- Email: [email protected]
Researchers and marine managers meet at Plymouth
Marine Pollution Bulletin
Pollution Monitoring Sir, In a recent Viewpoint (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 16, 224-227) you published an article by John Gray (Professor of Marine Biology at Oslo University and a governmental expert on the effects of pollutants) which in its latter half consisted of a series of criticisms of some of our recent work. We recognize that Professor Gray has made influential contributions to marine ecology and pollution research. Yet in discussing our work he has severely misquoted us. The errors and contradictions in his article are too
Researchers and Marine Managers meet at Plymouth "Most historical marine pollution monitoring programmes have proven useless in a management context, being based on either unrealistic, impossible or unnecessary goals". That provocative statement by Dr Doug Segar (SEAMOcean Inc. USA) opened the first session of the conference Estuarine and Coastal Pollution: Detection, Research and Control. The meeting was held at Plymouth Polytechnic, 16-19 July 1985, and was cosponsored by the UK Committee of IAWPRC (International Association on Water Pollution Research and Control) and NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) under the direction of an Organizing Committee chaired by Peter Foxton (NERC, Swindon). Dr Segar and his co-author Ms Elaine Stamman subsequently set out their general strategy for efficient and cost-effective studies to monitor anthropogenic contamination of the marine environment, detailing the separate approaches required for site-specific and regional monitoting programmes. Their review went beyond the routine--but critically important--issues of sampling design and the number of pollutants (and/or effects) to be measured; they also allocated responsibility, primarily to the managerial community, for the definition of what constituted unacceptable environmental damage, and considered some of the criteria by which harm to marine systems might be quantifiably assessed. Such problems necessitated close liaison between research scientists, managers and politicians, and were later described by Dr Alasdair Mclntyre (DAFS, Aberdeen) as "spanning the uneasy interface between science and emotion". Overall, a diverse range of scientific topics were covered by the conference, including hydrodynamic modelling, trace element chemistry, biochemical toxicology, and the population ecology of intertidal organisms. Too wide a range for the meeting to provide a comprehensive review of recent research developments in all participants' areas of expertise and interest; nevertheless, the meeting undoubtedly succeeded in its main objectives of attracting researchers at the forefront of their 422
numerous and fundamental to enumerate here in the form of a letter. But we would welcome the opportunity to take up some of these points in a Viewpoint article of our own at some future date. In particular, we would like to advance the discussion of falsifiability in the context of pollution monitoring, to address the question of whether we have been "'scientifically unsound" and whether or not a dose of scientific nihilism might be just what is needed.
British Museum (Natural History) London SW7 5BD, UK
HOWARD PLATT JOHN LAMBSHEAD
various fields and promoting their interaction, not only with each other, to help piece together the holistic jigsaw of environmental science, but also with those on the managerial side of the water industry. Thus for the 190 registered participants at the conference there was around a 50:50 split between researchers (academic, government laboratories and the private sector) and those more directly involved with the setting and maintenance of water quality standards for estuaries and coastal waters. There was also a similarly even division between UK and overseas representation at the meeting; whilst European countries dominated the latter, with 56 registrants, there was also strong participation from North America, South East Asia, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. In all 29 countries were represented, not counting the countries of origin of overseas research students, temporarily based in the UK or elsewhere. A total of 33 oral papers (including Introductory and Concluding Overviews) and 60 poster papers were presented. Taken together, 51% of these were by overseas authors, providing a most valuable international perspective: in addition to case-histories of specific pollution problems, such contributions included reviews of the marine element of the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS; part of the United Nations Environment Programme'); EEC policy and research relating to marine pollution issues; and the Mediterranean Action Plan. In terms of scientific strengths, European and North American papers were particularly impressive in the session on the cycling of pollutants in sediments, their chemical behaviour and transport processes. Many of the UK papers presented at the conference focused on the imminent changes to pollution consent procedures arising from the (long awaited) implementation of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (Part II). This law extends the powers and duties of regional water authorities to estuaries, tidal rivers and coasts, and opens up to public scrutiny the results of water quality analyses and the procedures whereby discharge consents are sanctioned to industry. Whilst some commentators now regard the Control of Pollution Act as a 'neutralized' law
Volume 16/Number 10/October 1985 such that when implemented "its teeth will have been drawn entirely" (Fred Pearce; New Scientist, 15 March 1984), it was the general view of Water Authority staff at the conference (8 out of 10 WA's were represented, by 18 delegates giving seven papers) that 1985 would be regarded as 'the year of the revolution' with respect to UK pollution control practices. Water Authority speakers did not show any lack of willingness to work towards the clean-up of estuaries currently classed as grossly polluted. However, the point was strongly made that new effluent treatment plants involved considerable capital expenditure, and it was thought unlikely that this could be internally generated by UK manufacturing industry, much of which was in a financially parlous state. Local authorities were at present strongly competing to attract new industries to their own regions; however, if successful, such new activities would add to existing pollution loads. Whilst some alleviation was possible by improvements to discharges directly within local authority control (i.e. domestic sewage), such costs would mostly be met by local ratepayers, and successive levels of improvement became increasingly expensive to effect. Dr D. Sayers (Anglian Water, Huntingdon) summed up the Water Authorities' dilemma in a questionnaire distributed to conference participants: this asked how many jobs it was worth losing, through increased production overheads and de.creased sales, to halve the area of damage ('mixing zone', defined as the area where Environmental Quality Objectives and Standards might not be met) in a reasonably big estuary? In addition, how many jobs was it worth gaining if that were to result in a doubling of the area of possible damage? Estimates were to be based on an initial mixing zone of 'ten football pitches', or around 5 ha. Whilst some of Dr Sayers' assumptions could be challenged regarding his cost-benefit analysis for society as a whole (e.g. expenditure on effluent treatment creates jobs
elsewhere in the economy, and may improve a company's image, and hence turnover, through skilful PR), neither scientists nor the general public should be ignorant of the influence of 'extraneous' factors when decisions are made on what level of pollution is, or is not, permissable at a particular locality, and they should also be aware of the magnitude of the Water Authorities' new responsibilities. Dr Brian Bayne (IMER, Plymouth) presented a researcher's response to the issues raised by the conference as a whole. Since scientists could not make predictions with 100% certainty, some were reluctant to make any formal recommendations to bodies concerned with pollution control. A change was needed to such an attitude, to facilitate the full dialogue that was now required between the various different parties concerned with the establishment of soundly based policies for marine environmental protection. Dr Bayne did not accept that the classic distinction between basic and applied research was meaningful in environmental sciences: the conference had included several papers on 'basic' work that was nevertheless of crucial importance to our appreciation of pollutants' abilities to bring about deleterious effects, e.g. sorption processes and other physico-chemical interactions, and their sub-cellular behaviour within biological systems. The research community should not react to financial hardship by abandoning fundamental studies, but now had to focus its efforts on aspects of known relevance to critical environmental problems. The proceedings of the conference (including poster abstracts) will be published in a double issue of the IAWPRC journal Water Science and Technology, scheduled for May/June 1986. The authors of this review look forward to the wider opportunity that will then be provided for a retrospective assessment of the scientific achievements of the meeting. P. WILLIAMSON D. S. MOULDER
Correction The value for chrysene in sediment given in the abstract (p. 110) and in Table 2 under John Brewer Reef at 30-31 cm depth (p. 113) in J. D. Smith, J. Y. Hauser & J. Bragg, ~Polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediments of the
Great Barrier Reef region, Australia', (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 1985, 16, 110-114) should read 0.2 lag kg -~ and not as shown. We apologize to the authors for this misprint.
423
Pollution Monitoring Sir, In a recent Viewpoint (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 16, 224-227) you published an article by John Gray (Professor of Marine Biology at Oslo University and a governmental expert on the effects of pollutants) which in its latter half consisted of a series of criticisms of some of our recent work. We recognize that Professor Gray has made influential contributions to marine ecology and pollution research. Yet in discussing our work he has severely misquoted us. The errors and contradictions in his article are too
Researchers and Marine Managers meet at Plymouth "Most historical marine pollution monitoring programmes have proven useless in a management context, being based on either unrealistic, impossible or unnecessary goals". That provocative statement by Dr Doug Segar (SEAMOcean Inc. USA) opened the first session of the conference Estuarine and Coastal Pollution: Detection, Research and Control. The meeting was held at Plymouth Polytechnic, 16-19 July 1985, and was cosponsored by the UK Committee of IAWPRC (International Association on Water Pollution Research and Control) and NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) under the direction of an Organizing Committee chaired by Peter Foxton (NERC, Swindon). Dr Segar and his co-author Ms Elaine Stamman subsequently set out their general strategy for efficient and cost-effective studies to monitor anthropogenic contamination of the marine environment, detailing the separate approaches required for site-specific and regional monitoting programmes. Their review went beyond the routine--but critically important--issues of sampling design and the number of pollutants (and/or effects) to be measured; they also allocated responsibility, primarily to the managerial community, for the definition of what constituted unacceptable environmental damage, and considered some of the criteria by which harm to marine systems might be quantifiably assessed. Such problems necessitated close liaison between research scientists, managers and politicians, and were later described by Dr Alasdair Mclntyre (DAFS, Aberdeen) as "spanning the uneasy interface between science and emotion". Overall, a diverse range of scientific topics were covered by the conference, including hydrodynamic modelling, trace element chemistry, biochemical toxicology, and the population ecology of intertidal organisms. Too wide a range for the meeting to provide a comprehensive review of recent research developments in all participants' areas of expertise and interest; nevertheless, the meeting undoubtedly succeeded in its main objectives of attracting researchers at the forefront of their 422
numerous and fundamental to enumerate here in the form of a letter. But we would welcome the opportunity to take up some of these points in a Viewpoint article of our own at some future date. In particular, we would like to advance the discussion of falsifiability in the context of pollution monitoring, to address the question of whether we have been "'scientifically unsound" and whether or not a dose of scientific nihilism might be just what is needed.
British Museum (Natural History) London SW7 5BD, UK
HOWARD PLATT JOHN LAMBSHEAD
various fields and promoting their interaction, not only with each other, to help piece together the holistic jigsaw of environmental science, but also with those on the managerial side of the water industry. Thus for the 190 registered participants at the conference there was around a 50:50 split between researchers (academic, government laboratories and the private sector) and those more directly involved with the setting and maintenance of water quality standards for estuaries and coastal waters. There was also a similarly even division between UK and overseas representation at the meeting; whilst European countries dominated the latter, with 56 registrants, there was also strong participation from North America, South East Asia, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. In all 29 countries were represented, not counting the countries of origin of overseas research students, temporarily based in the UK or elsewhere. A total of 33 oral papers (including Introductory and Concluding Overviews) and 60 poster papers were presented. Taken together, 51% of these were by overseas authors, providing a most valuable international perspective: in addition to case-histories of specific pollution problems, such contributions included reviews of the marine element of the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS; part of the United Nations Environment Programme'); EEC policy and research relating to marine pollution issues; and the Mediterranean Action Plan. In terms of scientific strengths, European and North American papers were particularly impressive in the session on the cycling of pollutants in sediments, their chemical behaviour and transport processes. Many of the UK papers presented at the conference focused on the imminent changes to pollution consent procedures arising from the (long awaited) implementation of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (Part II). This law extends the powers and duties of regional water authorities to estuaries, tidal rivers and coasts, and opens up to public scrutiny the results of water quality analyses and the procedures whereby discharge consents are sanctioned to industry. Whilst some commentators now regard the Control of Pollution Act as a 'neutralized' law
Volume 16/Number 10/October 1985 such that when implemented "its teeth will have been drawn entirely" (Fred Pearce; New Scientist, 15 March 1984), it was the general view of Water Authority staff at the conference (8 out of 10 WA's were represented, by 18 delegates giving seven papers) that 1985 would be regarded as 'the year of the revolution' with respect to UK pollution control practices. Water Authority speakers did not show any lack of willingness to work towards the clean-up of estuaries currently classed as grossly polluted. However, the point was strongly made that new effluent treatment plants involved considerable capital expenditure, and it was thought unlikely that this could be internally generated by UK manufacturing industry, much of which was in a financially parlous state. Local authorities were at present strongly competing to attract new industries to their own regions; however, if successful, such new activities would add to existing pollution loads. Whilst some alleviation was possible by improvements to discharges directly within local authority control (i.e. domestic sewage), such costs would mostly be met by local ratepayers, and successive levels of improvement became increasingly expensive to effect. Dr D. Sayers (Anglian Water, Huntingdon) summed up the Water Authorities' dilemma in a questionnaire distributed to conference participants: this asked how many jobs it was worth losing, through increased production overheads and de.creased sales, to halve the area of damage ('mixing zone', defined as the area where Environmental Quality Objectives and Standards might not be met) in a reasonably big estuary? In addition, how many jobs was it worth gaining if that were to result in a doubling of the area of possible damage? Estimates were to be based on an initial mixing zone of 'ten football pitches', or around 5 ha. Whilst some of Dr Sayers' assumptions could be challenged regarding his cost-benefit analysis for society as a whole (e.g. expenditure on effluent treatment creates jobs
elsewhere in the economy, and may improve a company's image, and hence turnover, through skilful PR), neither scientists nor the general public should be ignorant of the influence of 'extraneous' factors when decisions are made on what level of pollution is, or is not, permissable at a particular locality, and they should also be aware of the magnitude of the Water Authorities' new responsibilities. Dr Brian Bayne (IMER, Plymouth) presented a researcher's response to the issues raised by the conference as a whole. Since scientists could not make predictions with 100% certainty, some were reluctant to make any formal recommendations to bodies concerned with pollution control. A change was needed to such an attitude, to facilitate the full dialogue that was now required between the various different parties concerned with the establishment of soundly based policies for marine environmental protection. Dr Bayne did not accept that the classic distinction between basic and applied research was meaningful in environmental sciences: the conference had included several papers on 'basic' work that was nevertheless of crucial importance to our appreciation of pollutants' abilities to bring about deleterious effects, e.g. sorption processes and other physico-chemical interactions, and their sub-cellular behaviour within biological systems. The research community should not react to financial hardship by abandoning fundamental studies, but now had to focus its efforts on aspects of known relevance to critical environmental problems. The proceedings of the conference (including poster abstracts) will be published in a double issue of the IAWPRC journal Water Science and Technology, scheduled for May/June 1986. The authors of this review look forward to the wider opportunity that will then be provided for a retrospective assessment of the scientific achievements of the meeting. P. WILLIAMSON D. S. MOULDER
Correction The value for chrysene in sediment given in the abstract (p. 110) and in Table 2 under John Brewer Reef at 30-31 cm depth (p. 113) in J. D. Smith, J. Y. Hauser & J. Bragg, ~Polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediments of the
Great Barrier Reef region, Australia', (Mar. Pollut. Bull. 1985, 16, 110-114) should read 0.2 lag kg -~ and not as shown. We apologize to the authors for this misprint.
423