February, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 10 
(actually he did the work as a grad student at 
CalTech). Many graduate students used this 
technique including Tom Richards who used it 
in his PhD work at Maine. 
Following the appearance of Rachael Carson’s 
book “Silent Spring” in the early 1960s, there 
was considerable concern about the effect of 
DDT on organisms including those in the 
marine environment. U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service requested Ken Maxwell and I to submit 
a proposal. We did; we studied the movement 
of DDT through a laboratory food chain- 
Enteromorpha to Neanthes to a fish (first an 
opaleye later a mollie). We had uptake in the 
algae which we fed the worm which also took 
DDT up, but we had difficulty with the fish. It 
was difficult to feed the fish a sufficient 
number of worms. Jack Word and Wayne 
Davis helped me on the biological phase of this 
research. Very little of this work resulted in 
publication, but I learned the difficulty of 
conducting a laboratory food chain. I have 
never attempted it again, but Joe LeMay did 
going from worm to fish and using radioactive 
tracers. He was successful. 
I had written earlier about the influence of 
C.M. Tarzwell had on my life. He became the 
first director of the newly established EPA lab 
in Rhode Island (He had offered me a job there, 
but I never applied.). Tarzy asked me to write 
a proposal to develop culture techniques for 
many species of polychaetes which could be 
used in marine toxicity tests. He funded me for 
3.5 years and this was one of my largest grants 
($250,000). Many graduate students worked 
on this grant. I assigned each student to a 
polychaete, and it was their responsibility to 
learn how to culture them and the results 
constituted their masters degree research. 
Kathy King, Boccardiaproboscidean Stan 
Rice, Polydora lignin Mark Rossi, Halosydna 
johnsonin John Shisko, Dexiospira brasiliensisn 
Doug Morgan, Cirriformia spirobrancha and 
C. luxuriosan Scott Carr came a little later in 
the study and he conducted toxicity tests with 
Ctenodrilus serratus and Dinophilus 
gyrociliatus . Mike Martin coordinated the 
efforts and conducted many toxicity tests with 
many of these species of polychaetes. EPA 
published the results of this study in their 
publication series. The results were also 
presented orally by these students at the 
Hartman memorial symposium. 
Environment Canada contacted me to study the 
long term effects of mine tailings on survival 
and reproduction on four species of 
polychaetes ( Capitella, Neanthes, Ctenodrilus, 
Ophryotrocha) at 15-20 C. Canada was 
considering discharging mine wastes into an 
Arctic Sea body of water. With my previous 
Arctic experience I suggested that they drain 
one of the thousands of Arctic slope lakes and 
empty the wastes into the dry bed. The 
permafrost would prevent the movement of the 
wastes. The Canadians ultimately did this but 
not before the study was done. Tom Gerlinger 
helped me on this project and some of the data 
was the basis for his masters degree thesis. We 
published some of the work. 
Dorothy Soule established Harbor Projects at 
SC and she contacted me for assistance in the 
biological aspects of LA-LB Harbor. They 
made benthic and monthly test panel 
collections. Most of the sorting and 
identification was done in my lab. I do not 
know how many people worked on this project 
over the next 5 years. I will not attempt to 
name them. My daughter Lisa began while 
still in high school and she later became the 
coordinator of the personnel. She trained the 
people in the identification of the invertebrates. 
I do not know the total amount of funds 
involved, but it must have been between 
$100,000 and 200,000. 
Dredging and disposal of marine sediments 
became an important environmental issue in 
the early 1970s. The LA district Army Corps 
(via Russ Bellmer) wrote several contracts with 
me including the preparation of a toxicity 
manual for them. This was a major effort (over 
$300,000) and Joe LeMay was my right hand 
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