- Email: [email protected]
Parliament in Britain
B u l l e t i n 17 fold sertes), 18) Lske its predecessor, Cristal ~s designed as an mtertm measure pending the coming into force of international con~ent~ons deahng w~th tanker owner hab~hty tor oil spillages
Mar, he P o l l u t t o n
PARLIAHENT
IN BRITAIN
Improvements Sought in Shrppmg Lanes In a statement made the dax after the recent colhs~ons m the Enghsh Channel, the Under-Secretary for Trade and Industry, Mr Anthon~ Grant, said that a prehmmar~ inquiry under section 465 of the Merchant Shsppmg Act of 1894 had been ordered. This would n o t entail a formal investigation because the sh~ps revolved were re~stered outside the UK and the collmons occurred outside UK territorial ~vaters. Two main issues were raised by Mr Mason he wanted to know what had become of the proposals that pilots should board tankers long before thex enter the congested straits and that. as Tnmtx House had suggested, the present traffic flow should be reversed so that tankers would travel up the channel m the deeper %ater near the Enghsh coast. On the question of pilotage, Mr Grant rephed that compulsory pilotage would requtre m t e r n a t m n a l agreement and it would be chfficult to secure and enforce. Mr Callaghan, remmchng the House that he was Honorary President of the UK Pilots Assocuttion, thought that to obtain full mternaUonal agreement s~ould be v~rtually impossible and that the right answer would be to consult the nations who border the Channel and who might agree amongst themsel~es to extend the hm~ts of compulsory pilotage. Mr Grant d~d not rule out th~s posslblhtv, although, since shtps of all nations enter the Channel. he thought full international agreement was tmportant. Mr Grant gas aware of the Trinity House proposals concerning shipping lanes m the channel, but after careful mxesugat~on, he was convinced that they would create a greater risk than there is at the m o m e n t . Nevertheless, he said, the government was pursmng the matter through the Intergo~ernmental Maritime Consultau~e Organtsauon and tt hoped that, in March, a mochhcatton of the present scheme s~ould be brought before the international committee. To be enforceable, the nexv scheme must be wholly international. Mr J o h n Pardoe, a hberal member, said that ff the r e c o m m e n d e d report of Trmstv House had been in o p e r a u o n , the recent accident could not have taken
s
't
2)"' 'If,, .
~
.
.
.
.
~. .
~
~
~
."._~
.
-
~ _ `
~ ~ ~ , . ~
_~-¢.---,---
2. The crumpled Paracas (9,481 tonnes) after the coll~mn,
place. Mr Grant reRerated the government's dissausfacuon w~th the present scheme and its determination to act through the IMCO During the consideration of the Oil m Navigable Waters Bill (see below), Mr Grant said that the government ,sas considering ~hether the emsung scheme in the Dover Straits ought to be made m a n d a t o r y A mandator,~ traffic scheme would, however, be difficult to enforce but ff after examination, ~t seemed deswable, international agreement would be sought through the IMCO A proposal for a change m the law of the sea to give ships carrying lethal cargoes right of way, although it seemed attractwe at hrst glance, was rejected o n the grounds that it would be unworkable in pracuce. Ball to Increase Laabdlty for Oil PolluUon A bdl was introduced in the House of Lords on J a n u a r y 15 by Lord Drumalbyn (Mimster a~ithout Portfolio) that would face shlp owners with much stiffer habLht~ for oil pollution m Brtush waters and for the cost of protecting the coast. Known as the Merchant Shlppmg (Od Polluuon) Bill, it ts designed to maprove the posatson of claimants suffering damage caused b y tanker disasters and other accidental spillages It therefore approaches the threat of oil p o l l u u o n from an angle different to that of the Oil m Navlgable Waters Bdl, whlch Is deslgned to deal with illegal chscharges of orl. The new bill would mapose a strict hablhty on the tanker owner a n d would provide a lmaltatmn fund ssath higher hmlts of habthty b y increasing the hmlt, at present £28 a ton of oil, to £56 a ton or £5 8 million, which ever ~s the least. In adchuon, any shtp regnstered m the UK carrying a cargo of more than 2000 tons of o,1, and any ship reg2stered elsewhere entering or leaving a UK port w~th such a cargo, will need to have a statutory certificate of insurance against the owner's potential habshty. Od in Navigable ~,~aters Bdl The a m e n d m e n t s of the Standing CommRtee were considered on J a n u a r y 13 and the bill was given a thlrd reading. A new clause was proposed b y the Standlng Committee to ensure that the Board of Trade can require, as a condltxon of regastrauon of a vessel in the United Kingdom, the provlslon of security for any free or damages awarded m civil proceedings arising from an illegal discharge of oil. The clause was read for the ftrst u m e b y Mr Albert Booth, a member of the stanchng committee. He sasd that, m commattee, it had been contended that ~t was destrable to have some p r o v m o n whereby a ship could be held in a UK port if ~t was suspected of having committed an offence. But a powerful arguement against such a prow.stun is that owners f o u n d not gudty would stdl be heavdy penahsed m that they would be expenawely retained m port. Mr Grant, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Idustry p o i n t e d out that the clause could only apply to shsps registered m the UK, and st would thus chscrumnate against BnUsh sh~p owners. The question was p u t and negated. Their second new clause would have reqtured all Brstlsh harbour authorities to prowde facdlties for the discharge of oil~ water or waste od at every one of thelr berths free of charge. Mr Grant maintained that since harbour authorities would have to recover the cost of these faclhues by increasing general port charges, and since only a minority of vessels would need them, the majorltv of port users would be subslchsmg the minority and this would be unfair. Accorchngly, thts clause was also rejected. Mr -knthon~ Grant moved the a m e n d m e n t to the ball that had been proposed by the standing committee to increase the maximum penalty for the illegal discharge of od from £ 1 0 0 0 to .£50,000, not from £1000 to £5000 as 21
originally intended in the bill. He had originally believed that £50,000 was too large a penalt'~ for a pollution offence because it ~s far m excess of the h m n g powers normally available to magistrates. On the other hand, he said, the new restrictions which will be brought into force b~ this ball vall create new situations there will be a b e t t e r chance of catching the serious offenders, and for these, a penalty is certainly needed that will provide a real deterrent. He also shared the feeling widespread in the House that such a large penalty would indicate that Britain is serious about pollution. At the same tune, he made prosaslon for the penalty for smaller offences under the exLstmg law - for example, fadure to install e q m p m e n t m Brmsh ships to prevent oil p o l l u u o n - to stay at £1000. The a m e n d m e n t was agreed to, the report stage was concluded and the ball read a third time.
United Nations: Protection of the Seabed The General Assembly C o m m i t t e e o f the U m t e d Nations declared recently that seabed resources, as the ' c o m m o n heritage of mankind', should be exploited for general benefit under an m t e r n a u o n a l agency. By a vote of 90-0 with eleven abstentions, the c o m m i t t e e adopted a statement o f principles - the p r o d u c t o f a specml United Nations c o m m i t t e e under the chatrmanshtp of Ambassador H. S. Amerasmghe of Ceylon - that would place the seabed b e y o n d the reach of national sovereignUes, hnk the benefits of peaceful use to the needs of the developing countries and estabhsh measures for conservation. The adoption of the statement o f pnnc~ples is the result of a considerable effort m m a t e d by a number o f countries three years ago when the/vlaltese ambassador, Arvld Pardo, f'rrst raised the seabed ,¢sue. Although the prmcrples have been approved by the U mt ed Nations, by no means has all the d o u b t been removed from the future of the seabed The extent of national sovereignty, for example, remains a tricky quesuon. A n u m b e r of countrms sponsored a revised resolution on the law o f the sea, calling for a world conference m 1973 to deal vath the issue of national sovereignty. At the m o m e n t the United States claims a three mile hmit while Peru, Ecuador and Chile claim a 200 rmle bruit, Canada claims the r~ght to p o h c e a zone exten&ng 100 males into the A r c u c against p o l l u u o n . A measure of the concern shown by the m e m b e r countries ab o u t the dangers of exploiting the seabed is the doubhng m the number of members on the c o m m i t t e e planning the 1973 conference Some delegations fear that tbas effort to include nearly t%o-thirds o f the United Nations 127 members m a y create a cumbersome committee. At the same tame, m a n y beheve that Issues such as the e x p l o l t a u o n of the seabed are those m which the United Nations can make the greatest impact in the future.
A Harmless Oil Dispersant 'Corexxt 7664', an oil dlspersant p r o d u c e d recently by Enjav Chem,cal Company, has been shown to have no harmful eifects on the m,croflora of beach sand when bv itself at concentrations between 5 x 102 and l0 s parts per million or when mixed with Kuwait crude od. In a study by Dr S . A . Broom at the U m , ersttx of Washington, Seattle, the effects of the dlspersant on the p h o t o s v n t h e u c and degradauve capacities of the microflora were found by measuring the uptake of oxygen and ra&oacttve carbon and the breakdo%n of chlorophyl! m sand samples collected at Nobska Beach, '~',oods Hole, Massachusetts. The samples were packed in columns 45 cm long, and sea %ater was filtered through them at a constant rate. In the first experiment, a range of concentrations of ' C o r e m t ' was added to the water, m the second, od was added to a fresh column before the water was passed through', and m the third, water with ' C o r e m t ' s, as passed through an oiled column. The water was sampled at Intervals along the tube and the microorgamsms that it contained were tested for the effects of these three treatments. There was no signdlcant breakdown of chlorophyll m the mlcroorgan~cms along the column and the uptake of radioactive carbon remained fairly steady throughout Oxygen uptake was increased in ~I1 cases, but the uptake m the column with oil alone was greatest. The lesser uptake in the presence of 'Corexat' was probably due not to toxicity but to the rapid removal of oil, the substrate of the rmcroflora Dr Bloom concludes that, bv itself or In c o m b m a u o n with oil, ' C o r e x n ' is non-tome to benthic mzcroflora. Since benthic bacterml populations should have a response similar to the more chlute pelagic populations, the dzspersant should not Inhibit the hactenal degradation of od m coastal waters The product m ay therefore be useful where the use of highly toxic kerosene-based detergents Is inadvisable.
Half DDT Evaporates from Crops It is highly u n / o r t u n at e m a t the toxicity o f DDT is well supported by properties that enable it to spread swiftly m the environment. Work at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol by Dr C . P . Lloyd-Jones (Nature, 229, 65, 1971) has shown that up to 60 per cent o f D D T apphed to crops may be lost by evaporation. The rate of loss of DDT was calculated from its vapour pressure and the rate of chffucaon of the e~aporated molecules through the layer of still alr above its surface. A "3 2 1 o ~alue of 3 x 1 0 p g c m - h- at 20 C was obtained. The evaporation rate was determined expermaentally bv measuring the reduction m a certain length of ttrne m the radioacuvaty of DDT labelled vath carbon--14 m the phenyl ring. The e x p e n m e n t a l l v determined ex~porauon rates were m good agreement with the values obtained bv calculauon. Converted to a field scale, they suggest losses to the atmosphere at a rate of about 2 pounds acre-t3r - I m summer and about 0.3 pounds a c r e - i y r-I m wmter
Black Sea Dolphin Census A census of Dolphins m the Black Sea carried out b v Soviet scientists has shown that the dolphin population has doubled since the ban on hunting them was introduced m 1965. Most of the dolphins were f o u n d on the Crimean coast.
22
Sublethal Effects of DDT on Tadpoles Tadpoles m amphibian sahne containing 0.05 parts per m i l t o n DDT are driven into a frantic call-lashing state that may reduce their chance of survival by m a ~ n g them more
Mar, he P o l l u t t o n
PARLIAHENT
IN BRITAIN
Improvements Sought in Shrppmg Lanes In a statement made the dax after the recent colhs~ons m the Enghsh Channel, the Under-Secretary for Trade and Industry, Mr Anthon~ Grant, said that a prehmmar~ inquiry under section 465 of the Merchant Shsppmg Act of 1894 had been ordered. This would n o t entail a formal investigation because the sh~ps revolved were re~stered outside the UK and the collmons occurred outside UK territorial ~vaters. Two main issues were raised by Mr Mason he wanted to know what had become of the proposals that pilots should board tankers long before thex enter the congested straits and that. as Tnmtx House had suggested, the present traffic flow should be reversed so that tankers would travel up the channel m the deeper %ater near the Enghsh coast. On the question of pilotage, Mr Grant rephed that compulsory pilotage would requtre m t e r n a t m n a l agreement and it would be chfficult to secure and enforce. Mr Callaghan, remmchng the House that he was Honorary President of the UK Pilots Assocuttion, thought that to obtain full mternaUonal agreement s~ould be v~rtually impossible and that the right answer would be to consult the nations who border the Channel and who might agree amongst themsel~es to extend the hm~ts of compulsory pilotage. Mr Grant d~d not rule out th~s posslblhtv, although, since shtps of all nations enter the Channel. he thought full international agreement was tmportant. Mr Grant gas aware of the Trinity House proposals concerning shipping lanes m the channel, but after careful mxesugat~on, he was convinced that they would create a greater risk than there is at the m o m e n t . Nevertheless, he said, the government was pursmng the matter through the Intergo~ernmental Maritime Consultau~e Organtsauon and tt hoped that, in March, a mochhcatton of the present scheme s~ould be brought before the international committee. To be enforceable, the nexv scheme must be wholly international. Mr J o h n Pardoe, a hberal member, said that ff the r e c o m m e n d e d report of Trmstv House had been in o p e r a u o n , the recent accident could not have taken
s
't
2)"' 'If,, .
~
.
.
.
.
~. .
~
~
~
."._~
.
-
~ _ `
~ ~ ~ , . ~
_~-¢.---,---
2. The crumpled Paracas (9,481 tonnes) after the coll~mn,
place. Mr Grant reRerated the government's dissausfacuon w~th the present scheme and its determination to act through the IMCO During the consideration of the Oil m Navigable Waters Bill (see below), Mr Grant said that the government ,sas considering ~hether the emsung scheme in the Dover Straits ought to be made m a n d a t o r y A mandator,~ traffic scheme would, however, be difficult to enforce but ff after examination, ~t seemed deswable, international agreement would be sought through the IMCO A proposal for a change m the law of the sea to give ships carrying lethal cargoes right of way, although it seemed attractwe at hrst glance, was rejected o n the grounds that it would be unworkable in pracuce. Ball to Increase Laabdlty for Oil PolluUon A bdl was introduced in the House of Lords on J a n u a r y 15 by Lord Drumalbyn (Mimster a~ithout Portfolio) that would face shlp owners with much stiffer habLht~ for oil pollution m Brtush waters and for the cost of protecting the coast. Known as the Merchant Shlppmg (Od Polluuon) Bill, it ts designed to maprove the posatson of claimants suffering damage caused b y tanker disasters and other accidental spillages It therefore approaches the threat of oil p o l l u u o n from an angle different to that of the Oil m Navlgable Waters Bdl, whlch Is deslgned to deal with illegal chscharges of orl. The new bill would mapose a strict hablhty on the tanker owner a n d would provide a lmaltatmn fund ssath higher hmlts of habthty b y increasing the hmlt, at present £28 a ton of oil, to £56 a ton or £5 8 million, which ever ~s the least. In adchuon, any shtp regnstered m the UK carrying a cargo of more than 2000 tons of o,1, and any ship reg2stered elsewhere entering or leaving a UK port w~th such a cargo, will need to have a statutory certificate of insurance against the owner's potential habshty. Od in Navigable ~,~aters Bdl The a m e n d m e n t s of the Standing CommRtee were considered on J a n u a r y 13 and the bill was given a thlrd reading. A new clause was proposed b y the Standlng Committee to ensure that the Board of Trade can require, as a condltxon of regastrauon of a vessel in the United Kingdom, the provlslon of security for any free or damages awarded m civil proceedings arising from an illegal discharge of oil. The clause was read for the ftrst u m e b y Mr Albert Booth, a member of the stanchng committee. He sasd that, m commattee, it had been contended that ~t was destrable to have some p r o v m o n whereby a ship could be held in a UK port if ~t was suspected of having committed an offence. But a powerful arguement against such a prow.stun is that owners f o u n d not gudty would stdl be heavdy penahsed m that they would be expenawely retained m port. Mr Grant, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Idustry p o i n t e d out that the clause could only apply to shsps registered m the UK, and st would thus chscrumnate against BnUsh sh~p owners. The question was p u t and negated. Their second new clause would have reqtured all Brstlsh harbour authorities to prowde facdlties for the discharge of oil~ water or waste od at every one of thelr berths free of charge. Mr Grant maintained that since harbour authorities would have to recover the cost of these faclhues by increasing general port charges, and since only a minority of vessels would need them, the majorltv of port users would be subslchsmg the minority and this would be unfair. Accorchngly, thts clause was also rejected. Mr -knthon~ Grant moved the a m e n d m e n t to the ball that had been proposed by the standing committee to increase the maximum penalty for the illegal discharge of od from £ 1 0 0 0 to .£50,000, not from £1000 to £5000 as 21
originally intended in the bill. He had originally believed that £50,000 was too large a penalt'~ for a pollution offence because it ~s far m excess of the h m n g powers normally available to magistrates. On the other hand, he said, the new restrictions which will be brought into force b~ this ball vall create new situations there will be a b e t t e r chance of catching the serious offenders, and for these, a penalty is certainly needed that will provide a real deterrent. He also shared the feeling widespread in the House that such a large penalty would indicate that Britain is serious about pollution. At the same tune, he made prosaslon for the penalty for smaller offences under the exLstmg law - for example, fadure to install e q m p m e n t m Brmsh ships to prevent oil p o l l u u o n - to stay at £1000. The a m e n d m e n t was agreed to, the report stage was concluded and the ball read a third time.
United Nations: Protection of the Seabed The General Assembly C o m m i t t e e o f the U m t e d Nations declared recently that seabed resources, as the ' c o m m o n heritage of mankind', should be exploited for general benefit under an m t e r n a u o n a l agency. By a vote of 90-0 with eleven abstentions, the c o m m i t t e e adopted a statement o f principles - the p r o d u c t o f a specml United Nations c o m m i t t e e under the chatrmanshtp of Ambassador H. S. Amerasmghe of Ceylon - that would place the seabed b e y o n d the reach of national sovereignUes, hnk the benefits of peaceful use to the needs of the developing countries and estabhsh measures for conservation. The adoption of the statement o f pnnc~ples is the result of a considerable effort m m a t e d by a number o f countries three years ago when the/vlaltese ambassador, Arvld Pardo, f'rrst raised the seabed ,¢sue. Although the prmcrples have been approved by the U mt ed Nations, by no means has all the d o u b t been removed from the future of the seabed The extent of national sovereignty, for example, remains a tricky quesuon. A n u m b e r of countrms sponsored a revised resolution on the law o f the sea, calling for a world conference m 1973 to deal vath the issue of national sovereignty. At the m o m e n t the United States claims a three mile hmit while Peru, Ecuador and Chile claim a 200 rmle bruit, Canada claims the r~ght to p o h c e a zone exten&ng 100 males into the A r c u c against p o l l u u o n . A measure of the concern shown by the m e m b e r countries ab o u t the dangers of exploiting the seabed is the doubhng m the number of members on the c o m m i t t e e planning the 1973 conference Some delegations fear that tbas effort to include nearly t%o-thirds o f the United Nations 127 members m a y create a cumbersome committee. At the same tame, m a n y beheve that Issues such as the e x p l o l t a u o n of the seabed are those m which the United Nations can make the greatest impact in the future.
A Harmless Oil Dispersant 'Corexxt 7664', an oil dlspersant p r o d u c e d recently by Enjav Chem,cal Company, has been shown to have no harmful eifects on the m,croflora of beach sand when bv itself at concentrations between 5 x 102 and l0 s parts per million or when mixed with Kuwait crude od. In a study by Dr S . A . Broom at the U m , ersttx of Washington, Seattle, the effects of the dlspersant on the p h o t o s v n t h e u c and degradauve capacities of the microflora were found by measuring the uptake of oxygen and ra&oacttve carbon and the breakdo%n of chlorophyl! m sand samples collected at Nobska Beach, '~',oods Hole, Massachusetts. The samples were packed in columns 45 cm long, and sea %ater was filtered through them at a constant rate. In the first experiment, a range of concentrations of ' C o r e m t ' was added to the water, m the second, od was added to a fresh column before the water was passed through', and m the third, water with ' C o r e m t ' s, as passed through an oiled column. The water was sampled at Intervals along the tube and the microorgamsms that it contained were tested for the effects of these three treatments. There was no signdlcant breakdown of chlorophyll m the mlcroorgan~cms along the column and the uptake of radioactive carbon remained fairly steady throughout Oxygen uptake was increased in ~I1 cases, but the uptake m the column with oil alone was greatest. The lesser uptake in the presence of 'Corexat' was probably due not to toxicity but to the rapid removal of oil, the substrate of the rmcroflora Dr Bloom concludes that, bv itself or In c o m b m a u o n with oil, ' C o r e x n ' is non-tome to benthic mzcroflora. Since benthic bacterml populations should have a response similar to the more chlute pelagic populations, the dzspersant should not Inhibit the hactenal degradation of od m coastal waters The product m ay therefore be useful where the use of highly toxic kerosene-based detergents Is inadvisable.
Half DDT Evaporates from Crops It is highly u n / o r t u n at e m a t the toxicity o f DDT is well supported by properties that enable it to spread swiftly m the environment. Work at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol by Dr C . P . Lloyd-Jones (Nature, 229, 65, 1971) has shown that up to 60 per cent o f D D T apphed to crops may be lost by evaporation. The rate of loss of DDT was calculated from its vapour pressure and the rate of chffucaon of the e~aporated molecules through the layer of still alr above its surface. A "3 2 1 o ~alue of 3 x 1 0 p g c m - h- at 20 C was obtained. The evaporation rate was determined expermaentally bv measuring the reduction m a certain length of ttrne m the radioacuvaty of DDT labelled vath carbon--14 m the phenyl ring. The e x p e n m e n t a l l v determined ex~porauon rates were m good agreement with the values obtained bv calculauon. Converted to a field scale, they suggest losses to the atmosphere at a rate of about 2 pounds acre-t3r - I m summer and about 0.3 pounds a c r e - i y r-I m wmter
Black Sea Dolphin Census A census of Dolphins m the Black Sea carried out b v Soviet scientists has shown that the dolphin population has doubled since the ban on hunting them was introduced m 1965. Most of the dolphins were f o u n d on the Crimean coast.
22
Sublethal Effects of DDT on Tadpoles Tadpoles m amphibian sahne containing 0.05 parts per m i l t o n DDT are driven into a frantic call-lashing state that may reduce their chance of survival by m a ~ n g them more