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water severa! degrees. And nuclear
powcr plants generate 40 to 50% more
waste heat than conventional plants.
U. S. Secretary of the Interior Walter
J.
Hickel has estimated it will cost at
least
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5 billion dollars over thc next ten
ycars to clean up America's pollut<:d
Jakes and streams. Other cost cstimatcs
run considcrably higher.
Secretary Hickcl admits the problcm
is a difficult one, politically. Shou ld
Federal an ti -polluition funds for any
onc ycar
be
concentrated on certain
crssts arcas - or scattered aaoss the
country, perhaps a politically safcr
course?
Then there is the ponderous task of
coordmating municipal, statc and Fed–
eral dforts. Pollution doesn't stop at
the city limits or the state linc.
lndustry Brings "the Be tter
Life" -
This is becoming more
questionable os water sources
everywhere increosingly take on
these appearonces. Far left,
ugly conglomerotion of pollu–
tants ot o borge port; obove,
polluted effluence in Englond's
River Calder; left, sign in Sope
Creek, Georgio worns of con–
tominoted water. Neorly every
natural resource is offected by
pollution blight.
The Oceans: The Final
Garbage Dump
"The end of the occan carne late
in
the summer of 1979. lt carne even more
rapidly than thc biologists had ex–
pected."
So began Stanford University biolo–
gist Paul Ehrlich's rccent fictional -
but all-too-real - article, "Eco-catas–
trophe."
Our oceans and seas
vital links in
carth's lifegiving cycles - may indeed
soon see the day of their "dcath." Al–
rcady, the oceans serve as international
garbage cans for the industrial effiueots
of rivcrs, the oil of tankers, the pesti–
cides and fertilizers carried by both
winds and surface waters.
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If
the oceans and seas die, all human–
ity perishes with them.
Oxygen From Our Oceans
The Un itcd $tates, according to one
authority, is alccady using 40% more
oxygcn that it produces. That 40%
deficit must be supplied by production
of oxygen in our occans as well as in
tropical Jand arcas - and brought in by
atmospheric circulation.
Nations such as Caoada and the
Soviet Union rely on imported oxygen
over a large part of the year, aftcr
photosynthcsis stops with the beginning
of autumn.
Much of the carth's oxygen supply is
produced by the phytoplankton of the
sea, and thcn circulated over land arcas.
Although no one knows the exact
amount, it is variously estimated that
50 to 70% of the oxygen of the world
is produced by these phytoplankton.
Man by his massive technological in–
trusions is already threatening the eco–
logical balance which sustains him.
Jf
enough of thcsc marine diatoms or the
organisms lhey depend on for fixed ni–
trogen are annihi lated, we could start
rnnning out of precious oxygen. Thc
reality of such a catastrophe is no fablc.
For cxample, three years ago the
120,000-ton t:tnker, Torrey Canyon,
broke up off the coast of Britain. Its
hoard of crude
oil
polluted vast
stretches of water :md beach. The Tor–
rey Canyon carried enough crude oi l,
when converted to gasoline or pctrol, to
kcep 54,400 cars running foc one year
of normal use.
Dr. LaMont
C.
Cole, widely known
ecologist askcd,
"If
the Torrey Canyon
had been carrying a concentrated herbi–
cide instead of petroleum, could pho–
tosynthesis in thc North Sea have bcen
stopped? Berkncr
[
the late professor
Lloyd Berkner] considered that a very
few such disastcrs occurring close
enough togcthcr in time might cause thc
Ul.Tl.MATE DISASTER."
Critica! oxygen-producing diatoms
are easily upsct by man's poUuting
hand. A United States Fisb and Wtld–
life Service scientist found that even a
slight trace of oí! on the water keeps
one particular diatom,
N itzrhift,
from
growing. Scientists simply have
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ittlc
knowlcdge on the disastrous long-term