Environmental Quality Studies

In addition to investigation projects like those described in chapter II that contribute directly to specific pollution control efforts, the solution of environmental problems requires greatly increased knowledge of oceanic conditions and processes, the nature and movement of various pollutants and their effects on marine and human life. Several Federal agencies are engaged in research directed to this goal.

Research projects supported by the NSF/IDOE Environmental Quality program seek to determine existing concentrations of pollutants and trace compounds in the marine environment. Specific projects are aimed at determining sources and rates at which pollutants enter the oceans, the way in which they are carried and dispersed, and their effect on marine life.

Throughout 1971 and 1972 researchers carried out regional baseline acquisition projects in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. Initial results indicate that heavy metals, petroleum, and chlorinated hydrocarbons were present in these areas to the extent that they constituted a problem of potentially global importance. These and other findings led to research projects that were designed to determine pollutant pathways and mechanisms controlling the rates at which these pollutants enter the oceans.

The quantities and forms of heavy metals, halogenated hydrocarbons, and petroleum hydrocarbons are being determined, especially at the air-sea interface and in the coastal regions where they enter the marine environment. Special attention is directed toward the concentration and dispersal of pollutants through estuaries to continental shelf waters. Preliminary findings suggest that atmospheric transport is an important pathway for open ocean pollution. For example, 12 trace metals, petroleum, and chlorinated hydrocarbons have been detected in the air and water of the North Atlantic. Mercury, cadmium, and lead have also been found in water and biota.

Laboratory and field studies to test the effects of metals, petroleum, and chlorinated hydrocarbons on marine life were started in 1973. Laboratory field work will analyze the effects of pollutants on the behavior and life processes of individual classes of organisms such as bacteria, enzymes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and higher marine organisms.

Field projects will observe the low-level and long-term effects of pollutants on the stability of natural plankton communities in water columns trapped in plastic enclosures placed in Saanich Inlet, a fjord in British Columbia, Canada. Testing of 1/4-scale models of the plastic enclosures (10 by 30 meters) indicate that the full-scale versions will withstand the rigors of the Saanich Inlet and will contain bacteria, phytoplankton, and microzooplankton identical to those in the natural environment. The effects of pollutants on these plankton communities will be assessed by subjecting one of the enclosures to low levels of pollutants over long periods and comparing the effects on these organisms with those on the plankton communities in other bags kept in their natural states.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) marine research program is aimed at the establishment of water quality criteria and providing information to abate contamination of the marine environment.

EPA's National Marine Water Quality Laboratory in Narragansett, Rhode Island, is developing culture, rearing, and holding techniques to produce quality-controlled marine organisms for experimental use and an ecological studies system for field validation of laboratory results. It is also preparing biological criteria in support of legal standards for dissolved oxygen, temperature, and salinity. In toxicology studies the laboratory has emphasized work on biological methods for water quality assessment and the determination of acute levels of heavy materials, petrochemicals, and other materials hazardous to marine organisms. Recent accomplishments of the laboratory program have been the completion of a study on the effects of Nitrilotriacetate, a

phosphorus substitute used in soap, on the toxicity of metals to marine phyloplankton; the development of bioassay procedures to assess acute toxicity levels for oils and oil dispersants; the determination of safe periods of exposure to chlorine for different phyloplankton species; and the determination that 4 parts per

million of dissolved oxygen is essential to the completion of the life cycle of the economically important hard shell clam.

Projects at the Environmental Research Laboratory at Gulf Breeze, Fla. are directed to determining the toxicity of pesticides. This work includes evaluating the impact of pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls on marine ecosystems and determining the pathways and mechanisms of pesticide degradation in the marine environment. The Laboratory also assays the effects of new pesticides on marine organisms. The Gulf Breeze Laboratory is currently studying methoxychlor, malathion, and mirex. Methoxychlor and malathion are two pesticides that are now being substituted for DDT. Mirex is an organochloride used extensively in the Southeastern United. States to treat fire ants.

Other agencies supporting environmental quality research are the AEC, NOAA, (through its Sea Grant Program), DOI, and the Smithsonian Institution. The AEC supports a program directed to tracing the movement of radioactive elements throughout the oceans. and determining the pathways by which radioactivity may progress through the marine food chain and eventually return to man. In one of its projects, the AEC, in cooperation with the National Marine Fisheries Service is conducting basic studies relative to food web dynamics in oceanic, coastal, and estuarine environments. A major effort is underway to describe the structure and function of coastal plain estuaries near Beaufort, N. C. This research involves studies of the transfer of energy at all levels of the food web as well as studies on the physiological responses of estuarine organisms to thermal stress and the cycling of trace metals within these ecosystems. The movement of radioelements through the marine environment, the means and rates of return of radioactivity to man through marine food webs, and other ecological process are of vital concern to all mankind.

Another major effort in food chain research is being conducted at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and consists of a multidisciplinary investigation directed toward understanding the transfer of energy in planktonic food webs in the North Pacific Ocean. Additional food web research is being conducted in such diverse marine environments as the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, and coastal waters of Washington and Oregon.

Researchers supported by the National Sea Grant Program are monitoring the effects of thermal and radioactive discharges from nuclear power plants to assess their effects on marine life, primarily on commercial fisheries. Wastewater, dredge spoils, and solid wastes are targets of other studies on pollutants that threaten to degrade the marine environment. Scientists supported by Sea Grant are also studying the physical, chemical, and environmental

parameters that govern the mechanism of shoreline contamination from oil spills and natural oil seepages. The remote sensing of surface slicks, using infrared spectral information, is being evaluated for its effectiveness in oil slick surveillance programs.

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History's collection of biological specimens represents an important source of information on environmental conditions faced by these organisms while they were alive. The study of methods for retrieving such environmental data and for enhancing the value of these. preserved specimens as indicator organisms for such substances as heavy metals continued in FY '73 under a grant from NSF/IDOE.

In Tunisia, the Smithsonian's Mediterranean Marine Sorting Center (MMSC) in cooperation with EPA, performs studies of eutrophication problems in brackish Lake Tunis. EPA also supported a study by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute of various aspects of the ecology and physiology of tropical marine organisms. Smithsonian's Office of Environmental Sciences completed a study of the environmental impact of offshore oil exploitation in Indonesia and a preliminary survey of the levels of heavy metals in the food chain of the sturgeon and other fishes of commerical value in the Caspian Sea.

Seabed History and Resources

Geological and geophysical investigations of the ocean bottom are central to the understanding of the origin of ocean basins, the development of seawater, and the history of marine life. More immediate concerns for shortfalls in fossil fuel supplies have focused increased attention on continental margins as a potential source of oil and gas for the nation's energy needs.

Scientists supported by the NSF/IDOE have been conducting. research on continental margins, deep sea beds, and midoceanic ridges to identify areas of natural resources, particularly petroleum. and hard minerals, and to improve understanding of the natural processes that produce these resources.

Work is proceeding on the continental margins of both sides of the South Atlantic and along the coasts of Peru and Chile. Fieldwork for an extensive geophysical and geological survey of the Eastern Atlantic Continental margin was completed in 1973. Scientists on these cruises mapped large sediment-filled basins and belts of diapirs, (areas of large-scale salt accumulation), some of which were previously unreported and none of which had been completely mapped. Several of these structures in shallow water are now prospective sources of petroleum production; others offer potential for future development.