attention. These are: (1) total ban of organotins in antifoulant paints, 



(2) regulate the use of organotins by the length of vessels: such as 



prohibition an vessels less than 25 meters in length, with approval on all 



aluminum hull vessels, (3) limit the amount of TBT (on a percentage basis) 



in the paint, and (4) limit the release rate of TBT from the paint to the 

 adjacent water column. 



2.3.1.1 U.S. Congress 



Following the Navy's preparation of an Environmental Assessment in compli- 

 ance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Navy's subsequent 

 determination that the fleetwide (600 ships) use of organotin antifouling 

 paints would not have significant adverse environmental consequences in 

 Navy harbours (Interim FONSI) . A major controversy developed, which was 

 spearheaded by scientists and environmentalists who were concerned that 

 the impact of TBT on oysters that occurred in France and England could 

 occur in the U.S. and particularly in the high oyster production areas of 

 lower Chesapeake Bay, which were in the proximity of large naval facili- 

 ties. These concerns rose from studies in England and France that were 

 finding significant impacts to oyster populations exposed to TBT. 



Also there were a series of scientific questions which at that time could 

 not be answered: (1) what concentrations of organotin compounds in the 

 environment were causing the demise of oyster populations (acute and 

 chronic dose exposure levels, for TBT and its metabolites) , (2) what were 

 the degradation rates, fate and behavior of TBT and its metabolites in the 

 environment, (3) what were the release rates of TBT in different types of 

 antifoulant paints, and the processes that effected these release rates, 

 and (4) what was the distribution of TBT and its metabolites in the envi- 

 ronment and the processes that influenced these distributions. Therefore, 

 immediately following Secretary of the Navy (John F. Lehman's.) statement, 

 that the Navy would paint up to 50 ships with TBT in FY 86, Senator Paul 

 S. Trible from Virginia introduced on November 12, 1985, the following 

 into the Report of the Continuing Resolution for FY 86 's Federal Budget: 

 that "none of the funds appropriated by this joint resolution may be 

 obligated or expended to carry out a program to paint any naval vessel 

 with paint known by the trade name of Organotin or with any other paint 

 containing the chemical compound tributyltin, until such time as the EPA 

 certifies to the Department of Defense that whatever toxicity is generated 

 by organotin paints as included in Navy specifications does not pose an 

 unacceptable hazard to the marine environment." The Navy was comfortable 

 with this restriction since they had planned to use the low release rate 

 copolymer TBT paints, and figured that EPA would be able to quickly 

 approve some of these paints. 



However, Senator Trible' s wording required EPA to certify that specific 

 TBT paint formulations that the Navy wanted to use did not pose an 

 unacceptable hazard to the marine environment . This in essence required 

 that EPA had to analyze all of the toxicological and environmental data 



II-7 



