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Yes they are
Volume 18/Number 8/August 1987
samples is reported The graph clearly indicates an inverse relatmnshlp between the two forms This has been observed for all the other metals and in particular for mercury also in other areas as reported in our previous p a p e r (Ferrara et al, 1986), confirming the high affmlty of metals to the particulate matter The authors wish to thank Dr R Ferrara for kindly supplymg mercurv data
CNR, lstttuto dt Btofiswa, Vta S Lorenzo, 26, 56100 Ptsa, Italy
A SERITTI E MORELLI F ORSINI L NANNICINI
Ferrara, R , Sentti, A , Barghlgmm, C & Petrosmo, A (1980) Improved instrument for mercury determmanon by AFS with a highfrequency electrodeless discharge lamp Anal Chtm Acta 117,391395
Yes They Are Str, Your recent Edltonal 'North Sea Science' (Mar Pollut Bull 18, 2 5 7 - 2 5 8 ) touches on a point which recalls two earher comments m the Bulletm Your September Editorial (Mar Pollut Bull 17, 3 8 7 - 3 8 8 ) was entitled Are Environmental Conservation Organlzatxons Necessaryg' Those of us who work on the science of the environment for industry recograze the r6le of a healthy environmental m o v e m e n t It should keep us on our toes and help to arttculate pubhc priorities for improxqng the environment We hope that we can share a c o m m o n understanding of the facts, and focus our debates on the different value judgements that we inevitably make, because we often place d~fferent valuations on the relatwe importance of a healthy industry on the one hand and a contanunatlon-free environment on the other But it is difficult to help society to get this balance right if either side distorts the facts On the BBC Radio 4 'Today' p r o g r a m m e on 8 January 1986, Andrew Booth of Greenpeace stated "20% of the fish caught in the southern part of the North Sea now have to be thrown back and over 40% m the northern part of the North Sea and this trend seems to be increasing" This surprised us as it conformed to neither our reading of the hterature, nor to our own observations Mr Booth was therefore asked for the bas~s of his statement H e sent us two references, both to papers by Dr Dethlefsen, of the G e r m a n Federal Research Board of Fisheries, who is a distinguished scientist m the field of fish diseases In the first, a fully scientific paper,
Ferrara, R, Sentti, A , Barghigiam, C & Petrosmo A (1986) Mercury levels m the dissolved and paruculate fractmns of the Tyrrheman Sea Mar Chem 16,227-232 Mart, L (1979a) Prevention of contammauon and other accuracy risks in voltammetnc trace metal analys~s of natural waters Part I Preparatory Steps Fdtrauon and Storage of Water Samples Fresenna Z 4nal Chem 296,350-357 Mart, L (1979b) Prevennon of contarmnatlon and other accuracy risks m voltammetnc trace metal analysis of natural waters Part II Collection of Surface Water Samples Fresemus Z Anal Chem 299, 97-102 Mart, L, Nurnberg, H W & Valenta, P (1980) Prevention of contamLnation and other accuracy risks m voltammetnc trace metal analysis of natural waters Part III Voltammemc Ultratrace Analvs~s w~th a Multmell System Designed for Clean Bench Working Fresemus Z Anal Chem 300,350-362 Renzonl, A , Bacm, E & Falcml, L (1973) Mercury concentration m the water, sediments and fauna of an area of the Tyrrheman coast Rev Intern Oceanogr Med 31, 17-42 Renzom, A (1976) A case of mercury abatement along the Tuscan coast IIF~Journees Emd Polhatons, Spht, C I E S M , 95-97 Senm, A, Petrosmo, A Ferrara, R & Barghlgiam C (1980) A contribution to the determination of reactwe and total mercury m seawater Envtron Te~hnol Letters l, 50-57 Senm, A Ferrara, R, Morelh, E, Bargh~gmm, C & Pctrosmo, A (1986) Trace metals m marine enwronment m relanon to the study of their bmgeochemmal cycle Chem Ecol 2,181-186
Dethlefsen gwes many detailed results of the incidence of fish disease among catches that he has m a d e on his research cruises He does not give blanket figures but rather looks at particular species and particular diseases (of which there are many) The highest percentage figure in the whole paper concerns a c o n d m o n called lymphocysns, 7 95% of a sample of dab were infected The sectxon concludes that "[The analysis] maght indicate that at certain periods of the year a link exasts between fishmg pressure [my ltahcs] and relatwe frequencies of diseased dab" The paper also states that 'At present, almost nothing is known about long-term changes in the frequency of fish diseases in the North Sea" In the second paper, an invited 'Viewpoint' in this Journal (Mar Pollut Bull 17, 54-57), Dethlefsen does say "Maxamum prevalences of 50% externally diseased dab were encountered dunng a recent samphng in May 1984" and he confirmed at a recent conference that th~s figure is the highest that he has obtained and refers to a single sample of dab taken from the Dogger Bank I have not found the observation documented in a full sclentlfiC paper During the Summer of 1986 Greenpeace conducted their Great Rivers Campaxgn m the estuaries of the U K m their boat Beluga In an Interview on BBC Radio Cleveland on 31 July Andrew Booth stated that 'As a consequence of the fact that Britain d u m p s such vast quantmes of waste into the ocean, in a survey recently completed over 50% of all the dwelling fish we looked at were d~seased m some way or another, and we found ttus all the way around the coastline of Great Britain" The suggestxon that Greenpeace was undertaking a fish study around Great Britain came as a surprise Mr 463
Marine PoUutlonBulletin Booth, on BBC Radio Bristol on 21 July 1986, spoke of the reports that would be made on their campaign Until such a report is published one IS inevitably left with the conclusmn that Mr Booth's statement is based only on Dr Dethlefsen's sample of dab Greenpeace have now published The Ttde Must Turn, a brochure on the North Sea that is in many ways responsible and well presented But the ubiquitous statistic appears in yet another form "50% of the dab caught In the North Sea are diseased" To move to a different example, at the International Conference on the North Sea held in L o n d o n in March, Dr Johnston, a Greenpeace scientist who uses facxhties at L o n d o n Umverslty, displayed a poster paper giving h~s results of an exanunatlon of fish taken from the screens of Thurrock power station Referring to it in a BBC Schools Broadcast transmitted on 7 May, Mr Booth stated "The Umverslty of L o n d o n study found that over 22% of all fish looked at were diseased Now this disease is linked with pollution" In that paper
statistics are given of total abnormalities, including unusual pigmentation, in a sample of 623 fish of 4 species The overall percentage of abnormalmes comes to 14 1% There were no controls and no estmiates of pollution In fact the paper draws attention to the lack of evidence hnklng higher levels of abnormal fish with pollution I could go on with further examples My point is not that there are no problems, or that industry does not have to keep raising ~ts standards, but that progress will be impeded and resources mlsallocated by misrepresentations So, although I give an emphatic affirmative reply to your questlon--I would add that behavlour which I have illustrated can only hold back sensible progress
JOHN LAWRENCE Impertal Chermcal Industrws plc, Bnxharn Laboratory, Freshwater Quarry, Overgang, Brtxharn, TQ5 8BA. UK
Club of Rome at Sea The Future of the Oceans Ehzabeth Mann Borgese Harvest House, Montreal, 1986, 144pp ISBN 0-88772-220-2 PriceS9 95 Paperback The comprehensive title of this book gives no clear Indication of its contents, but a clue to ItS scope is provided by the sub-tltle--':A_ report to the Club of Rome" The Foreword discloses that this is the Club's first report dealing exclusively with the sea, and admits that the study IS long overdue In view of our increasing understanding of the ocean's mediating role in natural global processes, its economic and resource potential, and its mlhtary slgmficance These considerations hlghhght questions of the right to exploit the oceans, which were the subject of the series of conferences on the Law of the Sea and of the eventual comprehensive Convention This little book is an attempt to indicate what that Convention is about and to evaluate its sigmficance The first two chapters deal briefly with recent extensions of our knowledge of the oceans, referring to plate tectonics, the chemosynthesis of organic material round hydrothermal vents and the generation of polymetalllc sulphldes, questlomng in this context, the 'nonrenewable' designation of resources A marine revolution, defined as the penetration of the industrial revolution into the oceans, is postulated and exarmned in terms of three selected developments--aquaculture, ocean mlmng and energy There IS a general impression of optimism, even over-optimism, and the argument is not well served by the fact that the data on aquaculture production Include the very Important freshwater 464
component and are therefore much too high for the oceans Much of the book is concerned with the concept of the oceans as a common heritage of mankind, and chapter 3 suggests that this concept might become the nucleus of a new economic theory extending far beyond the marine field, even replacing the unsuccessful approaches of capitalism and commumsm The econonnc aspects are set out and examined against the background of an earlier Club of Rome report by O n o Glanm, to whose work Professor Borgese clearly attaches great slgmficance Chapters 4 and 5 go on to deal with UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the context of ideas on manne resources and econonncs expounded In the first part of the book Although reflecting the strong light of the author's own convictions, these chapters give a good resumd of nearly all the 17 parts of the Convention and continue her optimistic outlook She sees the openended nature of the Convention as an advantage, giving flexablllty for subsequent development, and she proposes a scheme for future regional cooperation and orgamsatlon The book bnngs together In a few pages a remarkable rmxture of scientific, legal, economac, and ideological discussion All the ideas expressed will not find universal acceptabdity, but anyone concerned wath the oceans and their management could read It with Interest, and wall certainly be stimulated by the author's vision of the future
A D MCINTYRE
samples is reported The graph clearly indicates an inverse relatmnshlp between the two forms This has been observed for all the other metals and in particular for mercury also in other areas as reported in our previous p a p e r (Ferrara et al, 1986), confirming the high affmlty of metals to the particulate matter The authors wish to thank Dr R Ferrara for kindly supplymg mercurv data
CNR, lstttuto dt Btofiswa, Vta S Lorenzo, 26, 56100 Ptsa, Italy
A SERITTI E MORELLI F ORSINI L NANNICINI
Ferrara, R , Sentti, A , Barghlgmm, C & Petrosmo, A (1980) Improved instrument for mercury determmanon by AFS with a highfrequency electrodeless discharge lamp Anal Chtm Acta 117,391395
Yes They Are Str, Your recent Edltonal 'North Sea Science' (Mar Pollut Bull 18, 2 5 7 - 2 5 8 ) touches on a point which recalls two earher comments m the Bulletm Your September Editorial (Mar Pollut Bull 17, 3 8 7 - 3 8 8 ) was entitled Are Environmental Conservation Organlzatxons Necessaryg' Those of us who work on the science of the environment for industry recograze the r6le of a healthy environmental m o v e m e n t It should keep us on our toes and help to arttculate pubhc priorities for improxqng the environment We hope that we can share a c o m m o n understanding of the facts, and focus our debates on the different value judgements that we inevitably make, because we often place d~fferent valuations on the relatwe importance of a healthy industry on the one hand and a contanunatlon-free environment on the other But it is difficult to help society to get this balance right if either side distorts the facts On the BBC Radio 4 'Today' p r o g r a m m e on 8 January 1986, Andrew Booth of Greenpeace stated "20% of the fish caught in the southern part of the North Sea now have to be thrown back and over 40% m the northern part of the North Sea and this trend seems to be increasing" This surprised us as it conformed to neither our reading of the hterature, nor to our own observations Mr Booth was therefore asked for the bas~s of his statement H e sent us two references, both to papers by Dr Dethlefsen, of the G e r m a n Federal Research Board of Fisheries, who is a distinguished scientist m the field of fish diseases In the first, a fully scientific paper,
Ferrara, R, Sentti, A , Barghigiam, C & Petrosmo A (1986) Mercury levels m the dissolved and paruculate fractmns of the Tyrrheman Sea Mar Chem 16,227-232 Mart, L (1979a) Prevention of contammauon and other accuracy risks in voltammetnc trace metal analys~s of natural waters Part I Preparatory Steps Fdtrauon and Storage of Water Samples Fresenna Z 4nal Chem 296,350-357 Mart, L (1979b) Prevennon of contarmnatlon and other accuracy risks m voltammetnc trace metal analysis of natural waters Part II Collection of Surface Water Samples Fresemus Z Anal Chem 299, 97-102 Mart, L, Nurnberg, H W & Valenta, P (1980) Prevention of contamLnation and other accuracy risks m voltammetnc trace metal analysis of natural waters Part III Voltammemc Ultratrace Analvs~s w~th a Multmell System Designed for Clean Bench Working Fresemus Z Anal Chem 300,350-362 Renzonl, A , Bacm, E & Falcml, L (1973) Mercury concentration m the water, sediments and fauna of an area of the Tyrrheman coast Rev Intern Oceanogr Med 31, 17-42 Renzom, A (1976) A case of mercury abatement along the Tuscan coast IIF~Journees Emd Polhatons, Spht, C I E S M , 95-97 Senm, A, Petrosmo, A Ferrara, R & Barghlgiam C (1980) A contribution to the determination of reactwe and total mercury m seawater Envtron Te~hnol Letters l, 50-57 Senm, A Ferrara, R, Morelh, E, Bargh~gmm, C & Pctrosmo, A (1986) Trace metals m marine enwronment m relanon to the study of their bmgeochemmal cycle Chem Ecol 2,181-186
Dethlefsen gwes many detailed results of the incidence of fish disease among catches that he has m a d e on his research cruises He does not give blanket figures but rather looks at particular species and particular diseases (of which there are many) The highest percentage figure in the whole paper concerns a c o n d m o n called lymphocysns, 7 95% of a sample of dab were infected The sectxon concludes that "[The analysis] maght indicate that at certain periods of the year a link exasts between fishmg pressure [my ltahcs] and relatwe frequencies of diseased dab" The paper also states that 'At present, almost nothing is known about long-term changes in the frequency of fish diseases in the North Sea" In the second paper, an invited 'Viewpoint' in this Journal (Mar Pollut Bull 17, 54-57), Dethlefsen does say "Maxamum prevalences of 50% externally diseased dab were encountered dunng a recent samphng in May 1984" and he confirmed at a recent conference that th~s figure is the highest that he has obtained and refers to a single sample of dab taken from the Dogger Bank I have not found the observation documented in a full sclentlfiC paper During the Summer of 1986 Greenpeace conducted their Great Rivers Campaxgn m the estuaries of the U K m their boat Beluga In an Interview on BBC Radio Cleveland on 31 July Andrew Booth stated that 'As a consequence of the fact that Britain d u m p s such vast quantmes of waste into the ocean, in a survey recently completed over 50% of all the dwelling fish we looked at were d~seased m some way or another, and we found ttus all the way around the coastline of Great Britain" The suggestxon that Greenpeace was undertaking a fish study around Great Britain came as a surprise Mr 463
Marine PoUutlonBulletin Booth, on BBC Radio Bristol on 21 July 1986, spoke of the reports that would be made on their campaign Until such a report is published one IS inevitably left with the conclusmn that Mr Booth's statement is based only on Dr Dethlefsen's sample of dab Greenpeace have now published The Ttde Must Turn, a brochure on the North Sea that is in many ways responsible and well presented But the ubiquitous statistic appears in yet another form "50% of the dab caught In the North Sea are diseased" To move to a different example, at the International Conference on the North Sea held in L o n d o n in March, Dr Johnston, a Greenpeace scientist who uses facxhties at L o n d o n Umverslty, displayed a poster paper giving h~s results of an exanunatlon of fish taken from the screens of Thurrock power station Referring to it in a BBC Schools Broadcast transmitted on 7 May, Mr Booth stated "The Umverslty of L o n d o n study found that over 22% of all fish looked at were diseased Now this disease is linked with pollution" In that paper
statistics are given of total abnormalities, including unusual pigmentation, in a sample of 623 fish of 4 species The overall percentage of abnormalmes comes to 14 1% There were no controls and no estmiates of pollution In fact the paper draws attention to the lack of evidence hnklng higher levels of abnormal fish with pollution I could go on with further examples My point is not that there are no problems, or that industry does not have to keep raising ~ts standards, but that progress will be impeded and resources mlsallocated by misrepresentations So, although I give an emphatic affirmative reply to your questlon--I would add that behavlour which I have illustrated can only hold back sensible progress
JOHN LAWRENCE Impertal Chermcal Industrws plc, Bnxharn Laboratory, Freshwater Quarry, Overgang, Brtxharn, TQ5 8BA. UK
Club of Rome at Sea The Future of the Oceans Ehzabeth Mann Borgese Harvest House, Montreal, 1986, 144pp ISBN 0-88772-220-2 PriceS9 95 Paperback The comprehensive title of this book gives no clear Indication of its contents, but a clue to ItS scope is provided by the sub-tltle--':A_ report to the Club of Rome" The Foreword discloses that this is the Club's first report dealing exclusively with the sea, and admits that the study IS long overdue In view of our increasing understanding of the ocean's mediating role in natural global processes, its economic and resource potential, and its mlhtary slgmficance These considerations hlghhght questions of the right to exploit the oceans, which were the subject of the series of conferences on the Law of the Sea and of the eventual comprehensive Convention This little book is an attempt to indicate what that Convention is about and to evaluate its sigmficance The first two chapters deal briefly with recent extensions of our knowledge of the oceans, referring to plate tectonics, the chemosynthesis of organic material round hydrothermal vents and the generation of polymetalllc sulphldes, questlomng in this context, the 'nonrenewable' designation of resources A marine revolution, defined as the penetration of the industrial revolution into the oceans, is postulated and exarmned in terms of three selected developments--aquaculture, ocean mlmng and energy There IS a general impression of optimism, even over-optimism, and the argument is not well served by the fact that the data on aquaculture production Include the very Important freshwater 464
component and are therefore much too high for the oceans Much of the book is concerned with the concept of the oceans as a common heritage of mankind, and chapter 3 suggests that this concept might become the nucleus of a new economic theory extending far beyond the marine field, even replacing the unsuccessful approaches of capitalism and commumsm The econonnc aspects are set out and examined against the background of an earlier Club of Rome report by O n o Glanm, to whose work Professor Borgese clearly attaches great slgmficance Chapters 4 and 5 go on to deal with UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the context of ideas on manne resources and econonncs expounded In the first part of the book Although reflecting the strong light of the author's own convictions, these chapters give a good resumd of nearly all the 17 parts of the Convention and continue her optimistic outlook She sees the openended nature of the Convention as an advantage, giving flexablllty for subsequent development, and she proposes a scheme for future regional cooperation and orgamsatlon The book bnngs together In a few pages a remarkable rmxture of scientific, legal, economac, and ideological discussion All the ideas expressed will not find universal acceptabdity, but anyone concerned wath the oceans and their management could read It with Interest, and wall certainly be stimulated by the author's vision of the future
A D MCINTYRE