Document J3N7QE08NM79M6YDnjbVxMZQB

Daily News Digest Service JOURNAL The Obeerver DATE 12 December, 1971 PAGE Atlantic plankton pollution shocks scientists ---------- - by GERALD LEACH, out Scltnci Correspondent PLANKTON samples throufh- The Mirvey fouai hat level* of out the whole Aitenlk- oce*o have been found to contain such unexpectedly high leveb of industrial pollutant* colled PCBa PCB* -chemical douains to the ^1^0 DDT--am roughly >0 to > time* higher id plankton from the open ocean than from coastal waters, where one would expect that marine biologist* are pres greater contamination from river sing for an immediate Intbr- pollution and dumping of industrial national conference. watte*. (PCBa are mainly used in The discovery, which pomea at a painta and varnishe* and aa elec complete MirpriM, w rrwtk by the trical initiators; world production first survey ever carried out to U about 50,000 iota a year.) muftuie PCBa (polychlorinated Actual levela found in Blanktoo hirhmyla) in tlie open oceans. --the tiny plants and animals on The survey. by the Wood** Hole which oil marine Hfe eventually Ocesnograghk. Institute, Maata- depend* f.>r food-*rn*td from 0 I chuaettt, wai completed Ian tnomh to I S parta per million (freak after a year spent collecUnt and svrijrftO. these act extramdinarilv analysing hundreita of aample* of 'high ftpurea when compared to plankton and flsh from an area those for plankton In coastal water* stretching from the Antarctic to the --tsaually around .01 to .05 pom. Arctic amt from the America* to They arc also much higher than Africa and Europe. levaii o( DDT eantamraation ip the open oceans -usually put at 01 ppm for 'Plankton. Another shock finding I* that the plankton contained roughly 10 times as much PCBa as did other marine organiMiw -- particularly fish. This contradict* the wcfl-wom Mn that pollutants are progres sively cones mated as they peaa op the 'food chain --the proceaa in which little flah act plankton, big ger flak eat the little fish, and eo on. Or Geprge Harvey, the survey`* f leader, told me last week that. In I many food chain*, they found that f PCB contamination daermsed the " higher up the ehain they went. Alt the findings surest that fish and plankton gel moat of their PCBa (and by implication other pollu tants) directly front the water, sot from lowlier animals. This finding <a turn has several important implication* for marine pollution. One is that PCB* mult He reaching the plankton mainly by `wash out* from the atmo sphere- -suggesting that the biggest primary source is not river pollu tion or dumping at am (both easily controllable), but the burning on land of such things as old paintcovered wood. Dr Harvey estimates that PCBa liivt more than 100 times at long a* DDT (itself highly persistent) - in other words, at leant 500 vsars. |:or thi* reason, the ban impmed Iasi MariVr by Monsanto Lid, fhe leading manutacluW. Oft Ikies of Pt B* (or anything but totally ' cap,tivc iiae (eg, inude dried oleciric:1 equipment) won't be very effec tive in lowering ocean contamina tion by POBs. The only hope is tlut marine life will do the job it self bv absorbing PCBs and carry ing them to the bottom of the ocean, out of barm's way, when they die. Last week British marine bsoloIdols specialising on PCBa ex pressed varying degrees of surprise and cautiou* scepticism about the survey * findings. Yet all of (hem confirmed--with feeling* of unease --that no work has yet heed done anywhere in the world to unk the fleet* of PQB* on the health or geological pattern* of marine organisms. There are only suspicions to go on. PC'B* arr widely thoeghtto act tike a weaker version of DDT, vriiicb is known to upset while but important behaviour and reproduc tive patterns of fish even at ex tremely low leveh, PCBs were also thought to have contributed to the death of more than 12,000 sea birds in the Irish Sea in 196V. HONS 068974