As an example of the first of these suggested new research areas, I can cite a 
project that we at the University of Georgia have undertaken under contract 
with a large industrial company. In this case the company proposes to build a 
chemical plant on a site that is adjacent to an extensive area of natural 
wetlands, both swamp forests and marshes, which we believe have considerable 
capacity to assimilate and recycle nutrients and bio-degradable wastes. By both 
inventory and experimental procedures we are in the process of determining 
just what this “tertiary” treatment capacity is with the understanding that the 
company will then design their in-house treatment facilities so as to remove the 
toxic substances and release into the wetland environment only that which can 
be assimilated. Such a procedure I like to call “reciprocal design” in that both 
the industrial engineer and the ecologist have the same objective; namely, 
essentially zero pollution after effluents have passed through both the 
man-made and the natural filters. In this case, the company owns the wetlands 
which, when used in the manner described, become a highly valued part of a 
total waste management system. I believe there would be much to be gained if 
EPA laboratories entered into “reciprocal design” contracts with industry, and 
thus become partners, rather than adversaries in the pursuit of common goals. 
Merging economics and ecology may prove difficult, but it does make 
common sense since the two words have a common Greek root, “oikos” 
meaning “household”; ecology literally is “the study of the household,” and 
economics “the management of the household.” The trouble is that “nature’s 
house” is entirely external to “man’s house” in current economic procedures, 
so that the very valuable and necessary work of nature, such as the tertiary 
treatment of wastes just discussed, is not included in economic cost-accounting 
or in the workings of the market system. In discussing theory, I made a point 
of the need to recouple the “houses” of man and nature, so we can follow up 
by suggesting that the best practical way to do this is to find ways to 
internalize into the economic system what are now considered to be the “free 
goods and services” of nature. 
I will close by mentioning several special marine research challenges, since 
this laboratory focuses on coastal and marine environments. Microbial 
components and transformations in marine and estuarine environments are the 
least known, yet the most important aspects when it comes to systems 
metabolism and the impact of man-made perturbations. Microbial activities in 
the anaerobic layers of sediments and how these activities are coupled with 
those in the aerobic layers and water columns provide especially difficult, but 
challenging, problems. The role of the sea in global cycles of carbon, nitrogen 
and sulfur need further study. For example, the sea has not proved to be as 
efficient a “sink” for CO ? released into the atmosphere by fuel-burning and 
deforestation, as had once been predicted. Finally, the impact of estuaries and 
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