Document M4BkV03Kx0aYQ3VjOVd4Kq5pk

CHARLESTON W. VA. fi.MAIL S6.an) AUG 15 1971 Our Poisoned Seas--Soon Biological Deserts MOWS 032741 / By Stan Beajamta delphis'a sludgodump. WASHINGTON -- Of* -- Mao la poisoning the aat, methodi The FDA did seat lome cally polluting seveo-tenth* of the world and slaughtering fourdiftha of all living thing*. By regarding the oceans as an inexhaustible source of food on the one hand, and an Insatiable sink for his waatas on the other, be Is threatening to turn the seas into biological de- Pacific Coast mackerel, dan gerously high in DDT, but It let contaminated fish oils, fish liven and liSh protein concen trate slip through its fingers. Ronk said "the product was Some scientists baUeva cats- strophe is only e matter of Unto. "In a vary faw years we are going to have a most un- plesMot awakening," says famed explorer Jacques Cos- toau, who ostimtas on the basis of his own undersea ob servations that ocean life has decreased by 40 per cent in the last 20 year*. Other scientists say tha di mensions of the danger are unknown. . "Most scientists in this field are very much concerned and wa realize we don't know a damn thing about it," said Philip Butler, e leading mar ios bWogisl, in an interview. There is no way to support or disprove Oostoau's esti mate. No one measured the ooaao life 20 years ago; no one is doing U now. "We scientists," said ecolo gy* Georgs M. Woodweil of Brookhaven National Labora tory, "are Just about the lost to come across any real proof. gone by the time the analysis a wider net and still hauling was completed." In smaller catches. i "We can't take it off the market after It's sold because THE WORLDWIDE catch of the product has lost its identi fish and shellfish, after tri- ty in the marketplace," he in the last 22 years, said. Fish oil, for example aed for the first tune In ends up in vitamin prepara IMS. Donald Whittaker, etcioon s. nomic analyst for tha National Marine Fisheries Service, said THE EFFECTS of over tha oatch increased again to fishing were dramatically illus 1970, but only because fisher trated by the whaling indus men went after new special. try, which long ago all but "A great many fish have destroyed itself, akmg with lust about reached their lim earth's largest mammals. . it," Whittaker said in an inter As for the problem of con view. "Tha haddock off our tamination, tha dingers were northeast coast have been <rv- clearly outlined in Japan erftitol Countries that fish when methyl mercury killed that area are now abiding by 40 persons and ruined the a quota, but they really should nervous systems of 100 more. stop entirely for a couple of But can man ruin all the years. Tha haddock are In oceans of the earth? . danger of becoming extinct. ' Costosu says flatly. "The Were not sure there are oceans are dying" while socie enough left to reproduce ty adopts "an ostrich policy." themselves." "We do not wish to know," Other species also are en he said. "Wa do not wish to dangered. "Yeilowtail flounder off tha But my guess is that Costoau is dead right." How fast do man's poisons spread? How much damage wtU they do? How long can tha set meet man's ever increating demand for food? ' northeast are right on the verge of being overfished," Whittaker said. "The coun tries have agreed on s quota. There is a quota on tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. I wouldn't bo surprised if we have quotas soon os cod THESE ARE QUESTIONS and perch. Lobster* in the for which scientists have no United States and Canada are answers, but (hoy do know the Just ot their maximum poisons are spreading. Tha oatch." . ,, damage has already begun: "Previously," said Whittak Forty-nine persons died in er, "the fisheries wore wisr- Japan from eating fish poi utilized. Now we're on the soned with industrial mercu verge of depleting the re- ry. An epidemic of infectious hepatitis was started by shell "OVERFISHING" tolls only fish caught in sewage-coo- a fraction of tha story. Con laminated New York waters. tamination is starting to moke Fish-killing "rad tide" or eagerly-hunted fish unfit to be ganisms, believed to be trig eaten. gered by pollution have sick- The U. S. Food and Drug shod people through contact Administration closed shellfish or seafood. beds in Brunswick Bay, Ga., lbs buildup near industrial and Port Lavaca Bay, Tex., ized areas of toxic substances, last year because of mercury including oancer-lnducing contamination from factories. agents such as DDT, "has It took imported swordfish off reached frightening propor the U. S. market because of tions," according to B. W. mercury. Halstead, director of (ha "We can ban Imports," World Ufa Research Institute. FDA regulator Richard Ronk "There is no longer any said. "We are not able to question that these materials handle the domestic catch the era entering man's marine same way. Seizure is almost .food resources," he told an impossible with the manpower international conference on we have now." pollution last November. After hepatitis outbreaks, Pollution is only part of the the FDA banned ahellfishlng problem. To meet the demand in the ocean off Raritan Bay. for fresh fish, the fishermen is where the. New York area ranging farther and farther dumps its sewsge sludge, and from his homo waters, casting off the Delaware Bay, Phils- understand the danger." Industrial chemicals, oil, raw sewage, pesticides and machinery ' bad breath brought to earth by rainfall, already have killed or crip pled the life of streams, rivers and lakes. BUT THE OCEAN? That's where the polluted rivers flow. The oceen, said Halstead, la "the final ceeapooi of moat of man'* activi ties." The estuaries, where river meets sea, ere already heavi ly polluted. They are alao the spawning grounds of much marine ufe. Butler has reported evi dence that DDT killed shrimp in Texas estuaries, blocked the reproduction of speckled trout off the Texas Coast, and may be reducing Dungeneaa crabs off California. DDT, a chemical invented to kill insects on farmland, has been found in Arctic aaela and Antarctic penguins. Woodweil doubts that pol lution rould kill alt ocean life; his fear is that it could wipe out the higher forms. "I estimate," he said, "that the earth's biota (Ufa forma) HONS 032742 probably contain Ini than one-thirteenth of one year's world production of DDT, at the production level of the twos. "I further estimate that If one year's production got into the biota, It would be enough to reduce the earth to the biotic structure of eutrophic water." By that ha means the life-style of a stagnant lake. Only 25 per cent of the DDT produced so far has reached the sea, a report by the Na tional Academy of Sciences estimated this year. If produc tion stopped completely, three times u much DDT might still be on its way. U. S. chemical companies reportedly produce more than 100 million pounds of DDT per year. It is estimated to last. In nature, anywhere from 10 to 90 years. Other pesticides, such m dieldrfn, endrin, heptachlor epoxide, and benzene hexech- lorkies, are similarly longlasting. So are the Industrial chemicals called PCBs (poly chlorinated biphenyls1 now found worldwide and ranked by soma scientists as an ocean pollutant second only to DDT. So similar are the two chemicals, in fact, that the Food and Drug Administration routinely tests fish only for DDT. If it finds DDT, the agency figure* an equal amount of PCB must be pre sent. . Monsanto Chemical Cft, the only manufacturer of PCBs in the United States, refuses "for competitive reaaons" to re veal how much is being pro- MEANWHILE, the poison ing of the sea continues. Tbs United'States dumped 4$ million tons of its wastes into the sea ia 1068 including at least 13 million tons of polluted sludge. Such sludge has killed al most every living thing on the ocean floor in a ^square-mile area off New York. Foreign scientists ssy sew age and chemical dischargee are killing the bottom of To kyo Bey and gradually chok ing the life out of (he Baltic Sea and perhaps the MedHer* Scientists estimate that man is adding a half-million differ ent suhslanoN to the sea. Ite latest to draw attention was reported last November after a Swedlsh-Norwegian research ship found "red-white" patch es of dead plankton along 70 miles of the Atlantic. The killer appeared to be a dumped batch of "chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons," the wastN of plastic manufactur ing. The research ship report ed "strong indications that ' this chemical originates from industries on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean." Plankton are the microscop ic plants and animals at the very foundation of the ocean's food chain. They also produce some 70 per cent of the earth's oxygen. Three Scottish scientists ` have reported that plankton ) samplings 30 feet deep over 22 years showed "a most dra matic decline ... in the At lantic as well as the North 1 See." t They don't know what that , means, or even whether it , means anything. What man knows Is that he 1 is poisoning the sea and its * living things. | What he does not know is . what his poisons do, to it or them. * Or himseU. 1 MONS 0327<.3