe of warriors-the Vikings-reached water." megalopolis will one day extend all the the Great Lakes during the Middle Ages, The founder of , Antoine de la way from Milwaukee to . but the authenticity of presumed Viking Mothe Cadillac, also marvelled at "the The natural processes that formed the artifacts found in Ontario and sparkling and pellucid water" of the Great Lakes began at least 32,000 years has been subject to question. Great Lakes. Cadillac regarded the shores ago. Huge masses of ice, known as the The Westerner generally credited with of the Great Lakes , circa 1701 , as a Wisconsin glaciation, carved out lake discovering the Great Lakes is the French latter-day Garden of Eden: " The banks beds as they advanced south over the explorer, Samuel de Champlain. He stood are so many vast meadows where the surface of North America. The glaciers on the shores of Lake Huron in 1615, freshness of these beautiful lakes keeps began receding approximately 18,000 but he paid scant attention to the the grass always green. These same years ago. By 5,000 B.C., the Great Lakes discovery in his journal. Champlain's meadows are fringed with long and had assumed roughly their present form. objective had not been to discover a new broad avenues of fruit trees which have But even at 7 ,000 years of age, the Great lake. Like Columbus before him, he was never felt the careful hand of the Lakes are considered "young" compared obsessed by the quest for an ocean route watchful gardener; and fruit trees, young to lakes in other parts of the world. to China. and old, droop under the weight and The Great Lakes flow eastward down Champlain's quest for a passage to multitude of their fruit, and bend their to the sea. Lake Superior and Lake China was still continuing in 1634 when branches towards the fertile soil which Michigan are 600 feet above sea level, he ordered Jean Nicolet to explore the has produced them." while Lake Ontario-below Niagara "Lake of the Illinois," now known as Lake After another great Frenchman, the Falls-has an elevation of 250 feet. A Michigan. Nicolet carried with him in his Chevalier de La Salle, claimed the canal now takes shipping around Niagara birch canoe a robe of Chinese damask. for Louis XIV, the Falls between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, As he neared the shores of Green Bay, French Empire in North America but for centuries the Falls posed a major he put the damask over his buckskins. extended all the way from Nova Scotia Nicolet hoped he would soon be west to Lake Superior and south to the (Lewis is Assistant Editor of EPA Journal/ conferring with Ch inese merchants. Much Gulf of Mexico. French domination of the

MARCH 1985 5 northern half of that empire ended less completion of the largest freshwater its phenomenal growth has occurred than a century later when Britain scored transportation network in the world. since 1905! Today the American and a resounding victory in the French and When it opened in 1959, the Seaway was Canadian cities bordering the Great Lakes Indian Wars of 1754-1763. As the price of acclaimed as one of the wonders of comprise the largest industrial complex her military defeat, France had to cede modern engineering. in the world. both Canada and the Great Lakes to The century and a half between the Once-thriving Great Lakes industries Britain. War of 1812 and the opening of the St. such as lumbering and fishing have The next great historical upheaval in Lawrence Seaway in ·1959 was a period declined in importance as the natural the region was the American Revolution. of stupendous commercial and industrial riches on which they depend have During the early years of the Revolution, development in the . undergone depletion and deterioration. colonial rebels ended British control of The , completed in 1825, However, a great deal has been done the lands between the Great Lakes and connected Lake Erie with the Hudson since World War II to arrest and, in some the Ohio River. Other raids secured River and the major Atlantic seaport of cases, even to reverse these patterns of American positions in . Starting in 1829, freight decline. In this effort, environmentalists and northwestern Pennsylvania. The traffic between Lake Erie and Lake have been aided by the recent slowing of Great Lakes themselves saw only minor Ontario was able to skirt via population increases and economic naval skirmishes during the Revolution. the . The year 1848 marked growth in the Great Lakes region. American victory deprived the British another transportation milestone: Lake These stabilizing forces are helping to of their brief hegemony over the Great Michigan was joined to the Mississippi preserve the natural beauties of the Great Lakes. The Treaty of Paris, concluded in River through the completion of the Lakes, which have been drawing visitors 1783, used the Lakes to raise a natural Illinois Waterway. for over a century. Lake Ontario's barrier between the fledgling United An equally vital breakthrough occurred Niagara Falls-long the mecca of States and British Canada. The treaty in 1854 when an all-rail network at last honeymooners-remains by far the gave the rebels exclusive control of Lake connected New York to the Great Lakes greatest natural attraction in the entire Michigan and divided the other four trading town of Chicago. That tiny region. Lake Huron's Mackinac Island, Great Lakes right down the middle. frontier outpost was to mushroom into a with its fabled Grand Hotel, ranks a The War of 1812 unleashed the last metropolis over the next century, its distant second. Birdwatchers are drawn outbursts of violence along the boundary population increasing 150-fold. Railroads like the flocks of birds they observe to separating the United States from also hastened the development of other temperate Lake Erie, with its abundance Canada. In September 1813 American communities near the Lakes. Almost of aquatic plants. Spectacular sand dunes and British forces clashed in a major overnight, trains supplanted ships as the ornament the Indiana and Michigan naval battle on Lake Erie. The Americans, preferred mode of passenger travel. shores of Lake Michigan, which has led by Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, Many an ill-fated vessel had met its ruin receded considerably from its original emerged the clearcut victors. For the first on the tempestuous and unpredictable boundaries. time in their history, the British were waters of the Great lakes. less frequented by tourists is Lake forced to surrender an entire naval Freight traffic on the Lakes, however, Superior, which is protected from squadron. "We have met the enemy, and continued to grow by leaps and bounds. overcrowding by its remote northern they are ours," Commodore Perry Mineral riches, such as copper and iron location. Superior is by far the most reported in words destined to become as ore, moved in increasing quantities from magnificent of the Great Lakes-and still famous as his victory. the more rustic northern Great Lakes to the purest. With its 3,000 miles of rocky The recipient of Perry's immortal the urban manufacturing centers of coastline, it ranks as the largest dispatch was General William Henry Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, freshwater lake in the world. In legend, Harrison, already famous for his 1811 Pennsylvania, and New York. To Lake Superior was the home of the victory over the Shawnee chieftain, accommodate this growing volume of Indian gods, America's answer to Mt. Tecumseh, at Tippecanoe Creek, Ind. raw materials and finished products, Olympus. These Indian spirits are still Together Harrison and Perry proceeded heavier steamboats began crowding out said to haunt Superior's Apostle Islands, to drive the British from Detroit. In the sailing ships that had once reigned which were immortalized by Henry October 1813 they subjected the enemy supreme on the Lakes. Wadsworth Longfellow in "The Song of to a final defeat on the Thames River in A curious aberration in the history of Hiawatha." Ontario. In 1840 "Tippecanoe" Harrison the Great Lakes occurred between 1849 Nature rules the world of Great Lakes was elected President of the United and 1856 when a devout Mormon named tourists, but the everyday life of Great States. But a chill he caught at his James J. Strang claimed that heavenly Lakes residents is, for good or ill, in inauguration was to make Harrison's voices had instructed him to take human hands. Decades of urbanization tenure in office the briefest in American possession of Beaver Island in Lake and industrialization have taken their toll, history. Michigan. There he was to reign for six as has the increased volume of shipping Since 1813, the relationship between years over a thriving society of on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Lakes Erie the United States and Canada has been polygamists as the first and only "King" and Ontario, plus the southern end of extraordinarily peaceful. The Rush-Bagot in the history of the American republic. Lake Michigan, have suffered the most agreement of 1817 and the Boundary Finally, in the summer of 1856, Mormon noticeable damage. Waters Treaty of 1909 laid a solid assassins and mainland invaders brought Fortunately, the nearly pure waters of groundwork for U.S.-Canadian harmony. a bloody end to Strang's strange dreams Lake Superior flow into all the other Both countries take pride in the fact that of royal splendor. Great Lakes, so the potential for restored no armaments have been deployed along Technology and progress were "king" water quality-however slow-does still their common border in nearly a century. elsewhere in the Great Lakes. Duluth, exist. But it will take years of concerted U.S.-Canadian cooperation was to Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, Rochester, and effort on the part of all the states and reach its peak in the 1950s. Planning and Buffalo all prospered as the nineteenth provinces bordering the Lakes to save construction of the monolithic St. century gave way to the twentieth. One them for future generations. If the Great Lawrence Seaway drew the two countries of the greatest industrial centers in the Lakes are to remain "Great," nothing less together in an uncommon mission: world-Gary, lnd.-did not even exist will do.O when the twentieth century began; all of

6 EPA JOURNAL The Benefits of a Cleaner Lake Erie by Henry J. Nowak

he fortunes of Lake Erie and Buffalo, and recreational potential has been T New York, are inseparable. rediscovered. Residents now look toward Just as the lake was the key to the waterfront and see what they haven't nineteenth century Buffalo's growth and been able to recognize in 20 years-a development into the "Queen City of the clean lake and shoreline. The emphasis is Lakes," today it is again being viewed as on redeveloping this underutilized the key to the city's revitalization. While waterfront property and taking advantage the lake and the city suffered through of the tremendous federal investment in bleak times-the lake from environmental improving water quality. damage, Buffalo from economic Baltimore, Boston, and Toronto are a deterioration-today Lake Erie and few cities that have already developed Buffalo together look forward to a their ports into commercial , residential, brighter future. Ironically, the and recreational attractions. The Port of combination of the decline in heavy Buffalo is making marked progress in this industry along the Buffalo area direction. The Erie Basin Mari na and the waterfront and the improved quality of Buffalo Naval and Servicemen's Park are Lake Erie water has led to a rediscovery recent developments that have helped of the lake as a reservoir of vast potential stimulate construction of residential for improving the quality of life. condominiums and restaurants along the Two decades ago, people were downtown waterfront, with a Marina describing the lake as dead or dying. But, Marketplace retail entertainment complex to borrow from Mark Twain, the reports awaiting the start of construction. of its death were greatly exaggerated. These are just a few of the recent Lake Erie-the "dying lake," as it was developments along Buffalo's five-mile termed in the late '60s- has been cleaned lake front. Because of the tremendous up and revitalized as a "swimmable and potential for this newest frontier, the city fishable" freshwater resource. Since has commissioned a Waterfront Planning 1972, more than $14 billion has been Board to study the many proposals invested in the restoration of the Great submitted tor the waterfront and to make Lakes, due to an unprecedented bilateral recommendations for a 30-year master comm itment by the U.S. and Canadian plan. One of the planning board's tasks governments at federal and will be to link Buffalo's new light rail state/provincial levels. Although there is rapid transit system, a downtown much more that needs to be done, we pedestrian mall (under construction), and have made measurable progress in a planned baseball stadium with the restori ng the quality of one of the world's waterfront. major sources of fresh water. Much of my effort in the past few years During this period, many cities on Lake in Congress has been to foster this goal. I Erie experienced a change in their have been seeking federal and state economies. Smokestack industries, such funds for a variety of projects to act as a as steel and automobile plants, have magnet to attract broader private closed or relocated. For some investment. These projects include a loca lities-like Buffalo-this has brought Gateway Bridge linking downtown to the about a major restructuring of the waterfront. an expanded and modernized economic base. The emphasis now is on roadway for easier pedestrian and seeking to diversify the economy and vehicular access, a reconstructed small looking for sustainable and viable boat harbor, additional boat lau nching commercial and recreational sites, a safe fishing pier for shoreline growth. Clean water plays an important fishing, and an artificial fishing reef to act role in this process. as a fish habitat and spawning ground. With the de-emphasis on steel and One added attraction to t he Buffalo heavy industrial uses for the Buffalo lakefront has been improved sport fishing waterfront, for example, its economic in the Golden Triangle: the region in the

MARCH 1985 7 eastern basin bounded by Buffalo, Point participation by public officials, private Aga111sr tJ,r> Buffa o skyl111e, b 1tr>r<. pr n ir Abino, and Sturgeon Point. Smallmouth interests, and concerned citizens. fc r a Jdy o1 sumn er sari nq 11 L 1k( f 1 c bass, walleye, trout, and salmon have all One of the conference sponsors, the begun to increase in population and Great Lakes Laboratory of Buffalo State attract fishermen-tourists to our area. College, has, w ith my support, been However, while the increased role of Because of increasing interest among conducting research on the population the federal government is debated in fishermen and recreational boaters, I will dynamics of the sport fish species in the Congress, the states must also be continue to pursue assistance for water eastern basin. The Corps of Engineers prepared to play a broader role in resource access and infrastructure has lent the lab a research vessel at my environmental protection. improvement on the Lake Erie waterfront. suggestion. Here in New York, our own state Federal support for maintaining the Great Because of the revived interest in the Department of Environmental Lakes water quality is an essential waterfront, and a sense of momentum Conservation has just concluded a ingredient in the success of this effort. toward the achievement of a renewed three-year Niagara River Toxic Study to One does not have to look far to see sustainable economic base, I am working determine the sites and extent of the the economic benefits gained from the closely with New York's Governor Mario toxic dumps in and around the Niagara sport fishing industry. In Lake Erie's Cuomo to provide funds in the upcoming River. As a result of this study, additional western basin, the walleye population state budget for improved access, research will be conducted to determine has made such a remarkable recovery increased fish stocking, and the initiation how best to clean up these sites. The since 1975 that it now supports a $350 of the artificial reef project. Governor has announced he will provide million industry just from sport fishing, While this economic transition is a additional f unding for hazardous waste marinas, and retail development along priority among the many waterfront site cleanup, expand the definition of the Sandusky, Ohio, waterfront. initiatives, the commitment toward a hazardous waste, and provide for stricter While the transition from a heavy clean and safe Lake Erie environment is enforcement of pollution control laws. industrialized waterfront to a commercial­ even greater. With the recent discovery We must devise ways to improve U.S. residential-recreational waterfront is of ground-water toxics contaminating and Canadian government and Great underway in Buffalo, a great deal of many sources of drinking water Lakes provincial/state cooperation in planning and research still needs to be throughout the country, protecting fresh maintaining and addressing common done. Fortunately, this too is taking water remains a critically important environmental concerns. W ith a sincere, place. In addition to the efforts of the issue. We must continue our efforts to coordinated bilateral commitment from Waterfront Planning Board, other studies further curb point source and nonpoint the federal and state governments we are being conducted to determine if the source pollution of our watersheds. could ensure an even cleaner and Port of Buffalo should be moved down to Because of the complex nature of healthier Great Lakes environment for the the abandoned Bethlehem Steel property pollution and waste treatment, the decades ahead. where the space and facilities may be federal government is often the only For Buffalo and other Great Lakes better utilized- making additional space recourse for dealing with the devastating cities, the investments in envi ronmental available for harborfront activity, environmental atrocities we have protection will continue to pay including a public beach. witnessed. Therefore, Congress must incalculable dividends in terms of Just this past summer in Buffalo we insist on effective implementation of economic growth and urban witnessed the tremendous display of federal legislation such as the Clean revitalization. 0 interest that exists in the lake as a Water Act, the Resource Conservation multi-purpose resource. Three Lake Erie and Recovery Act, and Superfund. conferences were held with wide

8 EPA JOURNAL Hovv Canada Controls Great Lakes Pollution by J. D. Kingham

(Or Kingham rs Regional Director General of he Great Lakes constitute one of the information on the feasibility of the Envrronment Canada m the Ontano Region, Tmost important natural resources in required reduction and the associated and rs Co-Cha1r of the Wiltc1 Oual1tv Board North America. They have had a costs. of the lnternauonal Joint Comm1ss1on. tremendous impact on Canadian history Since the early 1970s, Canada and Environment Canada 1s that country's and economic development. Their water Ontario together have spent over $1.8 env1ronme11tal protecuon agency J and fish have been and will continue to billion to bu ild and upgrade sewage be important in our overall economic treatment facilities to meet the objectives activity, and they constitute a medium for of the 1972 and 1978 Water Quality human transportation unique in the Agreements. The single most dramatic world. But more than just support for our act, however, for the reduction of physical survival, the refreshing breezes phosphorus in the Great lakes was that and inspiring panorama of the Great of the Canadian federal government in its Lakes create a singularly significant regulation of phosphorus in household resource for the spirit. laundry detergents under the Canada Simply stated, the major threats to the Water Act of 1972. Great Lakes are changes in their water The resu lts have been clea r. There has levels, eutrophication, and toxic chemical been a reduction in algal blooms (which contamination. These problems were result from the excess nutrients) and the clearly recognized by the International associated fouling of beaches. A Joint Commission, and the latter two significant comeback in valuable fish problems were meant to be dealt w ith in species, as a consequence of cleaner the 1972 and 1978 versions of the U.S.­ water, has also been observed. Open lake Canadian Great Lakes Water Quality and near-shore phosphorus levels have Agreement. decreased in many areas. A growing Progress with respect to lake water interest in urban waterfront levels has demonstrated dramatically the developments and parks has been extent of cooperation that exists between another positive result. Canada and the United States. Similarly, But we cannot stop here. There is still attempts to control the eutrophication a need to get control over the diffuse problem (essentially the over-feeding sources of phosphorus in the Great Lakes with nutrients of plant life in basin, in particular runoff of nutrients lakes as a result of human activity) have from land, arising from the application of also been very encouraging. The toxic fertilizers containing phosphorus to chemical problem has proven very agricultural fields in the basin. Here difficult to solve. It is not intractable, again, the Canadian federal government however, and the technology and and the Province of Ontario have worked capability to deal with it exist now. cooperatively to develop a phosphorus management plan which should become Canada and Ontario Work Together a key component in the renewed Canada-Ontario Agreement. The Federal Government of Canada Progress in the toxic chemicals area concluded an " Agreement Respecting has been much more difficult. Some Great Lakes Water Quality" with the definite steps have already been taken. In Province of Ontario in 1971. This 1977, for instance, Canada passed an agreement, in anticipation of the 1972 Environmental Contaminants Act. This U.S.-Canadian Great lakes Water Quality act has been used to ban or control toxic Agreement, established the basis for a chemicals such as PCBs and cooperative federal and provincial mirex-chemicals which were program to control phosphorus from contaminating the waters of the Great domestic waste. An extensive research lakes. The water quality objectives of the program was conducted, and a 1978 Great lakes Water Quality cooperative technology development and Agreement have been adopted by the demonstration program yielded

MARCH 1985 9 A~ part or cl her nnc1 CJ ill (JP monitor ny p1owam, mr:mhers al the C in ic/ian W//d/1te Sen1ce co/lo ·t cqys tJ tLSI fo1 11ac1• elem nts of toxic chemical<;

possible. In particular, the Water Quality Board has proposed a new, more rigorous approach to the scheduled cleanup of toxic chemicals in specific geographical areas of concern. Another new approach which is being investigated on both sides of the border has to do with a more rapid response to already identified problems. By singling out the most serious known chemical contaminants in the Great Lakes (the "dirty dozen," for instance), we can recommend to the eight U.S. states, the Province of Ontario, and the two federal governments control measures to deal with those pollutants. The Canadian Fisheries Act has the potential to be one of the most powerful pollution prevention tools in the world. Under this act it is an offense for anyone to put any quantity of a substance which might be harmful to fish in any waters Province of Ontario and are incorporated program which yielded very good results which are frequented by fsh. The in effluent limitation control measures in was the herring gull egg monitoring application of this act, however, reflects that province. program. the reality of human existence: that we Because herring gulls feed on Great produce by-products as a consequence of Toxic Chemicals: The Biggest Lakes fish, and because those fish our daily life and must therefore temper Problem have already concentrated toxics through our authority to prohibit pollution with their feeding on lower organisms in the We are faced with the problem of what the reality that humans as well as other food chain, we expected that the herring to do about the introduction of new and species have to live on this planet. gull population would be the most potentially dangerous chemicals into the Although the actual appli cation of sensitive indicator of the effects of toxic Great Lakes, while at the same time Canadian legislation, both federal and chemicals in the Great Lakes. This proved trying to make progress on the cleanup provincial, results in standards which to be the case. The herring gull of existing problems. These problems are achieve similar ends to those used in the monitoring program, a joint program of wide-ranging, including atmospheric United States, the potential for the most the Canadian Wildlife Service and the deposition, contaminated sediments, stringent control possible clearly exists in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, produced discharges from industry, and the the Fisheries Act. compelling evidence for controls in leaching of toxic chemicals from waste Canadian methods for control of Ontario and in the U.S. states bordering dump sites in the . pollutants in the Great Lakes basin may the Great Lakes. For its part, the Province of Ontario has be different from those in the United established a "Blueprint for Waste States, but in conj unction with control Unfinished Business Management" that applies to waste measures south of the border, we have materials of clearly defined toxicity. It would be misleading to paint a rosy already made some significant strides Ontario's programs and initiatives are picture of the health of the Great Lakes towards improving the health of this supplemented by a federal Toxic with respect to toxic chemicals. The particular ecosystem. Continued Chemicals Management Program which reality is that the lakes are contaminated cooperation between the Canadian promotes a cradle-to-grave approach to with hundreds of them, many of which federal and provincial governments will chemicals of concern. Canada is also in are of direct concern to the ecosystem lead to improved water quality in the the forefront of international measures to and human health. For many of these Great Lakes. When this cooperation is identify, characterize, and register new chemicals, there are inadequate coupled with the international chemicals as they come on the market. guidelines and a consequent lack of cooperation between our two countries, One of the more innovative approaches substantive control programs. No wonder the prospect for even greater which Canadians adopted for the the public is concerned. improvements is encouraging. detection of low levels of toxic chemicals But there is a great deal that can be We have the tools, the knowledge, and in the Great Lakes was a program which done-and can be done in the short the capability to deal with the pollution used living species, in their natural term. A new approach to the work of the problems of the Great Lakes. It remains setting, as indicators of the health of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board and the to be seen whether we, collectively, have Great Lakes ecosystem. One particular implementation of the findings of that the will to act. 0 Board on both sides of the border is

10 EPA JOURNAL SA Kmg

observing which organisms thrive, which of miles of shoreline. It provides the ones die, how fast they grow, what setting for man and nature's Learning abnormalities occur, and how the collaborative experiment in physics, chemicals are distributed between biology, geology, chemistry, limnology, in the sediment, water, and animal and plant and toxicology, and also in political life. The information gained in t his tiny science , economics, sociology, and law. world helps develop scientific The experimental design includes man Great Lakes understanding of chemical interaction first as the perturber of the natural 11 with nature. environment, then as one of the Nature, by contrast, provides the real perturbed species, and, finally, as the Lab" world macrocosm; roughly 15,000 years scientist and manager. ago she created her own experimental Nature stocked the Great Lakes with by William L. Richardson laboratory on the North American thousands of organisms, from continent, and in doing so provided microscopic bacteria and plankton to lake today's scientists a la rger laboratory in trout and huge sturgeon. This ecosystem which to study and predict the impact of maintained its natural equilibrium for chemical pollutants on our w aters and centuries, first supporting sparse human the life within them, and on the food populations of native Americans and chain and water supply that ultimately early European settlers. What human nvironmental scientists take great sustain human life. wastes entered the lakes over a century Epains in planning and executing their Th is experiment began w ith immense ago were rapidly purified by natural laboratory experiments. EPA and other sheets of ice, miles thick, slowly carving processes. But when the forests were water pollution scientists meticulously enormous aquaria from the earth as they harvested to supply wood to eastern and design experimental chambers, ca lled advanced southward. After centuries of southern cities, the feeder streams and microcosms, to simulate the reactions, grinding and gnawing, these glaciers rivers were choked w ith pulp and fate, and effect of chemica ls in aquatic retreated, leaving in their wake five sediments that destroyed important systems. They m im ic nature as they magnificent shining emeralds, the spawning areas. This was man's first carefully control temperature, light, and, Laurentia n Great Lakes. serious interference (or "perturbation") finally, the addition of chemicals, This vast "macro-laboratory" covers with the region's ecosystems. the five main lakes, the connecting Few scientifi c observations were made r hdt(JS )I) 1S chief of E1)1\ 's I II /C L ik! channels and hundreds of feeder until typhoid struck many Great Lakes Hcs1 c11ch SI 1t1on 1· G' ' t /It, 'vh /J ·tributaries, embayments, and thousands towns in the early 1900s. The

MARCH 1985 11 typhoid-related studies resulted from the actions. The Great Lakes fell off as a result of PCB-contaminated 1909 U.S.-Canada Boundary Waters Basin Project (GLIRBP) provided the first salmon used as food. Treaty and the establishment of the comprehensive water quality information Asbestos became the issue in Lake International ~oint Commission (IJC), a for the lakes and it was used in a Superior when scientists found it to be a binational body that negotiates landmark decision on diversions through dangerous component in the taconite international concerns about the Great the Chicago . tailings dumped into the lake by the Lakes and other common water systems. At first, there was little need for Reserve Mining Company plant. Those These earliest studies, from 1913 to sophisticated science in dealing with findings contributed to a major court 1916, focused on the connecting problems of gross pollution, i.e., grease, decision. And, most recently, toxaphene, channels-the Niagara River, Detroit raw sewage, bacteria, dissolved solids, a pesticide used primarily in the southern River, St. Clair River, and Lake St. and the like. Judges and enforcement United States, was banned after it was Clair-rather than the main lakes. The panels were usually convinced by the found in fish in a lake on Isle Royale in research centered on bacterial photographic evidence and data the middle of Lake Superior. contamination from domestic sewage summaries showing blatant violations of Today, over 800 chemicals have been and found, for example, that the water quality norms. But as we became identified by research scientists studying connecting channels flowing from Detroit more aware of the many chemicals Great Lakes fish samples. Health into Lake Huron reversed their direction involved and their potential impact not advisories remain in effect in many parts from time to time, bringing the raw only on the ecology but also on human of the lakes. sewage back into the drinking water health, the 1970s saw the growth of As minute as some of the loadings of intakes. As a result of the research and research and surveillance efforts. chemicals are, biomagnification may its recommended solutions, drinking Coordinated binational, interagency concentrate them up to a millionfold at waters were treated and disinfected and programs collected data and developed the top of the food chain. It is not yet the sewers relocated. Later, primary mathematical models to help predict the clear what real impact or risks many of wastewater treatment was instituted. future consequences of man's impact on these chemicals may present, either Since the early 1900s, pollutants have the lakes and provide insights into optimal alone or in combination. There is some flowed into the Great Lakes from control strategies. evidence that toxic substances may be growing industrial centers on or near As oil slicks were diminished by better preventing lake trout reproduction in their shores. Other pollutants have fallen waste treatment and controls, new Lake Michigan and may be retarding from the atmosphere over the lakes' vast studies revealed a more ominous other ecosystem functions. The presence surfaces or come from pleasure boats problem that had been overshadowed by of tumorous fish and deformed fish and ore and grain ships carrying their previous, more obvious concerns. larvae may also indicate contaminant cargoes from as far west as Duluth to the Eutrophication had accelerated effects. St. Lawrence Seaway. Nuclear power proliferation of plant life in the lakes. The Because it is impossible to study all the plants discharge cooling waters into the bottom waters of Lake Erie were void of chemicals in every area of the lakes at fakes. At one point in the 1960s, Lake Erie oxygen for much of the summer. one time, researchers have chosen to was declared dead or dying. Shoreline residents complained of study thoroughly a few chemicals at a As all these elements were introduced massive weed mats and floating green small number of locations. Now under into the Great Lakes "laboratory," the scum. Water treatment plant operators study are radionuclides and PCBs in Lake extent of American and Canadian complained of clogged intake filters, and Michigan; heavy metals and PCB-like research grew and became much more citizens objected to the musty taste and compounds in Monroe Harbor, Mich.; sophisticated. The first Conference on odors of drinking water. PCB mixtures and metals in Saginaw Great Lakes Research in July 1953, Researchers using deep-water vessels Bay, Mich.; and aromatic hydrocarbons sponsored by the University of were able to get water, sediment, and in the near-shore waters of Lake Michigan's Great Lakes Research plant and other samples from all parts of Michigan. Division, led to organization of the Lake Erie. They found that the Chemical pollution involving International Association for Great Lakes combination of waste contaminants compounds like DDT and mercury, and Research, which today has over 1,000 pouring into its waters was stimulating other concerns in the Great Lakes members. plant growth to the point where decaying coincided with increased national Larger research and monitoring vegetation was depleting the oxygen awareness of environmental degradation, programs followed in the wake of new needed by fish and other helpful the establishment of EPA in 1970, the and more serious environmental and organisms. They were also able to relate signing of the U.S.-Canadian Great Lakes public health concerns. When wildlife the problem to the seasons of the year. Water Quality Agreement in 1972, and was destroyed in the 1950s by The end result? Mathematical passage of the Federal Water Pollution continuous oil slicks in the , predictions that correctly forecasted Control Act. In 1971, EPA established its enraged duck hunters and early quality improvements that could be research program on the Great Lakes at environmentalists carried the oil-soaked achieved if the input of phosphorus was Grosse lie, Mich., and in 1978 created the carcasses to the steps of state capitols reduced. This research led to a billion Great Lakes National Program Office in and lobbied furiously in Washington. The dollar cleanup program and vast Chicago. Much of EPA's Great Lakes general public was alarmed when improvements in Lake Erie. research and surveillance is supported beaches were closed to swimming, when The research also led to initiation of through the agency's Region 5 office in windrows of dead fish lined the Chicago new studies of toxic substances. As a Chicago. beaches. and when the Cuyahoga and result. DDT was banned when Most recently, a coordinated study has Rouge Rivers actually caught fire. researchers confirmed its impact on Lake been started to investigate the Upper With the survival of the Great Lakes Michigan wildlife feeding on Great Lakes Great Lakes connecting channels. This ecosystem clearly at stake, the public fish (fish are amazing collectors of study is continuing nature's experiment, demanded action. Under Public Law 660, pollutants in the waters in which they as scientists working in microlabs and anti-pollution enforcement and live). In 1969, mercury was found in fish the Great Lakes macrofab carry on man's comprehensive studies were initiated. in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River. It urgent efforts to keep his fresh waters Scientific data were collected and used was discovered that mink reproduction clean and the food chain safe. O as evidence in federal/state enforcement

12 EPA JOURNAL Thinking Ecologically in Lakes Protection

by Lee Botts

Dead Jlewrves float on the Chicago shorel1r1e In "tne qreat alewife d1eoff" of 1967, Lake M1ch1gan beaches were unusaole for a summer and drtnkmg water intakes \i\· ere clogged for weeks.

dozen years ago, Canada and the A United States agreed to clean up the Great Lakes, and much progress was made. But .... While most beaches are now open to swimming, more fish have tumors than before. Algae are less abundant since the amount of phosphorus coming into the lakes has been reduced, but evidence is pili ng up that growing toxic contamination threatens the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem and its inhabitants. Moreover, solutions to some Great Lakes problems may have made others worse. Environmental managers still face many dilemmas. For example, direct discharges of industrial wastes are largely controlled under the permit system of the Clean Water Act. yet toxic chem icals and heavy metals are still entering the lakes from the atmosphere. Research fostered by the Great Lakes agreement with Canada has shown that atmospheric deposition must be the only source of many toxic contaminants to the Upper Great Lakes (Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and northern Lake Michigan). Studies indicate that even in the case of Lake Michigan, with many industrial sources at the southern end, half the total load of toxic contaminants and heavy metals may now be entering the lake from the air. How these contaminants got into the air is not fully understood. The routes are believed to include evaporation from agricultural spraying and landfills, vaporization in industrial treatment systems, and incomplete combustion. Cou ld it be that prevention of direct discharges of industrial wastes into chemicals into the atmosphere? have returned and fishing is better than it waterways has displaced more toxic The diversion of industrial wastes into has been for years. Nonetheless, a recent publicly owned treatment plants creates study found that the sewage treatment another dilemma when the result is plant is now a large source of toxic concentration of toxic chemicals in the chemicals going into the St. Louis River (Botts founaed the Lake Michigan sewage effluent. The St. Louis River is and Lake Superior. Federation, a citizens group concerned with the largest tributary flowing into Lake Since the cleanup of the conventional Great Lakes cleanup She 1s also the former Chair of the Great Lakes Basin Superior. Since Duluth built its huge new pollutants from the river, the sea lamprey Commission, a water planning agency, and sewage treatment plant, the river is so has also begun to spawn there. This 1s now research associate at the Center for much cleaner insofar as conventional means that the sea lamprey is now Urban AffaJrs and Policy Research of pollutants are concerned that the walleye spreading throughout the Great Lakes Northwestern University.)

MARCH 1985 13 system. The lamprey is the parasitic The coho and chinook salmon introduced invader from the ocean that first entered to eliminate the alewife are now the most the Great Lakes through the St. Lawrence prized sport fish. But epidemio logical Seaway and earlier manmade . By studies have shown that levels of PCBs in attaching itself to large fish, the sea humans are related to the quantity of lamprey kills them. It had almost Great Lakes fish they eat. Stocking fish destroyed the lake trout in Lake Michian thus increases human exposure to by the 1940s. contaminants if the health warnings are That removal of lake trout as Lake not heeded. Michigan's leading predator was Concern about human exposure has followed by explosive growth of the also been intensified by a high rate of lake's alewife population. The alewife is a genetic defects in fish-eating cormorants small Atlantic herring that also entered ~ that nest on islands in Green Bay. It is the Great Lakes through canals but is not ~ suspected that the cormorants now born well-adapted and tends to die off in the ~ with crossed bills have been affected by spring. "The great alewife dieoff" in Lake c: dioxins or dibenzofurans. Michigan in 1967 was one of the all-time -Si The Clean Water Act regulates the Great Lakes ecological disasters. ] quality of effluent in direct discharges Thousands of tons of decaying :g from municipal sewage treatment alewives clogged drinking water intakes ~ systems and industrial sources. No such for weeks and made beaches unusable discharges flow into Lake Siscowet on all around the lake all summer. Public \11fformar1ons m fish ellfl D1rcts, 1ch a· tr Isle Royale (which has been a wilderness fear was intensified when botulism crossr.;d bill of rh1s Forestr.;r';, cerf' cllick, national park since 1910). Yet high levels l!ave prompt d concvrn ubour toxic caused a massive dieoff of fish-eating of PCBs were detected in trout from the subsranws m the Gr ?.it Lakes birds. When the State of Michigan isolated lake in 1975, and high toxaphene introduced coho and chinook salmon levels were found in 1980. The toxics, from the Pacific northwest into Lake to be permanently secure and pollutants obviously, could only have come from Michigan in the mid-1960s, the chief often escape from diked disposal sites. the air. Yet chemicals can only be reason was to provide new predators to Biological recycling of organic classified as hazardous under the Clean reduce the number of alewives. Then the contaminant sediments back into the Air Act if they pose a hazard from direct plan was to reestablish the lake trout water also occurs. In the 1960s, mercury exposure. Neither law takes population. discharges into Lake St. Clair and the bioaccumulation in the food chain into Now, twenty years later, there are only Detroit River had to be stopped because account, although this is the way human about a tenth as many alewives, but the bacteria converted the metal into health effects are most likely to be lake trout is not yet reproducing well poisonous methylated mercury. cau~ed by toxic contamination of the enough to sustain itself naturally. Now it has been shown that gases Great Lakes. Another Great Lakes Researchers at the University of excreted by bottom-feeding organisms environmental management dilemma! Wisconsin have found evidence that can pass into the atmosphere through In summary, the experience with the something, presumably a toxic chemical the water. In this way, and also by Great Lakes is a lesson in how some that inhibits reproduction, is passed from evaporation from the surface, it is solutions to environmental problems the adult fish to their eggs. The Fish and conceivable that chemicals that may have may make others worse. The crux of the Wildlife Service Great Lakes Laboratory entered the water from the air can be lesson is that solutions to single at Ann Arbor found that survival of recycled back into the atmosphere. problems must be considered in light of young fish seemed to be related to levels Although hundreds of chemicals have their impact on the whole ecosystem. of toxic substances. been found in the Great Lakes, in many Some of the most serious damage can To dredge or not to dredge? Another cases the levels in the water are so low be caused indirectly. Moreover, dilemma is how to clean up places where that they can be measured only by degradation that is caused indirectly can high concentrations of contaminants and sophisticated techniques such as gas be more difficult to reverse. Still, the metals have settled out into sediments. chromatography. There is much concern success in reducing phosphorus loadings Most such "toxic hot spots" are in about persistent organic chemicals that to the Great Lakes suggests that, w ith harbors or near the mouths of tributaries. concentrate in fatty tissues and enough research and determination, an The highest rates of fish tumors found so bioaccumulate up the food chain, like ecosystem approach to management that far have been among bottom-feeding fish PCBs. would prevent continued toxic like bullheads in the Buffalo River where Because treatment removes many contamination of the lakes is also sediments have high levels of chemical chemicals from drinking water, humans possible. contaminants. The worst accumulations receive the greatest exposure to chemical The classic definition of an ecosystem resulted from past direct discharges, like contaminants from eating fish. is the complex of physical resources and the high levels of PCBs (polychlorinated Concentrations of PCBs, dieldrin, mirex, the living organisms that depend on biphenyls) in Waukegan Harbor, Ill., and or chlordane exceed Food and Drug them. Humans have caused most of the the dioxins in Saginaw Bay, Mich. Administration standards in trout and problems in the Great Lakes ecosystem, Because physical removal by dredging salmon and are the reason fishing but they also have a large stake in can cause res uspension of some of the licenses for all the lakes except Superior solving them. D contaminants in the water, it was advise limiting consumption of certain formerly thought better to leave the fish. Because of the special vulnerability sediments undisturbed once the of the young, several states advise that pollutants had settled into them. women of childbearing age and children W ith dredging for navigation, the under five should never eat these fish. polluted sediments that were removed The economic contribution of sport were placed in secure landfills or diked fishing in a region that has been losing disposal areas. Now no landfill is thought its industrial base adds to the dilemma.

14 EPA JOURNAL Toxics: Today's Great Lakes Challenge by L. Keith Bulen

!Bu/en ts U S. Commts 1011e1 of the he environmental challenge of this Crapper perfected an earlier design by lntcrn

MARCH 1985 15 Mats of alqae rorru q on tilt' shores of Lake Ontano, one consequenct' of a lake overnounshed w,tf nutnents, known as eurroph1car10n The United Srares 1rw Canada have rnacfe ma1or g1ms m control/mg this problem on the Great La1-.es Eutroph1cauon proriuces much more v1s1ble po/lut1on Chan Che toxic sutJstance contam111at10n now c/Jdl/enrpng rho lakes cleanun

Eutrophication attracted considerable unregulated because of the lack of Additional research is needed on scientific and public concern, and in information on identification, fate, and renderi ng toxic materials harmless before 1972, the Great Lakes Water Quality effects. Regulation of the myriad of toxic their release into the environment. Agreement w as signed by the U.S. and substances on the single chemical-by­ Pre-treatment technologies for certain Canada. The two countries initiated a chemical assessment approach may not industrial wastes received by municipal coordinated international program to be sufficient to deal with interactions wastewater treatment plants require restore and maintain the quality of Great between chemicals. further expansion. Residual disposal Lakes water, and spent billions of dollars Nor will local or regional technologies such as land incineration to reduce phosphorus loadings from considerations alone suffice; the need additional research. Naive or municipal and industrial discharges. problems are transboundary. Toxaphene, indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes Unfortunately, the success story of used as an insecticide in the southern over many years is causing harm to the eutrophication control in the Great Lakes United States, has been detected in the environment now. We must move is too often overlooked as attention shifts Great Lakes basin, transported by air responsibly into the future with better to the problems of toxic contamination. currents across many political and detoxification mechanisms, cont rols, and watershed boundaries. Concerns about monitoring tools. Better yet, we should The Toxics Challenge toxic substances in the lakes must now generate less toxic waste materials at the extend beyond the Great Lakes basin. outset, promoting effective, not token, Toxic substances are mostly invisible, but Similarly, pollution cannot be viewed recycling efforts, and developing alarming tumorous growths on fishes in as a single medium problem. For non-toxic substitutes. polluted rivers and harbors and abnormal example, industrial solvents buried in Great Lakes water quality problems development in eggs and chicks of landfills leach through the soil and cannot be addressed adequately without fish-eating birds in the Great Lakes are become toxic chemicals in ground water heightened citizen concern and ominous evidence of their presence. Our and eventually can pollute nearby rivers involvement. Toxic contaminants are not awareness of the problem of toxic and lakes. In many respects, more nearly as visible as was eutrophication, substances has increased largely through stringent surface w ater quality controls so citizen concerns m ust provide some improvements in analytica l technology enacted in the past several decades have extra impetus for action. Improvements that al low scientists to measure a wider encouraged a shift of pollution from in industria l practices to reduce toxic array of compounds at smaller and direct surface water discharge to other substances must be encouraged. smaller concentrations. routes of entry such as the atmosphere Consumers must rea lize th at they have Even diluted, these hazardous and g round w ater. had far more impact on the generation of substa nces may exert adverse biological toxic substances than ever imagined. effects through bioaccumulation in Conclusion Without active community support, it is aquatic organisms in the food chain to probably beyond the reach of any agency levels which are eventually toxic. The transboundary and multimedia or government to achieve the objectives Ironica lly, the fishery in the Great Lakes features of the toxic substances problem of the Great Lakes Water Quality has been undergoing a phenomenal demand a more holistic, cooperative, Agreement. The challenge is, therefore, recovery in recent years but the levels of integrative, and multidisciplinary one to be met not only by governments, toxic contaminants in some species has approach than heretofore realized. Our industry, the scientific community, or prompted ca utionary hea lth advisories on understanding of environmental citizens, but by all four. consumption. problems is inadequate, and existing As President Reagan asked in his Specific regulatory measures have had legislation and regulatory practices may second Inaugural Address, " If not us, an impact on controlling levels of a few not fit the task before us. We need to who? If not now, when?" 0 toxic substances such as DDT and begin developing a comprehensive mercury. Many more, however, remain control strategy for toxic substances.

16 EPA JOURNAL Views from Other Vantage Points by Pau l MacClennan

[PA Jouu1al asker! three ;ourndl1srs I et's look at the year 2000. stories." In one such case, the claim was from rirffe1ent µarts of tl1e Great Lakes L Will the Great Lakes be restored to made that a fish had survived the trip from Lake Erie up the contaminated re91011 co wnte alJOut the status of tile the international goal of waters that are fully fishable, swimmable and drinkable? industrial waters of the Buffalo River. The lakes' c1w1ro11rnent from the11 vt1ntc1ge Two decades ago, alarmed by rivers boast was prematu re. wmers rue porn/'> The Paul that burned, beaches closed by bacteria, While not wholly satisfied w ith MacC!enniln, Buffnlo News, Cnsey and waters filled with rotting wastes, the progress and noting delays in Chicago, Buk10, Ch1cugo Tribune, and Dean United States and Canada knew they Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto, Rebuffonr, M1n11eapol1s St,ir ,md had to act. the International Joint Commission said T1 1bunc. All three 1eqularly wnte about The international water quality that overall , the lakes' water quality was Grent Lakes env1ronmenral matters. agreement that followed is a landmark improving and that eutrophication of Thelf views do not necessa11/y reflect and was the envy of the 140 nations Lake Erie had stabilized. those of £PA. Herc are the11 attending the United Nations Conference But even as the tide began to t urn on comments· on the Human Environment in "conventional pollutants," a new and Stockholm. The Great Lakes pact of 1972 more sinister threat emerged. The is a challenge that se t a new world problem of toxic and hazardous wastes standard for cooperative action on had been there all along, but it took Lois pollution abatement. It gave new hope Gibbs and a handful of Nia ga ra Falls for millions whose hea lth, welfare, jobs, housewives who lived at Love Canal to and recreation depend on pure water. rivet international attention on the issue States, provinces, and the two federal of wastes from a post-war chemical governments set about to rectify the industry run amuck. mistakes, misdeeds, and malfeasance of Overnig ht there was a new " Grea t the past, pledging to spend billions on Lakes crisis," the specter of often new sewage treatment plants and invisible, often undetected toxic and requiring industry to do the same. hazardous wastes turning up in water The pace often la gged as commitments samples, bottom sediments, and, more Some Great Lakes oeaches are stiff closed waned and communities wavered. One seriously, infiltrating the aquatic and because of potlut10n. agency started boasti ng of "success wildlife food chain. The threat of human wastes contaminating the lakes that dominated the 1970s quickly gave way to the threat of chemical wastes as the cha llenge of the 1980s. Scientists had long cautioned that the two nations m ust deal with the issue of nonpoint pollution. Almost rel uctantly, agreement was reached on a pact to limit llKJH POUUTION RfJ{)llfd the discharge of oxygen robbing ARE OfTU fa/#/) IA' phosphorus discharges in a m utual effort THESE WATERS .. to curb eutrophica tion tha t had despoil ed Lake Erie and led some to predict its " death." Toxic discharges proved more complex, harder to get at, less understood. Some of the enviro nm ental fervor of Earth Day w as gone. Government funding for research shriveled up. Superfund languish d and at best would deal w ith only a handful of sites threatening the lakes. Cle anup even at Love Cana l remains incomplete seven years la ter. Beaches are still being closed on the Great Lakes, fi sh caught in their waters carry health warning labels, and many persons perceive the drinking w ater as posing long-term threats to health. Jack Va llentyne, a courageous and outspoken Canadian scientist, warns that until we look at th e entire ecosystem,

MARCH 1985 17 by Casey Bukro until we deal with and treat all the forces been accomplished and where the t was back in 1978 when one of that comprise the Great Lakes system in players are going. IWashington's top environment officials its entirety, we will fail in the mission of One would like to be proven wrong, happened to see a shimmering blue restoration. but then one looks at the record of Love "ocean" from a downtown skyscraper Today our methods for dealing with Canal-a fiery boil likely to fester through while visiting Chicago. the hundreds of toxic dump sites that t his decade-and wonders if 15 years will "What's all that water out there7 " ring the lakes are primitive-analogous begin to erase or even diminish the asked the U.S. Environmental Protection to the first flight of Wilbur and Orville degradation of one of the world's great Agency official, who was told it was Lake Wright at Kitty Hawk in an age of space freshwater wonders. Michigan. flight. Later this year the International Joint The headline over a story recounting Can we meet this latest cha llenge by Commission will issue its report card on that tale said : " Bureaucrats note: That 2000? progress under the most recent Great blue stuff is the Great Lakes." At the present speed it appears unlikely Lakes Water Qua lity Agreement, That gaffe is still remembered in without major commitments for resea rch, formulated in 1978. Chicago as evidence of the ignorance or without strong emphasis on high Th e National Academy of Sciences and the indifference toward the Great Lakes technology applied to existing dumps the Royal Academy of Canada along with that often prevails in Washington. and disposal of new w astes and without the Center for the Great Lakes are At the time, Dr. Edith Tebo, director of high-level commitment to meeting terms already examining the Agreement to the EPA's Great Lakes program, said : of the Great Lakes Water Quality determine if changes are necessary to " There is still the sentiment lin her Agreement. None are in place. expedite the task of restoring and agency! that the Great Lakes are just little Why the pessimism? preserving the lakes. puddles across the northern border of M ore than a decade ago, the There are new brooms both at the country" and merely a "regional International Joint Commission (IJC). the Environment Canada and the problem." watchdog over government clea nup Environmental Protection Agency, but Seemingly unable to decide what to do efforts, identified 47 U.S. and Canadian both agencies face budget constraints with the Grea t Lakes program, EPA problem areas from Thunder Bay on Lake that exacerbate the allocation of limited moved the program's headquarters from Superior to the Oswego on Lake Ontario. resources. Chicago, to Washington, and back to The list and those problems are little There are a m ultitude of related issues: Chicago. changed today. from diversion of Great Lakes waters to M ore recently, midwes terners have In 1982 to focus on the most serious the west and south, to the impact of watched with interest as the Reaga n situations, the IJC cited 18 "Class A " deposition of airborne contaminants on administration pledged $10 mill ion in areas of concern from Saginaw Bay in the pristine upper lakes. 1985 toward the Chesapeake Bay Michigan to Hamilton Harbor in Ontario. Yet day by day the clock ticks on cleanup, and maybe another $10 million For the most part commission experts towards the twenty-first century-a in 1986. say that remedial measures planned or in century that could open on a high note of By contrast, the Great Lakes program place will not end contamination. concern for nature as evidenced in clean budget for 1985 is $4.1 million. New York, Ontario, and the two federal la kes and pure waters. Since a number of Washingtonians are governments had an ad hoc Niagara Each day we wait, each day we waste, known to sai l boats on the Chesapeake, River Toxics Committee focus on one of puts a clean environment in the year that body of water does not suffer from the problem areas, spending four years 2000 further out of reach. And while we an identity crisis- or a budget crisis. and $6 million to come up with 24 look at the year 2000, we must That is not to sa y midwesterners recommendations. Even if-and it's a remember that if w e fail the Great Lakes, begrudge Chesapeake Bay a helping big "if"- the money and manpower were that generation will look back at 1985 and hand. They recognize major waterways allocated, t hese recommended actions ask why. [ as national treasures. might not achieve results for another generation. And the Niagara River is just one of 18 such areas. Seven years after Love Canal, not a single major chemical dump site along the Niagara River has been contained, much less cleaned up, nor do we have basic information on the extent of toxic migration or the extent of ground-w ater contamination and its impact on the river and on Lake Ontario. Howev er, a Niagara River Toxics Committee reports that 61 dumps of some 164 within three miles of the river "have !been) or are contributing contaminants to the Niagara River." Dioxin-contaminated sludges believed to originate at Love Canal have been found both in tributary creeks and at sewer outfalls in the Niaga ra River adjacent to Love Canal. One fa ils to see t he methodical, day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year accounting, charting a path out of the toxic wilderness; nor, in the deluge of government paperwork, a box score or tomorrow's lineup telling what's

18 EPA JOURNAL by Dean Rebuffoni The Great Lakes were described in the issues that now confront the Great Lakes. late 1960s as dead or dying, although it They include: t has been .five years since a trickle of 1s popular these days to say such dire IReserve Mining Company's taconite predictions proved false. It is important •Toxic chemical levels in Great Lakes wastes flowed down a steel sluice, froze to remember that pollution trends at the fish, and what those concentrations in. the chill y air, and formed a long, gray time indicated the Great Lakes were in mean to people eating the fish. 1c1cle that tapered downward to the serious trouble, and the worst was M1dw.esterners are alarmed by a st udy steel-gray water of Lake Superior. predicted if trends continued. sh.owing that women eating Lake That was the last discharge into the It.was not hard to believe something M1ch1gan fish contaminated with PCBs lake from Reserve's ore-processing plant terrible was happening if you stood on gave birth to infants with behavioral at Silver Bay, Minn., 55 m iles northeast th~ banks of Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, abnormalities. of Duluth. For almost 25 years the plant a river that burst into flames had dumped 67,000 tons of wastes into •Toxic chemical content of Great Lakes occasionally, and saw thick mats of oil the lake each day. harbor sediments, which could be leaking and .grease ooze past like a gooey The ha lting of the disc harge on March like slow poison into the water and glacier. 18, 1980, was a milestone in one of the contaminating aquatic life. Or the Indiana Harbor canal that flowed nation's premier environmental disputes, like a melted chocolate bar past the oil •The.extent of atmospheric deposition in known formally as United States of refineries and steel mills near Gary, Ind. polluting the Great Lakes with toxics. America vs. Reserve M ining Company. Or the in Detroit that was For more than a decade, it had • Industrial pretreatment of as red as some of the fire-engine colored overshadowed other environmental toxic chemicals which are flushed into cars th at rolled oH the assembly lines at issues along the rim of Lake Superior: sewer systems that empty into the Great Ford Motor Co., which dumped 100,000 Lakes. the cleanup of the Duluth-Superior gallons of sulfuric acid pickle liquor into Harbor, a proposed all-winter shipping the river each day. With its $4.1 million budget for 1985, program, the airborne deposition of It .was impossible to look upon such the EPA Great Lakes program is largely chemical contaminants in the Jake's cold ~nv1ron~en~al ruin without wondering: confined to meeting its obligations under waters, etc. How did this happen?" Only to realize it the 1972 Great Lakes agreement with Starting in 1969, conservationists and a was the America n way in 1967. Canada and monitoring the open waters plethora of government agencies, These scenes, and the odors that of the lakes for phosphorus, the ind icator including the EPA, had fought to halt drifted from them, were overpowering. for nutrient pollution and eutrophication. Reserve's d ischarge. They prevailed This was the setting in which the U.S. EPA 1s dwelling on the first generation when the federal courts ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency was of Great Lakes pollution, meaning taconite wastes, which contain born, along with the so-called sewage and ce rtain industrial wastes. microscopic asbestos-type fibers, were environmental crusade. The Great Lakes research program is creating a potential health hazard. The In those early days, the environmental geared toward large-lake research. courts said the discharge had to be crusade clearly had a mission that could It needs to focus also on the new halted. be seen and sometimes smelled. The generation of Great Lakes pollution Reserve complied and, as pa rt of a record of environmental improvement in which includes toxics and might ev~n $370 m illio n program, bu ilt a the Great Lakes is impressive in many branch out to include likely 5.6-square-mile disposal basin five miles ways. environmental impact of major Great inland from the lake. In June 1980 it From 1971 through 1983, the United Lakes water diversion projects that are began dumping its ore wastes in the States spent $6.3 billion to construct being discussed these days. basin. Environmentalists and government municipal sewage treatment plants in the . Though ditticult, it would be helpful to agencies turned much of their attention Great Lakes basin alone. discover a toxic chemical indicator for to other matters. This effort and others led to major the Great Lakes, as phosphorus is a But the Reserve issue has not been reductions in some Great Lakes pollution, nutrient indicator, to measure toxic completely resolved. The latest twist in such as phosphorus and DDT. pollution trends in th e lakes. the long trail involves a new Reserve But on the heels of that victory came a Even within EPA 's ranks, there is a discharge, this time into the Beaver tougher battle against toxic chemicals an growing cry for a better understanding in River, a tributary of Lake Superior. But environmental foe that cannot be see~ or Washington of what the Great Lakes this discharge has been at least smelled, and could hardly be measured really are-95 per cent of the fresh tentatively approved by the EPA and the until a short time ago. water in the United States and home to Minnesota Po llution Control Agency. The International Joint Commission 45 million Americans and Canadians. The discharge is necessary because of reports that over 800 chemicals have There is a call for using the Great a complicated series of events that were been detected in the Great Lakes. L.akes as a national research laboratory, unforeseen in 1980. At that time, Reserve EPA is barely addressing the major since environmental problems that anticipated using its disposal basin for 40 eventually affect the nation often are years, the projected life of its o perations recognized for the first time in the Great in Minnesota. Lakes. Chemical pollution and To build the dams that enclose the atmospheric deposition (later to be basin, Rese rve uses coarse !aconite known as acid rain) are examples. wastes, called tailings. They are hauled Washingtonians who are interested in to the basin by rail from the Silver Bay expanding their understanding of the plant. Fine tailings, about the size of silt Great Lakes are welcome to visit any of particles, are pumped into the basin from the eight states that border lakes Huron the plant through large pipelines. Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. ' The fine ta ilings are ca rried in a water Heavy mdustnal development Imes the slurry, and the water comes from runoff banks of the Cuyahoga River at Co/11s1on Bring your boat. Catch some salmon or Bend m Cleveland, Oh!O The oil and qreasC' gamefish, but consult your local and precipitation that collect in the basin. that .usod_ro float m the rwcr actually ca11yl1t conservation department on whether The water also covers the tailings, fire 111 1969. the year this photo WdS taken they a re safe to eat. ~ J preventing the asbestos-like fibers from becoming airborne.

MARCH 1985 19 What neither Reserve nor government officials had clearly anticipated in 1980 were the severe economic woes now afflicting the taconite industry. Reserve's plant has been either shut down or operating at very low production levels for more than two years. Because of that, the plant has generated fewer of the coarse tailings needed to continue raising the height of the dams. Compounding the problem has been two years of abundant snow and rain in northern Minnesota and, in turn, more water entering the disposal basin. The upshot has been that w ater in the basin is rising faster than the height of the dams, creating a potentially unsa fe situation. If the water in the huge basin should wash over the top of the dams, it would ca rry taconite ta ilings-and those tiny asbestos-like fibers- into the Beaver River and downstream, to Lake Superior. To prevent such an occurrence, Reserve has to lower the water level in the basin, and last year it sought state permits to discharge up to 3,500 gallons of w ater each minute into the small river. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency approved the permits, but only after requiring Reserve to filter the fibers from its wastewater. And that resulted in another law suit. Although Reserve has built a plant to filter the fibers, it says the limit of one million fibers per liter of wastewater appears too stringent. The company also contends that the state agency modified the permit at the las t minute to include that rigid fiber limitation. The Minnesota Court of Appeals has heard the case and has taken it under advisement. A more reassuring event last year was the preliminary findings of a study done on the huge delta that stretches into Lake Superior from Reserve's plant. The delta, m ade up of taconite wastes, is similar to those found at the mouths of rivers. It Superior. For decades the estuary Taconite wastes from Reserve M1111ng Co. contains millions of tons of th e wastes, received a steady influx of raw or near Duluth, M111n. once flowed down a having been gradually formed during the inadequately treated municipal waste long slwce 11110 Lake Superior, a p1act1ce years when Reserve w as discharging from Duluth, Superior, and several that has since been halted. directly into th e lake. smaller cities in both Minnesota and When Reserve halted that discharge. Wisconsin. Industria l wastes also poured EPA and other agencies ra ised concerns into the estuary from steel plants and that the constant w ave action along the paper mills in both states. delta's outer edge w ould wash the Starting in 1971, when the M innesota asbestos-like fibers into the lake and Legislature created the W estern Lake res uspend them in its w aters. William Superior Sanitary District, more than Busch, an assistant professor of geology $115 million has been spent on municipal at the University of Minnesota, began a treatment plants to clean up the effluent study of the matter. of cities around the estuary. The area's Although not yet complete, Busch's industrial firms also have spent research strongly indicates that the delta considerable amounts to improve is stable, and the huge masses of the treatment of their wastes. fibers are not being washed into the lake. Th e result has been a remarkable Another success story was th e cleanup improvement in w ater quality and sport of the Duluth-Superior Harbor and St. fishing opportunities. A remaining Lou is Bay, which make up the large problem is the persistence of chemical estuary at the southwestern tip of Lake contaminants in silt at the bottom of the harbor and bay.

20 EPA JOURNAL Cleaning up the Grand Calumet River • by Kathleen Osborne Clute This is the sixth 1n a series of articles companies, three major sewage weren't considered safe to eat, they w ere by EPA 's regt0nal offices concermng treatment plants, an oil refinery, and able to survive in water which just years ma1or environmental problems they are numerous other industries discharge before couldn't support any aquatic life. addressing The topics of articles have treated wastewater into the Grand Nevertheless, serious problems ranged from Puget Sound po//ulton to Calumet system. In fact, 90 percent of its remained. flow consists of treated municipal and the use of EPA 's mobile mcmerator to The master plan efforts got underway industrial wastewater, industrial cooling in 1983, after Region 5 Administrator burn d1ox1n-contaminated soil tn and process water, and storm~ater Valdas Adamkus committed the agency M1ssoun. Clute 1s a wr1te1 for the Office runoff. In addition, 38 waste sites are to the project. of Public Affairs m EPA Region 5. located within the river basin; several of To develop the master plan, EPA has them are right on the river's banks. worked with the State of Indiana, public Concern over the Calumet River basin interest groups, and a Grand Calumet ohn Winters was a young sanitarian crystallized in 1965, when the Secretary Task Force made up of representatives for the Indiana State Board of Health J of the Department of Health, Education from citizen groups, unions, industry, and when he went out to sample the Grand and Welfare convened a conference to local municipalities. The plan calls for: Calumet River for the first time. It was define and attempt to solve the problem. late in the 1950s, and the industries At the conference, baseline data were •Modifying discharge permits to along the northwest Indiana river formed defined and cleanup plans were begun. minimize toxic and biological contaminants. one ot1he most concentrated steel and But evaluations in 1967 and 1968 chemical complexes in America. revealed no significant water quality • Tough enforcement of existing "The upper end of the Grand Calumet improvements, even though sewage discharge permits. by U.S. Steel was red with iron from the treatment plants and factories were steel mill," Winters recalled. "The Indiana generally complying with the existing •Achieving currently required pollutant Harbor Canal connecting the river to Lake water quality regulations. load reductions at sewage treatment Michigan was heavily covered with oils. It was obvious to a newly appointed plants. By the time we sampled t he river, we'd Grand Calumet water quality committee •Revising and upgrading water quality gotten this oil on us-a couple of inches that a tougher and broader approach standards. The existing standards were thick in some places-and our clothes was needed. This began after EPA was adopted in 1978 but have not yet been were so bad I didn't think there was any created in 1970, and the focus shifted upgraded. possibility of cleaning them up. I just from Calumet-specific actions to broader, burned them." more generic, EPA water pollution • Reducing pollutant loads contributed That was more than two decades ago. control programs. Industries were by combined sewer overflows. Conditions have improved since then, required to install best practicable • In itiating long-term monitori ng to largely because of EPA's efforts. technology in order to treat their evaluate the effectiveness of control However, the Grand Calumet/Indiana wastewater before discharging it to the programs and to discover any remaining Harbor Canal area still has serious river system. The three major sewage contaminants. environmental problems and contributes treatment plants in the area-Hammond, Released in draft form last fall, the to the pollution of southern Lake Gary, and East Ch icago- were given EPA master plan has been well received. Michigan. It still poses a major cleanup construction grants totaling $108 million Dennis Terry, Chairman of the Grand challenge. to upgrade existing facilities and bui ld Most recently, EPA's Region 5 office in new ones. Calumet Task Force, says it is essential to the future of Lake Michigan. Dave Chicago has developed a master plan to EPA moved aggressively against major Fogarty, a project manager for the Lake clean up the two waterways. Community polluters in the northwest Indiana area Michigan Federation, said the plan could groups and a special Grand Calumet Task despite legal challenges. U.S. Steel Corp. become an international model for Force have applauded the effort and took the agency to court in a case which pollution control. Eventually, it is hoped, hope the plan can become a prototype affirmed EPA's authority to issue the combined efforts of EPA and the for action in other Great Lakes trouble discharge permits and require State of Indiana could result in t he spots. wastewater treatment. The company removal of the river and harbor from the The Grand Calumet is a small river fed ended up paying the largest fine ever International Joint Commission's list of largely by industrial discharges as it levied for wastewater treatment pollution hot spots in the Great Lakes flows 13 miles westward from modest violations- $4.25 million. area. headwaters in the Marquette Park These initial efforts led to substantia l In the meantime, EPA will emphasize Lagoon near Gary, Ind. Three miles from improvements in the water quality of the its existing pollution control programs in the Illinois state line, the river is joined river and canal. Levels of conventional the Grand Calumet basin and w ill design by its west branch and empties into Lake pollutants dropped, dissolved oxygen and undertake new ones if necessary. All Michigan through the Indiana Harbor levels increased dramatically by 1982, of the agency's regulatory tools will be Canal. and 16 species of fish were found in the marshalled to help solve the area's A trio of steel mills, two chemical river system last year. While the fish remaining problems. 0

MARCH 1985 21 Thomas States Goals for EPA

Lee M. Thomas was confirmed una171mously by the US Senate on Februa1y 8 as Adm1n1strator of EPA. Here are excerpts from his statement to the Senate Committee on Environment and Pub/re Works at hrs confirmalton hearing:

t has been a decade and a half since IEPA came into being. In those early days, this agency concentrated its energies on the most obvious forms of pollution-smoggy air and rivers so choked w ith substances that some actually erupted into flame. While we have made substantial progress in these areas during the intervening years, today we must also address much m ore subtle haza rds. To a certai n extent, it is ironic that some of today's environmental problems reflect our successes w ith earlier priorities. For example, massive air and water cleanup programs implemented during the 1970s created unexpected new challenges involving the safe handling of toxic substances and hazardous wastes. Our efforts over the past decade also fostered q uantum leaps in the technology used to detect and measure pollution. That tec hnology has made us realize just I ollowmq his conflfm,Jtron hedrmq. how extensively minute concentrations of EPli. /i,(fnr1r11s1nror l ec M 7hornns confu::. with ~en Serom Thwrnon1 lh0111ac;' nat1v0 To illustrate this point, we need only Sldll' look back to the early 1970s, when we could not accurately measure substances beyond the parts-per-m illion range. Today, w e fear that our g round water may contain exotic chemicals in levels of parts per trillion or even parts per quadrillion. I note this to accentuate a point. We do not live in a ri sk-free environment. We are an industrialized society, and we will always be faced w it h ri sks. It is simply one of the prices w e pay for the overall quality of life we enjoy. Thus, w e must learn to manage the risks we fa ce. This has been the thrust of EPA during the past year and a half under Bill Ruckelshaus, and it will co ntinue to be the basis for many of ou r regulatory decisions. Some would argue our task is impossible. During a public meeting I attended recently in Boston, a citizen confronted me w ith a revea ling quest ion.

22 EPA JOURNAL He asked me why I would be willing to management systems developed in component in assessing risks and take on the job of EPA Administrator recent years to identify problems, managing them. A solid technical when I could not possibly succeed. The monitor progress, and measure success. capability must be at the heart of our laws are complex and unworkable, he Where necessary, we will develop new judgment. It will be a critical element of insisted. The problems are ones to fill management gaps as we all public health decisions we at EPA will insurmountable. identify them. I will also work with state make under my administration. Although I agree with him that the officials to assist in the development of A fifth goal will be public challenges before us are demanding, I similar systems at the state level. For I accessibility to EPA through an effective assured him they are not believe that commitment at all levels of community relations/public involvement insurmountable. Our environmental laws government must be to measurable program. This agency will continue to are largely on track to address the progress in all areas of environmental operate in a fishbowl. Openness will be a spectrum of hazards threatening protection. hallmark of our agency as long as I am America. It will be a top priority of mine A second goal will be to ensure a here. I welcome varied opinions and to carry out these laws the way Congress strong enforcement presence in all viewpoints. I see them as useful intended. Where we find inadequacies in agency programs. It is extremely contributions to the decisions we must our statutory foundation, we will work important that our enforcement efforts be make. with you to remedy them. fully integrated into each program. The American people have made it I am a professional manager. Enforcement need not dominate our clear they want to be involved in critical Throughout my career, I have managed implementation of environmental Jaws. environmental debates, especially those complex, people-oriented programs. I am But the regulated community must know that affect their health and their property. dedicated to fulfilling the realistic that we will not accept recalcitrance The challenge before us is to provide expectations of the American people. I when it comes to compliance. We will be citizens with access to our deliberations respect our environmental statutes, and I ready to take aggressive enforcement and a meaningful role in our decisions. I will carry them out to the best of my steps wherever necessary as part of our have found that the community relations ability. commitment to protecting human health program we instituted under Superfund I bring to the job of Administrator and the environment. helped people to understand our experience at every level of government. Thirdly, I believe in decentralizing the decisions and helped us to understand And I bring a sense of reality with management process where it makes their concerns. respect to EPA that is the product of two sense. Much of my government Finally, I will work hard to make EPA years directing some of this agency's experience has been at the state and the kind of agency that attracts and most challenging programs - the local levels. I have a natural bias toward retains quality people. We have a fine hazardous waste regulatory effort under managing programs close to the source professional staff now, and I am the Resource Conservation and Recovery of the problem. In Superfund, I have committed to maintaining it. Act and the cleanup program under worked to decentralize decision-making I believe very strongly in government Superfund. to the regions and the states. That work and government workers. EPA I am proud of the results we have process will continue, and I will explore employees are professionals and I achieved under these two statutes since opportunities to further decentralize other respect them. I will do all I can to early 1983. As Administrator, I will work EPA programs. improve and enhance individual growth to build the same record of progress It is important to recognize that, and career opportunities for those who under all of EPA's basic environmental properly implemented, decentralization serve EPA through commitments to laws. does not diminish the federal role. professional development, individual I want to share with you several Rather, it enhances that role. Effective mobility, and opportunities to participate management goals I have set for my decentralization allows for a clear in the decision-making process. [l term as EPA Administrator. definition of the roles to be played by Firstly, I will emphasize continued federal and state authorities. It promotes implementation of the basic programs efficiency and a system of mutual EPA is responsible for. EPA will do the support. best possible job with the statutes given A fourth goal that I will pursue will be us by Congress. I will manage the agency to ensure that EPA has the strong the same way I managed its hazardous scientific and technical base it needs to waste programs-for results. support program decisions. This is a key To assist in setting goals and achieving them, we will maintain and enhance the

MARCH 1985 23 EPA's Budget: An Analysis by Jack Lewis

he Environmental Protection Agency Superfund will also continue to Thas fared well in President Reagan's strengthen its emergency response budget for the 1986 fiscal year. If capabilities in fiscal 1986. Through $4,668 Congress approves the proposed budget, Superfund, EPA performs aggressive EPA's overall funding will increase eight removal actions to address immediate $4,329 percent during the coming fiscal yea r, threats to public health and the rising from $4.3 billion in fiscal 1985 to environment. Additional resources are Operating nearly $4.7 billion in fiscal 1986. being provided in fiscal 1986 to augment Programs $1,309 $1 ,368 Highlights of the fiscal 1986 budget the EPA Environmental Response Team. include: This will improve the agency's ability to provide timely technical advice to federal , • Substantial increases in EPA's state, and local officials during Superfund programs for hazardous waste: removal and remedial actions. Superfund, up 45 percent; and RCRA, up The proposed budget increases Su perfund $620 $900 26 percent. Superfund's enforcement funding by $23 • Significant increases in EPA's funding million. This is a 48 percent increase over for enforcement, up 21 percent; and fiscal 1985 enforcement levels. The extramural research and development, agency w ill also have $2 m il lion in up 12 percent. additional funds to i ncrease t he number of Superfund cases referred for Of EPA's programs, Superfund will prosecution to the Department of Justice. benefit the most dramatically in the Construction $2,400 $2,400 EPA construction grants to the states President's new budget. Funding for this Grants for improvements in wastewater Yi hazardous waste cleanup program is treatment will remain at the same level c slated to rise from $620 million to $900 -Q as last yea r- $2.4 billion. How ever, ·- million. plans have been announced to phase out E Most of Superfund's added c these construction grants gradually over funding- $250 m illion of the $280 million the next four years. ~ total- will be used to increase the Under the President's budget proposal, number of Superfund sites at which FY 1985 FY 1986 funding for all components of EPA's President's remedial design or construction actions budget other than Superfund and Budget will begin in fiscal 1986. The purpose of construction grants w ill increase 4 these actions is to clean up hazardous Ji IC QUI< J I y J ,,. • r 1t percent in fiscal 1986. Net gains will ~ t 11 ·r waste sites on Superfund's National l IH5 ievcl offset net losses by $59 million. Priorities List. Actual contracting of Agency programs slated to receive the Superfund design and construction most significa nt increases in funding are: actions, although EPA-funded, is handled either by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or by state governments. RCRA: A $54 million increase will give Remedial engineering design work will EPA 26 percent more funds in fiscal 1986 begin at 89 Superfund sites in fiscal 1986, for implementation of the Resource an increase of 25 over fiscal 1985. Conservation and Recovery Act. RCRA Remedial construction actions, the final was amended and reauthori zed by and most expensive phase in the cleanup Congress late last year. process, are expected to start at 56 Under the new ACRA law, EPA has Superfund sites during fiscal 1986, 31 received added responsibility for banning more than w ere begun in fiscal 1985. hazardous wastes, developing alternative Thus, by the end of fiscal 1986, the treatment technologies, and regulating number of Superfund sites where the small quantity generators and final cleanup phase has begun will be underground storage tanks. The agency double the present total. will hire 146 new RCRA staffers to handle this increased workload.

24 EPA JOURNAL Also, to address the new RCRA agency's research into biotechnology. EPA's fiscal 1986 budget continues the requirements in a timely manner, the Other EPA programs that will benefit upward trend in agency spending that agency has redistributed resources within from funding increases in fiscal 1986 began in fiscal 1984 and proceeded at a the fiscal 1985 budget. An additional $22 include: water quality compliance, with a more rapid rate in fiscal 1985. EPA million has been allocated to RCRA in the $3 million increase, as well as pesticides Administrator Lee Thomas has expressed current fiscal year. When factored in with generic chemical review and existing confidence that the latest increases in the increases planned for fiscal 1986, this chemical review, which will each have $2 EPA funding will enable the agency to money would nearly double RCRA million in increased funding. continue meeting its old responsibilities resources over fiscal 1984 funding levels. The most significant funding cuts in while at the same time taking on new The fiscal 1986 increases for the RCRA the fiscal 1986 budget will occur in the ones in the area of hazardous waste. program include $25 million for new following areas: "This budget not only builds upon the foundation laid in the last two years," regulations and implementation guidance Administrative Costs: EPA's funding for Thomas remarked at a press briefing on to meet the requirements of the administrative costs will go down a total February 4, "it also represents amended RCRA law. A $3 million funding of $25 million in fiscal 1986. A large part a significant expansion in areas where our increase will enable EPA to carry out the of this decrease-$16 million-will come responsibilities must be met with special compliance monitoring and from cutting the salaries of EPA increased resources. EPA's 1986 budget enforcement requirements of the new employees by 5 percent. All federal gives us the resources we need to RCRA law. A $9 million increase will employees will share in this pay cut, continue our momentum and to support the salaries and related expenses which the President has recommended effectively address the challenges in of the 146 additional employees RCRA as a special austerity measure. every environmental medium." 0 will have in fiscal 1986. The President's Unlike many federal agencies, budget also raises funding of however, EPA will be hiring during fiscal RCRA-related research by $9 million. 1986. Increased staffing will be Under the proposed budget, EPA will concentrated in two priority areas: increase RCRA grant assistance to state Superfund will have 359 new employees and local governments by $8 million. in the coming fiscal year, while RCRA will This increase in grant funds will support have 146. the states in development of regulatory The remainder of administrative programs for underground storage tanks budget cuts-$9 million-will come in and small-quantity generators as well as areas such as contracts, travel, printing, continued implementation of the National and equipment. Expenditures for these Permits Strategy. items will be trimmed 10 percent from Acid Rain Program: EPA will have $23 fiscal 1985 levels as part of a million more to spend on its acid rain government-wide proposal for reducing program in fiscal 1986. This is a 61 administrative costs. percent increase over the current fiscal year and brings EPA's total fiscal 1986 Limestone Injection Multistage Burner budget for acid rain to $60.5 million. The (LIMB) Technology: A large-scale, agency will use the additional money to one-time demonstration of this burner emphasize research into the effects of was funded in fiscal 1985. EPA plans to acid rain on aquatic resources and cut funding for LIMB by $12 million in forests, and to accelerate the installation fiscal 1986, but $4.6 million will remain in of an acid rain monitoring network. the budget to complete efforts at Toxics and Pesticides Research: In fiscal improving LIMB technology. 1986 EPA will have $14 million in Other budget items slated for cuts in increased funding for toxics and fiscal 1986 include: exploratory research, pesticides research. The agency plans to and buildings and facilities, each use this money to improve the quality earmarked for a $7 million decrease; and the range of its health and also, indoor air research and environmental risk assessments for radiation/health effects, which will be various toxic substances. Part of the eliminated in fiscal 1986 at a total increase will be used to step up the savings of $3 million.

MARCH 1985 25 Environmental Outlook in the New Congress by John H. Chafee

The EPA Journal asked U.S. Senator s we begin the 99th Congress, the list of the highest order and that such John H. Cha fee, R-R. I., for his view s on Aof environmental issues facing us protection w ill not be sacrificed for the the outlook for environmental policy evokes a sense of deja vu . During the sake of saving a few dollars o r relieving issues in this Congress. Senator Chafee 98th Congress, the Senate Environment the " burden" of regulation. is Chairman of the Subcommittee on and Public Works Committee grappled The need to strengthen environmental with legislation to reauthorize Superfund, legislation, rather than to weaken Environmental Pollution, which the Clean Air Act, t he regulatory portion existing law, will continue to cause sharp oversees EPA -related legislative of the Clean Water Act, the Resource debate within Congress, but I am matters. Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), convinced that better and stronger laws Senator Chafee has been chairman of and the Safe Drinking Water Act. We w ill result from our deliberations, no the environmental subcommittee, tackled issues such as acid rain, matter how long they may take. which is part of the Senate nonpoint sources of water pollution, Let me go through some of the issues Environment and Public Works ground-water protection, and wetlands we face in the 99th Congress, beginning Committee, sin ce 798 1. He is also a preservation. We also dealt with budget with Superfund. m ember of the Senate Finance recommendations and two rounds of Although Superfund was originally Presidential appointments regarding funded in 1980 at a level of $1.6 billion Committee and is Chairman of the EPA's leadership. over five years, it was recognized then Senate Republican Conference. With the exception of our bill to amend that this figure was too low , given the Chafee has been representing Rhode RCRA, all the environmental issues that scope of the problem. That level of Island in the U.S. Senate since 1977. were unresolved at the end of the 98th funding was set as part of a compromise Prior to his election to the Senate, Congress-and a few new matters as to get the program underway, even Chafee was Secretary of the Navy in well- will be w ith the Committee again in though it now appears the United States the Nixon Administration. He w as this Congress. The new items include w ill ultimately be forced to spend tens of Governor of Rhode Island from 1962 to reauthorization of that portion of the billions of dollars over the course of 7968 . Earlier, he served six years in the Clean Water Act relating to grants for many years t o clean up the hazardous sewage treatment plant construction, the waste that has been strewn across the Rhode Island House of Representatives Endangered Species Act, the Toxic landscape of America. The Rhode Island Senator is a Substances Control Act, and ocean Similarly, the need to respond to spills graduate of Yale University and the dumping. Another issue that might come and the release of hazardous substances Harvard Law School. He left Yale during up is the possible regulation of genetic of all types will be with us forever. For World War II to enlist in the Marine engineering. example, the recent disaster at Bhopal, Corps. In 195 7, he was recalled to Can the committee and Congress deal India, where 2,000 persons lost their lives active duty to serve in Korea. with such a full agenda in the next two after a leak of poisonous gas in a Born in Providence, R.I., Chafee is years? Perhaps not, but we will certainly chemica l plant, has ra ised the question of married and the fa ther of five children. try. whether new controls m ight be needed Although Congress originally expected in the United States to prevent the that major environmental laws would be release of substances posing an reviewed and, if necessary, modified immediate threat to life. every three to five years, experience has In dealing with Superfund, there are taught us that the process of revising two major issues that must be existing laws often takes an additional addressed: first, how much money can three years or more. This is not a new EPA productively and effectively spend phenomenon. The 1977 Clean Air on the problem each year; and second, amendments, for example, took three where will the money come from to pay years of debate; the Hazardous and Solid for an expanded program. Waste Amendments of 1984, modifying To demonstrate the priority attached to RCRA, required a similar amount of time. these issues, the Senate Environment Enactment of the 1984 RCRA and Public Works Committee has agreed amendments-which constitute one of to consider extension of Superfund at the the toughest environmental laws passed full committee level, bypassing in years-demonstrates that Congress subcommittee consideration. On January considers protection of human health 3, the cha irman of the committee, and the environment a national priority Senator Robert Stafford-with my

26 EPA JOURNAL support and that of others-introduced The Subcommittee's starting point will Ocean dumping: The Marine Protection legislation similar to a bill approved by be the Clean Water amendments Research and Sanctuaries Act which the committee last year. approved by the full committee last year. regulates the disposal of municipal and Although the bill envisions a spending That legislation, which died in the rush to industrial waste in ocean waters is level of $7 .5 billion over the next five adjournment last October, calls for scheduled for reauthorization. In view of years, the details of how to raise such increased control of toxic pollutants, the increasing desire of some coastal funds must be decided by the Senate stricter enforcement and increased cities and industries to expand ocean Finance Committee, which will spark a penalties for polluters, and a new dumping practices, a review of this law is new round of debate. Furthermore, while program to control nonpoint sources of timely and necessary. there seems to be a good deal of support pollution. I suspect that we will generally Endangered species: In 1982, Congress for a Senate bill setting a funding level of follow last year's bill and that the major strengthened this important law, which $7.5 million over five years, there will debate this year will be reauthorization of prohibits buying, selling, possessing, undoubtedly be other Superfund the construction grants program. exporting, or jeopardizing endangered or reauthorization bills put forward, some of Since Congress enacted the Clean threatened species. I expect that once them calling for more money and others Water Act in 1972, the federal again, we will face a debate on conflicts for less. government has spent over $40 billion to between protection of endangered or Our objective on the Environment and construct wastewater treatment facilities threatened species and the desire to Public Works Committee is to expedite in communities large and small across develop water and other natural the bill. We hope to have our hearings America. With the burgeoning budget resources. Nevertheless, I believe we will completed and a reauthorization bill deficit, however, it is doubtful whether ultimately extend and enhance the law. approved by the committee no later than we can afford to continue spending at mid-March, which will give the Finance the current annual rate of $2.4 billion. Wetlands: There is a concern on the part Committee time to consider the funding Many federal, state, and local officials of many that the Corps of Engineers is aspects of the program so that a recognize that the federal government systematically dismantling the nation's completed Superfund package can reach cannot-and should not-subsidize basic wetlands protection law, Section the Senate itself well before the present construction of these facilities on a 404 of the 1972 Clean Water Act, which program expires September 30. perpetual basis. During our deliberations, regulates dredging and filling. Wetlands Another legislative issue which will be we will be exploring ways to increase are disappearing at an alarming rate. The handled at the full committee level will state and local responsibility for funding Subcommittee has taken a strong interest be reauthorization of the Clean Air Act. these plants. in this program, and I hope to hold As in years past, reauthorization of this One suggestion which merits oversight hearings on its management by bill will turn on the debate over an acid consideration is a revolving loan fund. the Corps. On a separate track, I expect rain control program. In both the 97th Under this approach, the federal the Subcommittee to move forward with and 98th Congress, the Senate government would gradually reduce legislation authorizing a wetlands Environment and Public Works straight categorical grants for wastewater acquisition and preservation program. Committee approved legislation projects and, in their place, provide Clearly, both the full Environment and containing strong provisions to curb acid money for states to establish a loan fund. Public Works Committee and the rain, only to see the issue blocked by Using this federal "seed money," the Subcommittee on Environmental regional dissension. This year, the full states could then make low-interest loans Pollution face a busy agenda in the next committee will again be addressing the available to communities for construction two years. Without doubt, many of the issue, once we have dealt with of treatment plants. issues we face will spark controversy and Superfund. Undoubtedly, the debate will In developing any proposal to phase heated debate. But controversy has be just as controversial this year as it has out direct federal involvement in always been the hallmark of been in the past. financing such facilities, we must ensure environmental legislation. It should not While the full committee will be that construction of necessary plants prevent us from fulfilling our obligation considering Superfund and the Clean Air moves ahead unhindered. A smooth to protect the health of the American Act, a top priority of the Environmental transition is essential if we are to people and to defend and preserve our Pollution Subcommittee, which I chair, is continue the impressive gains in water natural resources. 0 the reauthorization of the Clean Water quality that have taken place in the past Act. We must consider not only the 13 years. regulatory side of the law, but also the I would mention three other issues reauthorization of wastewater treatment which are high on the priority list for the construction grants. Environmental Pollution Subcommittee in the 99th Cof"lgress:

MARCH 1985 27 diving training exercises oft a pier in the So in 1982, EPA put more than $500,000 Hudson River, a discharge area for raw into an interagency agreement (IAG) with Safe Diving sewage. It was reported that a city NOAA. According to Richard P Traver, sewage treatment plant worker had died staff engineer at EPA's Releases Control in Polluted of the same disease a year earlier. Branch in Edison, N.J., the agreement Amoebiasis is an infection caused by an covers "the assessment, testing, intestinal parasite found in polluted evaluation, and demonstration of Waters water. modified commercial underwater The NOAA study was examined at a protective suits, clothing, support by Susan Tejada 1982 workshop hosted by the Undersea equipment. and breathing apparatus in Medical Society and sponsored by EPA waters contaminated with hazardous and NOAA. In an introduction to the substances that may be injurious to a proceedings of that workshop, Rita diver's health." Traver, who has been Colwell of the University of M aryland moonlighting as a professional YMCA n the EPA regional office in Seattle, wrote: "The risks [of entering a scuba diving instructor for more than 10 there is a mask. It is a diver's mask, and I contaminated aquatic environment] are years, was selected as EPA project it is a mess, its rubber seal eaten away. officer. His counterpart at NOAA was Dr. The rubber dissolved when a diver from not known and perhaps not even appreciated ... lndividual working divers J. Morgan Wells, Jr., director of that the Seattle Police Department's harbor agency's diving program. patrol unknowingly dove into water are today, more or less, in the category of 'experimental animal' when they enter polluted with hazardous chemicals. pol I uted waters to work." Test Dives That mask is a graphic symbol of the dangers that divers face when they enter " You can't walk into a local dive shop," EPA Takes the Plunge contaminated waters. Unfortunately, the explains Don Lawhorn, " and buy what need for this kind of diving is on the rise Across the country, in regional offices, you need to work in polluted water." The because underwater pollution is on the laboratories, and on board research truth of that statement led workers under rise. Between 1977 and 1981, more than vessels, about 50 divers work for EPA. the interagency agreement to a 64,000 major waterway spills of The number has remained fairly steady three-year series of test dives to modify petroleum products and hazardous for the past decade. None of them is a available equipment. materials were reported to the U.S. Coast full-time diver. One is a mechanic; others The tests began at the Naval Surface Guard. The total number of chemical are chemists, biologists, and technicians. Weapons Center in White Oak, Md. spills into the nation's waterways, both They go underwater to carry out their Seven diving suits and five helmets were reported and unreported, is estimated to scientific m issions-diving, for example, evaluated and subsequently modified to be about 15,000 per year. to collect water and sediment samples or eliminate leaks. This first series of tests A new type of equipment promises to organisms for toxicology studies and took nearly a year, from April 1982 provide greater protection to polluted enforcement investigations. More and through March 1983. water divers than they have ever had more, they are also being asked to dive A 50-foot diameter platform within the before. The SUS suit (suit-under-suit). on Superfund investigations, to confirm 100-foot deep water tower at White Oak developed cooperatively by EPA and the cleanup results or identify the presence that could be raised or lowered to vary National Oceanic and Atmospheric of chemical drums. the diver's depth gave experimenters Administration (NOAA), safeguards The type of diving they do can put tight control over dive conditions. " We divers in waters highly polluted with them in some pretty murky waters. did dive after dive after dive there," says chemicals or pathogens. Tests have "People think we do a lot of NOAA diver Paul Pegnato. The work did shown that the SUS suit can protect a Cousteau-type diving, in crystal-clear not always progress smoothly. "We diver from up to 90 percent of the toxic water," says Don Lawhorn of EPA's didn't follow a straight and narrow path," chemicals transported on, or found at, Athens, Ga., lab. "But it's not true. I'd say Pegnato explains. "It was more like a underwater dump and spill sites. that on about 70 to 80 percent of our wide, zigzaggi ng road." dives, we have zero to very low But the work paid off. It led to the Dangers Recognized visibility." development of what is, to date, the In 1978, EPA surveyed agency field ultimate in diver protection from As recently as 10 years ago, neither the personnel about their jobs. " We contaminants: the suit-under- suit (SUS) scientifi c nor the diving communities had realized," says EPA safety programs system. given much thought to the effect of manager Tony Brown, " that our divers Basically, the SUS suit is a tight, 1 8 contaminants on divers. It was generally were doing their own thing. Some had inch foam neoprene inner suit and a believed, for example, that standard gear been trained in the Navy or Coast Guard, baggy, heavy-duty, natural rubber outer offered adequate protection to divers some by the YMCA. Each had a different suit which are clamped together at the working at ocean dumping sites. set of diving do's and don'ts. The need neck to form a closed cavity between the That perception began to change in for an agencywide program was suits. Clean, temperature-controlled 1976, when NOAA launched a study of evident." water from the surface is pumped into the effects of pathogenic microorganisms This need led Brown to NOAA, whose the cavity through the diver's umbilical on divers in ocean dumping areas. diving program, he says, " was highly hose at the rate of two gallons a minute Results showed that " microbial accepted in the scientific community. to warm or cool the diver, and exits pathogens- bacteria, viruses, and Basically we adopted the NOAA through one-way ankle and shoulder parasites- present in polluted waters program." EPA now requires its d ivers to exhaust valves in the outer suit. Wells clearly pose potential hazards for divers." be federally certified, a status obtained explains: " Since the entire volume of the The resul ts were confirmed by incidents by successfully completing a one-week suit is filled with water under a pressure like the one in 1982, when several New course run by NOAA at the EPA lab in slightly greater than the outside water, a York Ci ty firefighters and police officers Gulf Breeze, Fla. puncture or leak in the suit results in contracted amoebiasis after taking part in The certification program helped clean water leaking out, rather than ensure diver proficiency, but diver outside water coming in. " The suit, says I ( t f Lf f\ ..H.llHll, protection remained a serious problem. Wells, "is an innovative solution to two

28 EPA JOURNAL problems associated w ith contaminated Observing the Seattle dem onstration w ater diving-th ermo-regulation and w ere test engineers from the U.S. Navy's leakage." Experimental Diving Unit, which develops and tests the latest diving dress Next Step and equipment used by the m ilitary. After w itnessing the perform ance of the The test divers at White Oak had shown modified helmets, d iv ing dress, and that the SUS suit and certain especially the SUS suit, the eng ineers commercially available equipment that commented that the work done by EPA they had modified did function and NOAA under the interagency underwater. Th e next step was to show agreement had catapulted diving that the equipment could really keep out tech nology 10 years into the future. contaminants. EPA, NOAA, and the Coast Guard are In M arch 1983, Traver and five NOAA now looking for a "spill of opportunity" divers tested the modified diving systems to test the SUS suit under actual field at EPA's 5,000 gallon chemical dive tank conditions. A low er level of diving dress in Leonardo, N.J . Fluorescein dye tracers protection was used last Decem ber, and a simulated spil l chemical- am monia w hen t he three agencies cooperated in a at 500 parts per million- w ere added to search for leaking drums of toxic wastes the water in the tank. Underneath their at Big Gorilla, an abandoned, open pit outer diving dress the divers wore a coal quarry near M cA doo, Pennsylvania. spec ia l, one-piece cotton body suit and carried cotton swabs wit hin the helmet. If Other Uses contaminants penetrated their gear, the body suit material would adsorb the dye The SUS suit has potentially important tracer, which would then be revealed applications beyond its use in polluted under ultra-violet or "black" light, and w ater diving. For example, t he water in the cotton would become saturated with the cooling pool s that su rround nuclear ammonia, which could be immediately reactors and in the canals at nuclear analyzed in the lab. generating facil it ies that are used for Result : None of the systems tested cooling process w aters is extremely hot, leaked. between 110° and 120°. Co mmercial During the Leonardo dives, the project divers in cold w ater SUS suits could crew began considering other issues perform underwater repairs in this related to diving in polluted waters. They superheated w ater, eliminating the need developed procedures to protect surface to d ra in the facilities first. Interested support crews who serve as umbilical • in this possible use, the Department of tenders and decontaminate emerging ,;; En ergy supplemented the interagency divers. They also developed methods to ~ agreem ent with an additional $25,000. communicate with divers underwater via SUS suits could be used for dives in special microphones placed in the To test the coo/mg cnpac1tv of the SUS s1J11 extremely cold as w ell as ext remely hot helmets. a diver enters a tank of hot wate1 at a w ater. For example, rescu e workers in The heating and cooling ra nge of the M1am1, Fla. fac1/Jty 01 the N,11,01,dl warm w ater SUS suits could stay in icy Ocear11c and Atmos{Jhenc Aclrmf'1str 1t,011 SUS suit was the next item on the testing water for extended periods of time if !NOMJ. agenda. At the NOAA Div ing Hyperbaric necessary. In fact, says Wel ls, the SUS Training Center in M iami, Fla., in suit w il l have a working range of 100 December 1983 and February 1984, Well s w as able to stay underwater over degrees: it will w arm divers in below divers descended into a ta nk of water an hour and complete three 20-minute freezi ng water as cold as 30° and w ater that was gradually heated up to 112°F. exerci se ro utines with no evidence of as hot as 130°. Each diver's condition was co nstantly heat st ress. W hat's m ore, he did so in Based on t heir w ork under the monitored by electrocardiogram and core 112° w ater, even hotter than the day interagency agreement, EPA and NOAA temperatu re probes; helmet conditions before, and still emerg ed " feeling fine." will publish a m anual of practice on were m onitored by addit ional By this time, the SUS suit and operations in contaminated w ater, temperature probes. At each increase in modified versions of two commercially hopefully by the end of th e year. the water's tem perature, the divers were available suits and two helmets had been Industry has picked up on some of the to execute a 20-minute series of ident ified as effective for diving in innovations pioneered by EPA and exercises. contaminated w aters. In September 1984, NOAA. Four m anufacturers are now In the first se ries of tests, the three at NOAA's Western Reg ional Ce nter in offering polluted w ater diving suits and volunteers- Wells, Pegnato, and a third Sea ttle, Was h , this equipment w as helmets. Modifica tions of ot her NOAA diver from Woods Hole, tested under simulated operational equipment are available if custom Mass.-dove without benefit of the SUS conditions. In four-day exercises, divers ordered. su it's cooling system . After performing from NOAA and the U.S Coast Guard Don La w horn echoes the views of one 20-minute exercise cycle in 107° Strike Team who were outfitt ed in the m any divers when he talks about the w ater, Wei Is' heart rate increased from specia l gear moved 55 gallon development of protective equipment. "A 70 to 180 beats per minute, and his body chem ica l drums underwater, vacuumed lot of times you don't know w hat is being core temperature jumped from 98.6° to up sim ulated contam inated sediment, put out upstrea m ," he says, "and you 102°. " It wiped m e out," he says. Th e used isolation domes, and carried out ca n't find out. When you don't know the other tw o divers experienced si m ilar w elding and cutting operatio ns conditions, you need m aximum dram atic effects of heat stress. underwater. " It was a pretty big shindig," protec tion. " [ The next day, however, wearing a SUS says Pegnato, "and everything w ent off su it with surface-supplied cool water, without a hitch. "

MARCH 1985 29 Fighting Waste from Gold Mining by Roy Popkin

sing methods that date back to the At a placer mme Udays when grizzled sourdough OU(Sld Circle, AldSKd. prospectors first found gold in the Yukon a1 operator mixes almost a century ago, Alaska's placer muddy rucyc/ed water with soil thal 1 bemg mining operations have long been the mmed for gold number one polluter of that state's rivers The water forces and streams. For decades, their heavily the dlft through a sluice silt-laden wastewater discharges have mto fl sett/mg pond seriously affected fishery resources, native village drinking water supplies, and recreational activities. But now that is changing. The way Alaska's gold is found still conjures up memories of Jack London's Call of the industry. Efforts by the federal and state district miners' meetings, by car in the Wild and Robert W. Service's poetry, but governments to improve mining few areas where there were roads, and the impact on Alaska's environment is processes by establishing standards and by helicopter into remote places far from being significantly lessened. requiring permits ran into continuing his headquarters in Fairbanks, Alaska's Much of the credit for this achievement resistance. second largest city. He coordinated the goes to Leroy "Bub" Loiselle, Jr., a Most of Alaska's placer miners are not assignment of EPA staff from the 38-year-old scientist from EPA's Region large commercial operators. The ventures headquarters Effluent Guideli nes 10 in Seattle. In recognition of his usually involve three to four people using Division, the Denver National success as coordinator of EPA's placer one or two old bulldozers and a slu ice Enforcement and Investigation Center mining compliance activities in Alaska, box. Of the 700 permit applications last (sent there because of public threats Bub last year received an agency gold year, only two to three hundred are against government agents), and Region medal award. considered by EPA to be for outfits of 10 compliance inspection and permit The coordination was no easy job. commercial size. Federal permits are data gathering teams. He also met with Loiselle spent the summer of 1984 required for those that move 20 cubic the miners to explain, wheedle, and meeting with the miners and with state, yards of soil and gravel-the equivalent stand firm for environmental protection. local, and EPA officials, in locations of two dump truck loads- a day. W hat he was telling the m iners they ranging from up near the Arctic Circle to Some of the small-scale placer mines needed to do was to dig settling ponds deep in the interior of Alaska, selling the are run by people who for one reason or where the sluice water would flow virtues of cooperation and environmental another come to Alaska from down instead of into the rivers, and to take the protection. He had to gentle down below each summer to try their luck at waste treatment steps necessary to meet deep-seated animosities directed at finding gold. In contrast, the "regulars" National Pollutant Discharge Elimination "government interference." may stretch out the time, fighting bitter System permit conditions. For some, this Unlike the complex, high-tech cold and the rugged Alaska terrain in the would be quite expensive when related industries towards which much of EPA's hunt for gold. Many see government to the potential income from a small anti-pollution enforcement effort is regulation as an assault on their mining operation, but Lo ise lle was directed, placer mining is relatively constitutional rights. successful. As one letter received by simple. In most operations, soil and Faced with the continuing struggle to Region 10 said of his efforts, " he struck gravel are dumped into 40-foot-long decrease pollution of rivers and streams just the right balance between sluices where water carries them over a by the mining operations, Region 10 friendliness, respect and fi rmness and series of riffles that shake the gold assigned Loiselle to temporary duty in has earned their respect. " nuggets so they can be picked out by the Fairbanks for the sum mer of 1984. This hard-won respect is mentioned in miners. The water, and everything else in Although he graduated from college with the citation that accompanied Loiselle's it. is discharged into the nearest available a degree in biology, Loiselle had become gold medal, for "outstanding river or stream. "Everything else" may an expert first in water quality problems, achievement in the reduction of pollutant include arsenic and may also create a then in mining and its impact on such discharges from gold placer m ining level of si lt-laden turbidity that harms the pollution. Prior to the Fairbanks activities resulting in improvement in the salmon, whitefish, and other species and assignment, he had been heavily water quality of Alaskan streams and fouls the streams from which the involved w ith the environmental rivers." hundreds of tiny native villages take their problems created by big mining Loiselle hopes to return to Alaska next water for cooking and drinking. operations in Idaho and other summer and expects to find that the Since 1966, when the effort to clean up northwestern states. miners are continuing to comply with the Alaska's rivers began, EPA and its Loiselle had also been a general laborer EPA and state regulations. predecessors have had what the papers for the Alaskan Railroad and worked "Alaska miners have a little bit of accompanying Loiselle's gold medal part-time for a bush pilot in the state. He Missouri in them," Loiselle sa id. nomination describe as an "adversary" "knew the language," the people, and the "They've got a 'show-me' attitude, and if relationship with Alaska's mining free spirit Alaskan psychology. they can be shown the benefits of To carry out his mining cleanup task, compl1ting with federal and state (Popkin is d wnter fo1 the EPA Office of Public Affa11s) Loiselle travelled hundreds of miles to regulations, they'll comply." D

30 EPA JOURNAL Update: A review of recent major EPA activities and developments in the pollution control areas. EPA said that it began excavation. It includes about 90 EPA estimates that the new AIR investigating the firms after an tanks and process vessels, rule will bring 2,600 companies anonymous source alleged they drums, tank trucks, and a which generate hazardous waste 12.7-acre New Lead Phasedown Option were improperly manufacturing waste oil and into line with the more stringent and blending alcohol additives wastewater lagoon. waste management EPA has announced that it is for use in unleaded gasoline. A Contaminants from the lagoon requirements of the amended proposing a new method that search of company records have been found in local wells RCRA law. would give gasoline refiners and found evidence to support these and ground water. Ban on Contaminated Used Oil importers added flexibility in allegations. meeting the agency's standards Accelerated Superfund Cleanups EPA has proposed a new for allowable lead content in Methanol Unleaded Gas Blend EPA has proposed to help regulation to prohibit the gasoline. EPA proposed the new Approved improve and accelerate private burning of contaminated used standards in July 1984. EPA has announced that it will and government responses to oils in residential, institutional, Under EPA's new proposal, the grant a conditional waiver to E.I. hazardous waste contamination and commercial boilers. It has agency would give refiners the DuPont de Nemours & Co., Inc., by amending the national also taken action to prohibit the option of reducing their leaded to begin marketing a new blend guidelines for cleaning up waste burning of hazardous wastes in gasoline production over the of unleaded gasoline containing sites or spills of hazardous these boilers. next year below federal lead methanol and other cosolvents. substances. EPA's prohibition against the standards. Refiners would be The agency took this action in The guidelines, known as the use of contaminated used oil allowed to accumulate credits for response to a request from National Contingency Plan (NCP). would affect all residential, the difference. DuPont to waive a Clean Air Act set down the procedures private institutional, and commercial The credits could be applied prohibition against certain fuels companies and federal and state boiler operators across the toward future gasoline and fuel additives. agencies must follow in any country who purchase used oil production as stricter federal EPA has determined that cleanup operations under the for fuel, as well as collectors, standards go into effect. This DuPont's methanol blend is Superfund law. blenders, and sellers of the used banking mechanism would give entitled to a waiver because it EPA would revise the National oil fuel. Contingency Plan procedures for refiners added flexibility without will not cause or contribute to Dioxin Disposal Regulation slowing progress toward EPA's the failure of any vehicle to meet Superfund actions by such steps lead reduction goals. federal emission control as : EPA has announced that it will standards. regulate the management of Central Illinois "Bubble" • Removing certain restrictions dioxin-containing wastes. The Proposal GM Recall which did not permit quick dioxin wastes w ill be added to EPA has proposed allowing a The General Motors Corporation response at sites in certain the list of wastes subject to the Central Illinois Public Service is voluntarily recalling situations; hazardous waste management (CIPS) power plant to reduce approximately 225,000 1981 and • Removing the prohibition on standards of the Resource sulfur dioxide emissions from 1982 vehicles to repair catalytic listing federal facilities on the Conservation and Recovery Act two of its boilers by imposing a converters that may be defective. Superfund's National Priorities (RCRA). tighter than necessary emission California vehicles are included List (NPL) and requesting This regulation is a key part of limit on one unit to offset a less in the recall. comments on other ways to EPA's dioxin strategy, which is strict limit on the other, instead The recall affects vehicles identify federal facility priorities; designed to prevent of placing the same restrictions equipped with 4.1 liter V-6 mismanagement of • Requiring EPA to use on both. gasoline engines. Models dioxin-contaminated wastes. By applicable and relevant federal This is the first time EPA has included are the 1981 and 1982 listing these wastes under RCRA. public health standards when used this "bubble" approach to Buick Electra, LeSabre, and EPA is taking broader control determining the appropriate the new source performance Riviera; Cadillac DeVille, over the disposal of dioxins than remedy for hazardous waste standards (NSPS) of the Clean Fleetwood Brougham, Eldorado, it has previously exercised under cleanups; and Air Act. It will reduce the overall and Seville; and the Oldsmobile the provisions of the Toxic sulfur dioxide emissions from Ninety-Eight and Toronado. Also • Clarifying when and how Substances Control Act (TSCA}. the two boilers by 3, 100 tons a included are the 1982 Buick private parties responsible for year while allowing CIPS the Regal and Regal Estate Wagon; hazardous waste problems must flexibility to use less costly fuel. and the Pontiac Bonneville, clean up these sites or pay for PESTICIDES Fuel Additive Penalties Bonneville Wagon, and Grand Superfund cleanup actions. Prix. EPA has proposed civil penalties New Waste Recycling EPA Actions on Five Pesticides of over $4 million against three Regulations EPA has announced separate fuel additive manufacturers in EPA has issued new regulations Phoenix and Seattle for HAZARDOUS WASTE actions for five pesticides: controlling a number of dibromochloropropa ne (DBCP), improperly blending alcohol with hazardous waste recycling gasoline. alachlor, triphenyltin hydroxide Largest Superfund Cleanup practices not now covered by the (TPTH). captafol, and dinocap. Notices of Violation have been agency's hazardous waste issued to United Energy Approved Four of the actions involve the EPA has approved the largest management regulations. initiation of special reviews; the Company of Phoenix, Ariz., The new rule gives EPA the proposing a penalty of cleanup yet undertaken under other action cancels the EPA's Superfund program. authority to control the remaining registration of DBCP. $1,310,000; UEC, Inc.. of management of waste burned as Phoenix, proposing a penalty of Estimated to cost more than $55 This latter action resu lts from the million, the project is designed fuel, waste spread on land as a completion of the special review $880,000; and Sound Energy, dust suppressant. accumulated Inc.. of Seattle, Wash., proposing to eliminate the threat to public of DBCP and applies to OBCP health and the environment waste that no one expects to only. a penalty of $1,950,000. recycle, and certa in wastes that posed by the Bridgeport Oil and Continued to next page Rental Services site in Logan are reclaimed. Township, Gloucester County, N.J. The Bridgeport site, which ranks 35th on the National Priorities List of Superfund sites, is a former waste oil reclamation operation on a 30-acre plot once used for sand and gravel

31 MARC H 1985 Temporary EDB Tolerance Level for Imported Mangoes EPA is setting a temporary Appointments Book Revievv tolerance level of 30 parts per billion (ppb) for the pesticide From time to time, EPA Journal will include ethylene dibromide (EDB) on at EPA brief reviews of current books of popular imported mangoes. environmental interest. Suggested books This is the last remaining use are welcome. Here is a review by Jack of EDB on foods destined for Lewis of the Journal staff: U.S. consumers. EPA's action sharply curtails the use of EDB on mangoes destined for U.S. Anne W . Simon, Neptune's Revenge: The consumption in the near future. Ocean of Tomorrow (N . Y.: Franklin The 30 ppb EDB maximum Watts, 1984; $15.95) residue level will be effective until September 1, 1985. After Neptune's Revenge offers a pessimistic that date, no mangoes with any prognosis for the future health of the detectable EDS residues will world's oceans. Unless present patterns allowed into the United States. are reversed, Anne Simon foresees environmental disaster on the high seas. In fact, she deploys a w ide array of John Stanton Peter Cook AGENCYWIDE evidence to support the idea that disaster of various types is already upon us. Simon is both a skillful scientific Engineering and Technology popularizer and an idealistic Office Reorganized environmental purist. Her writing is less EPA has announced the eloquent and coherent than Rachel reorganization of its Office of Carson's, but she shares many of Environmental Engineering and John J. Stanton, whose appointment as Technology (OEET). The change Director of the Emergency Response Carson's concerns. Three decades have will affect the agency's Division of EPA's Office of Solid Waste passed since Rachel Carson's last book Washington headquarters office and Emergency Response (OSWER) was about the world's oceans, so-despite its as well as laboratories in reported in the September 1984 issue of flaws-Anne Simon's updated analysis Cincinnati and Research Triangle the Journal, has recently been named does fill a real and present need in Park, N.C. Director of the Superfund Enforcement environmental literature written for EPA's research activities in the Division. Stanton held the former popular consumption. areas of air, water, Superfund, position from June 1984 until February Simon is particularly eloquent in toxics, and hazardous waste 1985 when he took on his new describing the perils of oil spills and control technology will be realigned into three laboratories responsibilities within OSWER. ocean disposal of radioactive wastes. However, she also devotes careful under the direction of Carl R. Peter L. Cook has been appointed Deputy attention to the hazards posed by ocean Gerber. Director of Waste Programs Enforcement These laboratories are dumping of toxic chemicals and sewage in OSWER. Cook has returned to EPA after responsible for developing sludge as well as indiscriminate salmon five and a half years as Deputy Federal pollution abatement technology fishing and whale hunting. Perhaps her Inspector in the Office of the Federal in support of EPA policies and most fascinating chapter, "The Sea Also Inspector for the Alaska Natural Gas regulations. The research is Rises," describes how the " Greenhouse conducted both in-house and Transportation System, an independent Effect " could lead to flooding problems through contracts and agency responsible for overseeing on a scale never before encountered in cooperative agreements. 0 construction of the Alaska Natural Gas recorded history. Pipeline, one of the largest and most Neptune's Revenge ends w ith a expensive construction projects ever disillusioning survey of political and legal undertaken. issues bearing on the future of the Cook worked at EPA between 1971 and world's oceans. She describes the 1979. From 1971 to 1975 he was an modern land rush for underwater drilling Environmental Protection Specialist in rights as a bizarre form of imperialism the Office of Federal Activities. From that can only lead to further ecological 1975 to 1979 he served as Assistant degradation. Simon's warnings are so Director of the same office. dire that her depiction of Antarctica as Prior to joining EPA, Cook worked for "the one almost pure place left on earth" three years as an aerospace engineer at takes on desperate rather than hopeful the National Oceanic and Atmospheric undertones. Administration (NOAA). Between 1966 Many experts will dispute the and 1968 he served as an officer in the practicality of Simon's premise that only Commissioned Corps of NOAA. "zero" degradation can prevent Cook studied engineering at the "unreasonable" risk to ocean ecology. Clarkson College of Technology in However, few would question Simon's Potsdam, N.Y. He received his B.S. in insistence on the importance of healthy Electrical Engineering in 1966. Cook oceans to the survival of the planet and earned an M.B.A. at American University the urgency of the problems confronting in 1971. our oceans today. "A killing sea," Simon warns, "will be Neptune's revenge for our misuse of his domain-unless we act w ith determination, fast. " D

32 EPA JOURNAL Winter comes to Lake Superior.

Back cover: Flowers bloom along the shoreline of Lake M ichigan, in Leelanau County, Mich. Photo courtesy M ichigan Travel Bureau. United States Third-Class Bulk Environmental Protection Postage and Fees Paid Agency EPA Washington DC 20460 Permit No. G-35

Otticial Business Penalty for Private Use $300