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Bulgaria
MarinePollutionBulletin industrial effluent, including carcinogens such as benzpyrene. The activity of the bacteria increases with concentration of the pollution and in some cases, the team reports, the concentration of benzpyrene derivatives in water fell by 50°70 in a week. VERA R I C H
Bulgaria Bulgaria's pollution control base at Varna has recently introduced a new automated monitoring unit to record seawater parameters. The MS-102, designed in Sofia, records five basic parameters as indicators of the degree of pollution: dissolved oxygen content, pH, specific conductivity, electrical potential, and temperature. The centre's main purpose is to combat oil spills and it enjoys cooperation with the Soviet Union via the Bulgarian-Soviet "Intermorput" enterprise. The base now operates 26 specialized oil-cleaning vessels, including a 14 000 ton ship used as a base to fight spillages, a coastal purification station, and a fleet of spotter helicopters. VERA R I C H
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 162-165, 1983 Printed in Great Britain
England EEC grants are being sought to help finance the clean up of the River Mersey in England which Environment minister Tom King recently described as 'one of the biggest blots on the environment in Britain'. At present 60 million gallons of untreated sewage flow into the river daily and work has started on a £170m scheme to clean the estuary over the next 12 years.
France Up to 4000 oiled sea birds perished along a 150 km stretch of coastline on the Cotentin peninsula in Northern France, during a four-week period when oil illegally discharged from ships and crude from offshore drilling platforms washed ashore. A total of 30 different species of bird fell foul of the oil and while a volunteer force treated nearly 800 birds less than half the birds cleaned with a mild detergent and warm water actually survived. In a further pollution incident the French Navy caught a Greek tanker in the act of discharging oil in the Bay of Biscay, forming a slick 8 km long.
0025-326X/83 $3.00 + 0.00 © 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Viewpoint is a column which allows authors to express their own opinions about current events.
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The Importance of Measuring Microbial Enzymatic Functions While Assessing and Predicting Long-Ter Anthropogenic Perturbations ROBERT P. GRIFFITHS Dr Griffiths is currently in the Department of Microbiology at Oregon State University. Dr Grifflths is a marine microbiologist who has studied carbon and nitrogencycling in arctic and subarctic marine systems. The emphasis of much of this work has been on the effects of crude oil on these processes. The enzymes associated with marine and freshwater microorganisms are the principle catalyst for a large number of chemical transformations in Nature (Morita, 1982). Many of these transformations can only be mediated by microorganisms since the enzyme systems required for these reactions are not found in higher organisms. Thus microbial function is the key component of both inorganic and organic nutrient cycling in these environments. In pollution impact research, it is therefore imperative that both the fate and effect of the pollutant be studied in terms of changes in
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microbial enzyme systems. This is an approach that has not generally been followed in pollution fate and effects studies. Although there have been a large number of impact studies conducted in the past, it is only recently that microbiological variables have been considered except in a relatively superficial way. The studies that have been conducted have generally focused on shifts in microbial populations using either plate counts on specialized agar plates or have involved the isolation of bacterial strains which are subsequently analysed for biochemical character-
Bulgaria Bulgaria's pollution control base at Varna has recently introduced a new automated monitoring unit to record seawater parameters. The MS-102, designed in Sofia, records five basic parameters as indicators of the degree of pollution: dissolved oxygen content, pH, specific conductivity, electrical potential, and temperature. The centre's main purpose is to combat oil spills and it enjoys cooperation with the Soviet Union via the Bulgarian-Soviet "Intermorput" enterprise. The base now operates 26 specialized oil-cleaning vessels, including a 14 000 ton ship used as a base to fight spillages, a coastal purification station, and a fleet of spotter helicopters. VERA R I C H
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 162-165, 1983 Printed in Great Britain
England EEC grants are being sought to help finance the clean up of the River Mersey in England which Environment minister Tom King recently described as 'one of the biggest blots on the environment in Britain'. At present 60 million gallons of untreated sewage flow into the river daily and work has started on a £170m scheme to clean the estuary over the next 12 years.
France Up to 4000 oiled sea birds perished along a 150 km stretch of coastline on the Cotentin peninsula in Northern France, during a four-week period when oil illegally discharged from ships and crude from offshore drilling platforms washed ashore. A total of 30 different species of bird fell foul of the oil and while a volunteer force treated nearly 800 birds less than half the birds cleaned with a mild detergent and warm water actually survived. In a further pollution incident the French Navy caught a Greek tanker in the act of discharging oil in the Bay of Biscay, forming a slick 8 km long.
0025-326X/83 $3.00 + 0.00 © 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd.
Viewpoint is a column which allows authors to express their own opinions about current events.
I [
I
The Importance of Measuring Microbial Enzymatic Functions While Assessing and Predicting Long-Ter Anthropogenic Perturbations ROBERT P. GRIFFITHS Dr Griffiths is currently in the Department of Microbiology at Oregon State University. Dr Grifflths is a marine microbiologist who has studied carbon and nitrogencycling in arctic and subarctic marine systems. The emphasis of much of this work has been on the effects of crude oil on these processes. The enzymes associated with marine and freshwater microorganisms are the principle catalyst for a large number of chemical transformations in Nature (Morita, 1982). Many of these transformations can only be mediated by microorganisms since the enzyme systems required for these reactions are not found in higher organisms. Thus microbial function is the key component of both inorganic and organic nutrient cycling in these environments. In pollution impact research, it is therefore imperative that both the fate and effect of the pollutant be studied in terms of changes in
162
microbial enzyme systems. This is an approach that has not generally been followed in pollution fate and effects studies. Although there have been a large number of impact studies conducted in the past, it is only recently that microbiological variables have been considered except in a relatively superficial way. The studies that have been conducted have generally focused on shifts in microbial populations using either plate counts on specialized agar plates or have involved the isolation of bacterial strains which are subsequently analysed for biochemical character-