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]]]]]]]]]]]]]] DEEP OCEAN: THE SAFEST DUMP [[[[[[[[[[[[[[
By Charles Osterberg (02/03/1990)
(Charles Osterberg is retired professor of oceanography at
Oregon State University [-- and also an old AtE subscriber])
From the New York Times, 14 June 1989, I, p. 27:2
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 10602PANC]
Damascus, Md.
Is the ocean as Congress views it -- a thin, fragile veil of
water, brim full of good food for future generations, but
wantonly poisoned by man? Or is it as some oceanographers
believe -- a deep, dark barren desert providing little food but
with the greatest capacity to assimilate human wastes of any
earthly ecosystem?
It is both. Two percent of the ocean is coastal water -- the
seashore, harbors and home for fish. The rest is the deep ocean,
where few fish are caught.
Nonetheless, it was the view of Congress that prevailed last
year when it passed legislation that prohibits the dumping of
sewage and industrial wastes into the ocean after Dec. 31, 1991.
In doing so, Congress disregarded advice from the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres to keep our
options open. These groups argued that we should not foreclose
deep ocean dumping because, in some cases, it is preferable to
any of the alternatives.
Moreover, this law does not protect the coastal ocean. Waste,
when burned or dumped on land, eventually ends up in the coastal
ocean. As ``Chemical Oceanography,'' a well-known text, states:
``The ocean is man's ultimate garbage can. Sooner or later, all
of the products of civilization find their way to this
reservoir.'' Indeed, a better way to protect the coastal ocean
would be to dump our waste in the deep ocean.
The new law places two-thirds of our planet off-limits to
mankind's wastes. This is an interesting new philosophy: that
our wastes should go where we live -- the land -- and not where
we don't live -- the much bigger, deep ocean, with water depths
of 3,000 feet or more.
Fortunately, that view doesn't prevail in our homes, where we
insist that chimneys penetrate the roofs, carrying smoke outside
and, above all, where sewer pipes must extend beyond the range of
our noses. A cork in either pipe for even a few weeks would
convince anyone of the wisdom of this philosophy.
Perhaps this isn't being fair to the members of Congress.
Perhaps they don't think wastes should go on the land willy-nilly
-- just on any land outside my state. Probably they mean out
West, where a surfeit of desolate lands lays idle, defended by
few votes in the House of Representatives.
Does Congress expect nature to suddenly change her ways and
abide by the new law of the land?
Mother nature will placidly thwart the intent of Congress by
flushing wastes, legally confined to the land and air we try to
live on, illegally to the coastal ocean.
For despite the new law, gravity will prevail. Congress be
damned: Those wastes on land will eventually reach the sea, as
surely as rivers continue to flow down hill.
Percolating rains, the unpredictable changes in ground-water
levels and erosion will see to that. And smoke and debris sent
into the skies will return as acid rain and crud, joining the
flood to the sea.
Congress is sure to lose this contest of wills. Unfortunately,
in the meantime, the land, air and fresh water that sustain life
on earth will be degraded, forced by the new law to serve as
half-way houses, holding the wastes briefly out of sight, out of
mind before freeing them to flow seaward.
It makes little sense for Congress to protect the durable deep
ocean if it means discriminating against the planet's other
life-support systems, especially when it affords no protection to
our fragile coastal waters.
* * *
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