Quot;Boundless" Seas Are Polluted, Too

A lake, with its clearly defined boundaries, fits comfortably into the human mind. We have no trouble thinking of it as a "thing." And if a thing is damaged, we feel that it can be fixed.

But now we realize that our oceans—those "boundless" seas that cover nearly three-quarters of the planet—are in trouble, too.

"Man puts at least three million tons of oil a year into the oceans," Dr. Max Blumer, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told me. "The yearly total may run as high as ten million tons, which doesn't include tanker wrecks, such as the Torrey Canyon disaster, or production accidents like those off Santa Barbara and Louisiana, either.”…

"Unfortunately, most of the spillage happens in just the wrong places," Dr. Blumer said. "Spills occur in the coastal waters, where marine productivity is concentrated."

Like most laymen, I had thought of oil spills in terms of blackened beaches and dying sea birds. Dr. Blumer assured me that the effects were much more far reaching.

"We know more about oil's toxic properties now, because a spill near here—160,000 to 175,000 gallons of number 2 fuel oil—has turned out to be something of a lab experiment in oil pollution and its aftermath."

The spill occurred September 16, 1969, off West Falmouth, Massachusetts. Three days later oceanographers trawled the area. Ninety-five percent of their catch was dead, and the rest was dying.

"Now, a year later, bottom life is still being poisoned," Dr. Blumer said. "Toxic substances in the oil have entered the sediment. They seep out and spread with the current. Even after the poison has been diluted a thousand times, it kills shellfish. Where it doesn't kill, it gets into their meat—and it will persist there as long as they live."

More than two million tons of oil a year, Dr. Blumer estimates, come from tankers that flush out their tanks at sea (local laws prevent their doing so in port) and from vessels that pump out oily bilge water. All too often, their wastes drift ashore to foul beaches.

But Dr. Blumer and others are perfecting techniques that "fingerprint" oil—tell exactly where the oil came from. The day may come when the careless voiding of oil at sea can be traced to a specific ship, and the captain or owners charged with negligence.

In March 1967, when the tanker Torrey Canyon went aground off the British coast, 110,000 tons of oil spilled out. I asked Dr. Blumer what measures could be taken to clean up a huge oil slick of that kind.

"Speed is essential," he said, "since the most toxic elements dissolve quickly into the sea water. If the oil can be pumped into airdropped bladders or into another ship … fine. If not, burning is probably the best answer, though that causes air pollution, of course. Containing booms haven't worked out well. Detergents or dispersants may get the problem out of sight, but they do it by sinking the oil down into the marine environment, where it can do more damage."…

DDT—Boon and Hazard

In 1874 a German chemist named Othmar Zeidler created a new compound. Its jaw-breaking name was dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane. We know it as DDT.

Dr. Zeidler was unaware that he had found a potential insecticide. Sixty-five years passed before the insecticidal properties were recognized—just before World War II.

DDT was used extensively during the war, against mosquitoes and body lice, with great success. And thousands upon thousands of tons have been used since then, on forests, on farms, and to control household pests. Many an area has been freed at last from malaria.

But one of the compound's most attractive features—the fact that it remains active long after application—has had unpleasant ramifications, too. In the past decade it has become increasingly evident that creatures in water, in air, and on land—including man himself—have built up concentrations within their bodies. Sharp reductions in numbers of ospreys and other birds are attributed to DDT and its derivatives.

The pesticide has traveled through the ocean chain. Even penguins in the Antarctic, where DDT has never been used, have accumulated traces of the compound.

Another senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, biologist Dr. H. L. Sanders, told me more about the problem.

"It has become apparent that DDT and the other chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides aren't selective. They are toxic to many forms of animal and marine life. When a fish eats food organisms contaminated with the insecticides, the compound builds up in its fatty tissues. When a larger fish eats him, that predator will end up with the insecticide."

Dr. Sanders is also concerned about another group of toxic chemical compounds—the polychlorinated biphenyls, called PCB's.

"The PCB's have been around for 25 years or so," he told me. "But, until recently, we weren't too conscious of them. They are used in the manufacture of plastics, paints, and a great many other things—so they're present in a lot of the industrial waste that ends up in our rivers and oceans. When scientists began analyzing fish samples in a chromatograph to track DDT through the food chain, PCB's kept showing up.

"We've found that they act on marine life much as DDT does, traveling through the food chain. Their toxic effects, alone or in combination, are still largely unknown. Research is just beginning."…

Last year Americans threw away 50 billion empty cans, 30 billion glass containers, 4 million tons of plastics, and more than a million television sets. Where did it all go?

Into the ground, mostly, in open dumps or into "sanitary landfill." Incineration posed problems: Much of the refuse was unburnable. Also, some burning plastics produce toxic smoke, plus fumes that damage an incinerator's pollution-trapping devices.