Loud--but Not Yet Clear
For over 25 years, Europeans have lived with too much noise. As early as 1970, European governments began developing legislature to lessen noise emissions from motor vehicles, aircraft, and industries. Such measures, produced in a piecemeal fashion, have been unable to keep up with urban growth, and regulation has been halfhearted. Today, noise pollution is identified as one of the leading environmental health problems in the European Community. In a 1996 report, or "green paper," entitled
Future Noise Policy, the European Commission claims that almost 20% of Europeans--80 million people--suffer from exposure to what health experts call unacceptably high noise levels. There is nothing extraordinary about the source of all this noise; it's merely the sound of everyday life, including noise from traffic, construction, airplanes, radios, and lawnmowers. But for Europeans, all this everyday noise adds up to lost sleep, annoyance, and possibly more dire health consequences.
Anyone who's ever been to a nightclub or operated a power mower can deduce that prolonged exposure to loud noise causes hearing damage. But scientists are beginning to look at the more subtle effects of exposure to regular, high levels of noise, which may include both physiological and emotional changes. While extensive research has been conducted on people's annoyance response to noise, studies on other noise-related health effects are rarer, and the results are often less conclusive.
Source: Health Council of the Netherlands Committee on Noise and Health. Noise and health. Report 1994/15E. The Hague: Health Council of the Netherlands, 1994.
In an effort to identify research gaps, the U.K. Department of Health, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, commissioned the preparation of a report on the state of the science regarding noise-related health effects. In January, the Institute for Environment and Health (IEH), located at Leicester University in the United Kingdom, released
The Non-auditory Effects of Noise. The report is designed to be a guide in helping European governments make well-informed decisions about noise policy, and is also intended as a mechanism to focus much-needed attention on this environmental health topic.
The first part of the report includes a review of the published literature in the area of nonauditory effects of noise by Stephen Stansfeld, a researcher in the department of epidemiology and public health at the University College London Medical School. Stansfeld identifies nine key groups of health effects believed to be influenced by noise: sleep disturbances, performance problems, cardiovascular disease, fetal health, endocrine responses, psychiatric disorders, annoyance, children's health effects, and health effects due to noise in combination with other stressors. The second part of the report contains summary reviews by noise research experts on a select few of these groups of health effects. These summaries were also used as springboards for discussion at a May 1997 noise research review workshop held in Leicester.
Many noise-related health effects appear to be mediated through people's emotional response to the noise, which may in turn be influenced by factors such as social status. For example, someone of a lower social status may perceive himself to be trapped in an overcrowded, low-rent neighborhood, perhaps forced to keep his windows open for ventilation and thereby exposed to all of the city's noise. The effects of the noise itself might then be heightened by the tenant's belief that he is powerless, by dint of finances, to control his circumstances. Stansfeld explains, "It is hypothesized that exposure to environmental factors such as noise may be part of the explanation for differences in coronary heart disease by social status, and that, in turn, psychosocial factors such as perceptions of control may explain how social status influences primary risk factors for coronary heart disease such as blood pressure."
But, Stansfeld continues, scientists are still uncertain of how and even whether long-term health effects are caused by noise exposures. "It is well known that sudden noise may cause short-term responses, such as raised heart rate," he says, "but longer-term changes that might affect health are important but unknown."
A frequent criticism among the report's reviews is the lack of consistent, adequate measurement of noise exposures. Furthermore, says Stansfeld, while it is possible to establish a reliable measure of annoyance as a subjective response to noise, it is much more difficult to establish whether noise is causing changes in bodily physiology. Bernard Berry, head of noise standards at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, the United Kingdom, and president of the U.K. Institute of Acoustics in St. Albans, explains, "All too often, the measurement and description of the physical exposure is regarded as of secondary importance, and yet it is one of the key components in enabling us to relate and compare different research findings. This points to the need for researchers to make use of internationally standardized measures, such as ISO 1996 [an internationally agreed-upon set of methods and units for measuring environmental noise], but also to retain sufficient flexibility in the measurements of noise exposure to allow us to investigate the possible importance of other measures."
The report concludes that, despite the uncertainties remaining about noise's nonauditory effects, there are sufficient data to warrant further study. The report recommends longitudinal studies that, while expensive in the short run, may very well yield cost-saving insights into how and why noise affects human health.
Studies Shed Light on Sunscreen Efficacy
The relationship between use of sunscreen and prevention of skin cancer remains unclear despite intriguing results of several studies presented on 17 February 1998 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to these studies, consumers can't be certain which sunscreen, if any, will lower their risk for any of the three types of skin cancers. Two preliminary studies even suggest that using sunscreen may increase cancer risk.
Sunscreens are formulated to protect against sunburn, and, though a prophylactic benefit has long been assumed by both the public and academia, there is little evidence that preventing sunburn in human skin prevents skin cancer. It is well-established that 90% of skin cancers are caused by exposure to light, but the causal mechanisms for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC)--both known as nonmelanoma cancers--and melanoma are only now being probed. In the United States, according to Marianne Berwick, an associate attending epidemiologist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, there are approximately 1 million new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer annually with about 1,200 deaths, and about 40,000 new melanoma cases with 7,200 deaths. Melanoma metastasizes readily, while the nonmelanomas rarely do.
False sense of security?
New information shows that use of sunscreen may not be enough to protect against skin cancer, and people's dependence on them could actually lead to increased risk.
According to session organizer Francis Gasparro, director of the Jefferson University Photobiology Laboratory at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, 21 FDA-approved compounds are potentially available for use in sunscreens marketed in the United States. However, most of the research into their photochemistry has been done by industry, and the results are not available to either the public or academic researchers. Many sunscreens protect against some part of the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum, Gasparro says, but none of the sunscreens available perform "like a layer of concrete on your skin."
Hoping to unravel the connections between melanoma, long-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVA), and short-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVB), biophysicist Richard Setlow of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York exposed light-sensitive tropical fish to UVA. He found a high incidence of melanoma induction. Setlow suggests that if the fish results are transferable to humans, sunscreens formulated to block only UVB do not offer reasonable protection against melanoma.
Two studies reported at the February meeting sought to determine whether sunscreen protects DNA from UV damage. In a study funded by a consortium of pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturers, Honnavara Ananthaswamy, professor and deputy chairman of the department of immunology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and his team tracked the rate of mutation in the
p53
tumor suppressor gene in mice exposed to UVB. Results of the study, published in the May 1997 issue of
Nature Medicine, showed that after 16 weeks, in mice pretreated with sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 15,
p53
mutations were almost nonexistent, Ananthaswamy reports, whereas 50% of the mice without sunscreen showed the mutation after 12 weeks. All of the mice without sunscreen developed skin tumors after 41 weeks of daily exposure. None of the mice treated with sunscreen developed skin tumors during this time or even after 54 weeks of continuous sunscreen and UV exposure. Ananthaswamy says the
p53
mutation can serve as a very early warning of nonmelanoma skin cancer induction. He would like to see what he calls an "MPF" (mutation protection factor) added to the SPF designation on sunscreens.
John Knowland, a researcher in the department of biochemistry at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, studied whether sunscreen compounds become chemically reactive in the presence of UV light and pass their excess energy to DNA. In his study, published in the August 1997 issue of
Photochemistry and Photobiology, Knowland exposed both naked DNA and cultured human cells treated with padimate O, a derivative of para-aminobenzoic acid, to UV radiation in the laboratory. In both cases he observed DNA strand breakage, presumably caused by hydroxyl radicals.
Thus, one suppressor gene study shows promise for sunscreens in the prevention of nonmelanoma skin cancers, and the other shows that at least one sunscreen component itself actually induces DNA damage. The epidemiological evidence is equally confusing. Berwick surveyed 16 epidemiological studies, and says that these studies show that "squamous cell carcinoma is associated with continuous sun exposure, basal cell carcinoma seems to be associated with continuous [and] intermittent sun exposure on the unadapted skin, and melanoma seems to be associated with intermittent, intense sun exposure on untanned, unadapted skin."
Two SCC studies found that sunscreen did protect against precursor lesions. The other 14 studies are "extremely mixed," Berwick says. Two BCC studies found a positive association between the use of sunscreen and the incidence of BCC. Of 10 melanoma studies, five showed a positive association between the use of sunscreens and the development of melanoma. Two showed sunscreen to be protective, and three showed no association.
"We can conclude from these studies that it is not safe to rely on sunscreen to protect you from getting skin cancer," Berwick says. She notes that the positive association between sunscreen and melanoma may be due to the possibility that for people at highest risk for developing melanoma (light-skinned, light-eyed people, especially those with many moles), sunscreen may bestow a false sense of security. They may stay out in the sun longer than they would otherwise. Berwick emphasizes that until more clarifying research is done, people should pay close attention to their skin-cancer risk factors and reduce their sun exposure accordingly.
Researchers Ready Rapid
Pfiesteria
Tests
By 1999 or sooner, field tests to rapidly identify
Pfiesteria piscicida
and its toxins--responsible for massive fish kills and reports of serious human health effects--could help prevent illness, researchers hinted during a briefing of the National Sea Grant College Program, a research and education consortium involving over 300 U.S. institutions, held 11 February 1998 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two technologies approaching the field-testing stage--a reporter gene assay that exploits the power of the firefly's glow-making gene, and DNA-based molecular probes--were described in greater detail during a subsequent February 18-19 scientific conference in Linthicum, Maryland. At the same time, policy makers, environmental officials, and industrial leaders continue to discuss options for reducing pollutants that might play a role in the emergence of
Pfiesteria.
A single-celled dinoflagellate--the so-called "cell from hell"--Pfiesteria
literally flagellates or whips through water in some of its forms, and its toxins paralyze fish, allowing the organism to feed on their tissues. Public fears concerning
Pfiesteria
escalated last year after Maryland epidemiologists reported profound learning disabilities and short-term memory loss sustained by some people who were exposed to the organism, according to JoAnn Burkholder, an associate professor of botany at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was one of the discoverers of the organism.
Though the chemical structure of
Pfiesteria
toxins remains a mystery, boat-side and blood tests are now under development by John S. Ramsdell, a branch chief for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Marine Biotoxins Program in Charleston, South Carolina, and Parke Rublee, an associate professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Both men are collaborating with Burkholder.
Source: Burkholder and Glasgow
|
Source: Burkholder Laboratory
|
Testing for toxins.
Researchers are developing rapid tests for toxins from
Pfiesteria
zoospores that cause lesions and death in fish.
In Miami, Florida, meanwhile, researchers at the NIEHS Marine and Fresh Water Center at the University of Miami are scrambling to purify and characterize several different
Pfiesteria
toxins, says Daniel G. Baden, the facility director. With J. Glenn Morris, a researcher at both the University of Maryland's School of Medicine and that university's Center for Marine Biotechnology, the Miami-based NIEHS group also is studying toxin-related physiological and neuropsychological changes in humans and sheep, Baden reports.
To develop a detection system, Ramsdell's research group spliced together the section of a firefly gene that codes for the glow-producing enzyme luciferase with part of a human gene,
c-fos, which is sensitive to
Pfiesteria
toxins. The resulting reporter gene was then inserted into a rat cell that also responds to the toxic algae. The result, Ramsdell says, is a genetically engineered cell capable of giving off light when it comes in contact with the targeted toxins.
Light can then be measured on a luminometer. "The amount of light emitted by the cell is proportional to the amount of toxin present," Ramsdell says. Thus far, he adds, the luminescent system has detected as few as 10-100 toxic cells within a milliliter of water. Previous research has shown that levels between 350 and 6,900 cells per milliliter can kill fish, he notes.
Ramsdell and colleagues are preparing three different detection assays for use in the laboratory, in the field, and in clinics as a blood-analysis system. The methodology "works well in blood," he says, and will therefore let scientists confirm exposure in people. A boat-side assay, a rapid field test that would indicate the presence of the toxins in the water, will be based on two different reporter genes, and won't be ready for another year, he says.
Rublee predicts that his molecular probes for detecting the
Pfiesteria
organism--rather than its toxins--might be used in field tests by this fall. "The basis of our approach," Rublee explains, "is to look at the organism's DNA and to define within the DNA some targets unique to
Pfiesteria, to produce a probe." Researchers in Rublee's lab may, for instance, simply use a section of the organism's genetic code as a 'primer,' which can amplify a piece of
Pfiesteria
DNA in a polymerase chain reaction. If amplification occurs, Rublee noted, "then we know
Pfiesteria
is there."
A spin-off technology links a fluorescent molecule to primer sections of genetic code. Researchers then expose targeted cells to a dye, and subject the sample to a washing cycle. "The idea is that
Pfiesteria
cells--the target--will bind the probe and the dye," Rublee says. "Pfiesteria
cells will glow or fluoresce with that dye, and other cells will not."
Already, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has offered to assist Ramsdell and Rublee with field-testing the new technologies. "We would love more than anything for them to bring [the techniques] here and go wild," departmental spokesperson John Surrick says. Like other states within the U.S. eastern coastal region, Maryland is evaluating more intensive water-monitoring plans, as well as pollution-reduction efforts, Surrick notes. For 1998, he says, the department will monitor an additional five river/creek systems, and more if necessary. And the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will team up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other states to examine the experiences of people exposed repeatedly to high-risk waters. On March 18, the CDC granted Maryland more than $1 million for research on
Pfiesteria. The grant will be used to monitor people who frequent the state's rivers for symptoms associated with exposure to
Pfiesteria
toxins. The money is part of a $7 million congressional appropriation for study of the organism. Delaware, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia will also receive research funds from the grant.
Donald M. Anderson, a senior scientist in the biology department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and an author of a February 1997 joint report on harmful algal blooms (HABs) by the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, says he welcomes the new detection technologies. "This is a very necessary development," says Anderson, who took part in the recent National Sea Grant College Program briefing. "The critical unknown has been whether or not
Pfiesteria
was present, and whether
Pfiesteria
toxins were present."
According to the 1997 report,
HABs including
Pfiesteria
outbreaks "are increasing in frequency or severity in many U.S. coastal environments and worldwide . . . [and therefore] pose increasing risks to human health, natural resources, and environmental quality." Baden contends, further, that "Pfiesteria
really is the least of our problems." Toxins from paralytic shellfish and puffer fish, as well as Florida red tides and European diarrheic shellfish also cause serious human illness and death, he says.
Though HABs worldwide have been widely associated with excess nutrients in water, Baden points out that Florida red tides have been reported since at least 1844, and paralytic shellfish poisons were described in the 1500s. But public service literature from the National Sea Grant College Program identifies nutrient runoff from residential, agricultural, and industrial areas as "a probable cause of the increase in
Pfiesteria
populations."
Studies of HABs have not been limited to
Pfiesteria. In New York, for instance, a $1.5 million project focuses on brown tides--algal blooms that are not toxic to humans, but that affect shellfish reproduction and feeding, says Darcy Lonsdale, a principle scientist for the New York Sea Grant/NOAA Coastal Ocean Program initiative. And in the Pacific Northwest, researchers such as Rose Ann Cattolico, a professor of botany at Seattle's University of Washington, are investigating
Heterosigma, an algal bloom that now threatens the region's multimillion dollar salmon industry.
But
Pfiesteria
promises to remain a focus of HAB studies, researchers say. "The story of
Pfiesteria
provides a compelling illustration that fish [health] and human health are strongly linked," Burkholder concludes. "Toxic dinoflagellates can cause serious chronic/sublethal impacts to fish and mammals, as well as other organisms," she adds. "Efforts to improve water quality through reductions in nutrient loading likely will help to protect both our natural resources and our health."
Not surprisingly, a host of policy makers and government agencies have moved to toughen runoff restrictions and provide funding for
Pfiesteria
research. Perhaps most notably, in February President Bill Clinton proposed allocating $10.5 billion for a Clean Water Action Plan, which includes 110 "key action steps" to make waters safe for fishing and swimming. While the fate of that legislation has not yet been determined, the recently passed Sea Grant Reauthorization Bill will provide close to $300 million worth of support for
Pfiesteria
research and other marine studies over the next 5 years.
Agreement on Pork Problems
What would you think if a pork production facility 25 miles long with an annual yield of 2.5 million hogs suddenly opened shop in your neighborhood? For the residents of Milford, Utah, this unusual question is a hot topic as Circle Four Farms, the nation's largest hog producer and Milford's corporate neighbor, continues to expand toward this production goal by the end of the decade. Pork production facilities, when poorly managed, have the potential to be environmental pariahs. Animal wastes are usually stored in massive on-site lagoons that, if breached, can have devastating effects on nearby surface water and groundwater systems. Pork production facilities are also associated with excessive nutrient loading, occupational health problems, sickening odors, and even global warming from methane emissions. And as the industry continues to evolve toward dominance by mega-producers such as Circle Four, important questions about the environmental consequences of this industry are increasingly being raised.
Bluer lagoons?
A coalition of state and federal regulatory agencies and pork producers has released an environmental framework to provide guidance on waste management issues on hog farms.
Source: Reagan M.Waskom
Until recently, there was little national consensus on how to best manage the environmental problems of the pork production industry. But now a document titled
Comprehensive Environmental Framework for Pork Production Operations
may provide some guidance. The document was released in December 1997 by the National Dialogue on Pork Production, a multiparty coalition of producers and state and federal regulatory agencies including the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During the latter half of 1997, the coalition toured farms and research institutions around the United States, and met with citizens and a variety of pork industry stakeholders. The report they eventually released has been, for the most part, well received by producers, government regulators, and environmental groups. In and of itself, the framework of recommendations contained in the report isn't legally binding. The recommendations will have no effect unless they are enacted into law, incorporated into regulations, or voluntarily adopted by producers. Nonetheless, the members of the coalition are hopeful that the report's release will mark a turning point for an industry attempting to improve its environmental management practices, and enhance its image in the public's eye.
"So often we'd hear producers asking what they could do. Our goal was to develop procedures that they could implement to become good environmental citizens," says Roberta Savage, president of America's Clean Water Foundation, the Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization that con
vened the dialogue. "The framework can be used by state and federal regulators and legislators to develop new programs. It's available for all who have an interest in the subject."
Recommendations include the establishment of rigorous registration processes for new and expanding operations, location restrictions, emergency response measures, and a variety of procedures governing waste management and land application of manure. The framework also calls for standards in the design, construction, and operation of all facilities; expanded public participation in the permitting process; and establishment of an enforcement mechanism. New and expanding operations would have to follow the guidelines immediately, suggests the report, whereas existing facilities would have five years to comply.
"Many of the recommendations of the dialogue are just taking best management practices for our industry one step further," says Bob Uphoff, a dialogue participant who runs a family operation producing 2,000 hogs per year in Madison, Wisconsin. James F. Pendergast, acting director of the EPA's permits division and a dialogue participant, agrees. "I'm pleased with what we came up with," he says. "We had a good deal of technical expertise brought to the table."
Some environmental groups, while voicing cautious approval of the framework's recommendations, are concerned that it isn't doing enough to address the pork industry's potential effects on public health. "We don't disagree with the recommendations," says Susan Heathcoat of the Iowa Environmental Council, based in Des Moines. "Our concern is what's not [in the report]. They don't really get into emerging health issues."
According to Kendal Thu, a researcher at the Institute for Rural and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, the health effects he observed among residents living near a large-scale production facility were similar to those typically seen in the pork production workers themselves. "The symptoms we saw seemed to be interrelated, and reflected disturbances of the respiratory system," he says. These symptoms included wheezing and chest heaviness, nausea, weakness, headaches, plugged ears (frequently associated with sinusitis), and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. Thu published the results of his study in the March 1997 issue of the
Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health.
According to Thu, symptoms among pork production workers are generally related to elevated levels of dust, and to gases such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. But whether these pollutants are present at levels high enough to cause similar health effects among downwind residents is unknown. Robert Chriswell, a staff engineer with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in St. Paul, is currently investigating whether hydrogen sulfide levels at certain distances from a large pork production facility are in violation of state standards.
What may in fact be the most tenacious problem faced by pork producers, however, is odor control. Odors are particularly challenging because they are difficult to contain and chemically complex. Elevated levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide, for example, don't necessarily correlate with increasing odor intensity, meaning that while the odors may be unpleasant, for some unbearably so, they are not necessarily dangerous. Some producers also have a hard time understanding why the public can become so angry about odors to which they themselves have become accustomed.
The framework is a major step toward improving environmental management in the pork industry, and represents the most broad-based consensus yet reached by industry and related stakeholders. However, its success will ultimately depend on the extent to which the guidelines are applied. What remains to be seen is whether these recommendations are actually adopted by state and municipal regulatory agencies and, ultimately, implemented by the producers.
NIEHS Seeks Data on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
Some scientists have suggested that the boom in petroleum-based products that emerged after World War II, ranging from pesticides to perfumes, has led to a corresponding boom in mysterious illnesses. These highly debated illnesses, which include total allergy syndrome, fibromyalgia syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome, are characterized by seemingly rootless headaches, muscle aches, and fatigue.
One such illness, known as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), believed by some scientists to be a product of chemical synergy, is thought to occur when exposure to a particular chemical or mixture of chemicals leads to subsequent immune responses, often more intense than expected, to a variety of substances. Although there may be a connection between exposure to petrochemicals and MCS, the mechanisms underlying this connection haven't been elucidated. But the NIEHS is working to change that.
The NIEHS was recently allocated $400,000 by Congress to study MCS as part of a push to better understand Gulf War illness. Gulf War illness, which reportedly affects over 10% of the veterans who served in the Persian Gulf theater during 1991, features many of the same symptoms as MCS. It is hoped that research on one condition will also reveal information about the other. Congress has also allocated $300,000 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for similar studies.
The congressional money will augment a request for applications issued last November by the NIEHS for innovative experimental approaches to studying chemical mixtures. Approximately 70 applications were received in response to that request. Says William Suk, deputy director of the Office of Program Development in the NIEHS's Division of Extramural Research and Training, "What's important [about the congressional funding] is that we'll be able to move forward on this problem more quickly."
The genesis of MCS may lie in an initial exposure to a particular chemical, which creates a sensitivity in a susceptible individual. Then, when the individual later encounters similar chemicals, or the same chemical in lower doses, a sudden, severe, and polysymptomatic response is experienced. But while the popular media are full of anecdotal evidence of a link between health effects and exposures to chemicals such as those found in new carpet and fresh paint, there is presently little hard science to back up such claims.
Recent NIEHS projects involving chemical mixtures include research on endocrine disruptors, food toxicology, and groundwater contamination. Suk says that research currently being done at the NIEHS is relevant to understanding the mechanistic functioning of chemical mixtures, which in some cases may be relevant to MCS; the congressional funding should enable the institute to initiate studies directly related to MCS.
|
Sediment Science
Marine environments are the homes of intricate aquatic ecosystems that can be severely impacted by contaminants. Hazardous waste sites, nonpoint source pollution, industrial and sewage discharges, ship discharges and activities, and the resuspension of contaminated sediments are all potential threats to these environments.
The U.S. Navy, which has ships and facilities in almost every coastal state, recognizes that these ecosystems are important environmental, economic, and aesthetic resources. Using state-of-the-art technology, the Navy is working to protect the environmental health of these ecosystems in the areas where it conducts operations. The division dedicated to this goal is the Environmental Quality Science and Technology Division within the Naval Command, Control, and Ocean Surveillance Center Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Division (NRaD).
Information about some of the NRaD's efforts can be found on the home page for the Environmental Quality Science and Technology Division, located at
http://www.denix.osd.mil/. This page gives an overview of the division, which works with industry, academia, and government agencies in researching environmental technology to assess environmental quality, develop sensors, and carry out remediation. The table of contents contains links to several research programs within the division. The links give details about each program and contain pictures of program activities, as well as graphics depicting how some of the technologies work.
The link to Ecological Risk Assessment and Restoration describes efforts to identify and lessen the impacts resulting from Navy operations. The division has worked since 1980 to conduct ecological risk assessment, and has used the knowledge gathered from these assessments to carry out cleanup of several sites, evaluate solid waste and effluent discharges from Navy ships, and develop an approach to shipyard water compliance issues. The link describes one particular model called EcoRisk that the division has used to propose environmental standards for fleet operations. EcoRisk involves diverse tools such as three-dimensional models, measurement platforms, and biomarkers. The link contains a diagram of one such biomarker, the comet DNA strand break assay.
The link to Sediment Assessment and Remediation Technology Development provides information about the Navy's efforts to utilize technology to clean up contamination. Because remediation is affected by multidisciplinary problems, researchers with varying scientific backgrounds are working together to evaluate existing technologies and develop new ones. Current research focuses on bioremediation and particle separation technology, sediment assessment prediction and monitoring techniques, cost-effective sediment treatment trains, sediment contaminant biogeochemistry, rapid sediment profiling, and benthic contaminant flux sampling and measurement.
The NRaD is also working on technology that monitors the composition and toxicity of materials released by Navy ship and shore operations into the environment. The link to Environmental Sensor/Instrument Development provides information about analytical systems that identify and provide three-dimensional mapping of contaminants at sites before remediation and after cleanup. The link describes other sensor and instrument technology that the NRaD has developed or is developing, such as a laser-induced fluorescence sensor that uses fiber optics to detect petroleum-based products in the marine environment. This instrument is now used as the major sensor in a system that detects petroleum products in soils and groundwaters up to depths of 150 feet, providing accurate three-dimensional characterization of the subsurface contamination. This and other sensor systems developed by the NRaD are now being commercialized by private industry.
Last Updated: April 23, 1998