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Is the Exxon Valdez oil spill finally cleaned up?
News in perspective
JEAN LOUIS ATLAN/SYGMA/CORBIS
Upfront– EXXON VALDEZ A MEMORY AT LAST Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill; one of the most notorious man-made environmental disasters in history. Can we finally give the site a clean bill of health? Paul Boehm of scientific consultancy Exponent International led a survey of Prince William Sound in Alaska, where the oil tanker foundered in 1989. The team collected more than 700 samples from 25 sites throughout the area that were known to have been heavily contaminated by the spill. “We found that the remnants from the spill today are found in small patches at very few beaches,” says Boehm. The oil that remains is deep within cracks between boulders and pebbles, and much of it is degraded. The team concludes that any oil left is not in a chemical form that makes it harmful to animals. The study
in Environmental Science and Technology received funding from the Exxon Mobil Corporation (DOI: 10.1021/es8022623). “These scientists have a long record of doing good work. I think this is probably the best knowledge you can get,” says Olof Linden of the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden, and former scientific adviser to the UN Environment Programme. “I am surprised that they even find any oil at all after 18 years. Biologically it is of practically no significance.” However, David Santillo of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter in the UK is reluctant to give the area the all-clear. “The jury is still out over whether the levels of exposure are harmful to fish and mammals,” he says. “In the long term, we don’t know what the effects on the species’ reproduction will be.”
–The colossal clean-up worked–
Chu for Obama TEAM Obama’s scientific clout has been further boosted by the choice of Nobel laureate Steven Chu for Secretary of Energy. Chu, who is currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, shared the Nobel prize for physics in 1997 for trapping atoms using lasers. He will be the first science laureate appointed to the US cabinet. As the energy department is the biggest US government supporter of research into the physical sciences, scientists are understandably delighted. Chu has been picked for his commitment to low-carbon
“Chu has been picked for his commitment to low-carbon sources of energy” sources of energy. Since taking the helm of the Berkeley lab in 2004, he has directed its focus to alternative energy technologies. Last week, as eco-bloggers applauded Chu’s selection, even prominent global6 | NewScientist | 20/27 December 2008
warming sceptic Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute conceded that Chu is “well qualified”. While Chu’s political skills will be tested in Washington DC, he should find an ally in Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. A former energy secretary in his own right, Richardson has backed clean energy schemes in his home state. “If we’re serious about changing the energy economy, the Department of Commerce is going to be extremely important,” says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. With the appointments announced so far, she believes that the US will “have a team that really gets the climate and energy issue”. Heading up the team of climate heavyweights in the White House will be “climate tsar” Carol Browner, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. A political ally of Al Gore, she has called climate change “the greatest challenge ever faced”.
Soy in aphid alert US FARMERS’ eager pursuit of biofuels earlier this year sent food prices skyrocketing, and it could now spell trouble for soybeans. Subsidies for bioethanol led US farmers to plant nearly a fifth more maize in 2007 than in 2006. It now seems the drop in crop diversity could deter insects that eat the soybean’s aphid nemesis. Douglas Landis and colleagues at Michigan State University at East Lansing measured numbers of soybean aphids at 23 sites with differing plant diversity over two
years. They found that the more maize dominated the landscape, the less impact predators such as ladybirds had on soybean aphids (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073pnas.0804951106). Landis suspects that because maize harbours few aphids, it also doesn’t attract bugs that eat them. The team predict that in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin alone, the additional maize cost farmers $58 million in extra insectiside to tackle the pest – a service the aphid-munchers would have provided for free.
BLIGHT HITS WORLD’S VANILLA Savour the egg-nog while you can – a lethal disease is wiping out vanilla plantations in Madagascar, the world’s major producer of the spice. Last week Simeon Rakotomamonjy and his team at the National Center for Research Applied to Rural Development in Antananarivo reported that an unknown fungus has struck 80 per cent of plantations in two of the country’s main growing areas. They blame a price surge in the
1990s, which prompted farmers to plant seedlings too densely and without optimal shade and moisture. Since vanilla is propagated as cuttings it has little genetic diversity. Both factors make it a prime target for the fungal disease – which has yet to be properly diagnosed. “Yet again a crop vital for poor farmers is getting killed off due to lack of funding for services that diagnose plant diseases,” says Dagmar Hanold of the University of Adelaide, Australia.
www.newscientist.com
JEAN LOUIS ATLAN/SYGMA/CORBIS
Upfront– EXXON VALDEZ A MEMORY AT LAST Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill; one of the most notorious man-made environmental disasters in history. Can we finally give the site a clean bill of health? Paul Boehm of scientific consultancy Exponent International led a survey of Prince William Sound in Alaska, where the oil tanker foundered in 1989. The team collected more than 700 samples from 25 sites throughout the area that were known to have been heavily contaminated by the spill. “We found that the remnants from the spill today are found in small patches at very few beaches,” says Boehm. The oil that remains is deep within cracks between boulders and pebbles, and much of it is degraded. The team concludes that any oil left is not in a chemical form that makes it harmful to animals. The study
in Environmental Science and Technology received funding from the Exxon Mobil Corporation (DOI: 10.1021/es8022623). “These scientists have a long record of doing good work. I think this is probably the best knowledge you can get,” says Olof Linden of the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden, and former scientific adviser to the UN Environment Programme. “I am surprised that they even find any oil at all after 18 years. Biologically it is of practically no significance.” However, David Santillo of the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter in the UK is reluctant to give the area the all-clear. “The jury is still out over whether the levels of exposure are harmful to fish and mammals,” he says. “In the long term, we don’t know what the effects on the species’ reproduction will be.”
–The colossal clean-up worked–
Chu for Obama TEAM Obama’s scientific clout has been further boosted by the choice of Nobel laureate Steven Chu for Secretary of Energy. Chu, who is currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, shared the Nobel prize for physics in 1997 for trapping atoms using lasers. He will be the first science laureate appointed to the US cabinet. As the energy department is the biggest US government supporter of research into the physical sciences, scientists are understandably delighted. Chu has been picked for his commitment to low-carbon
“Chu has been picked for his commitment to low-carbon sources of energy” sources of energy. Since taking the helm of the Berkeley lab in 2004, he has directed its focus to alternative energy technologies. Last week, as eco-bloggers applauded Chu’s selection, even prominent global6 | NewScientist | 20/27 December 2008
warming sceptic Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute conceded that Chu is “well qualified”. While Chu’s political skills will be tested in Washington DC, he should find an ally in Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. A former energy secretary in his own right, Richardson has backed clean energy schemes in his home state. “If we’re serious about changing the energy economy, the Department of Commerce is going to be extremely important,” says Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. With the appointments announced so far, she believes that the US will “have a team that really gets the climate and energy issue”. Heading up the team of climate heavyweights in the White House will be “climate tsar” Carol Browner, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. A political ally of Al Gore, she has called climate change “the greatest challenge ever faced”.
Soy in aphid alert US FARMERS’ eager pursuit of biofuels earlier this year sent food prices skyrocketing, and it could now spell trouble for soybeans. Subsidies for bioethanol led US farmers to plant nearly a fifth more maize in 2007 than in 2006. It now seems the drop in crop diversity could deter insects that eat the soybean’s aphid nemesis. Douglas Landis and colleagues at Michigan State University at East Lansing measured numbers of soybean aphids at 23 sites with differing plant diversity over two
years. They found that the more maize dominated the landscape, the less impact predators such as ladybirds had on soybean aphids (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073pnas.0804951106). Landis suspects that because maize harbours few aphids, it also doesn’t attract bugs that eat them. The team predict that in Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin alone, the additional maize cost farmers $58 million in extra insectiside to tackle the pest – a service the aphid-munchers would have provided for free.
BLIGHT HITS WORLD’S VANILLA Savour the egg-nog while you can – a lethal disease is wiping out vanilla plantations in Madagascar, the world’s major producer of the spice. Last week Simeon Rakotomamonjy and his team at the National Center for Research Applied to Rural Development in Antananarivo reported that an unknown fungus has struck 80 per cent of plantations in two of the country’s main growing areas. They blame a price surge in the
1990s, which prompted farmers to plant seedlings too densely and without optimal shade and moisture. Since vanilla is propagated as cuttings it has little genetic diversity. Both factors make it a prime target for the fungal disease – which has yet to be properly diagnosed. “Yet again a crop vital for poor farmers is getting killed off due to lack of funding for services that diagnose plant diseases,” says Dagmar Hanold of the University of Adelaide, Australia.
www.newscientist.com