Fiinc 



accidental spills of oil and hazardous substances are re- 

 ported annually in the United States (ENVIRON). While 

 most of these are relatively small, the oil spill in the Santa 

 Barbara Channel in 1969, the 216,000 tons of crude oil 

 spilled in the English Channel by the Amoco Cadiz in 

 1978, and the June 3. 1979, blowout in Campeche Bay, 

 Mexico have focused public and governmental attention 

 on the environmental hazards of oil spills. Those kinds of 

 spills are a particularly complex problem: they generally 

 affect all aspects of our environment, including air, land, 

 and water, although not all equally and for varying periods 

 of time. As a consequence, the problems that spills pres- 

 ent are extremely diverse, involving a multidimensional 

 matrix of spilled substances, volume spilled, location and 

 condition of the spill site, and weather (ENVIRON). Vari- 

 ous techniques are emerging as likely candidates for hand- 

 ling spill problems, including dispersant agents for off- 

 shore spills and new bacterial technologies to provide 

 cleanup agents. However, additional technologies are 

 needed over the next 5 years to detect, contain, clean up. 

 and mitigate the effects of spills of oil and hazardous 

 substances in more cost-effective ways (ENVIRON). 



MANAGING WASTES 



It is estimated that 45 million metric tons of hazardous 

 wastes are currently generated in the United States in a 

 year, and those must eventually find their way to disposal 

 sites, about 2.000 of which currently might be considered 

 "problem sites" (ENVIRON). The Resource Con- 

 servation and Recovery Act of 1976 (P.L. 94-580) recog- 

 nized the problems posed by hazardous wastes and recom- 

 mended initial remedial approaches. Recently, public 

 attention has focused heavily on the efficacy of waste 

 disposal sites as a result of widely publicized incidents at 

 Love Canal, New York; Legler, New Jersey; and Gass- 

 ville, Arkansas. Those incidents, in combination with the 

 need to dispose of wastes in a safe manner, present a 

 growing challenge in the coming years both for science 

 and technology and for policymakers responsible for 

 managing waste handling. 



A variety of technical approaches can be taken in deal- 

 ing with waste problems. One approach is to reduce the 

 quantity of certain hazardous wastes produced or released 

 at their point of origin. A second approach is to find better 

 means for transporting, storing, treating, and disposing of 

 those industrial wastes for which no acceptable means of 

 elimination or reuse has been developed. A third approach 

 is to develop methods to remove and/or recover hazardous 

 materials from waste streams during waste disposal opera- 

 tions (ENVIRON). Although the choice of strategies is not 

 solely a matter of science or technology — it also involves 

 economic and political factors — science and technology 

 are intricate parts of all of those strategies and. therefore, 

 are presented with a major opportunity to help solve waste 

 disposal problems over the next 5 years and beyond. 



tiomil Area Problems. Opportunities, and Constraints 67 

 IMPROVING WATER QUALITY 



Maintaining a high level of water quality in the face of 

 increased water demands is a critical national problem; 

 high-quality water is needed for personal consumption, 

 and for industrial, agricultural, and recreational purposes. 

 Many of our water sources are of less than adequate 

 quality, and although it has been reported that the Nation's 

 surface-water supplies are not diminishing in quality, they 

 also are not getting any better, and there is increasing 

 concern about the quality of our ground-water supplies 

 (NRC-7). Nonetheless, the lack of further deterioration in 

 the quality of at least the Nation's surface waters, in the 

 face of a growing population and expanded economic 

 activity, is a major accomplishment in water pollution 

 control. 



The Nation's efforts to cleanse its waters were facili- 

 tated by passage of the Federal Water Pollution Act 

 Amendments of 1972. which, following enactment of 

 additional amendments in 1977. became known as the 

 Clean Water Act. That Act called for a general strategy of 

 controlling water pollution at its source, rather than rely- 

 ing simply on cleaning up receiving waters. The technol- 

 ogy-based uniform national standards approach to con- 

 trolling municipal and industrial point source pollution is 

 now generally expected to achieve marked improvements 

 in point source control." However, experience with that 

 approach has revealed some previously unanticipated 

 problems toward which science and technology efforts 

 might be directed. Some of those problems are discussed 

 briefly below. 



PROTECTING GROUND-WATER QUALITY 



The program implemented by the Clean Water Act con- 

 centrated on cleanup of surface waters, there being an 

 implicit assumption that the Nation's ground water was 

 relatively clean. Recent evidence suggests . however, that 

 renewable ground water, which is approximately 50 times 

 more plentiful than the annual flow of surface water, is 

 itself vulnerable to contamination, primarily from human 

 activities. The sources of pollution include sewage treat- 

 ment plants, landfills, and industrial waste disposal. Ad- 

 ditional scientific and technological information will be 

 needed to develop and validate equipment and tech- 

 nologies for sampling and monitoring ground-water 

 quality; for developing and standardizing soil per- 

 meability tests for industrial wastes containing organic 

 solvents; and for the determination of the toxicity of 

 chemicals that are likely to contaminate ground-water 

 supplies, particularly synthetic organic chemicals 

 (NRC-7; ENVIRON). 



CONTROLLING NONPOINT SOURCES OF POLLUTION 



Nonpoint source pollution, which is the origin of more 

 than half of the pollutants that enter the Nation's waters, is 

 a result of a variety of factors, including localized agri- 



