“we og & apeerese ae Ay Bere ot rhe “ epinee’? % ‘ u {Sy mt ‘ : ai nese splee ney eet Seenest BS oy bl Tah he ee dda f i x oar oj i he i J | sea VERA Ry eee [ahi Wert: Webe VOLUME 76 Number 1 March 1986 er. ,* a Fj r* ¥ 4 ¢ a ase aa ASHINGTON ACADEMY .- SCIENCES ISSN 0043-0439 Issued Quarterly at Washington, D.C. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CHARLES A. LINDBERGH SYMPOSIUM ap {Reo te. — aya Hip Sven Wis a hrs 68 WALTER CUNNINGHAM: Research and Development of Resources in SAC CU eer rnc Senctc's s cydilhs x SOc and ler le Gio S! ebaunana ela wrayer ee e'4 ads q2 DR. PAUL M. FYE and DR. KENNETH PAUL FYE: Policies for Exploration and Use of the Oceans—The Discovery of R.M.S. Titanic.................. fii GRAHAM S. HAWKES: Technology for Ocean Exploration............... 82 KYM MURPHY 2 The ‘Uiving Seas... - cena ee ee oe ae oe ee 87 DR. DON WALSH: Research and Development of Ocean Resources ....... 89 SIR JOHN RAWLINS: A Synthesis of Presentations): :.......).......- eee 94 Dedication What kind of man would live where there is no daring? I don’t believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all. —Charles Augustus Lindbergh This volume is respectfully dedicated to the crew of the Space Shuttle, Challenger, men and women who accepted the risks of exploration on behalf of all mankind. IN MEMORIAM Crew of Shuttle Mission 51-L, Challenger, January 28, 1986 Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, spacecraft commander. Born May 19, 1939, Cle Elum, Washington. He became a NASA astronaut in 1978. Michael J. Smith, pilot. Born April 30, 1945, Beaufort, North Carolina. He became a NASA astronaut in 1980. Judith A. Resnik, mission specialist. Born April 15, 1949, Akron, Ohio. She became a NASA astronaut in 1978. Ronald E. McNair, mission specialist. Born October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. He became a NASA astronaut in 1978. Ellison S. Onizuka, mission specialist. Born June 24, 1946, Kealakekua, Kona, Hawaii. He became a NASA astronaut in 1978. Gregory B. Jarvis, payload specialist. Born August 24, 1944, Detroit. He was selected as a payload specialist from Hughes Aircraft Corp. in 1984. S. Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, teacher. Born September 2, 1948, Boston, Massachusetts. She was selected as the primary candidate for the Shuttle Teacher in Space project in July 1985. The crew of mission 51-L was lost shortly after launch aboard the Shuttle Challenger from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as a result of an in-flight explosion. iv Editor’s Note Dr. Richard D. Gilson* Guest Editor This volume of the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences is devoted to a series of invited presentations given at The Charles A. Lindbergh Symposium, held at the Walt Disney World Conference Center, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, February 2—4, 1986. The Symposium was sponsored by The Charles A. Lindbergh Fund, Inc., whose purpose and activities are described by the Chairman of the Board, the Hon. Elmer L. Anderson, Chairman of the H. B. Fuller Company. A special message from the Lindbergh family is given by Reeve Lindbergh Brown, Vice President of the Charles A. Lindbergh Fund. The Symposium Proceedings represent the Fund’s first endeavor to publish the views and current research in what the Fund members simply refers to as the “balance” — between technological growth and preservation of our human and natural environment. Four points of “balance” were addressed in the following sessions: AEROSPACE/ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT Dr. Paul B. MacCready, Session Chairperson (Chairman of Board, AeroVironment, Inc.) THE TOXIC WASTE DILEMMA: CURRENT STRATEGIES, FUTURE ISSUES William K. Reilly, Session Chairperson (President, The Conservation Foundation) BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy, Session Chairperson (Vice President-Science, World Wildlife Fund) SEA AND SPACE: FRONTIERS FOR EXPLORATION Dr. Sylvia A. Earle, Session Chairperson (Vice President, Deep Ocean Technology Inc.) In the Fund’s nine year history, it has seeded new research and has highlighted lifelong efforts for grant recipients and honorary award winners, respectively, but it has yet to provide a publication vehicle for that work. These papers represent two new endeavors by the Fund. First, to create a scientific symposium “mid-year” to the traditional grants and awards dinner held in May to commemorate the anniversary of Lindbergh’s May 20-21, 1927 solo trans-Atlantic flight; and second, to publish the views of interna- tionally recognized scientific experts at mid-career in their respective fields. The intent *Visiting Professor, University of Central Florida. of the latter is to present current exemplary research, pose questions to be addressed in future global efforts, and to create a positive, non-confrontational format for influ- encing public policy. The Washington Academy of Sciences has kindly agreed to create a special edition of their Journal at the suggestion of Proceedings Associate Editor, Dr. Robert Sweezy, and with the support of Dr. Robert Evans, also an Associate Editor of the Proceedings. The timing of this volume is intended to coincide with the May, 1986 Lindbergh Awards Presentation Ceremonies to be held in Washington, D.C. The Fund’s Board of Directors extends its gratitude to Gloria S. Perkins, Grae and Awards Administrator and Symposium Coordinator, for solicitation of papers from the twenty Symposium Presenters, and to Lisa Gray, Managing Editor of the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, for her marathon efforts shaping this collection of work into the Academy’s official format. The Charles A. Lindbergh Fund also wishes to express great appreciation to the Lindbergh Symposium Central Florida Host Committee, whose efforts contributed so much to state-wide participation in the three days of events. Co-Chairmen of the Committee are: Major General W. E. “‘Joe’’. Potter, U.S. Army (Ret.) Member Orlando Aviation Authority Raymer F. Maguire, Jr. Senior Partner Maguire, Voorhis & Wells, P.A. Attorneys-at-Law Hope Strong, Jr. Mayor City of Winter Park Dr. Charles N. Millican President Emeritus University of Central Florida Tom Heyward, Jr. President Greater Orlando Chamber of Commerce The Lindbergh Fund extends its thanks to the following for their generous assistance and contributions to the Symposium: British Airways ee Central Repro, Inc. Circus World Dr. Lewis S. Earle The Explorers Club The Florida Academy of Sciences Florida Audubon Society Flowerama, Inc. Greater Orlando Chamber of Commerce The Human Factors Society vi IBM IMAX Film Co. William H. Lindahl Maguire, Voorhis & Wells, P.A. Mercury Seven Foundation National Aeronautics and Space Administration Naval Training Systems Center Orange County Public Schools Rollins College University of Central Florida Valencia Community College Walt Disney World/Epcot Center Vii “ay *, ac ee Background: The Charles A. Lindbergh Fund Elmer L. Andersen Chairman of the Board The Charles A. Lindbergh Fund was established in 1977 by friends of Charles Lindbergh who were members of the Explorers Club, New York City, to honor the legacy of the late, famed aviator and advance his philosophy that true progress for mankind requires a balance between technological advancement and preservation of the environment and the quality of life. Each year since 1978, the Fund has made grants to researchers whose proposed projects offer excellent potential to contribute to such a balance. The honorary Lindbergh Award has also been presented by the Fund each year to one individual whose lifetime’s work has made an extraordinary contribution in this critical area. The Lindbergh Fund is proud to have sponsored the Lindbergh Symposium, which we feel made a significant contribution to “the search for balance.”’ And we are further pleased that, through this publication, the proceedings of the symposium are being made available to an even wider audience. Headquarters Office Grants and Awards Office 2100 Pillsbury Avenue South Drawer 0 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404 Summit, New Jersey 07901 (612) 871-3452 (201) 522-1392 ix i a ae m, A hi; yi Cy Rane ai i) roe sf ee, iH vl , ’ i ares ay Char a \ } ’ 3 : J? } ’ 4 * t an | ee. hia ae -: , mp a Aoyolbra sd rec: aT: somti tyicnay th: she an mio seodw towhivibar ane of 19 TER FR midy a O “ae ' o . fy , . +12 OWT: fan ; Lz ") 4 mri a dg pie ne wliset saves AY”? he ORT wis ohingie 6 Obl 4 ‘ a f ' i r ; ; at t ia ry hen ry lbh! : (. ne ie wh «! § ” > soatbye wbiw cove me oF sidehi ; aN fy a a ; Ai itt sui mahkuphesite | a 1 Stee item aren mere! | a LS i i a ' " f 4 } PS a y 5 ie fin? sunay A usedetlet QOLS 1“ big ry “) ult PLO ct Mi : - ¢ : a Mh ve ; Cn tes \3 (f {e) ~ & a ' Ki , :4 Photo by Richard W. Brown A Lindbergh Family Remembrance Reeve Lindbergh Brown Vice President, Charles A. Lindbergh Fund As a director of the Charles A. Lindbergh Fund and a member of the Lindbergh family, I felt doubly privileged to participate in the Lindbergh Symposium this Feb- ruary. I was gratified, as a director of the Fund, to hear our organization’s guiding philosophy so eloquently expressed by our keynote speaker, David McCullough,* and to witness the enthusiasm and expertise with which our second speaker, aerospace and underwater expert Sir John Rawlins, addressed the symposium’s theme: “‘Environment and Technology: A Search for Balance.”’ I was deeply appreciative of the contributions of our four panel leaders and the distinguished authorities who presented papers in each area of concern. It was very clear to me that the Lindbergh Fund had succeeded in bringing together an extraordinary group of people, each committed to the concept of balance as envisioned by Charles Lindbergh. As a member of the Lindbergh family, it was tremendously satisfying to realize on February 4, 1986, the 84th anniversary of my father’s birth, just what a gift to his memory the Lindbergh Symposium represented. In the years since his death, my father has received innumerable tributes, of many kinds, for the work he accomplished during his lifetime. I can think of no tribute, however, that would please him more than the knowledge that work is being carried out in his name right now, by those who wish to carry his vision of balance into the future. *Presentation not available for publication at this time. 7 i jan sum@®l mse +6 :: ¢ & 4 40. ¥%: “a Tre wie . > - _~ > ¥ ; i a? 3 a we ‘ ? ; — : - 4 i e _ =— s “2 + in r = . * = > ae’. h Lt 2 Tt a hw i > = rT “+ 3 . ‘ J f 4 /_—- . os 4 - Dj i * a, r ~ q . ji od ba * J a - _ n . 5 » = .% #1 . a Ld - “. ; Le a =“ J . > , oh 7. sag : 4 , a ~ - . — -— e ‘ ; * - iP ~~ = —s m _s wn —e fi oo, am | al i - i a n oO ° ey ‘*Upstairs/Downstairs’’* Surgeon Vice-Admiral Sir John Rawlins Chairman of the Board, Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc. Summary This paper draws attention to some common physiological and human factors prob- lems in diving and submarine operations on one hand, and in aviation and space operations on the other, and illustrates the application of underwater techniques to solve aviation problems and visa versa. It is largely a personal account of work carried out by the author and his colleagues during 33 years of service in the medical branch of the Royal Navy. Introduction When I tell people that I switched from aviation medicine to underwater medicine the usual comment is, “Well, it’s all a matter of pressure, isn’t it?” Actually, it’s a bit more than that. The problem of hypoxia in flight was first starkly demonstrated by the deaths of the French balloonists, Sivel and Croce Spinelli, during their balloon ascent to 20,200 ft in 1875, and here hypoxia was a direct result of the diminished atmospheric pressure. In diving, there is always an increase in ambient pressure, but hypoxia is much more common amongst divers than amongst aviators. Particularly at risk are breath-hold divers such as the Ama, the famous diving women of Korea and Japan, and snorkel divers. Experienced breath-hold divers, however, can go to astonishing depths. Jaques Mayol, at the age of 35, baffled physiologists by making a world record breath-hold dive to 97 m. Last year, at the age of 55, he extended the record to 105 m! Military divers and commercial divers, who use artificial mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, or oxygen and helium, are also liable to hypoxia if the oxygen partial pressure in the breathing mixture is allowed, for one reason or another, to fall too low. So here we have hypoxia, a common hazard for both divers and aviators, often, but not nec- essarily, related to a fall in the ambient pressure. *A more complete version of this paper was published as: Rawlins, J. 1985. ““Upstairs/ Downstairs— Interactions Between Human Factors Aspects of Operating in Hypobaric and Hyperbaric Environments.” Underwater Technology. 11 (1): 22-27. Hypoxia and Decompression In 1920, Professor J. S. Haldane, whose sterling work on the first and second Admiralty Deep Diving Committees established the principal of decompression em- ployed by today’s commercial and sport divers, predicted that the “‘bends”’ that plagued divers and caisson workers could occur in high altitude flight. The RAF medical hierarchy, however, did not believe him on the grounds that the pressure changes in flight were too small, and in any case the aviator always returned to maximum pressure, that is to say, ground level, which for the diver represents minimum pressure. Hence, although much work was done between Wars on hypoxia and means to prevent it, no work was done in England on what is now universally known as “decompression sickness.” The latter term was coined by Dr. (now Sir Bryan) Matthews, Head of the Royal Air Force Physiological Laboratory throughout World War II. He and his colleagues set about proving to the Royal Air Force that high altitude flight could induce de- compression sickness by exposing themselves repeatedly to low pressures in the de- compression chamber at Farnborough. In a series of horrendous experiments which would never be permitted today, they experienced a whole range of symptoms of decompression sickness. It is remarkable that no one died or suffered permanent paralysis—such cases have happened since—but they proved their point. It was many years, however, before the threat of high altitude decompression sickness was finally overcome by the development of reliable pressure cabins. In view of the official RAF attitude to decompression sickness, it may seem surprising that a pressure suit was designed by the diving company Siebe Gorman in 1934 for an American balloonist, which was subsequently used by Flight Lieutenant Adams in a flight to the record altitude of 54,000 ft in 1937. Presumably the purpose of the suit was to provide an adequate partial pressure of oxygen in the lungs of the pilot, rather than to protect him against decompression sickness, although of course it did this as well. It is said that Siebe Gorman easily achieved the suit by adapting a self-contained diving dress. This was no doubt true in terms of material and method of fabrication, but it should be remembered that the Siebe Gorman diving dress was flexible, and not designed to cope with a pressure differential. The suit worn by Flight Lieutenant Adams was more comparable in principle to the armoured diving dress, Jim, which is designed to isolate its operator from ambient pressure. At the other end of the pressure spectrum is the lunar landing suit worn by Neil Armstrong. When the Royal Navy invited me to rejoin in 1951, part of the inducement was the promise of an immediate posting to the Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine where, they said, there would be workshop facilities where I could build diving ap- paratus to my heart’s content. The bait was irresistible and I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. I never dreamed that I would have occasion to use my knowledge and love of diving in pursuit of official aviation medicine objectives. Underwater Escape The pages of my scrap book revive memories of two incidents that changed the course of my life and had profound consequences concerning certain aspects of aviation safety. One concerns the first Scimitar aircraft to land on an aircraft carrier, an ap- XiV parently perfect landing with subsequent roll up on the deck—and over the side. The pilot went down with the plane. The other was an accident when another Naval aircraft crashed into the sea from a carrier. The pilot, Lt. Bruce McFarlane, said that when his aircraft hit the sea, he was paralyzed with fright and could only move his right arm. With it he pulled the canopy jettison lever and then the blind of his ejection seat, and eventually found himself on the surface, in the wake of the carrier, safe and sound. At the time the Royal Navy was losing 10 air crew a year in what seemed to be survivable crashes into the water; the United States Navy was losing 50. I was given the task of investigating the problems of escape from a sinking aircraft, and of finding out whether it might be possible to use the ejection seat as a means of underwater escape. After discussions with experts in the Navy on the matter, the conclusion we reached was that the use of the ejection seat for escape from submerged aircraft was not feasible. It was on the very next day that McFarlane successfully used his. Investigations continued using the Admiralty Hydro Ballistics Research Establish- ment, where there was a million gallon tank, 120 ft long, 30 ft wide and 40 ft deep with one side constructed entirely of windows of armoured glass. We carried out a series of trials with a Scimitar fuselage in this tank, and subsequently with other aircraft types, to try to assess just how difficult it was to escape from a sinking aircraft. To this end a series of underwater firings were made in a boxed-off end of the tank at Farnborough. It soon became apparent that McFarlane had been extremely lucky. The standard firing mechanism simply would not fire if the seat were submerged. We concluded that in McFarlane’s case, the canopy had unlocked, but had failed to come off. This had kept the firing head of the ejection gun dry, but only the primary cartridge had fired. That had been just sufficient to push the canopy off, so that the seat was able to clear the aircraft. . The challenge was to make the seat fire reliably underwater. This meant investigating four variables: acceleration, blast, pressure change, and drag. We looked at drag first. We constructed a metal trapeze with two bars, one for the subject to hang on to, the other to brace his feet against. The trapeze lay on the bottom of a 30 ft testing lake at Portsmouth, and was connected to a Jaguar car driven by a racing driver. The subject, wearing oxygen breathing apparatus, clung to the trapeze for dear life as the Jaguar accelerated from a standing start along the tow path. With the Jaguar moving at 30 mph, it proved possible to cling on for about 20 seconds. The problem of having the face piece swept off was cured by putting a polythene bag over one’s head. The drag forces were thus proven acceptable. Next came the problems associated with blast. After finding a satisfactory way to waterproof the firing mechanism and conducting a succession of runs with dummies to obtain measurements of blast, ac- celeration, and velocity, we decided to try the procedure on a real person. For the dummy, progressive increases in the amount of cordite were used, from an initial 250 grains to the full charge for the Mark II gun being used—1500 grains. For the real person, 1500 grains were used on the first try. The ride was certainly memorable. The explosions of the primary and secondary cartridges were felt rather than heard. One was aware of a great pressure on the body, and particularly the arms, due to the drag. I believe I lost consciousness momentarily, for the high speed films showed that my hands were torn from the handle of the blind of the ejection seat, although I had no recollection of the fact. On arrival at the surface, there were no after effects other than feeling a little dazed. The next subject’s expe- rience was similar to my own. We were then instructed by the Director of Naval Air Warfare not to proceed with further live tests. XV By 1950, ejection seats were being used that had more powerful cartridges (2300 grains of cordite) and a peak velocity through the water of 34 ft per second. The peak g was 7.7. Investigations began concerning the feasibility of underwater ejection with these seats, and permission was obtained to proceed with further live tests. The experience of being accelerated through the water at up to 7.7 g, exposed to a blast from 2,300 grains of cordite and subjected to Q-forces of the order of 7 pounds per square inch (equivalent to 600 mph through the air) virtually overwhelmed the senses. Yet, a pilot subjected to such circumstances still had to keep enough presence of mind to be able to release from his seat and parachute and inflate his life jacket. For several years I had been working on a somewhat different approach, a method of ejecting the seat by releasing compressed air into the seat gun. The air supply was used to inflate a bag in the back of the seat in order to push the ejected subject out of his seat and inflate his life jacket. At the surface, an automatic dinghy inflated around the pilot. By 1962 this system had been perfected and a series of escapes were carried out from submerged aircraft. Other problems had to be solved, including determining how fast an aircraft would sink if downed in the ocean. We concluded that the easiest way to determine a craft’s sink-rate was to sink it. Accordingly, several kinds of planes, including a Scimitar, were dropped repeatedly into the sea and were tracked with special underwater cam- eras. These studies made it possible to predict the sink rates for aircraft of various configurations and weights. In final tests with the underwater escape system, a Scimitar was catapulted from the deck of HMS Centaur, and in due course, an undamaged dummy pilot, with inflated life-jacket, arrived at the surface. New aircraft required modified designs involving a much more powerful seat injection gun. The much increased blast meant further testing to see what the effects would be. I undertook this test after trials that convinced me that it could be done safely. The blast was impressive and sheared 24 quarter inch bolts supporting the back of the test seat. After effects were minimal, but subsequent trials using sheep indicated that I had been fortunate. We concluded that underwater ejection with this gun was not feasible. Q-force Investigation Water is more than 800 times denser than air, so that a velocity through the water of 34 ft per second is equivalent in terms of drag and Q-force to velocity through air of almost 90 ft per second or 600 mph. The Q-force in both instances would be about 7 psi. My colleague, Captain E. L. Beckman, an Exchange Medical Officer at the Institute of Aviation Medicine, thought that driving a subject through the water at velocities of up to 22 mph would be equivalent to ejecting him into air-blast at 600 mph, but the effects on the body and the evaluation of restraint systems could be carried out in a much more controlled way under water. At 22 mph, the separation force tending to push the legs apart proved to be 300 pounds. The general sensation was described as ‘swamping the senses.” It was determined that the limit of tolerance to ram pressure had been reached. We have here the first instance of an underwater technique being applied directly to a solution of an aviation problem. There were to be others. The Break Off Phenomenon About this time reports were coming in of Canberra pilots flying at altitudes in excess of 40,000 ft who experienced a feeling of dissociation, described as “‘flying the aircraft but not being in it.” There was total silence in the cockpit. All gauges were steady. The sky ahead and above was a uniform dark blue. Some pilots felt very apprehensive, and the condition became known as the “‘break-off phenomenon.” At the same time there were reports of the Russians isolating people in blacked-out, sound-proofed rooms, as an aid to brain-washing. Dr. Michael Bennett of the Institute of Aviation Medicine and I thought these examples of reduction of the sensory environment had something in common. We decided to produce the most complete reduction of the environment possible. An underwater breathing apparatus was designed such that a subject could be floated underwater at a temperature of 93 degrees Farenheit with a silent gas supply, so that the subject could hear nothing, see nothing, and feel nothing—a sort of back-to-the- womb experience. Twenty one subjects found the experience delightfully relaxing and invariably fell asleep sooner or later. However, two became extremely disturbed within 10 minutes, fought their way up out of the water and remained hypomanic for the next 12 hours. Both were convinced that we had been playing tricks with them. One was certain that we were draining the water from the pool and the other that we were spinning him round and round. What had happened? After careful analysis, we concluded that the key factor involved was stress. The 21 contented subjects were divers or individuals who had helped construct the equipment and were totally familiar with it. The two disturbed subjects were doctors who had taken part in many experiments but had never before been underwater, and they were apprehensive from the start. Reduction of the environment per se is not frightening. You do everything you can to achieve it when you go to bed—turn off the radio, turn out the light, pull the pillow over your head to keep out the sound of the church clock striking, tell the other occupant of the bed to shut up and go to sleep. But if you are in bed alone, in a completely dark room, in an empty unfamiliar house, and you wake up and hear the slightest inexplicable noise, your pulse races, your blood pressure elevates, and you are afraid. Isolation per se is not frightening. Isolation plus stress is a different matter altogether. Although the physical conditions remain the same, familiarity with the environment soon dispelled the apprehension of high altitude flight and the illusions that went with the “‘break off phenomenon.” Diver Heating Systems In 1962, Mr. D. Burton of the Royal Aircraft Establishment addressed the annual meeting of Flying Personnel Medical Officers on a liquid-conditioned garment for the provision of aircrew cooling. His presentation went over like the proverbial lead bal- loon. The Institute of Aviation Medicine had been working for years on air-ventilated suits and were not about to be convinced that a liquid-conditioned suit might be a better idea. XVii Captain Beckman by now was back in the United States working on an underwater habitat programme called Sealab II. He was trying to find a way of keeping the divers warm and I suggested that the rejected Burton suit might be the answer by circulating hot water in it. I had no idea how much heat might be required but on the basis that it was designed for 300 W of cooling I suggested that he might start by using 300 W of heating. The U.S. Navy apparently took this as gospel because in 1968 when I was working there on the Sealab III project, there was a quarter million dollar nuclear isotope heater, designed to deliver 300 W to a liquid-conditioned suit from a plutonium 238 micro-reactor. I was the only person who ever swam this system which was beau- tifully fabricated in stainless steel and delivered all its heat to the ambient water and circulated the resulting four degree Centigrade water most efficiently. As a result it acted in the manner of a personal refrigeration plant and in addition delivered a not inconsiderable dose of neutrons and gamma rays! By 1965, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had built their own version of the Burton suit, the Apollo suit, which was used as a cooling garment for the lunar landings. Today, my company, Diving Unlimited International, Inc., markets a similar design of garment for maintaining thermal balance in commercial divers operating from lock-out submersibles. We have here a fine example of what I have referred to as Upstairs/Downstairs. Movement Control If you sit in a chair and touch a target with a pencil a few times, then shut your eyes and try to hit the same point, you will normally come within a radius of ¥2 inch. When I tried this underwater, my blind touches were six inches above this target. What this illustrates is that the strain receptors in the tendons learn the force patterns required of the muscles to touch the intended spot, and in so doing, they automatically take account of the support required from the anti-gravity muscles. When the test is repeated underwater, the arm becomes virtually weightless and the anti-gravity muscles have nothing to do. But the central computer in the brain, which has been accustomed over a life time to counteract gravity, is temporarily deceived, and the combined result of support from the water and customary contraction of the anti-gravity muscles is to place the hand higher than the subject intended. This un- derstanding of the customary role of the anti-gravity muscles has an important bearing on the problems of working in space. Early attempts to simulate lunar gravity involved partially suspending objects by an arrangement of wires somewhat similar to that employed in training circus riders. Subsequent experience on the moon showed that quite good simulation had been achieved. Later, parabolic aircraft flights were used to provide temporary weightlessness and trainee astronauts, in full space gear, endeavored to perform simple maneuvers such as climbing steps or recovering from a supine position. These efforts were hilarious to watch but no practical progress was made. Today’s space-shuttle crews solved the problem by carrying out their training underwater, with a full sized space shuttle mock- up submerged in a tank at the Kennedy Space Center. XViil Applications In Submersible Design The one-man one-atmosphere diving suit, Jim, resembles the suits worn by astronauts in a number of respects. Although designed to withstand great pressure rather than the lack of it, Jim has articulated limbs, self-contained life-support, and is muscle- powered, as are space suits. For underwater exploration, several variations on the theme of one-man systems have been developed in the last decade, with a general trend away from anthropomorphic styles. Thrusters have replaced legs for mobility and metal and plastic manipulators have replaced arms operating in metal sleeves. The most ingenious and practical thus far developed is a system called Deep Rover, a machine that combines the advantages of a diving suit (small, agile, portable) with those of a larger submersible (space to change clothes, carry supplies and instruments, life support for a week). Deep Rover can descend to 1 kilometer in its Mark I form; a deeper version will ultimately go to 10 kilometers. The pilot sits within a clear acrylic sphere in a comfortable aircraft-style seat and controls movements of the sub through subtle motions of his forearm. Muscle-powered metal sleeves have given way to two sensory manipulators that simulate touch, force, and motion, can be controlled to within .03 mm, and can lift more than 200 pounds each. Discussions are underway concerning the possibility of adapting a design resembling Deep Rover for use in space, not replacing present systems, but complementing them with a different approach that already has proven to be valuable in numerous appli- cations subsea. Designer of Deep Rover, Graham Hawkes, has advised me that a manipulator closely resembling one of Deep Rover’s arms, soon will be delivered to NASA for Space Station applications. This is a clear example of something developed for applications “downstairs” now being adapted for use “upstairs.” Conclusion In conclusion, we have looked at some common human factors in high altitude flight and in deep penetration into the ocean. A practical knowledge of diving can be useful for one engaged in aviation and space research, just as a knowledge of the latter is of advantage in research into diving and submarine operations. ee eA he re Idd Pie Wh ee ee tA Vie | Su "yeah van ie a = VP Os Carrel © - a a th ry - a Y , = ne a PN tansbcceaty, rae wats ts cet wh ae Se ce dithical Swi, eye + untowraniva odkeshd edges: ric ‘ 04 lai we banathin sad fen bptind” hie’ Avda ener t- zie ele ' mx wiles my rex, ret ictciney ae Se me ripe bei: ef iar ¥ Fp, COMES esbint: rote *t aay tiy abireate mars oe ap ae Bea tain i he oO P bona Yoh doee dow t St gor APi i sla Me deg atom vel begestey sai 34 oi ay: haesiqah sem YS tinen Site edsiquisétina: A F 2 ir 4) Hi igert(o Ted ‘ nig a is see velen obeyeidicn diam ig fe oon vomar , owaphsitiean bolawirm aFsrmaivt) cat tree trite va ton stewie cats itscaineud “a1 wenalcvog OOF andt 41g Tul Aico. bopags 4 MN be By a7) {arias Pd i msn n “ TSeVR- DLT SNORT fag SIge nt oa peared : Ol Nove ia ¥O8 wip iol — 1% Ps : ~ : et wes) MAAN > nwo qual } aires. a sar er ae * @ ‘ Ae * 4 =~ 1 'T “= "ee 3 eva e > r **Freedom to Move” Paul B. MacCready, Jr. Chairman of the Board, AeroVironment, Inc. The film, ““A Freedom to Move’”’ was provided for the Symposium by the IMAX_ Corporation, and Circus World and its staff generously made available its facility for the showing. With beauty, breadth, humor, and insight, this theme film of Expo ’86 in Vancouver, gave a dramatic sendoff to the Lindbergh Symposium. The film depicts a balance between technology and nature, with spectacular images on a 90’ x 60’ screen. Woven through the film was a human story of an Eskimo family using ingenious, available technology to meet their transportation needs. This perspective, added to sequences of muscle powered “‘transportation”’ (old and new bicycles, fast streamlined tricycles, a pedaled hydrofoil, and a pedaled airplane) was melded with breath-taking views of aircraft, trains, and the space shuttle. xxi Haworon din! Lida lay Hi idbel: " ot a o# Piatt OK (a ned 2 f fn ay — ood iodo Sia insane Pak Yai abbey aN ra. A ati i ey ve sty to yiote want & ate eho eat sibil tie ie ; y ; 4 Fi uy j Cee PEL BOE hscy’ & ith Tie ms li dantt b Ganga ¢ % at tn ¢ ir vi ‘ht ‘ eal |, : Pal a Ps i ? é ; F rs i 4 gee in a Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 1-11, March 1986 The Active Museum: Stimulating Public Involvement in Aerospace Walter J. Boyne Director, National Air and Space Museum It is a very great pleasure to be a par- ticipant in the Lindbergh Symposium and to meet with this distinguished group. I would like to present some views that may not have the fundamental scientific im- portance of some of the other subjects of the symposium, but may be cogent in the sense that public awareness is going to be increasingly important not only in the ap- preciation of the subjects that will be cov- ered but also in their funding. We are all conscious of the spectator sport syndrome which has afflicted or en- hanced our country, depending upon the point of view. The public is bombarded with media presentations of all types—from super bowls to presidential elections—and has in the process I believe, become not only jaded, but like hardy mosquito sur- vivors of the pesticide wars, acclimated to the process. Part of the acclimation is a disinclination to participate actively, and one senses that there may be some con- fusion as to the relationship of a blank screen to an open mind. A museum is particularly susceptible to passive acceptance by the visitor. There are, after all, and mercifully, no tests given to measure how much is understood of the museum experience. Perhaps the most rig- orous test is repeat attendance; if on a visit to Paris the wife does the right side of the Louvre and the husband the left, never to return, can one say that it was a good ex- perience, or even that the Louvre—or any museum in a similar situation, has done its job? I think not. Museums do not pro- vide capsules of knowledge that may be ingested and taken away. They offer in- stead an opportunity to browse, to sense, to inspire, to provoke further reading, to become excited, and the measure of suc- cess might well be the frequency by which visitors return to enhance their enjoyment and their learning. Now the word most frequently heard that describes the typical understanding of the way a museum ac- complishes this is “interaction,” implying that the visitor has a hands-on experience which intensifies his enjoyment and his learning. I submit to you that interaction is important—but in a different sense. The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) has for the past several years at- tempted to achieve its goals of education by providing the kind of environment just described, an atmosphere traditional in the sense that there are artifacts and labels, yet different in that there are consistent and deliberate efforts to involve individ- uals not just in the excitement of aviation and space subjects, but into a personal re- lationship with them. Parenthetically I should state that there is not, as often as- sumed, a natural American interest in air and space that automatically drives people to museums on the subject. In fact, there is some good evidence that the reverse is true, that the hard-edged concepts of tech- nology may in fact “‘turn people off.’’ One basis for this comment is the relatively low attendance at air and space museums around the world. In the process of establishing an envi- ronment of conventional interaction, NASM was faced with some problems that forced it to take another look at the con- cept of “interaction” and to expand upon it. The problems stemmed from the traffic and the limits on space even in a very large building. An “interactive” exhibit of the kind that is done so well at the Explora- torium in San Francisco or the Toronto Science Center, requires that the visitor spend some time, usually three or four minutes, perhaps even more; often a do- cent or a staff person is available for ex- planations. At NASM the traffic, with vis- itation ranging from 9,000,000 to perhaps 12,000,000 per year, makes such individ- ually tailored treatment almost impossi- ble. We have done it in the past with ex- hibits ranging from computers to aircraft simulators, and found that it results in long queues, prohibitively high maintenance costs and more often that not, disgruntled visitors who do not wish to wait in line. Yet the concept of interaction is terribly important, and we have over the past sev- eral years evolved a philosophy which ex- pands the concept to a scale that is both manageable by us and attractive and use- ful to the visitor. It became apparent that we would have to modify our past ideas on how a museum should function in re- lation to “‘the other world’’—the world of research, academe, and even the world of business. We wish to root out the idea of a hat-in-hand approach to the world and to completely eliminate the idea of waiting passively for something to happen. Another important consideration is to ensure that the expanded concept never loses its rooting to the public as the most important aspect of the museum. In this WALTER J. BOYNE regard, we consider the public not only to be the museum visitor, but also the end user of the research that is done. To achieve this we must place special demands upon our curators. It is not unusual in the mu- seum world for curators to have their peers as the targets for their research and ex- hibits; this is only human. However, at NASM, curators are given a double task. They must do solid research which results in publications that are well received by their peers, and they must do research and exhibits which attract, entertain, and ed- ucate the public. The important twist is that these must also be of a standard that wins approval from their peers, for aca- demic and scientific worth, this is very dif- ficult to do. We’ve found that a casual visitor will spend as little as twenty sec- onds at an exhibit unless his curiosity is piqued. To pique that curiosity and yet convey the scientific information of which a scholar will approve is demanding in- deed. But most importantly, it is also ex- tremely rewarding, providing a psychic pay that involvement in exhibits work rarely does for a scholar. As an important sidelight on the matter of exhibits, the museum tries to ensure that every exhibit is seen in the political, social, and economic context of its time, as well as in its technical and historical context. We feel that this is important in- teraction also. It is here that the cooper- ation of the exhibit designer and the cu- rator becomes critically important, for sometimes more can be done with the fragment of a picture or a wisp of a song than a dozen labels can do. A grand- mother, totally uninterested in aircraft all her life, might find new meaning in a racer of the 1930s when it is displayed in an exhibit which evokes the Depression, FDR, Babe Ruth, or Frederick March and Janet Gaynor (Figure 1). In dealing with the world of business, we also made changes in philosophy. One change was in response; in any intercourse with representatives of any firm, we try to be immediately responsive and efficient, so that in dealing with the museum the THE ACTIVE MUSEUM ‘ aS wuMiill tlds Mlle smasstitttd, wonnnisttiitTee, smunsctissitiis Ma jon Yt, ‘\Ss So Fig. 1. The Golden Age of Flight Gallery 4 WALTER J. BOYNE business people feel on familiar grounds. Another change was in the formula; we recognized that while many businesses have a great interest in philanthropy, they all have an interest in good business. We try to make a relationship with our museum good business every time. This doesn’t mean that we debase the museum or per- mit its exploitation; it does mean that we do everything we can to ensure that the company gets recognition for its assis- tance, and this ranges from providing openings for events to giving the red car- pet treatment to a visiting customer. It is time-consuming, certainly, but a special showing to a valued customer can be re- garded by a business as more useful than a full page advertisement in the New York Times, and the company doesn’t forget this the next time we approach them for assistance. But the very most important thing that we do is make the public involved in the aerospace business, and in doing so pro- vide the companies who help us with a climate in which to prosper. Perhaps these points will become more apparent if I run through some of our new programs and underscore the ideas behind them. The large format film—known as either IMAX or OMNIMAX, depending upon the type of theater, has for years been a profitable but highly controversial means to attract the visitor to a museum or sci- ence center. The controversy stemmed from a perceived dichotomy between films which entertained and films which edu- cated. In a rather looping expansion of the idea of interaction, we felt that there was no reason that a good film should not do both, even though it could probably not do so inexpensively. So in the process of interaction we contacted The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and conveyed our interest in flying an IMAX camera on some shuttle flights. We con- tacted the IMAX film industry and held a competition for story boards for a film to be derived from such flights and we con- tacted industry for the funding. In our solicitation of industry we offered to put up a substantial amount of cash as a firm indication of our interest and con- fidence in the success of the program. The result was a three party consortium, con- sisting of NASA, NASM, and the Lock- heed Corporation which decided that the winning story board had been done by the IMAX Corporation (Figure 2). NASM traditionally retained exclusive showing rights for its films; in this instance the new philosophy required a more statesman-like approach, and “The Dream is Alive” was released for other theater use as fast as prints could be made. The result has been the breaking of attendance records in every theater in which it has been shown. The general consensus is that it does in fact both entertain and educate, while at the same time raising profit levels in the theater and attendance at the as- sociated facility, whether museum or a theme park. From the business point of view, we again departed from tradition, for we created a contract in which the return from the film was to be divided upon the basis of the original investment. Now as an elucida- tion, it should be noted that NASM re- tained final authority on all matters relat- ing to the content of the film. And to illustrate further the business aspects, NASM initiated a totally new process of competing for the distribution of the film, and arranging for a centralized program for the development of ancillary products. Returns from the film are distributed on the percentage basis of the investment, while returns from the ancillary products are split on a fifty/fifty basis. The results have been extraordinary in that the whole process of funding films like this is far more attractive to the prospective donor, who can see an opportunity not only for a re- turn of his gift for other purposes, but even the possibility of making a net profit. The success of the methods used for ““The Dream is Alive” were directly responsible for the rapid financing of a second IMAX film ““On The Wing,” which is to premiere on June 19th, 1986 (Figure 3). THE ACTIVE MUSEUM Fig. 2. Scene from ““The Dream Is Alive,” NASM’s recently released IMAX film about the Space Shuttle. Shot aboard three separate missions on the Shuttle by the astronauts themselves, this film is described by them as “The next best thing to being there.” “On The Wing” offered an opportunity to once again entertain and educate, cov- ering as it does the analogies between nat- ural and mechanical flight. The Johnson Wax Company joined with us in this ven- ture on terms similar to that created for “The Dream is Alive.”’ There was yet an- other spin-off (Figure 4). Part of the success of “The Dream Is Alive” could be attributed to the person- alities of the astronauts. We sought a sim- ilar talisman for ““On The Wing,” and it came about quickly in a conversation I had with our chairperson, Dr. Paul Mac- Cready, who had a long and well-devel- oped interest in one of the most effective natural flyers of prehistory, the Quetzal- coatlus northropi. We reached an agree- ment and the S. J. Johnson Company kindly agreed to back the creation of QN, as it quickly became known. From this discussion, we secured not only a film star but also immensely valuable aerodynamic and paleobiological scien- tific information. Now the primary result of both films is an increase in the awareness of the mu- seum visitor—all over the world—in aer- Ospace subjects. We believe the interest stems because we have deliberately com- bined things of great natural interest: a relic of the dinosaur and flight. Another program which does not lead to a film but does feature a combination of museum, academic and business co- operation is the Daedalus Project which we are conducting in concert with Dr. MacCready’s friendly rivals at the Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology (Figure 5). We have a phased program which will result, we hope, in a human-powered ve- hicle which will fly from Crete to the Gre- cian Mainland sometime in 1987. You will note that we call it the Daedalus and not the Icarus Project. Once again we antici- pate involving an industrial sponsor in a 6 WALTER J. BOYNE Fig. 3. In June, 1986, ‘““On The Wing” will premiere at the NASM. Produced by Francis Thompson, Inc. for the NASM and cosponsored by the Johnson Wax Company, this film is a lyrically moving analogy of mechanical and natural flight. program which will have important sci- entific and educational results. And again, the fundamental purpose is to stimulate an awareness of the public in aerospace, this time by a dramatic aviation event us- ing space age materials and engineering techniques to replicate a myth. There are two other programs, both of which involve all the things we’ve been talking about. Later this year, in September, an air- plane designed by Burt Rutan and flown by his brother Dick and Jeana Yeager, will attempt a non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the world’s largest all- composite aircraft (Figure 6). It is a voy- age fraught with hazard and bursting with scientific return, for in its twelve to four- teen-day journey, much will be learned about aerodynamics, meteorology, hu- man physiology and psychology. The air- plane is described as miserable to fly or ride in, for it is designed for one thing— a record that has never before been at- tempted. Voyager’s journey will be controlled di- rectly from the Milestones of Flight Gal- lery in the museum; upon the successful completion of the flight, the airplane will be installed in that gallery as an example of new materials, new aerodynamics and old fashioned vision and courage. Our museum was faced, like all others with limitations of personnel, budget and physical space, yet we had a desire to be- come a genuine archival center for the world of aerospace. We had a collection of 2,000,000 photographs of air and space subjects, and the collection was subject to all the problems imaginable of conserva- tion, indentification, access and especially distribution. We initiated a program of placing 100,000 photographs—and an in- dex—on a single video disc which offered THE ACTIVE MUSEUM 7 Fig. 4. Quetzalcoatlus northropi, an 18 foot radio-controlled replica of the largest mammal to ever fly, successfully flew in January, 1986. He will star in “On The Wing.” instant access, no deterioration and easy transmission (Figure 7). While front end expenses were high, we found that repro- duction costs were very low. We found that we would be able to provide discs at about $35 apiece and recover some costs: in other words, we’d be able to distribute 1,000,000 photographs on ten discs for $350. Response has been fantastic, particu- larly by industry. The experience with the video disc made us determined to find a way to do the same thing for documents. There are many ar- chives relating to air and space, most poorly indexed and difficult to access. We deter- mined to create a system which would en- able us to capture those archives, store them inexpensively, index them automat- ically and retrieve them easily (Figure 8). The result is our system for digital display, for which we have a patent pending, and which is under license to numerous firms and museums and major government agencies. The system indicates the process, for we would not have been able to create it with- out close cooperation with the leading firms in the industry; the result will be signifi- cant improvement in archives around the world. Perhaps the most obvious example of our philosophy will be the new Air & Space Magazine, to be launched in April of this year (Figure 9). Air & Space will not be a magazine about the museum, but will attempt to capture the imagination of the magazine-reading public in the same way that the museum attempts to capture its visitors. The necessary relationship here between delivery of a product and indus- trial support is evident; the byproduct of this collaboration, increased public aware- ness of air and space will be the bonus for us all. There are many more evidences of our philosophy in our research programs, es- pecially from our Center for Earth and Planetary Studies Department, where the 8 WALTER J. BOYNE Fig. 5. The Daedalus project will attempt a human-powered flight from Crete to the Grecian mainland. THE ACTIVE MUSEUM 9 Fig. 6. Voyager, designed by Burt Rutan, will attempt the first around the world, non-stop, non-refuelled flight, the only major milestone not yet accomplished. 10 WALTER J. BOYNE Pm MT Shp, “a ER Sa Fig. 8. NASM’s System for Digital Display: archival storage, indexing, and retrieval system for collections management. THE ACTIVE MUSEUM 11 SEACE Smithsonian the world h S Fig. 9. Air & Space: The NASM’s new magazine, minds, will launch its first issue in April 1986. analysis of remote sensing devices is cor- roborated by field treks to Southern Egypt and Central Mali. Each of our other de- partments has similar active programs which relate directly to science, industry and the public. In closing, | would just reemphasize that designed to capture the imagination of inquisitive the role of a museum must change over time as the role of any organization must; for a museum devoted to the technological developments of air and space, it is a nat- ural consequence to use those develop- ments to cement the relationship we seek with the public, academe and business. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 12-15, March 1986 Biological Flight, Mechanical Flight, and Efficient Transportation Paul B. MacCready Chairman of the Board, AeroVironment, Inc. Introduction The broad ecological niche of flight has been well occupied by nature for over two hundred million years. There have been insects, birds, bats, and pterosaurs (and we can even include flying fish, drifting spider webs and seedpods, and gliding an- imals). In the last hundred years man has authoritatively entered the niche via air- planes, after edging into it earlier with bal- loons and kites. The flight entities which most obviously provide links between nature and aircraft are the larger natural fliers and the smaller, lighter, and slower man-carrying devices. The seagull, the hawk, and the giant pter- odactyl are not far from the sailplane, or the hang glider, or the human powered airplane. Natural flight also includes the gnat and grasshopper and wren, and ar- tificial flight includes the airliner and shut- tle, but the connection between such dis- parate creations is more tenuous than for those which are more alike in size and function. Unusual circumstances in the past dec- ade have gotten me into the human pow- ered airplane field. Here man must get by on muscle power, and so is forced into 12 exploring efficiency and the limitations of flight more through a birds eyes or brain than is the case with ordinary aircraft. For the past year, my associates and I have been developing a flying replica of the largest flying animal: a radio con- trolled, battery powered, wing-flapping- propulsion reconstruction of the ptero- dactyl Quetzalcoatlus northropi (QN™). This tailless creature was bigger in wing span than some four-person aircraft. To handle its structure and stability and con- trol has required modern aeronautical technology. Both the human powered aircraft and the QN replica projects will be described, representing constructions on the border between natural and artificial flight. The projects thus introduce consideration of the balance between technology and na- ture. Human Powered and Solar Powered Flight A fit human can develop about one- quarter horsepower for a few minutes. This is a sorry performance for a 150-pound BIOLOGICAL AND MECHANICAL FLIGHT 13 “engine,” inasmuch as the burning of fos- sil fuel in a modern reciprocating aircraft engine of similar weight produces some 400 times as much power. Big power, and stronger structures than obtainable with bone and sinew, have permitted man’s air- craft to outstrip dramatically the perform- ance of nature’s fliers. The designers of aircraft now have little interest in biolog- ically powered flight. In 1959 Henry Kremer put up a large prize for the first sustained/controlled hu- man-powered flight. Seventeen years later, my need to pay off a large financial obli- gation incurred by a relative drew my at- tention to this Kremer Prize. The corre- lation between the prize amount, about $100,000, and the debt amount, about $100,000, proved irresistable. By a lateral thinking process I arrived at a suitable ap- proach to meeting the challenge. Then in a year-long intensive ‘hobby’ project, our team of friends and family won the prize with the Gossamer Condor (96-foot span, 70 lbs.). Perhaps the most valuable re- ward, for the outside world as well as for us who constituted the development team, is the broadening perspectives which arise as one pushes into new areas. In the U.S. the approach to making a better vehicle has usually involved putting in a more powerful engine. However, in this case Henry Kremer provided a very different challenge. He asked, in effect, for an air- plane to fly on one-quarter horsepower. It turned out this challenge could be met by pushing hard on the frontiers of struc- tures and aerodynamics. The project be- came a dramatic example of doing more with less—less material, and less power— a useful perspective as expanding civili- zation struggles into the era of limits on our non-expanding globe. After the Gossamer Condor program, a new and larger Kremer Prize stimulated our development of the Gossamer Alba- tross. This more elegant human powered vehicle achieved a flight across the English Channel lasting almost three hours. On a subsequent program our human powered Bionic Bat won two Kremer speed prizes. This aircraft serves as a technology dem- onstrator for some other interests of ours: a long duration drone to carry a radio re- peater aloft for weeks at a time, anda safe, very slow flying sailplane in which you can join hawks spiralling in a tiny thermal, at their same speed and turning radius. In 1981 our Solar Challenger carried a pilot 163 miles from Paris to England powered solely by sunbeams shining on its 16,000 photovoltaic cells. The aim was to stim- ulate public appreciation for the potential of solar cells as a future energy resource (for use in ground installations, not ve- hicles). The Giant Pterodactyl The latest project brings back to “‘life”’ the largest flying creature which ever ex- isted, a giant pterodactyl with the giant name Quetzalcoatlus northropi and the formidable size of a four-person airplane (a 36-foot wingspan). In common with all land and airborne animals bigger than about 45 pounds, it did not survive the “great extinction” 63 million years ago. Our rep- lica is radio controlled, battery powered, propelled by wing-flapping, and looks and flies like the original. It is to help publi- cize, and be an actor in, a forthcoming, wide screen IMAX film, titled ““On the Wing.” Johnson Wax and the Air and Space Museum are sponsoring both the film and the QN replica. The film illustrates the evolution of natural flight with insects, birds, bats, and the pterodactyl, and re- lates their evolution to the development of aircraft. QN will appear at the begin- ning, as a natural flier, and then at the end when the point is made that modern aer- ospace technology is required for dupli- cating nature even crudely. In 1984, a QN feasibility study was con- ducted which included the bringing to- gether of paleontologists, aerodynami- cists, and structures and autopilot specialists to develop a position about the likely size, appearance, and lifestyle of the original animal, and to assess the probability that a mechanical replica could fly satisfactor- 14 PAUL B. MAcCREADY ily. The subsequent development project took place in 1985. In January, 1986, the spectacular filming of flights of an 18’ span replica took place at Race Track Dry Lake near Death Valley. This was the size of an adolescent Quetzalcoatlus northropi, (and the same size as a dozen sets of fossil bones which may have belonged to the same spe- cies). Being identical in appearance and flight characteristics to the 36’ one, this replica served perfectly as the lead actor in the film; a temperamental actor, but handsome and talented. The IMAX film “On the Wing” will be premiering at the National Air and Space Museum in Wash- ington in mid June of 1986. Public flights and display of the 18’ actor are under dis- cussion, as well as the eventual construc- tion and demonstration of the ultimate 36’ version. The radio controlled flying QN replica has three sensors, 13 electric motor ‘“‘mus- cles,” and a complex computer brain—but is still a thousand-fold less complex than the real thing. The main challenge is that the creature had no tail but instead a huge head extending forward on a long neck. It was unstable and so had to employ ac- tive control to stay upright. This is hard to duplicate with man-made mechanisms. The history of the QN replica program is given in articles by MacCready in Re- search Report 1985 of the National Air and Space Museum, and in the November 1985 issue of Engineering and Science, published by the California Institute of Technology. The program is also reaching the popular media in the spring of 1986 in articles in Science ’86, Popular Science, Life, Smithsonian Magazine, etc. Thus de- tails need not be provided here. As QN flies overhead, an observer will be able to “experience” the majesty of nature’s creation. The flight will combine the intimacy of a zoo with the historical grasp of a museum. Each observer will better appreciate nature’s dramatic flair, and, in learning about the great extinc- tion, may perhaps consider if we are now putting ecological pressures on our fragile planet similar to those of 63 million years ago. Efficiency There are many ways of defining aerial transportation efficiency. There are cri- teria of fuel use, speed, economics, reli- ability, and versatility and convenience, and questions such as whether the weight carried refers to gross weight or a payload. Nevertheless, for our purposes here, re- lating biological flight to mechanical flight, we can ignore definition details and still make several significant generalizations. First, the basic efficiency of the pro- pulsion systems of birds and propeller air- craft are rather similar. Both wing pro- pulsion and propeller propulsion efficiencies are generally in the same range, say plus or minus 10% from a reference 80%. The efficiency of generating power burning chemical fuel is also comparable, whether it is the lipids burned by a bird during migration or gasoline burned by an aircraft engine. A bird burning up half of its initial body weight during a migration may go 2,000 miles non-stop; an airplane consuming half its takeoff weight in fuel may go about four times as far. The better relative range performance of the airplane arises because it has a flatter glide than the bird, (a better lift to drag ratio), a performance advantage available to the airplane primarily because of two factors. One factor is a scale effect: the airplane Operates at a much higher “Reynold’s Number” than the bird, and therefore for the airplane viscous effects are relatively less critical. The other factor is that the structural techniques and the non-versa- tile function of the airplane permit a wing better tailored to aerodynamic efficiency in cruising flight (say a higher aspect ra- tio). Conclusion Biological flight, specifically bird flight, has been the catalyst for the initial devel- opment of man’s aircraft. As these aircraft achieved fantastic flight performances, the role model function of birds tended to be forgotten. The giant pterodactyl, a much AVIATION TRANSPORTATION 15 larger animal than aeronautical engineers of a decade ago assumed could fly, alerts us to the suspicion that nature may still have some surprising and valuable insights for us. As we explore bird characteristics we are reimpressed with what a magnifi- cent engineer nature is. A bird’s flight ver- satility and performance can in some re- spects be far beyond that of any airplane. Consider the Guillimot, which operates very well in the air, on land and water, and under the water. Consider the Sooty tern, reputed to stay aloft on one flight for years (using aerial refueling by snatch- Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 15-20, March 1986 ing up squid without landing). Consider the Artic tern on its long migration a third of the way around the world, without in- struction, reaching a location which its parents knew. And consider the ability of birds to take off and land on a confined spot. The aeronautical creations of man and nature are closely related. Each is won- derful in its own way. We are more fa- miliar with the features of airplanes than the features of birds, an inbalance that deserves correction. Aviation Transportation—A Possible Future Oran W. Nicks Director, Space Research Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 ABSTRACT Air travel across the Pacific has increased markedly in recent years, even though a trip between the U.S. and Japan or China requires twenty plus hours. Space Shuttle missions now occurring regularly orbit the entire globe in 90 minutes, so it is obvious that existing technology could provide faster transoceanic service. More efficient and flexible launch capabilities for space missions and the need for faster intercontinental travel can both be served by combining aerodynamic lift for takeoff and landing from large airports, with hybrid airbreathing and rocket propulsion systems. As petroleum products are projected to be exhausted in about 30 years, it is desirable that future aerospace vehicles be designed for alternate fuels. Hydrogen is well established as a fuel for space missions and also offers many advantages for jet propulsion: it is 2.77 times as energetic as jet propulsion fuel, it can readily be made from water using solar energy, and its prinicipal exhaust product is water that is non-polluting and recyclable. Other advantages such as its heat sink capacity are also cited. Two options for transoceanic transports are likely to evolve, a suborbital transatmos- pheric vehicle and a hypersonic cruise aircraft. Both would marry airbreathing-rocket propulsion and aerodynamic lift technologies with space shuttle landing capabilities. In summary, the next major advances in aeronautical transport could be more of an offshoot of space developments than an evolutionary step beyond the air transports of today. Hydrogen will enhance the balance between technology and the environment, 16 ORAN W. NICKS because of its non-polluting qualities and its inexhaustible supply. Time is the most precious and irreplaceable resource of man and it is concluded that shortening travel hours using a fuel produced from water and sunlight is in harmony with nature. In his book of the 1880's entitled “Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation,’ Otto Lil- ienthal distinctly stated the challenge of his day: “Tt must not remain our desire only to acquire the art of the bird, nay, it is our duty not to rest until we have attained to a perfect scientific conception of the prob- lem of flight, even though as the result of such endeavors we arrive at the conclusion that we shall never be able to transfer our highway to the air. But it may also be that our investigations will teach us to artifi- cially imitate what nature demonstrates to us daily in bird flight.” Lilienthal not only issued this charge, he pursued it with fierce determination until his untimely death during a test flight of his own flying machine design in 1896. Considering the thousands of years man had envied the abilities of birds, it is un- likely that Lilienthal expected him to achieve more than the equivalence or a semblance of bird flight. His own suc- cesses provided convincing evidence that men would fly someday, but it is doubtful that even his wildest dreams envisioned the flight of passenger-carrying airliners. His conservatism was evident when he en- couraged study of the birds “‘“—even though—we arrive at the conclusion that we Shall never be able to transfer our high- way to the air.” Only a little more than twenty five years later, Charles Lindbergh had resoundingly answered the challenge of Lilienthal. Not only did he fly like the birds, but he went faster and farther. Mankind everywhere was amazed and inspired, but even then most practical-minded persons asked, “What good is it?’ One man flying alone across the Atlantic was certainly a signif- icant accomplishment, but a dreamer might not have guessed that before two decades had passed, 120 passenger airliners would put 3,000 passenger oceanliners out of business. It has been like that since the Wright brothers’ first successful powered flight in 1903. One must be awed by the almost unbelievable progress in flight, yet we still have difficulty envisioning the future. Per- haps by reviewing some of the key mile- stones of aviation history, we can prepare to expect possibilities that could happen relatively soon. In December, 1985, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of the Douglas DC-3. Barely ten years after Lindbergh’s Atlantic crossing, this huge shiny airliner began making air travel a reality for millions of people, at the as- tounding rate of 21 passengers plus a crew of three. Compared to existing forms of surface transportation, it revolutionized cross-country travel, and within a decade it was followed by bigger and faster models employing four engines and evolutionary technologies. It was the 120 passenger ver- sions of the DC-6’s and Constellations that took the transoceanic passenger trade away from the luxury liners in a few short years. World War II spawned many technol- ogy advances, but the next hallmark for aviation transportation was to be the flight of the Comet jet transport in 1952. Al- though this first model amazed the world with its dazzling speed and high altitude capabilities, many experts doubted the jet aircraft would succeed as a prime mover of people and freight, because of jet en- gine demands for huge quantities of fuel. But rapid gains in fuel efficiency and the high productivity of jet transports soon made them a way of life. Perhaps this is the time to mention th relevance of productivity, for this essence is the often overlooked benefit from higher speed transportation systems. When com- paring travel costs of vehicles that travel AVIATION TRANSPORTATION 17 at about the same speed, it is appropriate to consider the costs/seat mile as a figure of merit. When the speeds are greatly dif- ferent, as for example, between the ship and the jet airplane, time becomes an im- portant parameter in the economic equa- tion. To illustrate, a single 747 jet trans- port carried more passengers across the Atlantic last year on a normal schedule than the Queen Mary carried during a prime year in its heyday, and at one tenth the cost. In all, some 22 million people flew the Atlantic last year. The past two decades of jet transport evolution have produced bigger and better aircraft, but attempts toward efficient supersonic transports have not fully suc- ceeded. To give credit where it is due, the Concorde has established a place for lim- ited transoceanic routes, and it has just completed ten years of service by carrying more than a million passengers about 100 million miles. The Russians gave up on their SST entry after several bad crashes and deficit operations from the beginning. Our own U.S. efforts to develop a super- sonic transport were thwarted in 1971 by problems of incompatiblity with our en- vironment, and a ‘““Who needs it”’ reaction from many quarters. Other concurrent ad- vances such as the wide-bodies have served us well, however, and many would say that present air travel growth suggests that needs are being satisfied. So why would we want anything more? Well, for one reason, trans-Pacific and other international trade activities have in- creased markedly in recent years. This means that a lot more people are traveling twenty plus hours by air to do business with counterparts on the other side of the world. Not only are more people desirous of faster transportation, there is a growing awareness that technologies exist which could make faster travel possible. As Space Shuttle flights occur every few weeks, it is frequent that astronauts make fifteen orbits around the entire world while a commercial air traveler spends the same amount of time traveling from the U.S. to Japan. Looking back we see that when an “aviation first” signaled technology read- iness, opportunity was often coupled with an obvious desire or perceived need, so that new capabilities were not long in com- ing. Accepting this “de facto” premise, let us speculate on future possibilities. A historic milestone for space travel oc- curred in 1961, when Yuri Gagarin suc- cessfully orbited the earth in one hour and 48 minutes. His flight in some ways pro- duced the same reaction from people that Lindbergh’s had: awe for the dramatic achievement, but the same question, “What good is it?” A one-place capsule launched atop a “controlled explosion” called a rocket, and a relatively uncontrolled land- ing by parachute could hardly be consid- ered a harbinger of future transportation systems. Even after missions to earth orbit became routine, and Apollo had carried a dozen Americans to the surface of the moon, there were still many challenges to face before realizing commercial viability of space vehicles. The Space Shuttle, a composite of aer- onautical and missile technologies, has clearly brought us closer with its remark- able ability to carry passengers and cargo into space and land at large airports using aerodynamic lift like an airplane. Many of you will recall the skeptics who were ap- palled at the thought of returning from space to a landing without propulsion, even though the technologies for gliding flight have been used successfully since Lilien- thal’s experiments. But rocket launches that must now occur at Cape Kennedy, and the requirement for ferry flights from the landing to the launch site, severely limit the application of shuttle technology for transportation between points on earth. Furthermore, space commercialization and military missions would benefit greatly if launches could occur from existing airport facilities instead of specialized launch complexes. This assessment suggests that aeronau- tics and space technologies will soon be blended further. The reason is simply that technologies appear ready for new appli- cations, and now there are TWO basic 18 ORAN W. NICKS needs to be served: intercontinental trav- elers sorely need a means of going six thousand nautical miles in less than three hours, and space missions need launch and landing capabilities from airport facilities around the globe. Both needs can be served by combining aerodynamic lift for takeoff, climb and landing, with airbreathing and rocket propulsion technologies. As airplanes have always exploited the atmosphere for both propulsion and lift, future generations will not question this method for improving the operational ef- ficiency of space travel. Various hybrid propulsion systems have been envisioned for years, and while efficient, practical sys- tems are yet to be built, there is ample evidence that turbo-ramjet-rocket com- binations may be achieved after reasona- ble development efforts. What I also suggest is that hydrogen will become the aviation fuel of the future. This is not so obvious to our generation, accustomed to transportation systems that are dependent on petrochemicals pumped from the ground. But the application of hydrogen to space missions has done much to ensure technological readiness as well as economic competitiveness, and there are other compelling reasons for this fuel. More will be said about tradeoffs in a mo- ment, but first, let me share basic calcu- lations using a kind of logic I imagine Lindbergh might have appreciated. Last year the world use of petroleum products amounted to about 20 billion barrels of oil. If this flow from the ground were likened to a river of oil, it could be represented as a stream 100 feet wide, ten feet deep, flowing with a current of about three miles per hour. Projections of the amount of oil left in our Earth’s “tank” are somewhat uncertain, however, several respected estimates indicate the world-wide reserve to be about 650 billion barrels. At the current rate of use, that supply will last the world users about 30 years. What worries me as an American is that we are the largest user at about 29%, and yet we have a US reserve of only 4% or 28 billion barrels. If forced to depend on our own reserves, we would exhaust our supply within five years. Whether the exhaustion date is really five or thirty years from now, it is apparent that designing our next gen- eration air transportation systems to use another fuel not only has merit, it is es- sential. The high specific energy of hydrogen has led to many studies of its application as a fuel over the years. One pound of hydrogen offers 2.77 times as much energy as a pound of JP fuel. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and its supply is virtually inexhaustible. It can be readily made from water, although energy is required for electrolysis. Successful flight experiments employing hydrogen in conventional turbojet engines were conducted in 1957 by the NACA Lewis laboratory, and it was shown to be compatible with jet engine applications. Its high heat of combustion offers major increases in engine performance, and en- vironmentally, it is unusually clean burn- ing, as its primary exhaust product is water. It has been used effectively in rockets for years, providing valuable experience and establishing confidence in our ability to apply hydrogen as a fuel. For very high speed flight where aero- dynamic heating is a problem, hydrogen offers yet another benefit, because as a cold liquid at temperatures of about minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit, it has a heat sink capacity about 38 times that of JP fuel at 100 degrees F. This property can be used for cooling structures and surfaces, for both strength and aerodynamic benefits, al- though complexities in design and weight penalties result. Another advantage of hy- drogen as a fuel accrues from its ability to combust rapidly. It can react with air at supersonic speeds in combustion cham- bers of a practical size, with relatively high aerodynamic and chemical efficiencies. Hydrogen has been produced for years using electrical energy to split water (H,O) molecules. At present, commercial pro- duction of hydrogen involves costs for electricity that are greater than the equiv- alent of petrochemical fuels, however very AVIATION TRANSPORTATION 19 promising research is underway toward the use of solar energy obtained from solar cells immersed in the water being split. Efficiencies being achieved in the labo- ratory show promise of production costs far less than those involving electrical en- ergy generated by other means. For completeness, two negative aspects of hydrogen to flying applications are its relatively low density and the fact that it must be stored in special insulated con- tainers to maintain it as a liquid. The low density dictates larger tank sizes that tend to increase aerodynamic drag, and the cry- Ogenic storage requirements make struc- tures and tankage more costly and heav- ier. When all the tradeoffs are considered, however, studies show big advantages for hydrogen as a fuel for future air trans- portation systems. It goes without saying that an infrastructure must be developed for a hydrogen economy if hydrogen is to be widely used as an aviation fuel. The cost of a change in fuel from a petrochem- ical base will be borne by a large number of users, but leadership for the changeover will be provided by aerospace. Two options exist for vehicles especially suited to the trans-Pacific ranges: transat- mospheric or suborbital aerospace planes, and hypersonic cruise aircraft. The first would marry airbreathing-rocket hybrid space vehicle and aerodynamic lift tech- nologies with Space Shuttle landing ca- pabilities. The second would be shuttle- like aircraft accelerated to hypersonic cruise conditions using a turbo-ramjet-rocket propulsion system that would cruise at al- titudes of 100,000 feet or more. Space launch requirements may encourage the earlier development of the suborbital or transatmospheric technologies, but effi- ciencies will probably favor the hypersonic cruise vehicles for intercontinental trans- ports. Military applications may actually dictate the timing of advances, but it seems a Safe bet that both concepts will be tested within the next ten to twenty years. In summary, I believe we will see the next major advance in aeronautical trans- portation as more of an offshoot of space developments than as an evolutionary step beyond the jet transports of today. In his later years, Lindbergh’s writings admonished us that our advances in sci- ence and technology were not being paced by advances in our social or ethical mores. His feelings seemd torn between the same innate drives to improve our technological position that he exhibited when he was charting a course for aviation, and uncer- tainties as to whether men were capable of continuing without destruction of other values—even life itself. In an article called “The Wisdom of Wildness’’, his conclu- sion was contained in a final, simple sen- tence: “The Human Future depends on our ability to combine the knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness.”’ Along with most of you, I share his con- cerns. And yet I believe it is right to con- tinue flying higher and faster. Man’s crea- tivity and ability to reason right from wrong are the attributes which distinguish us from other creatures, and I believe God in- tended us to use these gifts to improve the quality of life. A blend of space flight and atmospheric flight sciences will give us more time for creativity, and shortening travel involving hours of inactivity will afford better uses of our talents. What matters is how we apply our technological ad- vances and how they influence the whole of our environment and relationships. Real progress is only to be judged after the har- mony of our developments with nature is clear. References Cited 1. Lilienthal, Otto. Bird Flight as the Basis of Avia- tion. A Contribution Towards a System of Avia- tion Compiled from the Results of Numerous Experiments made by O. and G. Lilienthal. Longmans, Green. 1911. 2. Bockris, J. O’M. Energy Options. Australia and New Zealand Book Company. 1980. 3. Keatley, A. G., Editor. Technological Frontiers and Foreign Relations. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1985. 4. “National Aeronautical R&D Goals.” Execu- tive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy. March, 1985. 20 10. i 12: ORAN W. NICKS . “Aeronautical Technologies 2000.’ Panel Re- port. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1985. . “Aeronautics Technologies Possible for 2000.” Workshop Report. National Academy Press. 1984. . Petersen, R. H. and Driver, C. ““The Advanced Supersonic Transport-Status.””» AIAA 1985 An- nual Meeting, Washington, D.C. . Heppenheimer, T. A. “Scramjets Aim for MACH 25.’ High Technology Magazine, December, 1985. . Colladay, R. S. Subcommittee on Transporta- tion, Aviation and Materials, Committee on Sci- ence and Technology, House of Representa- tives, 99th Congress, July 24, 1985. Kayten, G. G., Driver, C. and Maglieri, D. J. “The Revolutionary Impact of Evolving Aero- nautical Technology.” AIAA #84-2445, Oct. 31, 1984. Small, W. J., Felterman, D. E., Bonner, Jr., T. F. “Potential of Hydrogen Fuel for Future Air Transportation Systems.’”” ASME #73-ICT-104, 1974. Brewer, G. D. “The Case for Hydrogen Fueled Transport Aircraft.” AIAA #73-1323, Novem- ber, 1973- 1S! 14. 15: 16. 17. 18. 19: 20. AL 22. Nagel, A. L. and Becker, J. V. “Key Technology for Airbreathing Hypersonic Aircraft.”” AIAA #73-58, January, 1973. Kirkham, F. S. and Driver, C. “Liquid Hydro- gen Fueled Aircraft—Prospects and Design Is- sues.” AIAA #73-809, August, 1973. Miller, R. H. “Thinking ‘Hypersonic’.” AIAA Journal of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Au- gust, 1971. Witcosfki, R. D. ““Hydrogen Fueled Hypersonic Transports.”” American Chemical Society Sym- posium, Boston, MA. April, 1972. Jones, R. A. and Huber, P. W. “Toward Scramjet Aircraft.” AIAA Journal, February, 1978. Driver, C. ““Future Developments Toward a Sec- ond-Generation SST.” World Aerospace Profile. First Edition. February, 1986. Becker, J. V. “Prospects for Actively Cooled Hypersonic Transports.”” AIAA, August, 1971. Gregory, T. J., Peterson, R. H. and Wyss, J. A. “Performance Tradeoffs and Research Prob- lems for Hypersonic Transports.”” AIAA #64- 605, August, 1964. Lindbergh, C. A. ‘““The Wisdom of Wildness.” Life Magazine, December, 1967. Fact Book Issue, National Petroleum News. McGraw Hill, N.Y. 1985. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 21-24, March 1986 The Emergence of Treatment Technology in the Management of Hazardous Waste Richard C. Fortuna* Executive Director, Hazardous Waste Council Washington, D.C. ABSTRACT Until recently, the management of hazardous waste was largely dominated by various land disposal techniques, with its attendent uncertainties and predictable failures. With the enactment of the 1984 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Amendments (RCRA), a watershed series of new policies and provisions governing the management of hazardous waste are being instituted which presumtively prohibit the land disposal of all hazardous wastes; structure the Agency’s discretion to either affirm or override these presumptions by specified dates; support the prohibitions with a self-implementing program in the event the Agency fails to implement the prohibitions or establish pretreatment standards; and to close many of the loopholes in hazardous waste regulations that allowed “legal dumping” of hazardous wastes. These changes were brought about by a fundamental recognition of the delay and indecision caused by the lack of structure and direction in existing hazardous waste policy, and by the fact that no Agency, no matter how well intentioned, could accomplish all the necessary changes without direct, unequivocal directives from the statute itself. The article examines the conditions and terms that must exist for permanent pro- tective treatment technologies to exist in a world and a marketplace where land disposal has previously been the order of the day. *Richard C. Fortuna is Executive Director of the Hazardous Waste Treatment Council, a Washington, DC based trade association representing commercial hazardous waste treatment firms that are distin- guished by their common commitment to the primary use of treatment technology and the restricted use of land disposal in the management of hazardous waste. Mr. Fortuna is also the author of the soon- to-be-published ‘‘Hazardous Waste Regulation: The New Era’’, an analysis and guide to RCRA and the 1984 Amendments. 21 There are two Federal statutes that gov- ern different aspects of the nation’s haz- ardous waste management activities. The “Superfund” law, which was first passed in 1980 to cleanup waste releases from past mismanagement, and the Resource Con- servation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which was first passed in 1976 and is in- tended to prevent the creation of future problem sites through a series of controls 22 RICHARD C. FORTUNA on daily management. The 1984 Amend- ments to RCRA, also referred to as the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA), is the most significant rewrite of any environmental law; restructuring our national policy and the regulatory deci- sion-making process. While these changes have their roots in a period of unparalleled EPA turmoil, the major impetus was de- rived from a universal and mutual recog- nition of data, studies and conditions that argued for a complete change not only in the way in which wastes are managed, but also in the manner in which they are reg- ulating them. In fact, fundamental change to the decision-making process is perhaps the greatest single contribution of the 1984 Amendments. We are now in the midst of an unpar- alleled transition in the management of hazardous wastes, 10 years after the orig- inal enactment of RCRA. Relative to the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act pro- grams, controls on hazardous waste man- agement are 10-15 years behind the prog- ress of these early 1970 laws. Going back to early 1982 when the reauthorization process began, it was a confluence of po- litical and technical voices and findings that helped forge the consensus as represented by the 1984 Amendments: * new abandoned or problem sites (Su- perfund sites) were being discovered at a faster rate than we could clean them up; this dismal picture was com- pounded by the discovery that the regulations under the RCRA pro- gram, which governs the daily man- agement of hazardous waste, was in fact the leading cause of our future Superfund sites. That is, the “legal dumping” of present day wastes was an equal if not greater danger than the illegal dumping of the past; more waste generators and facilities were exempt from regulation than were subject; ninety percent of all generators were exempt from regulation on the basis that they were “‘small generators’’; * * many wastes were not listed as haz- ardous, including dioxins and ethyl- ene dibromide; all “recycling” practices were exempt from regulation. However, recycling was so broadly defined as to consti- tute any reuse of a hazardous waste that served a beneficial purpose to the user. As such, activities like the use of dioxin-containing wastes to oil roads in Times Beach were exempt “recy- cling”’ practices; there were no meaningful controls on air emissions from evaporation ponds, or on the placement of hazardous wastes into sewers (supposedly the province of the Clean Water Act); we discovered that there were 250 million tons of hazardous waste being generated, not 40 million, with ap- proximately 80 percent of this volume being land disposed; there were no restrictions on what was being placed in the land, and no min- imum technology requirements im- posed at land disposal facilities such as dual liners and leachate collection systems; in fact, the tide of continued land dis- posal was so strong in early 1982 that even the most outlandish and exotic proposals by today’s standards were being entertained. For example, a major paint and pigment firm was proposing to dispose of drummed vol- atile organic hazardous wastes in an abandoned salt mine under residen- tial areas in Barberton, Ohio; * * * In short, the hole was bigger than the doughnut. At the same time we were also learning about the business of hazardous waste management, and the necessary regulatory and marketplace conditions for treatment technologies to exists: * it was clear by early 1982 that unre- strained by regulation, hazardous wastes were like water running down- hill, being disposed of along the path of least cost and least control. We rec- ognized that technology cannot be HAZARDOUS WASTE TREATMENT TECHNOLOGY 23 forced to compete against unre- stricted land disposal, where cost alone dictated management choice; the Congressional Office of Technol- ogy Assessment and the National Academy of Sciences concluded that there was no shortage of techniques, ingenuity or methods to properly treat or render wastes non-hazardous. Rather, the real problem was with the regulations and loopholes them- selves. The regulatory disparity be- tween land disposal and treatment in- troduced significant uncertainty into the market for technologies. This lack of controls to ensure that all methods of management “‘played by the same rules” and provide equal certainty in protecting public health indirectly subsidized land disposal, and forced many firms to withhold additional in- vestment in treatment technology; from the treatment industry’s per- spective, the real problem was not with the avaiijability of methods to per- manently treat hazardous wastes, but rather with the regulations them- selves. The existing regulations gov- erning hazardous wastes would have one believe that the universal maxims of “no free lunch” and “‘getting what you pay for’ applied to everything but the management of hazardous wastes; we discovered that you cannot sepa- rate the desire for increased protec- tion from the increased costs of waste specific, constituent specific treat- ment. There is no one step treatment process for every waste; In short, the period from 1976 when RCRA was first passed to 1984 demon- strated that we had learned from or about the nature and causes of our hazardous waste problems then we instituted solu- tions to them. The 1984 Amendments closed these loopholes and marked the end of the beginning of the RCRA program by establishing the beginning of the end for unrestricted land disposal. The heart of the 1984 Amendments lies not in any one provision, but rather in its approach to the regulatory process itself. We discovered that no administration, no matter how well intentioned, could ac- complish all the necessary tasks without direct assistance from the statute itself. In addition, rather than simply directly EPA to go issue necessary regulations, the stat- ute establishes a statutory presumption that prohibits land disposal of all wastes while allowing the Agency to selectively over- ride these presumptions by establishing “pretreatment” conditions. The bill sup- ports this presumption with a self-imple- menting statutory provision (frequently termed “hammers” or “minimum regu- latory controls’) that impose the prohi- bition without exception if the Agency fails to act in a timely manner. It was clear by the end of the reauthor- ization process that discretion had become its own worst enemy; too much was as bad as too little. These new provisions and the fundamental restructuring of Agency dis- cretion and the decision-making process is not intended to be punitive. Rather, they have two primary aims: to allow the Agency and the regulated community to focus its efforts on specific exceptions to a general prohibition rule, rather than to burden the Agency with justifying each restriction for each waste under a generally permissive scheme; and, it was intended to create in- centives for the regulated community to become constructively involved in regu- latory development, or live with a prohi- bition that has no exceptions. If the heart of RCRA is its restructuring of Agency discretion and the decision- making process, the soul of RCRA is the search for certainty: certainty that wastes will be properly managed in the first in- stance; certainty that future generations will not have to bear the cost of current- day land disposal expediency; and cer- tainty that the transition to permanent and protective methods of treatment will in- deed occur on a timely and predictable basis. While these Amendments were in- stituted less than eighteen months ago, 24 RICHARD C. FORTUNA there is clear and convincing evidence that the scheme is working. The Agency is for the first time meeting many of its dead- lines. A program office that previously could not meet a single regulatory dead- line is now making more than it misses. The Amendments have provided the nec- essary certainty for firms to invest in and expand treatment capacity. New technol- ogies and new applications of existing technologies have emerged to a significant degree, particularly the use of portable treatment technologies that can be brought to the site of a cleanup action or waste management site. Generators are making significant strides in reducing the volume of the wastes generated, particularly for aqueous organic wastes, many of which are now being recovered. However, as T. S. Eliot was fond of saying, “Humankind cannot bear too much reality.”” In a field where there is a lot of reality to live up to, there surely will be many difficult days ahead: the early phase in implementing the land disposal ban has been far from smooth; pretreatment stan- dards must be established that do not sim- ply bless the status quo; critical decisions must be made on the future role of deep well injection; and creative use of waste codes and manifest data cannot be used in a way to evade the ban. In fact, before the final transition is over, many firms will be put out of busi- ness, thousands of impoundments will be closed, major process changes will be in- stituted, and overall managers will be forced to take their waste management activities more seriously. In many ways, the 1984 Amendments bring to light a third fact of life: death, taxes, and no matter what we do wastes will be generated. It is my firm belief that the mutual recognition of the hard realities ahead, punctuated by a high level of participation stimulated by the 1984 Amendments should yield a program that is second to none, one which we can even- tually look on with pride rather than look back on with chagrin. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 25-31, March 1986 The Hazardous Waste Superfund Program: Goals Versus Practices Kenneth S. Kamlet Environmental Program Director, URS Corporation 1730 M Street, NW, Suite 701 Washington, DC 20036 ABSTRACT Superfund’s major objective, as expressed by the Senate Environment Committee, is “to provide an incentive to those who manage hazardous substances or are responsible for contamination sites to avoid releases and to make maximum effort to clean up or mitigate the effects of any such release.’’ Although the dominant thrust of the original Superfund law was to promote and advance the clean-up of sites, the pending 1986 amend- ments are aimed primarily at either eliminating perceived inefficiencies in or at expanding the scope of the present program. Among the controversial amendments discussed are provisions setting a mandatory schedule for various site inspection, study, and clean-up priorities; creating new Citizen Suit authority; limiting permissible uses of the Fund; ex- tending of “fund balancing” requirements to privately financed clean-ups; precluding re- mediation plans from addressing contamination from non-Superfund sources; limiting the need for otherwise required Federal and state permits; and requiring states to guarantee twenty years’ capacity for all their hazardous wastes before they can receive Superfund remedial action money. It is noted that the principal delay in enacting a new and reinvig- orated Superfund law relates more to ideological tax policy differences than to issues involving hazardous chemicals, industry responsibility, or human health and welfare. Neither the current Superfund law nor the pending 1986 amendments to the Act contain a statement of the legislation’s principles or goals and objectives. The 1985 Committee Report (S. Rept. No. 11, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3) accompanying the bill approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (S. 51) does set forth what is said to be the Act’s ‘‘ma- jor objective,” along with four supporting “basic principles.’’” However, much of the controversy and debate which continue to 25 swirl around the Superfund program re- main a function of major differences of opinion as to what ought, in fact, to be the goals of this program and on how these goals might be most effectively and effi- ciently achieved. No one disputes the need to remedy hazardous substance releases from sites which imminently threaten health and en- vironment. But there is lots of debate over what constitutes an imminent or signifi- cant hazard, how much clean-up 1s suffi- 26 KENNETH S. KAMLET cient, and what sort of balance should be struck between making the best use of fi- nite clean-up resources and optimizing the clean-up of particular sites. No one seriously debates the general proposition that those who pollute should pay. However, this principle becomes fuzzy where the “‘polluting”’ activities were nei- ther illegal nor recognized as polluting at the time they occurred. It is no easy matter to decide when measures intended to en- hance deterrence and accountability end up producing uncertainties so large and potential liabilities so crushing that resis- tance, delay, and counterattack seem more attractive than compliance and coopera- tion. Finally, no one begrudges people the right to be free of unreasonable chemical hazards in their homes and workplaces and the opportunity to play an informed role in decisions which affect their health and welfare. On the other hand, some fear that undue public involvement in the process could paralyze the Superfund program by placing non-negotiable and unmeetable demands for total clean-up in the path of forward motion toward what is attainable. I will discuss some of the specific ele- ments and provisions of Superfund in light of these issues and concerns which con- tinue to be central features of the debate in 1986 on reauthorization of the Act. Basic Principles and Objectives The four basic principles embodied in Superfund, according to the Senate En- vironment and Public Works Committee, are: (1) To provide ample Federal authority for cleaning up releases of hazardous substances; (2) To assure that those responsible for any damage. . . from hazardous sub- stances bear the costs of their actions; (3) To provide a fund to finance response actions where a responsible party does not clean up, cannot be found, or can- not pay; and (4) To provide adequate compensation to those who have suffered economic, health, natural resource, and other damages. Implementation of these principles pro- motes, in the Environment Committee’s view, the accomplishment of Superfund’s major objective, which it describes as being: “To provide an incentive to those who manage hazardous substances or are re- sponsible for contamination sites to avoid releases and to make maximum effort to clean-up or mitigate the effects of any such release.” Senator Alan Simpson’s (R-WY) “‘Ad- ditional Views” (S. Rept., supra, pp. 75- 76) make clear that the issues are far from so straightforward. He highlights three is- sues. First, he cites his “‘overriding con- cern,” that “Superfund may be asked to do so many things that it will not be doing its greatest task as expeditiously as it might’”—namely, cleaning up hazardous waste sites. Second, Senator Simpson voices the concern that the Act’s approach to the liability issue ‘“may well come (back) to haunt us,” referring to the disturbing in- dications that “‘transaction costs” (legal fees, administrative costs, etc.) in some Superfund cases are ‘‘approaching or sur- passing the projected clean-up costs at sites.” And third, Senator Simpson ex- presses “great” concern over the pro- posed insertion of ‘“‘Citizen Suit” language which he sees as posing the potential to disrupt the Superfund program without there having been any showing that there was a need for this new provision in the first place. Let us now turn to a discussion of Su- perfund’s major issues considered from the standpoint of each issue’s significance in accomplishing one or more of the follow- ing: (1) Does it promote or impede the clean- up of sites? (2) Does it impair or enhance the work- ability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Superfund program? SUPERFUND 27 (3) Does it increase or decrease real pro- tections for health and the environ- ment? Promoting Clean-Up The dominant thrust of the original Su- perfund law was to promote and advance the clean-up of sites. It required parties to provide prompt notice of releases (Sec. 103); it established comprehensive gov- ernmental response authorities (Sec. 104), enabling the government to take rapid emergency removal action and later re- cover costs from responsible parties, as well as to select more extensive remedial actions; it provided for abatement actions to address imminent hazards (Sec. 106); it established broad liability exposure for responsible parties (Secs. 107, 302(d)), hopefully providing an incentive to co- operate with the government rather than gambling on being overlooked; it specified broad uses of the Fund (Sec. 111), en- abling government intervention to accom- plish needed action; and it authorized nat- ural resource damage claims (Secs. 104, 111, 112) both against responsible parties and the Fund to restore damaged natural resources. By contrast, the pending amendments tend to deal much less with promoting site clean-ups than with either eliminating per- ceived inefficiencies in the existing process or with expanding the scope of the pro- gram. In addition to some effort to pare back on allowable uses of the Fund (e.g. to pay natural resource damage restoration costs), seemingly in an effort to focus Fund re- sources on the task of cleaning up sites, only a few of the proposed amendments are really geared to promoting clean-up. They include: the ‘“‘mandatory schedule”’ provision of the House bill; provisions aimed at enabling response action con- tractors (who do the actual clean-up work) to obtain the liability insurance or indem- nification necessary for them to operate; and provisions aimed at facilitating the formation of risk retention groups and purchasing groups to acquire insurance coverage in the absence of commercial in- surance. Probably the most controversial of these amendments is the one establishing ‘‘man- datory schedules’—an innovation which has been vigorously opposed by the Ad- ministration. Although carefully crafted not to establish rigid deadlines for the total completion of remedial actions and pre- serving substantial administrative discre- tion to set inspection, study, and clean-up priorities, critics fear that this approach will cause EPA to place excessive atten- tion on bean-counting and meeting sched- ules and too little on accomplishing high- quality clean-ups and maximizing true health protection. Critics are also con- cerned that strict timetables, coupled with new citizen suit authority, will cause a pro- liferation of ‘“‘deadline”’ lawsuits resulting in the diversion of EPA Superfund re- sources to defending these suits. I find the latter objection unpersuasive. I don’t foresee a great flurry of citizen suits in this area; citizen suits are among the least burdensome to adjudicate; and the mandatory deadline provision was drafted to allow deadline suits to be brought very infrequently. Although the concern about ‘““bean-counting”’ is a little harder to shrug off, the embarrassingly limited number of completed Superfund remedial actions in the program’s more than five-year history argues in favor of trying another ap- proach. Enhancing Program Workability Fine-tuning the Superfund program to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness has clearly been one of the driving forces be- hind the effort, beginning in 1984, to amend and reauthorize the Superfund law. How well some of the proposed amendments in fact promote this objective is open to de- bate, however. 28 KENNETH S. KAMLET One “reform” in the category of im- proving program workability is an effort to narrow the scope of the Superfund pro- gram by limiting permissible uses of the Fund, presumably in order to focus Agency priorities into the most critical areas. Re- stricting access to the Fund was a response to frequently voiced EPA assertions that the Agency was capable of managing a Superfund program no larger than $1 bil- lion a year. Whether or not one accepted this argument (and judging by the much larger appropriations approved by the House and the Senate, neither House of Congress did), it was apparent that the magnitude of the Superfund problem far surpasses the availability of resources to address it and that setting priorities was essential. The House and Senate bills conse- quently prohibit Superfund response ac- tion from being taken to address releases of naturally occurring substances, such as selenium and radon, in unaltered form; releases, such as asbestos, from building structures that result in exposure within a facility; and releases of toxic metals into water supply systems due to deterioration of the system through ordinary use. The Senate bill also prohibits use of Fund money to pay natural resource damage claims in any year that all of the Fund is deemed by the President to be needed for response to public health threats. In addition, the House bill bars responses to releases re- sulting exclusively from coal mining where response action is covered under the Sur- face Mine Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. It also bars abatement actions in- volving the release of registered pesticides and establishes as a defense to citizen suits the fact that a release was specifically cov- ered by a Federal permit. Additional amendments are aimed at ensuring greater involvement by poten- tially responsible parties (PRPs) in defin- ing the scope of required clean-up studies and remedial action and in limiting their liability exposure in relation to other PRPs. For example, the House bill allows PRPs to conduct RI/FS studies, which deter- mine the necessary scope of clean-up, in appropriate circumstances; to be notified by the Administrator of their PRP status and of the identity of other PRPs as early as possible before selection of a response action (i.e. to facilitate negotiation among PRPs); to be authorized by EPA, under court-approved settlement agreements, to carry out necessary response actions; and to be provided with information by EPA on the identity of other PRPs and on the nature and volume of hazardous sub- stances at a site, along with a volumetric ranking of these substances, as a stimulant of negotiations among the parties. The bill also allows EPA to enter into covenants not to sue with PRPs (as an inducement to settle), to accept “‘cash-out’’ settle- ments from de minimis PRP contributors (to simplify negotiations), and to use ar- bitration as a means of settling claims. It also reaffirms the right of PRPs to pursue actions for contribution or indemnity against other PRPs and to seek contri- bution protection (upon successfully re- solving their own liability to the govern- ment) against potential contribution actions by other parties. It clarifies the authority of the government to enter into “mixed funding” agreements under which the Fund and PRPs share certain clean-up costs. It creates a right to obtain judicial review of Superfund regulators and of intervention by interested parties in clean-up-oriented litigation, including citizen suits, but places some limits on the right to pre-enforce- ment judicial review. One of the controversial provisions of the present Superfund law, which the House bill would make even more con- troversial, is the so-called ‘‘fund balanc- ing” provision of Section 104(C)(4). This provision obliges the President to select remedial actions which strike a “‘balance between the need for protection of public health . . . and the environment. . . and the availability of amounts in the Fund . . . to respond to other sites which... may present a threat to public health... or the environment, taking into consid- eration the need for immediate action.” SUPERFUND 29 For Fund-financed clean-ups, EPA has re- lied on this authority to select remedial actions which approach, but fall short of, the level of protection afforded by oth- erwise applicable Federal requirements to which other clean-ups are subject. The House bill would allow similar Fund-bal- ancing to be applied to privately-financed clean-ups. This amounts to the authority to approve privately funded clean-ups which fall short of normative clean-up standards where the clean-up is deemed disproportionately expensive or techni- cally impracticable from an engineering standpoint, or a lesser level of clean-up is deemed to afford substantially equivalent human health and environmental protec- tion. I confess to some bafflement as to (a) why it was considered necessary to ex- tend a rationale which was designed to con- serve a limited public fund to the private sphere; and (b) how it will be possible in practice to judge the practicability of pri- vate sector actions using a public sector yardstick. While this amendment may simply have been intended to promote more cost-ef- fective utilization of Superfund resources, whether private or public, the mechanism adopted could turn out to create a number of new inefficiencies. Another readily understandable, but nevertheless problematic, provision of the House bill is one which specifies that clean- up standards may be applied only to re- leases from the concerned Superfund site and cannot be applied to ‘“‘contamination from other sources.’’ Where other sources contribute to the problem, it is unclear how remedial action is ever to be accom- plished—especially since there appears to be no authority provided to use Fund money to make up the difference in cost. If PRPs account for 50% of the contam- ination, the House bill would allow them to be assessed only half of the clean-up costs—with the rest remaining unreme- diated unless the state were able and will- ing to supply the balance. I will mention one final provision of the House bill which is of interest in this con- nection. For on-site (in-place) clean-up actions, the bill would eliminate the need to obtain most Federal or state permits. Although a state would still be able to require permits for state standards it had notified EPA of during the RI/FS study, it would lose the right to require permits for any requirements not covered in such a notification and, in any case, would have no more than thirty days after completion of the final remedial engineering design to issue the permit (or the permit require- ment would be deemed waived). More- over, for response actions involving trans- fer of materials to a facility with a final RCRA permit, no state or local require- ment could be applied to the transfer or disposal activity. These restrictions on permitting and regulation are probably defensible on the basis that bureaucratic red-tape should not be able to slow down the clean-up of an imminent hazard. However, there is no comparable justification for not assuring full substantive compliance. Frequent ex- amples of inadequate or non-existent co- ordination, even among program offices within EPA, don’t inspire great confi- dence that adequate coordination and substantive compliance will in fact occur. Expanded Protections for Health and Environment The House Superfund bill devotes ex- tensive coverage to the issues of Emer- gency Planning and Community Right to Know (Title III) and Oil Spill Liability and Compensation (Title IV). The Senate bill has no counterpart oil spill provision, but it does establish similar (albeit less elab- orate) hazardous substance notification and inventory requirements. These hazardous substance emergency provisions were clearly stimulated by the Union Carbide chemical plant catastrophe in Bhopal, In- dia, in December 1984, and by a rash of U.S. accidents involving hazardous chem- icals the following summer, many of them 30 KENNETH S. KAMLET centered in the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia. The most controversial Super- fund issues in this context have related to whether there is a need for an on-going inventory of operational and accidental releases from chemical facilities (as op- posed to simply planning for and reporting of emergency releases); the need to ad- dress no more than a limited list of acutely hazardous chemicals (as opposed to also addressing the most dangerous chronic chemical hazards); and where to draw the line between providing necessary infor- mation to governmental emergency re- sponse officials and public health au- thorities and safeguarding commercially valuable trade secrets. An expansive House bill, covering both chronically hazardous and acutely hazardous chemicals, was ul- timately approved on the House floor by a one-vote margin. Both bills also eliminate the bias in the present law against “off-site transport,” recognizing that in some cases off-site remedies may be preferable to on-site ones. They also encourage the design of removal actions in a way which contributes to ef- ficient performance of long-term remedial action. And they require cost-effective- ness evaluations of remedial actions to re- flect long-term as well as short-term costs. The House bill goes further to specify an explicit preference for remedial actions which significantly reduce the volume, toxicity, or mobility of a hazardous sub- stance. These changes should help offset the penny wise, pound foolish tendency to prefer inexpensive short-term remedies which have no lasting effectiveness and wind up costing more in the long run. Another amendment found in both bills may have unpredicted consequences. Sec- tion 104(c)(3) bars Federal remedial ac- tions at Superfund sites unless the host state first agrees to assure the availability of a hazardous waste disposal facility suit- able to accomplish any required off-site treatment or disposal. The amendments would require states to guarantee ade- quate capacity and access for the treat- ment or disposal for all of that state’s haz- ardous wastes for the next twenty years. Although this approach may give useful impetus in some cases to the development of sorely needed hazardous waste man- agement capacity, it could have a negative ‘““double-whammy” impact in other cases. That is, less responsible states which are unable or unwilling to make provision for managing their hazardous wastes will be penalized by not having their Superfund sites cleaned up. But their citizens will be penalized twice: once, by the neglect of their state; later, by the retribution of the Federal government. I have some trouble with an environmental sanction which leaves the environment worse off when it’s invoked than it was before. Both bills also strengthen the controls on Federally-owned Superfund sites and create a new citizen suit authority. I view both of these as positive steps, likely to stimulate more good than harm. The bills also make somewhat greater provision for citizen and state participa- tion in important site-specific Superfund actions and decisions. Conclusion It could probably be fairly said that there is something for almost everyone to dislike in the pending Superfund bills. And stu- dents of government and public policy will be horrified at the complex and convo- luted monstrosity wrought by the world’s greatest deliberative body. I believe Superfund will be reauthorized in 1986 because the alternative is simply not an option. But, I am not optimistic that it will be reauthorized much before the November elections nine months from now. A delay that long would have cata- strophic consequences. A large propor- tion of EPA’s specialized Superfund staff would have to be fired. The contracts on which the momentum, and much of the institutional memory, of the program de- pend would have to be terminated. The phased sequence of site studies, alterna- RESPONSIBLE TOXICS MANAGEMENT 31 tives, evaluations, remedial planning, and construction work would be thrown into chaos. And the inexorable seepage of deadly chemicals would continue una- bated. It would be ironic and unfortunate in- deed if, after coming to grips with most of Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 31-36, March 1986 the thorny technical details of program im- plementation, the effort to enact a new and reinvigorated Superfund law were to founder over idealogical tax policy differ- ences having nothing to do with hazardous chemicals, industry responsibility, or hu- man health and welfare. Responsible Toxics Management: The Silicon Valley Experience David Morell, Ph.D. Special Assistant for Toxics Management, Office of the County Executive Santa Clara County, California Introduction What better place to seek balance be- tween technology and the environment than in Silicon Valley? Here is the heart and soul of modern American technology in this post-industrial age. Here, too, in the early 1980’s, we learned that production of electronics equipment and semiconduc- tors and computers has serious environ- mental problems. And here too, in the mid-1980s, we see an innovative attempt to find the path to responsible toxics man- agement—a pattern of procedures and de- cisions and expenditures that balance toxic risks to public health; growing public cred- ibility in both government and industry; long-term availability of groundwater re- sources; and the continued vitality of the electronics industry and the Santa Clara Valley’s economy. What lessons does this experience hold for the rest of America? A Clean Industry Part of the subsequent problem of pub- lic fear over toxic risk in Silicon Valley has its roots in our own expectations. High tech was different. Silicon Valley had it; every place else wanted it. This was to be the magic saviour of America’s rusting old industrial base—our means of transition from the past into the future. And high tech was supposed to be a clean industry. We all fell victim to the rhetoric of “clean rooms,” seduced by the imagery of campus-like industrial facilities in contrast to traditional factories with their tall stacks belching smoke. We truly be- lieved that high tech was different. 32 DAVID MORELL When we awoke to the contrary reality, we were confused and angry, full of dis- trust. Risks to health from environmental toxics may indeed be very low in Silicon Valley—at least outside the workplace. Compare Silicon Valley’s ambient toxics to New Jersey or Galveston or Niagara Falls or Los Angeles; they’re lower, by far. But such risks are now seen to be present in the Santa Clara Valley—they are not zero. So the people of Santa Clara County in 1981 suddenly felt that they had been had. Their normal, human reaction was thus to act, even to over-react. ‘“Here the Smokestacks Point Down” In December 1981—December 7, iron- ically—we all learned that high tech in Sil- icon Valley was not so clean. And we began to use the phrase: “here the smokestacks point down.” A massive leak of industrial solvents from an _ under- ground waste tank of the Fairchild Cam- era and Instrument Company, in San Jose, had leaked into nearby groundwater: 60,000 gallons of TCA, TCE, DCE . . . a whole toxic chemical soup. This groundwater was used for drinking. Almost exactly half of the valley’s 1.4 million residents drink groundwater. Several wells of the nearby Great Oaks Water Company, serving some 65,000 people, were found to be contam- inated. Great Oaks Well #13 was highly polluted, and had to be closed immedi- ately. Though these wells were closed, panic was loosed on the community. How much health damage had been done? A subse- quent State of California epidemiological study in the Los Paseos neighborhood, across the street from the now-closed Fair- child factory, found statistically-signifi- cant excessive levels of birth defects and miscarriages during the period of unde- tected well contamination (when people were actually drinking this contaminated water). Unfortunately, the scientists could not prove the contaminated water was the cause of these tragic health damages, since other too-high levels were found in a con- trol group nearby where people drink water from other, demonstrably-clean wells. Were the toxics at Los Paseos and nearby in the air? Was the damage due to occu- pational exposure? More studies are now underway, but the fear and anger have spread from 1981 on. As we looked elsewhere, we found other leaks—lots of contaminated groundwater. The huge IBM complex, near Fairchild, had a huge plume of TCA, Freon, and other chemicals. Yet, when industry later removed many of these tanks, at IBM and all over the valley, around literally scores of groundwater contamination incidents, nearly all of these tanks were found to have full mechanical and structural integ- rity. The groundwater contamination had apparently come from spills onto the ground: “sloppy housekeeping.” Tank truck drivers were under such pressure to deliver pure solvents, for example, that they rinsed their hoses onto the ground to eliminate road dirt and even water vapor. What harm could it do? We have learned since that even just a few ounces of solvent can produce a huge groundwater plume measured in parts per billion. As we looked, we found—and all the familiar names were there: Fairchild and IBM, HP and Intel, AMD... . all of them. By January 1986, we had documented some 70 episodes of groundwater contamination from industrial solvents in Silicon Valley, plus 36 from other industrial compounds and 540 from the 6,000 fuel tanks. We are now discovering 5 to 10 new episodes per day as we look intensively through groundwater monitoring.Some drinking water wells have had to be closed. Others are still in service, pumping water with low, but detectable levels of organic chem- ical contamination. EPA has proposed 19 sites in Santa Clara County for inclusion on Superfund’s National Priority List— more sites than in any other county in the U.S. Without doubt, we have a significant environmental problem in this technolog- ical center. And we have a public percep- RESPONSIBLE TOXICS MANAGEMENT 33 tion of environmental risk that far exceeds what anyone would have predicted. Initial Responses In Santa Clara County, the extent and the quality of response to these environ- mental problems have been astounding, by comparison to anywhere else in the U.S. This response has come in a balanced manner from government, industry, and the general public. Perhaps this balance— in tune certainly with Charles Lindbergh’s philosophy of a balance between technol- ogy and environmental quality—helps ex- plain our relative success, and provides a basis of optimism for future success in re- sponsible toxics management—another prime Lindbergh value. Government has responded at all levels, with some success . . . and some confu- sion. The electronics industry has spent in excess of $110 million already on cleanup— identifying plumes, groundwater extrac- tion, tank removal—and on prevention— installing new tanks and monitoring sys- tems. In 1983, local governments throughout the area combined to formulate a pow- erful new Hazardous Materials Storage Ordinance. Based on work by an ad hoc task force composed of fire marshals, city managers, industry representatives, envi- ronmental and labor group leaders, elected officials approved a model ordinance. This ordinance was adopted within one year for implementation in all 15 municipalities in the county. The ordinance sets strict stan- dards for control of all underground tanks, and of above-ground storage of all haz- ardous materials. Control over under- ground tanks spread statewide in Califor- nia in 1984, based on large measure on the experience in Santa Clara County. In late 1984, the national hazardous waste regu- latory law (RCRA) was amended to in- clude a new section on regulation of un- derground tanks across the country. In 1985, controls on above-ground storage of hazardous materials also spread statewide in California, again drawing on the Santa Clara experience. As part of implementing the ordinance, firms have drilled literally hundreds of groundwater monitoring wells—thereby finding more and more plumes of contam- ination. Cleanups are underway, inade- quate by some perspectives but astound- ing by others. In early 1984, in the midst of all this activity, EPA began a special new cross- media risk assessment project: the Inte- grated Environmental Management Proj- ect or IEMP. This effort is designed to compare toxic risk quantitatively—trisk from different chemical pollutants, indif- ferent pathways (drinking water, air), and from different sources. This project lays the basis for a new style of responsible toxics management, first in Santa Clara County and ultimately nationally. Based on a local risk assessment, priorities can be set for decisions on regulating and man- aging groundwater, THMS, air quality, and so on. EPA’s draft HEMP report issued in September 1985 found risk from chlori- nation of surface water supplies of drink- ing water, and from air toxics, to be gen- erally about the same as similar risks in other urban areas: risks were quite small, though noticeable. Risks from exposure to contaminated groundwater in Santa Clara County were found to be much smaller than risks from air toxics or sur- face water supplies. That is, groundwater contamination in this area, and perhaps elsewhere, does not necessarily equal drinking water risk. The two are related, but not identical. How can this be? With hundreds of toxic leaks or spills in the Silicon Valley, why is public exposure to contaminated water supplies—and therefore risk—so low? In essence, three factors are at work. First, several actions already are being taken by government and by industry to intervene in the risk/exposure pathway to protect the public. Regular monitoring takes place at all 300 drinking water wells serving large water systems. The county 34 DAVID MORELL contains 19 such large public systems, which together serve the overwhelming propor- tion of Santa Clara’s residents. Their wells have been monitored at least quarterly since 1985 to detect the presence of organic chemicals. Wells located near known plumes of groundwater pollution are mon- itored monthly or even weekly. Since risks to health (e.g. cancer) are associated with chronic, long-term exposure to these kinds of chemicals at levels typically measured at a few parts per billion, regular moni- toring provides an essential protective shield. If significant contamination is de- tected, the well can be closed or its water treated prior to use. A pilot program to monitor hundreds of private water supply wells began in 1985. In addition, control and cleanup of ex- isting plumes of groundwater contamina- tion help lessen risk. Groundwater mon- itoring wells—IBM alone now has more than 300—define the spread of each plume and determine its levels of contamination. Extraction wells remove contaminated groundwater and purge it of its volatile organic chemical contaminants, occasion- ally by carbon filtration but normally by aeration in storm sewers. The water, mi- nus its contamination, is then discharged into San Francisco Bay. Industry has al- ready expended in excess of $100 million on all of these cleanup actions since 1981. In contrast, federal Superfund in 1984 al- located a $1 million grant to accelerate groundwater cleanup. As of early 1986, however, this money was essentially still mired in the bureaucracy, not yet contrib- uting substantially to any cleanup. Second, the groundwater aquifers in Santa Clara are complex, and provide a further basis for protection of public health. To simplify, in much of the valley a thick layer of clay divides shallow aquifers (where the contaminant plumes exist) from the deeper aquifers (from which all of the pub- lic supply wells draw their water). In sum, the leaks are shallow but public water sup- ply wells are deep. Geography and hydro- geology do matter. Unfortunately, several thousand abandoned agricultural wells pierce this clay layer, potentially allowing some contaminants to reach the deeper drinking water supplies. Facing this chal- lenge, the independent Santa Clara Valley Water District allocated $800,000 to begin to identify the old wells, and to seal them to preclude the downward migration of the chemicals. Third, when cancer is involved, the best available science tells us that dilution less- ens risk. As opposed to conventional kinds of air and water pollutants, and to non- cancer health effects from toxics, we be- lieve that no exposure thresholds apply to cancer risk (the so-called “‘one molecule theory’). That is, exposure to a small amount of a carcinogen is bad, and ex- posure to more is worse—with no thresh- old level below which zero risk/absolute safety apply. Thus the dilution of these organic solvents into literally billions of gallons of pristine water in underground aquifers lessens risks to public health. Since drinking water wells typically pump si- multaneously from several different lev- els, they further dilute contaminated water with further pristine water. As a result, the gap between groundwater contami- nation and drinking water risk—a real gap, if one not always perceived by a frightened public—diminishes further with dilution. Does all this warrant complacency? No. Definitely not. Several vulnerabilities and issues are now emerging to dominate the agenda for responsible toxics manage- ment: (1) Private wells are doubly vulnerable. They are shallow (where contaminant plumes are found), rather than deep. And except for the county’s pilot pro- gram, they are unmonitored rather than monitored. Santa Clara County in 1986 is mounting an effort to mon- itor over 1,000 of the 5,000 or so pri- vate wells as a way to lessen this vul- nerability. The underground tank and above ground storage ordinances covering industry’s management of its hazard- ous materials need to be fully imple- (2 —_ RESPONSIBLE TOXICS MANAGEMENT 35 mented to protect the public. Given the fragmented situation with most city fire department’s operating their own independent programs, implementa- tion remains somewhat unknown. As a result, the Santa Clara County In- tergovernmental Council has devised a questionnaire to determine the sta- tus of ordinance implementation in each jurisdiction. (3) Classic resource issues are beginning to become more evident in responsi- ble toxics management. Most strik- ingly, the groundwater cleanup ex- traction wells are presently pumping, and discharging to the Bay, some 19 million gallons per day of water (once the contaminants disperse to the air, indeed it’s perfectly pure water). This process was derisively termed “pump and dump” in a late 1985 House of Representatives Committee hearing in San Jose. This is an immense vol- ume of water. In a state where “‘water equals politics”, such discharge is un- likely to be tolerable perpetually. Yet cleanup of contamination by extrac- tion wells inexorably leads to such re- sults when the contamination is pres- ent in only 5 or 10 parts per billion. (4) We need to come to grips with how clean is clean? (Or how safe is ac- ceptable and affordable?) Can we de- vise a process to determine that level of toxic contamination of ground- water (or air) beyond which it is tech- nically infeasible or economically un- acceptable to proceed further with cleanup actions? And will a frightened citizenry accept such a determination (given the zero-threshold concept of cancer risk)? Again, balance is essen- tial—but frustratingly elusive. Work underway in the Santa Clara cleanup in 1986 should provide the nation’s first, fumbling answers to this conundrum. (5) Who pays for cleanup? Polluters, state tax payers, federal Superfund? (6) Managing the aquifer—How can we deal with toxic contamination, and cleanup, of the groundwater basin as a whole rather than simply chasing hundreds of plumes and then pumping dozens of them through extraction wells? As noted, we’re beginning to come to grips with these issues: —private well monitoring —Storage ordinance status. . . pressing for data through the questionnaire studies of drinking water —treatment/chloramination/risk to the public —exploring creation of a fund for over- all aquifer management rather than plume chasing alone. The battle ahead pits pursuit of stan- dards against the values of nondegrada- tion, and frames the debate over respon- sible toxics management in the face of continuing scientific ambiguity standards offer clarity to industry and the public. Unfortunately, they tend to mask the fact that cancer risk exists below standards, at any level of exposure to carcinogens. Stan- dards for individual chemicals mask pos- sible dangers from synergism. And a cyn- ical angry public is not prepared to allow polluters to pollute groundwater—“‘oops, sorry’ —so long as they don’t violate es- tablished health-based standards. So the issues are not risk, per se—but equity and distrust and power and “who pays” de- cisions—classic political economy. Can we achieve zero exposure and zero risk (true nondegradation)? No way! This is simply impossible. But this remains the key public policy goal, and the basis for rebuilding government credibility. Three tests emerge in pursuit of this goal: —technical feasibility —costs of cleanup —benefits in risk reduction, resource conservation, and achievement of other values In sum, a federal paradigm for risk as- sessment along the lines of the IEMP— plus standards—can be combined with lo- cal authority to make local decisions about 36 GLENN PAULSON AND CYNTHIA HERLEIKSON acceptable risk. An informed public can openly weigh the benefits—and costs—of toxic cleanup. Standards can be used to ensure adequate public health protection nationwide, while local areas can go fur- Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 36-43, March 1986 ther in both prevention and cleanup. As a result, a balance between risk and cost, safety and equity can be accomplished. That is, responsible toxics management can b achieved. | From Conflict to Cleanup: The Clean Sites Approach Dr. Glenn Paulson Cynthia Herleikson Vice President, Clean Sites, Inc., 1199 North Fairfax Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314 ABSTRACT Although the Superfund law was enacted specifically to provide a mechanism for pro- moting the cleanup of the nation’s hazardous waste sites, many factors still hindered the site remediation process. Some pertained to the complexity of implementing the new program while others related to the nature of the problems encountered in defining specific site characteristics and in identifying and implementing proper solutions. Clean Sites, Inc. was created in response to a study which identified specific needs in the site cleanup process. This not-for-profit organization has as its sole purpose, the facilitation of hazardous waste site cleanups by encouraging and assisting private party cleanup efforts. By providing negotiation and settlement services, technical reviews and analyses and project manage- ment skills, Clean Sites is able to assist in the cleanup process from beginning to end. Specific benefits which CSI can provide to site cleanups are discussed. Among these are cost and time savings to both responsible parties and the government and independent and unbiased assistance which assures that all parties concerns are addressed. After nearly two years of existence, Clean Sites has made significant progress at many sites. Current activities and plans for future activities are summarized. In the past, our nation has carried out and even condoned some hazardous waste disposal practices that we all would now consider bizarre. Over time, we have im- proved, but storage, handling and final de- struction or disposal practices still leave much to be desired. In response to growing public concern about the environmental and Public health threats posed by abandoned hazardous waste disposal sites found in every part of the United States, Congress passed, in 1980, the Comprehensive Environmental Re- sponse Compensation and Liability Act, popularly known as “Superfund”. The creation of Superfund came amid high CLEAN SITES 37 hopes that it would be a major step for- ward in providing protection against the nation’s thousands of abandoned hazard- ous waste sites. In particular, grave con- cern existed concerning the threats such sites pose to surface water, ground water, and public health. Not surprisingly, hazardous waste cleanup has proven to be a far larger and more complicated task than many imag- ined in 1980. The difficulty encountered reflects in part the fact that the problem of abandoned hazardous waste site cleanup developed as a consequence of many years of ignorance, neglect and, in some cases, intentional wrongdoing. The hazardous waste problem is also a result of the technological revolution that improved the standard of living for Americans but also had some unintended consequences for both the environment and _ public health. Ironically, the problem also reflects a dramatic improvement in scientific ability to detect minute quantities of potentially hazardous substances—down to parts per billion and even lower. These improved capabilities leave the scientific community struggling to define the precise health and environmental threats—both short and long term—from minute quantities of hazardous sub- stances. In turn, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is presented with a very difficult job: proceeding with waste site cleanup at a time when new research is changing the nation’s understanding of the nature of the requirements for cleanup. EPA estimates there are about 20,000 potentially hazardous waste sites in the United States, and that as many as 2,000 or more may be serious enough to warrant placing on its Superfund National Priori- ties List (NPL) of the nation’s worst sites (see Figure 1). It may cost the government nearly $23 billion to clean up sites on the list. (Other estimates of both sites and costs are even higher.) Currently, about 850 sites have been placed on the list. Consider the Superfund process. After a site has been placed on the NPL, it must be determined whether the site will move toward cleanup through government en- forcement action, or voluntary action in- volving the parties responsible for pollu- tion at the site (see Figure 2). When the government decides a cleanup is needed to protect public health and the environ- ment, the potentially responsible parties may negotiate a settlement among them- selves that paves the way for them to con- duct a governmentally approved cleanup. LONG-TERM CLEANUP PROJECTIONS 1,741 18 17 ae one a TOW wR 8 PR Rcd LAs TE Al on es fe aS a 228 (gPRTETT Number 9 6 S marr Si = —$-N 1 rood 1 sab WN 1982 1985 1990 Emergency Cleanups fe coi td Lae he RET 1982 1985 1990 1982 1985 1990 Engineering Construction® Studies * includes commitments for construction by responsibie parties as part of administrative or judicial enforcement action. Fig. 1 38 GLENN PAULSON AND CYNTHIA HERLEIKSON THE NPL SITE PROCESS SITE ACTIVITY Remedial Site Feasibility Action Ranking Study (Surface) Remedial Remedial Remedial Investigation Design Action (Groundwater) SUPERFUND PROCESS Identifying Government. Responsible Parties Develops Evidence Negotiation of Agreement Government Recovery Technical Review Litigation Fig. 2 If the responsible parties do not respond in a timely manner, EPA may undertake the cleanup, and then later sue the re- sponsible parties to recover funds spent by the government. It is important to note that the govern- ment has a powerful enforcement tool at its disposal, “‘joint and several lability.” This means that any single individual or company that dumped hazardous sub- stances at a site can be held liable for the bulk of the cleanup costs. In short, the Superfund law, and gen- eral government policy (as well as recent court actions) all work to encourage vol- untary hazardous waste site cleanups wherever possible. Moreover, a basic sense of fairness makes it seem reasonable that the parties contributing to the problem should also contribute to the solution. Progress has, however, been painfully slow. Federal and state officials involved in this issue report a common dilemma. Even while the general public demands vigorous Superfund activity there is sig- nificant local opposition to many site cleanup plans. Another impediment to ac- tion is the highly complex nature of cleanup regulation, often involving several differ- ent layers of government. This situation is paralyzing action at many sites, particularly at multi-party sites where there may be scores or even hundreds of potentially responsible parties, or PRPs. Such parties potentially responsible for waste at a site can include those who pro- duced the waste and those who trans- ported it, as well as site owners and op- erators. They can include a wide range of private individuals, corporations, and agencies of local, state and federal gov- ernment. It was amid this background that Clean Sites was established in May, 1984, as an independent, non-profit corporation with a single objective: to help accelerate the cleanup of hazardous waste sites by en- couraging cost-effective, voluntary private party cleanups. How did this happen? In the summer of 1983, a group of cor- porate and environmental leaders and for- mer public servants gathered under the auspices of The Conservation Foundation to examine the obstacles blocking volun- tary cleanups and to try to determine how the process might be expedited. This group investigated several sites where remedial actions were being planned or were ac- tually under way. Their goal was to find out which approaches worked, which did CLEAN SITES 39 not, and whether experience could lead to more practical solutions. The panel concluded the United States lacked a single, comprehensive mecha- nism that is specifically designed to ade- quately manage the cleanup of individual hazardous waste sites over the long term. They discovered that the skills that were missing from cleanup actions were not so much technical skills as they were mana- gerial capability properly focused on the various pieces of the problem. Specific questions of legal liability were also found to be significant stumbling blocks to agree- ments. More importantly, the panel found what was missing was an equitable and effective process that would encourage re- sponsible parties to allocate cleanup costs among themselves through negotiations. Because the group was searching for new answers to hazardous waste cleanup, it looked for solutions outside the bounds of government and taxpayer funds. The study panel suggested setting up a new mecha- nism to reduce the types of conflict found at sites, amechanism that would work spe- cifically to enhance collaboration among the parties responsible for the waste and to facilitate cooperation among all the in- volved parties. This resulted in the for- mation of Clean Sites, Inc. (CSI). Because any new institution that pro- poses to play an active role in such a com- plex protess can be misunderstood, it is important to emphasize what Clean Sites is and is not. * CSlis an independent, non-profit, non- partisan organization committed to protecting public health and the en- vironment (see Figure 3). We depend on financial support from founda- tions, corporations, organized labor and private citizens. We also depend on businesses, public interest groups and academic institutions for donated personnel and expert advice. CSI is a way to extend EPA’s effec- tiveness in site cleanups. CSI is a fa- cilitator to help the government, and the parties potentially responsible for pollution at a site, accomplish settle- ments that are in the public interest. CSI is structured to enter the cleanup process along its entire spectrum. Fig- ure 3 shows the number of sites at various entry points for CSI as of late 1985. CSI is an additional source of profes- sional and technical expertise to pro- vide guidance and interpretation con- cerning proper cleanup, and an independent source of project man- agement talent to direct the agreed- upon cleanup. CSI is NOT a replacement for, but rather a complement to, the EPA. CSI will not substitute for government in deciding what is the proper level of cleanup. CSI is NOT a replacement for a strong Superfund law. In fact, CSI’s success will depend on an amply-funded Su- CSI POINTS OF ENTRY 2 3 \F--\/ Ranking Interim Remedial Measures (IRM) Remedial Remedial Design (RD) Action (RA) *Texas Regional Sites Found Along Entire Spectrum Fig. 3 40 GLENN PAULSON AND CYNTHIA HERLEIKSON perfund backed up by strong and con- sistent federal enforcement activities that provide the essential incentives to voluntary cleanup. CSI will NOT be a source of funds to pay for site cleanup—potentially re- sponsible parties and the government must be that source. Finally, let me emphasize that CSI is NOT the sole answer to the nation’s hazardous waste problems. We are now involved in various kinds of ac- tive work at 36 sites. Our ultimate goal is to be active at 60 sites by our third year of existence. Yet, even this level of effort cannot address the ma- jority of sites the nation hopes to clean up during this period (see Figure 4). * *% In effect, Clean Sites is a mechanism to focus additional resources on the hazard- ous waste problem. CSI provides a chan- nel for bringing new resources together, and targeting them on specific projects that the government might not otherwise be able to address in the near term. In doing so, CSI can help shorten the time between the identification of a problem and the implementation of its solution (see Figure 3}. We believe that the models and meth- odologies we are using and developing at Clean Sites can be extremely effective in facilitating private party cleanups. CSI can save the parties substantial time and effort in the legal and administrative activities needed to achieve a governmentally ap- proved, environmentally sound settlement (see Figures 6 and 7). To help achieve such settlements, CSI will provide the means to facilitate poten- tially responsible parties coming together. CSI can provide private conference facil- ities and teams of negotiating experts at the conference facilities in our Alexan- dria, Virginia, headquarters. Of equal im- portance, negotiations are also taking place at other appropriate locations, often in the areas where the sites are located. Remedial cleanup projects done quickly will not replace cleanups done well. Af- fected citizens, industry, and government are all concerned that remedies employed to rehabilitate a site must protect the pub- lic health and environment. CSI has avail- able to it—both in-house and through consultants—a technical review and com- pliance capability that is both independ- ent, and of the highest quality. This en- sures that remedies meet the standards of a changing technology. CSI can implement approved cleanup remedies through its project management teams. All projects are subject to stringent DEFINING THE HAZARDOUS SITE PROBLEM 19,668 20,000 N ek ig et et wt eth ot ot ot et A) aNWALUIANOOO .NWLUIMDNDBOO Number of Sites (Thousands) N \N 850 WW Pee Ee eae eee N Qari eae pmpeta WSS @ 12/31/84 9/30/85 12/31/64 9/30/85 12/31/84 9/30/85 9/5/85 Inventory Sites Sites Sites of Sites Assessed Inspected on NPL Actual Projected Fig. 4 CLEAN SITES 41 CAN CLEAN SITES REDUCE THE COST OF CLEANUP? Fund - Transaction Costs: Recovery ) Industry Government QQ“ WLLL Technical Costs: Industry Government BG Construction Costs: Industry @ Government Clean Sites Settlement Typical Settlement OV Wa: MSS Yl With the Conservative Assumption That Transaction Costs Are Amounting to One Half of the Total Costs of NPL Sites Then Full Clean Sites Involvement Can Help Achieve These Savings: Fund %Saved CSI Savings Transaction 50% 50-90% 25-45% Technical 15% 40-70% 7-10% Construction 35% 20-40% 7-14% Total 100% 39-69% Fig. 5 quality assurance/quality control require- ments, as well as other standards. Overall, CSI is becoming an increas- ingly effective repository of settlement, managerial, and technical expertise—al- lowing the knowledge gained through several cleanups to be stored in one in- stitution, digested, used again by us, communicated for use by others. At the root of CSI is the assumption that the private sector has developed the experience to carry out complex projects in a safe, well-managed and cost-effective manner. Industry has many resources— managerial as well as material—that often permit it to accomplish projects at less cost but with the same quality as the public CLEAN-UP AND TRANSACTION COSTS 25 PRPs EPA Private Party csi $6.9 Million $8.8 Million $16.2 Million &) Clean-Up ©) Transaction Fig. 6 sector. In the waste site cleanup process, this can mean savings in construction, technical and transaction costs (see Fig- ures 5, 6, and 7). CSI can also reduce the cost of getting an approved settlement for potentially re- sponsible parties. These transaction costs can mount up quickly and contribute little to getting the site cleaned up. Potentially responsible parties can waste millions of dollars duplicating each other’s efforts to attribute cleanup cost liability. Conserving public resources is equally important. Agencies face heavy demands on their personnel and financial resources. Using government funds to pursue poten- tially responsible parties through litigation is not the most cost-effective or quickest path to cleanup, especially when settle- ment is possible. Allocating costs for site cleanup is a dif- ficult task requiring good faith negotia- tions among all the responsible parties. Issues of fairness, technological and sci- entific feasibility and economic viability become major factors during discussions. Potentially responsible parties will be re- luctant to undertake voluntary cleanups if they do not believe the outcome of ne- gotiations will be fair. 42 GLENN PAULSON AND CYNTHIA HERLEIKSON CLEAN-UP AND TRANSACTION COSTS 100 PRPs EPA Private Party CSI GP WW, $7.6 Million $10.2 Million ii [) Clean-Up $24.3 Million C( Transaction Fig. 7 CSI can offer a more cost-effective pro- cedure that allows responsible parties more involvement in the remedial solution at a site, while still meeting government stan- dards. CSI, in providing a neutral territory and skilled negotiators, can help assure affected parties their views will be heard and addressed. As I’ve already discussed, many site cleanups are lengthy, costly, and complex projects; some are more simple. The basic Superfund process outlined by the EPA is a multi-step one (see Figure 2). * Ifa site is thought to pose a long-term threat, it is given a hazard ranking score, based on its threat to the sur- rounding population and its ground water, surface water, soil, and air. If a site is judged sufficiently hazardous, it is placed on the National Priorities List. Any site cleanup must include com- prehensive scientific and technical studies to determine the full facts and best means of proceeding. The re- medial investigation involves a field study that determines the nature and extent of the contamination. The fea- sibility study then evaluates the in- formation obtained in the remedial investigation in order to determine the proper, cost-effective response that assures a site cleanup that adequately protects public health and the envi- ronment. * The next step, the remedial design, establishes the engineering plan nec- essary to remedy threats or potential threats from a hazardous waste site. The remedial action is the physical work at the site involving implemen- tation of the appropriate cleanup op- tions. | If ground water is threatened, long- term monitoring, pumping, and treat- ing of that water may be necessary. In such a complex situation, effective, positive interaction among technical ex- perts, responsible parties, government agencies and affected citizens will char- acterize successful cleanups. Carrying out this sort of project is a challenge requiring advanced managerial skills and_ tech- niques. CSI is working closely with leaders of industry, government and public inter- est groups to bring these skills to bear on solving the hazardous waste problem. The sites we are now working on cover a wide range of activities. Whether it is working on cluster settlements, allocation mechanisms, remedial studies or actual re- moval and incineration of wastes, we be- lieve CSI is showing its value to all parties concerned about hazardous waste. Credibility can be a major stumbling block to public acceptance of particular site remedies. For the public to believe that a site is being cleaned up in the best way possible, citizens must be assured that effective measures are being taken to pro- tect public health and the environment. In this kind of situation, a two-way flow of information is essential to build this cred- ibility. The “public” affected by hazardous waste sites is broad. It includes community res- idents, responsible parties, government officials, public interest groups, and the news media. To be responsive to these di- verse groups, CSI has a Public Account- ability Office that is working with the en- tire CSI staff and reports to the president and executive vice president. It wasn’t too long ago that we at CSI CLEAN SITES 43 talked about our organization as a “‘con- cept.” CSI is no longer just a concept. We are building models for negotiation, ar- bitration, and allocation that, we believe, will significantly advance the state of the art in waste site settlement development. We are receiving site suggestions from a variety of affected parties and have been asked to work at 130 sites. The invitations have come from industry, government, and community groups. Since we clearly can- not work on that many sites, the challenge we face is to carefully screen and select them. At present (February 1986), we are active at 20 site situations, comprising 36 individual sites. Three site agreements are completed; five are pending before EPA. One cleanup will be complete by spring; other interim remedial work is underway. We are working with 1,200 responsible parties. This covers 15 industrial sectors, all levels of government (local, county, state, and federal) and non-profits (uni- versities and hospitals). CSI evaluation of information has been the key to allocations at 24 sites. Thor- ough, unbiased evaluation, sometimes uti- lizing specially created computer data base systems to handle thousands of docu- ments, is critical to derive allocations. CSI hopes to provide benefits to society far beyond our direct involvement at sites. We plan to accomplish this by developing specific models of settlements and reme- dial cleanup activities, and by showing the way toward a consensus-based environ- mental policy for the 1980s that is less ad- versarial and more cooperative in nature, but that still protects the public interest. This means building relationships with and among citizens, corporations, all levels of government and other concerned people. We have made significant progress already and expect to continue and broaden our efforts in the future. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 44-48, March 1986 Waste Reduction: Industry’s Challenge | J. Howard Todd Director, Safety, Health, and Environmental Affairs E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company ABSTRACT Industry has a challenge to both society and its stockholders to minimize the generation of waste. There are both short and long term benefits which result in reduced costs and the potential for environmental problems. The 1984 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Amendments provide increased incentives to minimize waste. However, the economics of good waste management practices will continue to drive the effort. Several examples within Du Pont are cited which demonstrate how advances in technology have permitted better control of the manufacturing process. The need for high standards for operations, housekeeping and training are also shown to be key elements in a successful waste reduction effort. Du Pont’s organizational structure is described as it relates to environmental policy and implementation of programs such as waste minimization. It incorporates engineering, marketing and research functions to identify the best methods to manage wastes. The government’s obligation to design regulations which encourage reuse and recycle is also highlighted. It’s a pleasure to be here today and to have the opportunity to participate on this panel. The challenge industry faces in re- ducing waste centers upon optimizing, for the common good, the use of the limited resources that we traditionally devoted solely to the production of goods and serv- ices. On a May night in 1927—about half- way across the North Atlantic—I’m sure that optimal use of a limited resource, fuel, must have been uppermost in the mind of Charles Lindbergh. Like him, if we in in- dustry are to accomplish our mission of reducing waste in the most effective man- ner, we must keep optimal use of re- sources continually in mind. This frames the principal challenge we in industry face 44 as we investigate ways to reduce genera- tion of waste. The challenge to reduce the amount of waste generated is directed by the society in which we operate and by our stock- holders. Industry’s responsibility is to both and they are of equal importance. Both sectors can benefit from waste re- duction. Stockholders benefit through re- duced production costs and a reduction of potential future liabilities. These increase both short and long term profits. In short, waste minimization is simply good busi- ness. Society benefits in several ways. The potential for both short and long term en- vironmental problems is reduced. And, we INDUSTRIAL WASTE REDUCTION 45 are able to more efficiently use our limited natural resources. Finally, reduced waste will inevitably lead to lower cost for prod- ucts, and thus, a higher standard of living for all Americans. Considering these benefits, it should come as no surprise that waste minimi- zation is not new to industry. However, to be candid, recent government regula- tions have added an incentive to industry’s efforts in this area. In 1984, a Federal law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, estab- lished for the first time a national policy for waste management. The waste min- imization section of this law can be com- pared to the energy conservation mea- sures of the early 1970s. The severe limitations on land disposal practices in- creases the economic incentive for waste minimization. However, it is the consid- ered opinion of most experts who are fol- lowing the major developments in waste minimization policy, that in the long term it will not be the law, per se, that will fuel waste minimization efforts, but rather the basic economics of good waste manage- ment practices. My intent here is to provide some his- tory and background, to develop the cri- teria for an effective waste reduction pro- gram, describe how one company—Du Pont—approaches the effort, and, finally, cover some of the barriers which tend to inhibit this activity. Reviewing waste management from a historical perspective, past minimization efforts by industry were driven primarily by economics. It is, after all, quite basic to expect the most efficient producer of a given product to have the best competitive position and to be the most profitable. Continuing research efforts devoted to achieving less waste have been an ongoing activity in competitive industries such as the chemical industry. A classic example of this is illustrated by the manufacture of polyethylene. Developed about the time of World War II, this polymer found im- mediate application as an insulating ma- terial for electrical cables. At the time, manufacturing costs were high due to problems associated with a new process and product yields from the raw materials were only 10—20 percent. The selling price exceeded one dollar per pound. Research to improve the manufacturing process led to significant yield improve- ments over the years. Today, unreacted raw material is recycled and overall yield of polyethylene has increased signifi- cantly. Yields typically exceed 95 percent. Naturally, the expected happened. Waste was reduced; cost and, in turn, selling prices decreased. End uses multiplied and the benefits to society expanded. Today, uses of this material are vast and it sells for about 35 cents per pound. This equates to approximately 7 cents per pound in 1947 dollars, a reduction of roughly 93 percent over the past four decades. This is the most effective method of waste management, i.e. improving the manufac- turing process so that what was once waste is now productive end product. Advances in technology leading to waste reduction have not, however, been limited to process improvements. Some of the most dramatic advances have been made, and continue to be made, in the systems used to control waste generation itself. Ad- vances have been possible in this area pri- marily due to the use of improved instru- ment systems, among them computers. While the use of large computer systems is costly and complex, these barriers are continually being reduced with the rapid advances being experienced in the elec- tronics industry. Today, small microproc- essors are relatively inexpensive, easy to install, and can be tailored to the needs of small operations. They continue to hold large promise in our efforts to reduce waste generation. Computers enable us to sample condi- tions, compare the results with other pa- rameters and make needed corrections with much greater sophistication than in the past. The net result is more precise control of the manufacturing process; and, there- fore, reduced energy requirements, better raw material utilization, and better prod- 46 J. HOWARD TODD uct quality. All of these ultimately lend to more pounds of product per pound of in- gredient and less waste generation. A good example of this technology ap- plied to a real world problem is provided by our LaPorte, Texas, facility. Installa- tion of a microprocessor on the steam boil- ers at that site has enabled us to reduce the amount of wastewater generated by over 12 million gallons per year. The sys- tem is simple and reliable. Maintenance needs are minimal. It is important to defuse the impression that waste reduction is solely a result of technological change. Equally as impor- tant are high operating standards, good training and good housekeeping practices. In this area, opportunities for waste re- duction are numerous. They include care- ful cleaning of process equipment to re- duce quantities of waste, improved techniques for loading and unloading of equipment to reduce contamination, and proper connecting and disconnecting of hoses and lines to reduce spills and pre- vent quality problems. These become ac- cepted practices only if they are important to management. Despite the obvious economic incen- tives, waste minimization programs do not develop automatically. A commitment from senior management is necessary. A policy must be developed; sensitivity and knowIl- edge of the issue must exist at all levels of the organization. A program must be es- tablished by those responsible for each op- eration. Goals must be set so that per- formance can be measured. Finally, an audit system must be established to de- termine progress and, the progress must be communicated throughout the organ- ization. Within the Du Pont Company, waste minimization efforts are centralized in ap- propriate committees of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors. The two most prominent committees within Du Pont are the Environmental Quality Committee (EQC) and the Man- ufacturing Committee (MC). Corporate policy for safety, health and environmen- tal affairs is established by the EQC and implementation of this policy is accom- plished through the Manufacturing Com- mittee. The latter is comprised of the heads of the manufacturing operation from each industrial department. A subcommit- tee of the manufacturing committee—the Hazardous Waste Advisory Committee (HWAC)—has been established for the purpose of coordinating activities associ- ated with hazardous waste. Two principal objectives of this group are to: 1) to provide guidelines for waste reduction ef- forts and, 2) to insure that innovative ap- proaches are communicated throughout the company. In addition, the HWAC is working to define corporate waste reduc- tion goals and techniques for measuring and communicating progress toward those goals. This group has the backing and commitment of the highest levels of man- agement within the company. This organ- izational commitment results in awareness in all the sectors of the company and high- lights the importance of waste reduction. We use our engineering, marketing, and research functions to identify the best methods to manage waste. Included are process modifications to improve yields, selection of new, different raw materials to reduce toxicity, improvement of waste recovery systems and, in some cases, de- velopment markets for by-product mate- rials or materials that were once consid- ered waste. Let me just highlight three examples of how this can work: 1. At our Corpus Christi plant we man- ufacture “Freon” which generates significant quantities of anhydrous hydrogen chloride as a by-product. As a matter of fact, at full production capacity, it generates about 350 mil- lion pounds per year of this by-prod- uct. The conventional method for handling this material would be to quench it with water and dispose INDUSTRIAL WASTE REDUCTION 47 of it as a hydrochloric acid waste. Instead, for both economic and en- vironmental reasons, the plant in- stalled a $16 million conversion unit to produce chlorine from this by- product. The chlorine is reused in the “Freon” manufacturing opera- tion—that’s 315 million pounds per year of chlorine. Incidentally, the hydrogen which evolves is piped to the boilers and burned safely as fuel. 2. At our Edge Moor, Delaware, plant we manufacture titanium dioxide pigment. A by-product from this op- eration is a significant quantity of aqueous iron chloride. In the past, this material was barged to sea for disposal. As a result of R&D and engineering efforts, this material has been upgraded so that it can be used by water and wastewater treatment facilities as a coagulant. Marketing efforts have resulted in the sale of 65—75 thousand tons per year. 3. At our Victoria, Texas, plant, where we manufacture numerous interme- diates for synthetic fibers, significant quantities of nonchlorinated hydro- carbons are generated as waste. Typ- ically, these solvents had been burned in two incinerators on the plant. While this method did destroy the waste, and was environmentally sound, it was costly. Today, the incinerators have been dismantled and these sol- vents are being burned in our pow- erhouse to generate steam for the manufacturing process. Last year alone, the plant saved more than $10 million in fuel oil costs by burning these wastes as fuel. It is interesting to note that while all of the examples I have cited result in waste reduction, different techniques are em- ployed. There was better utilization of the primary raw material resulting in an im- proved yield of polyethylene, and less waste. Chlorine was generated from a by- product of the original Freon manufac- turing operation. It is recycled back to the beginning of the process as a raw material. Both of these examples are considered re- duction of wastes at the source and at the same time they can be termed recycling of materials. In the ferric chloride example in the past, we had disposed of this material as a waste. We have converted it to a co-product: In the Victoria example we have also taken material, which was being disposed of as a waste and directed it to a beneficial pur- pose—a fuel source. While these cases do not return material to the primary process, they still meet our stockholder and socie- tal obligations. We are no longer discard- ing a resource. In addition to accepting the challenge associated with waste reduction at the source, Du Pont believes government should share in the effort by designing reg- ulations so that they encourage sound en- vironmental practices to minimize waste generation. I would like to highlight two areas where this is not the case. First—the definition of solid waste in the regulations is such that many facilities recycling hazardous materials would be required to obtain RCRA permits. One result will be significant increases in costs due largely to the administrative workload for no improvement in our ability to pro- tect the environment. Another result will be the public perception that this benefi- cial recycling constitutes disposal of waste, when just the opposite is true. Second—flammable solvents, which are by-products of a process, are classified as a hazardous waste. Due to this classifi- cation, the freight cost for such materials is significantly higher than it is on the in- coming solvent—which, in many cases, has essentially the same hazard. The original producer must also have a RCRA permit before he can receive and purify these ma- terials for reuse. This inhibits recycle or reuse of solvents by adding an unnecessary administrative burden. Although the intent of the regulations is good, I question whether they in fact 48 MICHAEL J. BEAN promote implementation of a national policy to minimize waste generation. Jf we truly seek to encourage implementation of programs designed to reduce generation of waste, we should make it more attractive to conduct recycle or reuse activities which benefit the environment and the economy. Industry’s responsibility with respect to waste reduction is multifaceted. We have a responsibility to continue to improve our processes and operations so that waste re- duction results in improved earnings for our stockholders. More importantly, we have a responsibility to the society in which we operate to protect the environment while continuing to improve the American standard of living. If American industry is to discharge these responsibilities, the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 48-50, March 1986 challenge is to create an organizational commitment to this effort and a working culture which fosters sensitivity and knowledge of the issue at all levels in the organization. I believe this challenge has been accepted within Du Pont and within American industry. As a result, we will see considerable reductions in the per- centage of waste generated per pound of product produced, just as we have seen reductions in the consumption of energy over the last 10 years. In order to improve upon this effort, we must continually mod- ify the way we operate. Perhaps Peter Drucker, the business consultant, put it best when he said. . . “the only means of conservation— is innovation.” Biological Diversity and Development: A Legal Perspective Michael J. Bean, Esq. Chairperson, Wildlife Program, Environmental Defense Fund The goal of economic development, whether within an industrialized nation like the United States or the mostly rural na- tions of the Third World, has often been perceived to be at odds with that of en- vironmental protection. That perception, which causes trouble enough here, where the common aspiration is to make a very good standard of living even better, pre- sents an immense challenge elsewhere, where many aspire only to improve upon a bare subsistence standard of living. That challenge is even more difficult when the environmental resources at stake are not clean water needed for human consump- tion or productive soils for crops, but rather living wild species offering no immediate, discernible benefit to human welfare. Despite this troubling perception, the scientists on this panel and elsewhere as- sure us that, in fact, the advancement of human welfare and the protection of bi- ological diversity are intimately bound to- gether. Indeed, the prospects for long-term, BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT 49 sustainable development depend in part on our ability to refrain from unraveling the intricate web of life in which we our- selves are placed. This is because living wild resources are the reservoir from which we will need to draw many of our future discoveries in medicine, agriculture, and industry. It is also because collectively they perform a myriad of ecological services, from storm water retention and pollutant consumption to photosynthesis itself, that are essential for our well being. If we assume the scientists are right, two clear imperatives emerge. One is to enact laws and design and implement programs for the conservation of biological diver- sity. There are several such laws and pro- grams in the United States. Perhaps the best known of them is the federal endan- gered species program spawned by the En- dangered Species Act of 1973. The Endangered Species Act has often been described—both in the United States and elsewhere—as model legislation for the rest of the world. Its stated goal, quite simply, is to prevent the avoidable extinc- tion of wild plants and animals. The means it uses to attain this goal include prohi- bitions on hunting and trade, the acqui- sition and protection of important habitat, and a rather novel command to federal government agencies that none of their actions jeopardize the survival of any threatened or endangered species. These are the familiar tools with which legisla- tors have long attacked wildlife conserva- tion problems—prohibitions, commands, and public expenditures for land acquisi- tions. How well have these familiar tools fared in the effort to prevent the extinction of species? There are, most assuredly, some signal successes. Two that you may see near here are the American alligator and the brown pelican. Restrictions on hunt- ing have enabled the former to recover, while the latter, along with the bald eagle, and peregrine falcon, owes its recent re- surgence to the elimination of DDT and other persistent pesticides. These exam- ples illustrate the very important point that the road to extinction can be reversed and that this can be done without significantly retarding or affecting economic growth. At the same time, however, the limits of what can be achieved through such con- servation programs are becoming increas- ingly apparent. Today, nearly 400 species of plants and animals in the United States enjoy the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Yet more than twice the num- ber have been identified as needing the Act’s protection, but still await the slow process of adding them to the protected lists. Many of these have declined dra- matically while awaiting the Act’s protec- tion; some have disappeared altogether. Even for species that have long benefitted from the Act’s protection, survival has not been guaranteed. Three of the best known of these, three species that have been pro- tected since the very inception of the en- dangered species program, are closer now the brink of extinction than ever before. The California condor, of which perhaps three dozen birds still survived in the late 1970’s is now down to only five or six birds in the wild. The black footed ferret had one known population with nearly 130 an- imals in it in 1984; now perhaps no more than three animals survive in the wild. Fi- nally, right here at Disney World, the last two specimens of the dusky seaside spar- row—both males—await the certain end of their species. Add to these specific ex- amples the general problem of inadequate funds for habitat acquisition and other re- covery efforts, and one can better under- stand why the model conservation legis- lation we so often tout here is unlikely to stem the torrent of species losses now oc- curring in much of the rest of the world. If conservation laws and conservation programs, by themselves, are not suffi- cient to serve the goal of preserving bio- logical diversity, what then is the second imperative in order to heed the scientists’ warning that development, to be sus- tained, must ensure the protection of bi- ological diversity. The answer, I think, is that the full force of our intellectual efforts must be given over, not to decrying the 50 MICHAEL J. BEAN adverse environmental effects of devel- opment, but to promoting development in ways that reduce both social and environ- mental costs. To assure you that this is more than just an abstraction, let me offer one current, concrete example from within my own organization. Southern California, as most of you know, has the unusual characteristics of being very dry and very populous. The region’s potential for growth depends upon the availability of water. Historically, to supply water to the burgeoning popula- tions of Los Angeles and other metropol- itan areas, the region looked east to the Colorado River and north to the scenic rivers of northern California. Dams and diversions drastically altered the environ- ments and the diversity of many of these rivers. Today, growth and the thirst for still more new sources of water continue. At the same time, between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a new problem has come to be recognized within the last few years. Through irrigation, the normally arid San Joaquin River Valley has become one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. But because of the area’s geology, irrigation water becomes trapped near the surface unless drained by sub- surface tiles. These tiles carry the drained water through conduits that eventually empty into the large evaporating ponds that comprise the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge. About two years ago, people began to notice serious abnormal- ities and high mortality among the water- fowl using the Refuge. The cause, it was determined, was selenium, a trace ele- ment being leached from the soils of the San Joaquin River Valley by irrigation water. The impulse that has perhaps become too common in the environmental move- ment was to recommend the drastic step of cutting off irrigation water to the val- ley—drastic, because it would put an end to agriculture itself in the region. Some environmentalists recommended exactly that. But we at the Environmental De- fense Fund searched for a positive alter- native that might solve the problems of both the waterfowl at Kesterson and the fisheries and other wildlife of the northern California rivers being eyed for future dams. What we have recommended is that the irrigation wastewater be collected and treated in reverse osmosis desalting plants, and the resulting brine placed in solar ponds for electricity production. The technolo- gies for both of these processes are recent and tested, though on a smaller scale than envisioned here. The products of these processes are clean water and electricity and a concentrated waste that can be more easily and safely disposed of. Because the irrigators are the beneficiaries of the long- term, low-cost federal water supply con- tracts, they could, at a substantial profit, sell the reclaimed water to Los Angeles for less than the city would have to pay for the same amount of water from new dams. One of the jobs for our lawyers has been to persuade the federal government that water it supplies to irrigators can law- fully be resold in this way. Assuming those institutional hurdles can be cleared, the net result is that Los Angeles can meet its immediate water supply needs without building more dams, productive irrigated agriculture can continue in the San Joa- quin River Valley, and the waterfowl of the valley cease to be threatened by the hazard of selenium. In short, the goals of development and protection of wildlife and the environment can both be served. The challenge facing all of us concerned about biological diversity and develop- ment is to multiply examples like this both in the United States and in the rest of the world. Often, as in the example cited, novel technologies will be needed and, equally often, the legal challenge of adapting in- stitutions to faciliate those novel technol- Ogies will be essential. In this way, we can perhaps begin to change the perception that the goals of economic development and environmental protection are at odds. By changing that perception, the objective of preserving biological diversity embod- ied in our conservation laws and programs will gain important allies. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 51-55, March 1986 Zoological Parks and Aquariums—Bridges of Learning Lanny H. Cornell, D.V.M. Vice President, Zoological Director, Sea World, Inc. Charles Lindbergh said “the Human Future depends on our ability to combine the knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness” .. . nature. Wise words. It is evident from this gathering of respected leaders from state and Federal govern- ment, industry, academia and the envi- ronmental community, that we acknowl- edge and agree with the wisdom of this statement. The richness and diversity of our natural resources promote a multitude of uses that are deserving of responsible stewardship. Technology has made many important ad- vances and improvements for mankind through the manipulation of the physical and biological elements of our biosphere. And yet, new technology has brought with it some problems, i.e., atomic energy/nu- clear war, pharmaceuticals/illegal drugs, chemicals/toxic wastes, space exploration/ tragic accidents, and fears that genetic en- gineering will bring us Aldous Huxley’s “brave new world.” But the benefits of technology overcompensate for the neg- atives. And because progress is an on-going process, we must continue to monitor ex- isting programs, increase our research ca- pabilities, and where necessary, make programmatic readjustments. We must prove that technology is not poison. From experience, we at Sea World know 51 that constructive progress can best be made in an atmosphere of mutual concern and cooperation. The Charles A. Lindbergh Symposium “‘Technology and Environ- ment: The Search for Balance,” is a timely and important dialog on this important subject. It is my hope that this and other forums of its kind will be successful in pro- moting a thoughtful, cooperative and con- structive discussion of the important promises that science and technology hold for the world in 1986 and beyond. Let us interrelate our areas of expertise and work with one another . . . collectively, to de- velop safe, new technologies. We must never give up our hopes of understanding and improving our world . . . in striking a balance. Zoological parks and aquariums in the U.S. have an abiding interest in the im- plementation of Charles Lindbergh’s phi- losophy. We approach this from a stand- point of providing to the public education, recreation and cultural enjoyment through the scientific study and conservation of wildlife. In this way we endeavor to pro- mote a greater awareness, understanding, and appreciation of wildlife and their en- vironment. We do this with the hope of contributing to a more informed and re- sponsive citizenship in tomorrow’s tech- nological society. At the same time our 52 LANNY H. CORNELL roles in biological research, and our very significant commitment to the provision of sanctuary for endangered and threatened wildlife, are undisputably important. That, you think, seems a bit overwhelm- ing? Sometimes we think so as well. What, then, keeps all this in focus? Learning. The goal of every institution is to become a bridge between its visitor, staff, and the natural environment. We cross that bridge as ‘“‘learners.’’ From the first-time visitor to the long-time research director, there are functions at work within these insti- tutions that motivate learning. These functions are research, education, and recreation. Obviously, each function must be approached within differing perspec- tives. But because the goal is learning, there is no conflict in these differing perspec- tives. Today I wish to share with you the in- tegral roles these functions have played in advancing “‘the knowledge of science with the wisdom of nature.”’ Research Function The problems of conserving threatened species are enormous. The U.S. Endan- gered Species Act lists a conservative 828 species, 331 of which are found in the U.S. But the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and other interna- tional organizations list even more. U.S. zoological institutions are making important contributions to international conservation through captive breeding programs, scientific research, and other types of conservation efforts. These ef- forts call for coordination and cooperation among all institutions concerned with a particular captive species. Increasingly, the community will work together, as consor- tiums, to fund large and expensive field projects, as well. Captive propagation programs make contributions to interna- tional conservation objectives by 1) pro- vision of alternative refuge for species fac- ing extinction due to loss of habitat, 2) provision of animals where and when ap- propriate for repopulation of natural hab- itat, and 3) when the odds no longer favor survival, to delay extinction through cap- tive propagation for the purpose of con- servation/education programs, 1.e., as liv- ing monuments to a species extinct in its free state. In addition to the intrinsic reasons for our efforts, species should be saved from extinction in order to maintain ecosystem stability. And, of course, the disappear- ance of any species is a tragic loss of sci- entific information with potential appli- cation to future human needs. Species helped by zoological breeding projects include the Pere David deer, Przewalskii’s horse, the European bison, Nene goose, snow leopard, Humboldt’s penguin, trumpeter swan, black rhino, hippopotamus, tapir, okapi, addax, golden lion tamarin, and Bali mynah. The list grows as more and more institutions be- come successful in preserving the genetic integrity of other species in jeopardy. Conservation programs conducted in cap- tive environments require a conserted ef- fort and expense, and they require time. In order to be viable for long-term cap- tive propagation programs an adequate number of genetically-diverse animals must be available for reproductive manage- ment. Because inbreeding is always a po- tential problem, the species must be re- productively manipulated on a total captive basis. Breeding must be by computation rather than by chance. Breeding by whim leaves the species susceptible to compli- cations resulting from a lack of genetic diversity, and adaptability over the long run is jeopardized. While standard breeding procedures are still practiced by most institutions, we rec- ognize that high-tech means of improving reproductive potential will produce im- portant benefits for some long-term en- dangered species propagation programs. The genetic mangement programs so well demonstrated in domestic livestock are still in their infancy for exotic wildlife. The BRIDGES OF LEARNING 53 reason is that captive husbandry must first be established, followed by basic repro- ductive and behavioral research. These programs can only be accomplished when we understand in biological terms the an- imals we are trying to preserve. That in- cludes a knowledge of genetics, reproduc- tion, immunology, pathology, clinical medicine, physiology, metabolism, ener- getics, nutritional requirements, etc. When these basics are well-understood, we can move and are moving into the consider- ation and application of advanced repro- ductive technology, including artificial breeding, gamete storage, sexing, and transplantation. We are confident that the future for many rare and endangered spe- cies will be enhanced through advancing reproductive and other bio-technologies. We point to the following partial list of successes: Artificial Insemination: Giant panda, gorilla, Speke’s gazelle, Persian leop- ard, guanaco, Sarus crane, and many others. Embryo Transfer: Bongo/eland; guar/ domestic cow; Bengal tiger/African lion; quarterhorse/zebra; and homologous transfers with baboons, rhesus mon- keys, water buffalos, and elands. In Vitro Fertilization: Primates (ba- boon). Cytogenetics: Many look forward to the day when frozen embryos can be suc- cessfully thawed. When this is accom- plished we can begin to consider gamete retrieval from wild free-ranging animals for the purpose of improving the genetic base of those in captive environments (and vice versa). Educational Function We note with dismay that science edu- cation is deteriorating as an educational base. Students are taking fewer courses in science, and fewer courses are being offered. And regrettably, we are experi- encing a serious shortage of qualified teachers. Of course, declines in student achievement are being documented. Zo- ological parks and aquariums, as provi- ders of quality educational resources, are responsive to the widespread concerns over educational quality. We believe that the learning process should build personal “data bases” through a continuum of ex- periences found in the school curriculum, and augmented by a community’s scien- tific resources. As partners in the educa- tional enterprise, we are important re- sources for scientific learning. We are seeking to fulfill our educational respon- sibilities in the area of scientific literacy through the integration of our resources within the curriculum and other programs designed for American students at all ed- ucational levels. Zoological parks and aquariums act as living classrooms for some 20 million school children every year. In these ‘“‘classrooms”’ students are instructed through a “hands- on” approach. The educational programs at Sea World are truly representative of the very best that the zoological community provides. As an example of, in our case, the “get wet” approach to education practiced at Sea World, consider the following: Since the development in 1972 of “Exploration Breach”, Sea World’s for- malized educational program for ele- mentary through collegiate levels, over 2.5 million students have had the op- portunity to directly experience and learn about marine life at one of the three Sea World parks as part of their curric- ulum. Other programs include: “Un- derwater Friends” for grades K-3; Youth Awards, for Campfire, Scouts, and other youth groups; Career explorations; ‘“‘Interworlds”’ for students K—4; and in- depth studies for high school and col- lege students (many in cooperation with the University of California, San Diego; San Diego State University, and the University of Florida system.) Sea World also provides continuing education units which bring marine science instructors 54 LANNY H. CORNELL to the classroom, and a preceptorship program for upper level veterinary medical students interested in zoologi- cal medicine. In recent years, several very popular special programs have been developed. Gifted students’ programs are pre- sented for qualified students in grades K-6. Three special education programs are offered for mentally-challenged, vis- ually-impaired and severely disabled students. Each is a multi-sensory pro- gram designed for students who benefit from the individual approach. Sea World’s Education Department also of- fers free curriculum aids and teacher orientation programs. In addition to the organized education programs, trained interpreters/narrators are stationed at all major animal exhibits to answer visitors’ questions and present educational information. Other educa- tional materials are presented in our award- winning graphics displays located in ex- hibit areas. Recreational Function As our society become more urbanized and crowded, zoological parks and aquar- iums will provide the only available ex- posure to the world of nature for increas- ingly large numbers of people. Currently, these institutions accommodate annually over 110 million out of a nationwide pop- ulation of 239 million. We realize that there are recreational activities that offer the public encounters with wildlife in natural settings, 1.e., safaris, oceanic cruises, out- ings in natural parks, etc. Our programs are not designed as substitutes for these experiences, but rather as a complement to them. However, unlike most wilderness experiences, where wildlife is only par- tially visible or otherwise inaccessible, our programs afford the public with oppor- tunities to personally experience the beauty, intelligence, and agility of these wildlife forms. This exposure is especially signifi- cant to those visitors who have limited op- portunities to experience such wildlife in natural settings—those living in large cit- ies, the impaired, the young, the elderly, and the impoverished. Experiencing wild- life only through one-dimensional photo- graphs cannot replace the sensation one feels as the curious trunk of an elephant grips your fingers, or at the touch of a satiny-smooth dolphin, glistening before you. Such experiences form lasting bonds of affection . . . and they’re great fun! Whether directly, through the proceeds of an admission charge, or through other means such as taxes, the recreational func- tion is the means through which our ed- ucational and research functions are fi- nanced. It is a function that is important. Conclusion The purposes for which we exist and serve are necessary. Our purpose is re- flected through our focus on research, ed- ucation and recreation. Through our re- search projects, we have made important advances in captive husbandry and prop- agation programs, while contributing in- formation vital to basic and applied wild- life science. In addition, we cooperate with local, state, federal and international gov- ernments, and the academic community, and have a long and impressive record in the recovery and rehabilitation of diseased and injured wildlife. Hopefully, these ad- vances will continually increase our ability to generate information for the detection and management of environmentally-re- lated changes to natural ecosystems, of- fering better and more widespread pro- tection of our wild fauna. In the spirit of combining scholarship with showmanship, we combine educa- tional and recreational programs. This is done with a strong sense of responsibility for conveying ecologically-sound and im- portant information to the public. In this way, we endeavor to promote greater awareness, understanding and concern for SUSTAINABLE WILDLIFE USE 55 wildlife and their natural environment, with the hope of contributing to a more in- formed public, and thus building a more responsible society. Charles Lindbergh knew that nature is like a “canary in a coal mine.” That its decline signals our own. He was, and we are, concerned. We believe he would have recognized the roles we play in the con- servation of nature and in our contribu- tions to scientific knowledge. And we also believe that he would have endorsed such sites for public education and recreation, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 55-60, March 1986 where wildlife can be maintained in set- tings that give them a good chance for long-term survival. As bridges of learning between man and nature, we honor the spirit and philosophy of Charles Lind- bergh. I’ve enjoyed this opportunity to speak to you, and I hope you will take some time to visit Sea World while you are in Or- lando, and observe how the discoveries of science and the products of technology are preserving and improving the quality of life. Thank you. The Role of Sustainable Wildlife Use in Conservation and Development in the Tropics Curtis H. Freese Director of Latin American Programs, World Wildlife Fund Upon reading the theme for this sym- posium, ““Technology and Environment: The Search for Balance”, I thought I might appropriately entitle my talk, ““Technol- ogy and Wildlife: The Search for Sustain- able Use”’, for the problems and solutions to the sustainable use of wildlife exemplify that search for balance between devel- opment and biological diversity. What do we mean by the term ‘“‘sus- tainable use of wildlife resources’? By sustainable we mean that the use made of a wildlife population is at such a level that the use can be maintained indefinitely; that is, the use does not exceed or destroy the population’s ability to reproduce and re- place itself. Use can mean a broad array of things, from the hunting or trapping of animals for food, fur or sport, to bird watching. Wildlife, in the broadest sense of the term, can mean any wild animal or plant, terrestrial or aquatic. Sustainable wildlife use stands at the crossroads of wildlands conservation and human technology and development. In simple terms, we can think of the sustain- able use management of wildlife as human society knowledgeably manipulating wild- life to produce, indefinitely, any number of goods and services benefiting human development. I would like to focus on wildlife use in the tropics, where the biggest challenges are today and where it will have the big- 56 CURTIS H. FREESE gest impact on both development and bi- ological diversity. I will specifically talk about Latin America where I work. There are three points I wish to make today concerning wildlife use: 1. The actual and potential contribu- tion of wildlife to human development in the American tropics is underestimated by national and international agencies con- cerned with human development, and, be- cause of this, development is bound to fail in many areas because sustainable wildlife use iS not incorporated into the develop- ment plan. 2. The development of wildlife man- agement in the American tropics will re- quire innovative techniques and new con- cepts in natural resource management, for which the North American experience can provide only limited models. 3. Wisely implemented sustainable use programs of wildlife will be critical in meeting the challenge of conserving the vast biological diversity of the tropics. The importance of wildlife in meeting basic human needs is, of course, most ob- vious in the case of indigenous peoples. Native Indians of the American tropics de- pend on fishing and hunting to meet their protein requirements, and on a variety of plant products for food, shelter and me- dicinal needs. Native peoples are, indeed, experts at extracting from a cornucopia of plants and animals all of their basic ne- cessities and commodities. Unfortunately, most of this native knowledge about trop- ical wildlife management has remained within the domain of indigenous groups and a few anthropologists. Native exper- tise has been largely ignored by govern- ment agencies in charge of natural re- source management and land use planning, most probably because it is incorrectly seen as unsophisticated, unapplicable to cur- rent societal needs, and producing little of economic importance for the country. Colonists that have settled in tropical forest regions have also become depend- ent on local forest resources. In rural Amazonian Peru, more than 85% of the animal protein consumed by colonist vil- lages is wild, of which more than two thirds is from fish (Pierret and Dourojeanni, 1967; Rios et al., 1973). This dependence by col- onists as well as indigenous people on wild sources of protein is a pattern found throughout Amazonia, both in rural com- munities and in cities, and to a lesser ex- tent in rural Central America. Neverthe- less, technology transfer from indigenous peoples to colonist populations in the Am- azon must be enhanced to enable the di- versified and sustainable use of forest and river resources practiced by many indig- enous groups to be more broadly tested and applied. Some species also have tremendous po- tential for providing expendable income for rural inhabitants and for contributing to a country’s trade balance. One species currently under research is a large lizard of the genus Tupinambis which is found throughout much of South America, but is particularly abundant in northern Ar- gentina where it is hunted for its valuable skin and meat. Argentine export figures show that an average of 1—-1.5 million Tup- inambis skins leave the country every year, with a total export value of 10-15 million dollars (G. Hemley, personal communi- cation). Yet, only within the last 2 years has any concerted effort been made to un- derstand the basic biology and economic importance of this species. Preliminary calculations indicate that protecting the chaco forest for Tupinambis management may produce much greater economic re- turns for local inhabitants than conversion of the forest for cattle (D. Werner, en lit.). One might ask if any mangement is nec- essary. Can’t these species hold their own? Experience answers that heavily harvested species cannot sustain themselves without management. In fact, many Amazonian species of potentially great importance for economic and/or subsistence uses have been driven close to extinction by overharvest- ing within the last 50 years. Among the most important, for example, are the American and Orinoco crocodiles. The high value of their skins stimulated intensive SUSTAINABLE WILDLIFE USE 57 harvesting that has left the Orinoco croc- odile numbering in the hundreds in the llanos of Venezuela, and the American crocodile endangered throughout its range. With populations of these two species decimated, the caiman crocodile, with less valuable skin, is now being heavily ex- ploited. An estimated 1—1.2 million skins are taken annually from the pantanal re- gion of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. The export value exceeds 15 million dollars, and the total value of these skins, once tanned, exceeds 100 million dollars (G. Hemley, personal communication). If properly managed, even these harvest lev- els may be sustainable, but we lack suf- ficient information to know. Primates provide another example of the consequences of ignoring management needs. Work by myself and Peruvian col- leagues demonstrated that in forest areas of Amazonian Peru and Bolivia outside parks and reserves, numbers of the large species of primates, such as spider mon- keys and howler monkey, had been re- duced to virtually zero over extensive areas because of hunting pressure (Freese et al., 1982). Large primates, because of their low reproductive rate (one offspring every 1 or 2 years), are not adapted to withstand high harvest rates. Primates could better withstand low harvest rates required to supply the needs of biomedical research, and local inhabitants could reap higher profits since many species are worth $100- 300/individual. The Primate Project in Iquitos, Peru has begun such a manage- ment program. Examples abound concerning the uses and importance of native plants. The Bra- zil nut is a product of South American forests that is familiar to all of you. It is not, however, grown in plantations like most other nuts you eat, but rather must be harvested from natural forests, a point I will return to later. Brazil alone exported over 43,000 tons in 1979, and unknown quantities of this protein-rich nut are con- sumed locally (Balick, 1985). The U.S. imported 16 million dollars worth of Brazil nuts in 1976 (U.S.D.A., 1978). On a broader scale, in 1979 the value of 31 species of native plant products har- vested in Brazil was $137,000,000 (Balick, 1979). Considerable publicity has recently been given to the actual and potential pharmaceutical products extracted from tropical forest plants. It is estimated, for example, that 8,000 plant species from the American tropics have anti-cancer prop- erties (Duke, 1982). The science and technology for man- aging these diverse plant and animal re- sources are embryonic in Latin America. Many of the basic principles of wildlife management developed in North America can be adapted to tropical habitats, but several factors will require the develop- ment of new approaches. The life of the wildlife manager in the tropics is compli- cated by the shear diversity of plants and animals, and the complexity of interac- tions that must be considered. In a few square miles of deciduous forest in the eastern U.S., the manager may have to deal with only a few dozen species of trees, mammals and birds, but in Amazonia he or she must deal with hundreds of species of each in the same area, many of which have not yet even been described by sci- ence, let alone studied in detail. Interac- tions between organisms may follow com- pletely different patterns in temperate and tropical habitats. For example, the flowers of temperate forest trees tend to be wind pollinated, whereas tropical trees gener- ally depend on animals (bees, bats, birds) to carry pollen from one flower to another (Prance, 1985). This basic difference could greatly in- fluence the management of trees or wild- life species in the tropics. The Brazil nut tree provides a lucid example, for it is pol- linated by only certain large nectar gath- ering bees (Prance, 1985), which appar- ently must have other sources of nectar when the Brazil nut tree is not in flower. Thus, Brazil nut trees have not been suc- cessfully cultivated in large plantations, but rather are best maintained in mixed or nat- ural forests so that the pollinator bee pop- ulations are maintained (Balick, 1985). 58 CURTIS H. FREESE The development of management pro- grams for Amazonian fishes provides an- other striking example of how manage- ment of wildlife in tropical ecosystems may require major adjustments in our think- ing. As with terrestrial wildlife, the trop- ical waters of Amazonia carry many more species than temperate waters. The Am- azon and its tributaries contain probably 2,500-—3,000 species of fish, with roughly only half known to science (Goulding, 1980). Based on our knowledge of Ama- zonian fishes just a few years ago, we might have thought that the major question con- cerning their management would revolve around the levels of harvest that their re- productive rates could support. But recent work on Amazonian fishes by Goulding (1985) in Brazil has revealed another few facet about the complex connections within tropical systems that we must address in managing Amazonian fisheries. He has documented that of those fish that are most important for human consumption, roughly 75% feed on fruits and seeds that drop into the water in floodplain forests. Thus the sustainability of the most im- portant source of protein for Amazonian people—fish—depends primarily on the conservation of the floodplain forests that line the Amazon and its tributaries. This is the kind of direct link between forest conservation and human sustenance that fulfills the wildest of conservationists’ dreams about arguments for saving trop- ical forests. The case, however, is not so cut and dry, for these floodplains, because of the annual deposition of sediments from the rivers, contain some of Amazonia’s richest agricultural soils and thus their for- ests are heavily cut to make room for rice and other crops. Clearly, a balance must be reached between these conflicting land uses, and much more research is needed to design the best management options. Besides the biological novelties and questions to be worked out, new concepts must be developed integrating human set- tlements with the management and use of wildland resources. Among the tremen- dous challenges to be faced is how to man- age human use of wildlife resources on extensive public lands where equal access by all with minimal control can undermine attempts at resource management. An- other major challenge is to ensure that local people understand and benefit from wildlife management programs. This integration of local human popu- lations with wildlife and wildland man- agement is being explored with some in- novative approaches in Latin America that could affect large areas of tropical forests in the short term and serve as models for extensive land use policies in the long term. An example is the Pacaya-Samiria Na- tional Reserve in Northern Amazonia Peru. This reserve covers some 20,000 sq km of lowland tropical forest, meanderous rivers and owbow lakes. Thousands of people live along the two rivers that border the reserve, many of whom depend on the re- serve for fishing and hunting, for both sub- sistence and commercial purposes. One of the most popular resources of the reserve is the giant primitive fish, Arapamia gigas, which reaches lengths of more than 2 m and may weigh over 125 kg (Goulding, 1980). Increasing demand from markets as far away as Lima, however, is placing heavier pressure on the reserve’s re- sources. The Peruvian government has designated the area as a national reserve with the objectives including the wise use of its fish and wildlife resources and con- servation of its natural systems. This is the largest such sustainable use management area in Latin America. Peru is now pre- paring a management plan with strong in- put from local inhabitants which will en- sure that they continue to have access to the reserve on a controlled basis to meet their own subsistence needs, but which will more tightly control large-scale, commer- cial fishing and hunting. Another example is Mexico’s Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. This 5,280-sq-km re- serve encompasses a broad diversity of habitats including tropical forest, man- groves, large bays and estuaries, extensive beaches and a barrier reef, with Mayan SUSTAINABLE WILDLIFE USE 59 archeological ruins scattered throughout. In Sian Ka’an, the objective is to integrate the conservation of these habitats with small-scale human development pro- grams. One such program involves work- ing with a small community of well-orga- nized fishermen who live in the reserve. These fishermen harvest 40—60 tons of spiny lobster tails annually from the reserve and earn a very healthy income in the process. However, this relatively new fisheries, un- til recently, was developing with very little information on the lobster’s population or biology. A plan is now being prepared to better manage and monitor this fisheries to ensure that it continues to be a valuable economic resource for the region. Mean- while, reserve managers are looking at forest resources in the reserve, such as or- chids, that might be harvested sustainably without deleterious effects on the re- serve’s ecosystem. The wildlife and wildland management programs just described are part of a clear message coming out of many tropical re- gions of the world, a message of impor- tance to both those primarily interested in human development and others in the conservation of biological diversity. For development-oriented sectors, the mes- sage is that in many tropical regions, es- pecially in tropical forests, development must look towards making use of native plant and animal resources in natural or semi-natural ecosystems because conven- tional systems of agriculture do not work, and because local people are predisposed to living off native resources. It must be realized, however, that for many tropical forest systems and species, utilization can- not be intensive, but rather must be prac- ticed over relatively extensive areas if re- sources are not to be over-exploited. The significance of this message for bi- ological diversity is, in the simplest terms, use it or lose it. This is not to say that strictly protected areas such as national parks do not have a major role in the con- servation of wildlife and habitats in the tropics; they do, and indeed national parks and equivalent reserves will continue to be the primary method for protecting areas of exceptional uniqueness and diversity. However, such protected areas can never cover more than 5-10% of a country’s ter- ritory, and we know that much more ex- tensive areas must remain in natural or semi-natural condition in the world’s trop- ical forests if we hope to conserve the vast array of organisms found there. The ques- tion therefore becomes: How do we man- age those 90-95% of tropical forest lands outside protected areas? If sustainable use of wildlife resources on these lands cannot be demonstrated, there will be intense pressure to open them up to uses such as logging or slash-and-burn agriculture that are less sustainable and more destructive of the natural systems. In the past, support for research and development of sustainable use of wildlife resources in the tropics has fallen between the cracks. Development agencies viewed it as too unconventional, underestimated its importance, or simply looked at it as wildlife preservation guised as develop- ment. Conservation agencies saw it as too use-oriented or failed to see its overall role in wildland conservation. That situation, happily, is changing, as the crack between development and conservation agencies is narrowing and we see that sustainable wildlife use in the tropics provides a com- mon ground for our objectives of sustain- able development and the conservation of biological diversity. References Cited 1. Pierret, P. V. and M. J. Dourojeanni. 1967. Im- portancia de la caza para alimentacion humana en el curso inferior del rio Ucayali, Peru. Rev. for. Peru, Lima, 1(2): 10-21. 2. Rios, M., M. J. Dourojeanni and A. Tovar. 1973. La fauna y su aprovechamiento en Jenaro Herrera (Requena, Peru). Rev. For. Peru, Lima, 5(1-2): 73-92. 3. Balick, M. J. 1985. Useful plants of Amazonia: a resource of global importance. Pages 339-368 in Key Environments: Amazonia, (G. T. Prance and T. E. Lovejoy, eds.). Pergamon Press, Ox- ford. 4. Prance, G. T. 1985. The pollination of Amazon- 60 THOMAS E. LOVEJOY ian plants. Pages 166-191 in Key Environments: Amazonia, (G. T. Prance and T. E. Lovejoy, eds.). Pergamon Press, Oxford. 5. Goulding, M. 1985. Forest Fishes of the Amazon. Pages 267-276 in Key Environments: Amazonia, (G. T. Prance and T. E. Lovejoy, eds.). Perga- mon Press, Oxford. 6. Goulding, M. 1980. The Fishes and the Forest. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 60-62, March 1986 7. Duke, J. 1982. Contributions of Neotropical For- ests to cancer research. Unpublished manuscript. 8. U.S.D.A. 1978. Agricultural Statistics, 1977. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 9. Freese, C. H., P. G. Heltne, N. Castro R., ed Whitesides. 1982. Patterns and determinants of monkey densities in Peru and Bolivia, with notes on distributions. Intl. J. Primat., 3: 53-90. The Grand Array of Life on Earth Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy Vice President, Science, World Wildlife Fund—U.S. We hope in this third section, to give a biological perspective, namely how life on earth, and our life on earth should relate one unto the other. First, we should consider life itself, this exceptional development which appears to be confined to our planet alone. Life is a high energy operation, because it takes great amounts of energy to build complex structures—more complex than anything that occurs in the vast segment of our solar system and universe which is non-living. It takes energy, too, to maintain these complex structures against the general tendency of the universe away from struc- ture and toward chaos—so elegantly summed up by Josiah Willard Gibbs as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but cer- tainly more widely and unwittingly in hu- man cognizance in the lines about Ozy- mandias, King of Kings. The necessary energy comes largely from the sun and is converted by green plants into forms usable by them and other forms of life—a miracle that we unconsciously celebrate thrice daily as we go to table, or eschewing ceremony, at least acknowl- edge by grabbing for a caloric ring, as the merry go round of our lives rushes past a fast food establishment. The order and structure of human achievement, whether libraries, machines, governments or edi- fices are but extensions of the ability of life to produce order and structure. But living things are not immortal, they must inexorably succumb to Gibbs’ Sec- ond Law, yet can manage to escape by the device of reproduction. Life is very much in the business of making more of itself, which is why sex keeps rearing its head. Without meaning to descend to schoolboy snickers and titters, it is biologically mean- ingful that sex is pleasurable—were it not, it is inevitable that the particular species would become extinct. It is reasonable to suppose that reproduction is pleasureable for each form of life on earth. One cannot help but wonder what it must be like for species like the Century Plant for which it only happens once in a lifetime. I dwell on this point not to titillate like a saucy dime store novel, but because this uni- versal feature of life on earth, is also a source of great hope for those of us con- BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY 61 cerned with maintaining the variety of life on earth. Given a chance, each species will perpetuate itself, but from extinction there is no return, no escape. We know that life on earth comes in great variety, but science, cannot as yet, say with any precision how diverse life on this planet actually is. When I first became interested in natural history some thirty years ago, the general estimate was on the order of a couple million species. Later estimates of five and ten million began to be heard and just recently based on dis- coveries about insect life in the rain forest canopy, the estimates have risen to about 30 million (Erwin, pp. 59-75 in Tropical Rain Forest: Ecology and Management, Ses sueeon. IF. C. -Whitmore, A. C. Chadwick, eds., Blackwell Scientific Pubs.., Oxford, 1983). This means that we know the weight of the moon, and perhaps even the strength of the magnetic fields of Ur- anus, to a greater precision than we have taken the measure of the variety of life— really a most fundamental datum of sci- ence, and one of very central interest to ourselves as part of it all (Wilson, Issues in Science and Technology 2:20—29, 1985). This is a very disturbing state of ignorance especially when we are on the verge of losing a major fraction of the variety of life on earth. The impending loss is in large part due to unpremeditated or unwilling actions by an ever larger human popula- tion, acting in a variety of environmental destructive ways, prominent among them the destruction of tropical forests which harbor about half of this astounding va- riety. The tendency to diversify is a funda- mental theme echoed throughout the his- tory of life on earth, checked and occa- sionally reversed only by traumatic events, such as the meteor induced dust cloud cur- rently believed to have triggered the de- mise of the dinosaurs (Alvarez et al., Sci- ence 208:1095-1108, 1980; Wilford, The Riddle of the Dinosaur, Knopf Div. of Random House, New York, 1985). We have only the most rudimentary notions as to why there is such a universal tend- ency. It is all too easy to accept it as a fact without understanding, even to say that it really means we needn’t concern ourselves with the loss of a species here or there, for after all, with certainty more will even- tually arise. Yet such an uncaring attitude ignores that the time scale for replenish- ment of diversity impoverished by human action, is on a greater scale than a human life span, and will do little good for those of us here now, or even the next genera- tions. Nor does it recognize that each and every species is a reflection of a long ev- olutionary history, stretching back to the origins of life on earth. Each also reflects recent environmental history and prob- lems, which the extant organisms, by their very survival, have demonstrably dealt with and developed solutions for. These are so- lutions often of immediate relevance to practical human affairs, whether it be re- sistance to viral diseases of corn discov- ered in a wild perennial corn species in the mountains of Jalisco, or the ability to re- move mercury or isocyanate from aquatic environments demonstrated for two yeasts in eastern Pennsylvania streams (R. Pa- trick, pers. comm.). The tendency to variety also expresses itself on a local level in those biological aggregations of interacting species science calls ecosystems. Almost all natural eco- systems contain large numbers of species, many of which are rare, and the functions of which in the system are either unknown or apparently negligible. Yet why do al- most all ecosystems have such variety— variety incidentally that is badly dimin- ished in the face of toxic wastes and pol- lution? A “‘clean” environment is biolog- ically diverse. A polluted or stressed environment is not, but rather is domi- nated by dandelions, cockroaches, or equivalent weeds and pests. I, and some others suspect the presence of the variety of species in an ecosystem is, by accident of history or otherwise, a measure of the flexibility of that system in time of change: when mercury contamination lowers the diversity of a stream community the par- ticular yeast species becomes abundant and 62 THOMAS E. LOVEJOY the ecosystem persists while the yeast bus- ily cleans it up. Certainly we know enough to say that maintaining biological diversity is almost entirely a matter of plusses for human so- ciety. Dependent upon it is the ability of ecosystems to continue to function in ways on which we in turn depend. The life sci- ences, are surely (without in any sense be- littling other fields of inquiry) the most important branch of knowledge for our- selves as living organisms. Understanding them depends squarely on maintaining the basic body of data about life on earth and this is best summed up and measured by the diversity of life on earth. And each and every species holds the promise for discrete highly practical contributions to human welfare—an enzyme or observa- tion can transform the world. These fundamental truths tend to be ob- scured by the triumphs and glitter of our technology. And it is hard not to be dis- tracted. When I think of a year spent on Maryland’s Eastern Shore as a boy, in a house with a woodstove and a telephone with no dial, it seems nothing short of mi- raculous to live in a world of microwaves, Concordes and satellite assisted direct in- ternational dialing to some of the most remote places on earth. Another fatal flaw will be to let this blind us to our true bi- ological nature, to let us think for example that biological engineering means we can dispense with diversity because we can re- place what we have lost—instead of the reality that biological engineering merely increases the value of the biological library that the diversity of life on earth repre- sents. Indeed from another perspective it is very clear that humans are best served by landscapes that are both domestic and wild, and that humans dwelling in biolog- ically impoverished landscapes tend to lead an impoverished existence. The best mea- sure of our success in maintaining a bal- ance between the world of technology and the world of our biological nature, will be the extent to which we protect biological diversity. The wisdom of wildness (to bor- row Lindbergh’s term) rests on valuing and protecting each and every species, and in protecting that grand array of realized possibilities of living systems that we term so simply: biological diversity. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 63-68, March 1986 Impact of Development on Arid Rangelands Pamela J. Parker Chairman, Conservation Biology Department, Chicago Zoological Society Biological diversity has been affected adversely by two major forces in recent times. The first is growth of the human population and the second is technological development. Surely the rest of the bio- logical world must regard us as a species that has reached plague proportions de- manding vast resources from the land. We have achieved a large part of the support of our enormous numbers through tech- nological capacities to make rapid and large scale changes in the land, changes affect- ing all of the other organisms sharing the environment with us. The effects of the large population size and technological development have been to reduce biological diversity and to di- minish the capacity of land to support bi- ological systems including those from which we draw our own support. These effects are particularly dramatic as we invade the lands which throughout history have been little altered by occupying cultures be- cause of the difficulties in extracting from these lands resources to support human activities. The major land types greatly af- fected by current development are the wet tropics and the arid rangelands. Under most schemes of development the wet tropics experience high rates of loss of the biological diversity that character- izes them. The loss can have catastrophic 63 effects locally on soil structure, nutrient cycles and the interrelationships among many species integral to the stability and productivity of the life forms of these for- ests. On a large scale the loss is a threat to global climatic patterns and hence po- tentially effects all biological systems. The richness of the life forms destroyed through this process is not even fully appreciated by science. In contrast, the arid lands, the other major land types affected by human pop- ulation growth and development, are characterized by less biological diversity and greater environmental instability than are the tropics. The destruction of these dry lands, however, is no less rapid or dra- matic than the destruction of the natural systems of the tropics nor are the long term effects of these losses likely to be of less consequence to the richness of all life dependent on these areas. The form of development in the dry rangelands is mainly pastoral instead of wood products or crop farming for water is too limited to support growth of timber or allow cultivation of grain crops in most arid areas. The common result of pastoral development is loss of the stability of bi- ological resources. Dry rangelands have several character- istics in common. Many are in the 30 de- 64 PAMELA J. PARKER gree latitudes and are influenced by world wide climatic patterns. They experience low rainfall and high rates of potential evaporation. This water stress is often compounded by irregularity in the timing of rainfalls. These climatic factors present a series of physiological challenges to the perennial plants growing under conditions in which they must struggle to retain the water they have secured against a great evaporative force drawing it out from their leaves and roots. These plants must be able to make use of water entering their environment at any time while on rare ocasions they must survive having their roots flooded with an overabundance of water that takes some time to drain away or evaporate. An example of this suite of character- istics drawn from the arid zone of South Australia comes from weather records at Brookfield Conservation Park. The av- erage annual rainfall is 260 mm in the face of an average annual potential evapora- tion of nearly 2000 mm. The rainfall is distributed randomly among the months of the year and in the decade from the middle 1960’s to the middle 1970’s, reg- istered rainfall fell below 100 mm in 1967 and above 500 mm in 1974. This low, er- ratic rainfall linked with high predictable rates of potential evaporation concen- trated during the summers leads to great challenges to living organisms in hanging on to the water necessary to support life processes. The behavioral, physiological and evolutionary responses of native spe- cies are focused on coping with limited water and, in turn, inaccessibility of nu- trients. The evolutionary resolution of the water challenges to the arid adapted bio- logical systems of the dry lands is ex- pressed in relatively few and highly spec- ialized species of plants and animals occurring in sparse populations repre- senting these species. The low biomass of organisms is in keeping with limited avail- ability of water. A low biomass is all that can be supported. Most arid lands have two plant systems. One is the ephemeral plants which are ubiquitous when growing conditions are good. These plants are short lived as vis- able green plants finishing with their ma- jor dependence on water within the brief span during which they have ready access to it. The rest of the time their presence in the system is inobvious as they wait out the dry times in the soil seed bank. As seeds, their metabolic needs for water are few and the threats to their existence rel- atively reduced. Pastoral profits ride on the ephemeral plants which spend as short a time as possible in making the seeds of their next generation of plants. Their short time spent as green plant seed factories offers only a short time that these plants are available as sources of nutrients and water to mammalian herbivores. Once they have set their seeds, their life cycle is gen- erally complete and they vanish from the landscape even if they have not been grazed away. The other plant system is that of the perennial plants including the lichens, shrubs, trees and species of long lived grasses. These are the physiological spe- cialistsable to hold onto water while en- gaging in metabolic activity and retaining water against the large gradient of the po- tential evaporation. These persistent spe- cies are usually very slow growing and set seed only irregularly when favorable cli- matic conditions arise. They are vulnera- ble to overuse by grazing and browsing animals. Most of each plant’s water and nutrient resources are required for its own persistence under conditions of environ- mental stress. Few are available for har- vest by other species without serious effect on the individual plant providing them. An analogy can be made with a bank ac- count gathering small percentages of an- nual interest. Small amounts can be with- drawn without loss of the principal. If large amounts are taken, all may be lost in time. Native mammals in these rangelands generally occur in low numbers or are no- madic, following the availability of the ephemeral plants appearing with the rains. Thus in the natural scheme grazing pres- sure on perennial plants is light. Histori- DEVELOPMENT: ARID RANGELANDS 65 cally man’s use of the dry areas was as a hunter and gatherer which did not have a major effect on the plant communities or as nomadic herders which mimiced the bi- ology of the wild relatives of the domestic animals they depended upon. In these his- torical instances the dry rangelands were used as a renewable natural resource. With increasing European pastoral de- velopment, these lands are used as a slow mining operation in terms of a gradual loss of biological productivity. Part of this ef- fect is due to the introduction of cattle and sheep which have higher water require- ments than do the native species endemic to the areas. The higher water require- ments are coupled with food requirements needed to support reproduction, growth and a surplus of animals for sale. Just to meet the water requirements of domestic stock even during a relatively wet period, water is provided. The addition of this water then permits the animals to persist when it does not rain, at least for a while. In the absence of rain and in the absence of the ephemeral vegetation, the animals turn to subsistence on the perennial plants with the consequence of subjecting this vege- tation to heavy browsing. In these two ways, providing artificially augmented surface water to stock and setting levels of her- bivore populations through economic, not biological, forces, pastoral development extracts from the land support for greater numbers of herbivores than would be ex- tracted in a system that was regulated by the availability of renewable resources produced by the intact ecological system. In other words, the system is regulated by human economic needs, development (wells, tanks, etc.), and by the ability of the land to support fodder plants. Trends of development have also in- volved fencing or other means of reducing animal movements so that grazing pres- sure becomes constant throughout the year without times of rest for the vegetation. Stock confined to an area will eat the most palatable species first and turn to others sequentially as preferred plants disappear. Selective feeding at high stocking densities removes not only plant biomass but re- duces species diversity over time as the palatable perennial species succumb to a greater harvest than their growth can sup- port. The results of this slow mining op- eration have been loss of perennial species that are most palatable to stock. This is the equivalent of the loss of biological drought insurance on lands when relative drought occurs with most summer or dry seasons and whenever the rainfall fails. Loss of perennial plants destabilizes bio- logical systems on these lands and trans- forms the land’s productivity to a boom or bust economy. Loss of the perennial plants has yet an- other consequence with far reaching ef- fects. If the lichens, trees, shrubs and per- ennial grasses are lost, nothing remains to hold the fragile soil in place during a drought. Small rainfalls that come evap- orate rapidly or follow land contours as they run off, escaping the holding capacity of structured soil and plant roots. Winds blow the dry, loose soil leaving behind the steps leading to the desertification of overgrazed pastures. | The boom or bust economy has a psy- chological manifestation, too. Boom times, years of good rainfall and a rich emerging ephemeral plant productivity come to be seen as “‘normal’’. Busts, dry years with a failure of the ephemeral vegetation are seen as “‘disaster’’, an unpredictable event that is out of place in the regular course of pastoralism in these areas. Setting the level of stock to that which can be supported without losses of animals during droughts and without loss of the perennial vegeta- tion is to miss the profits of the good years. Few investors are drawn to this stable con- tract with the land. This basic pattern of pastoral development obtains in many parts of the world and is the underlying source of the crippling of the land and its de- pendents in Africa, North America, Aus- tralia and elsewhere in the world. The arid zone of Australia has much in common with other rangelands but with some special features that simplify the consequences of pastoral development. 66 PAMELA J. PARKER Australia was exploited suddenly just over a century ago rapidly transforming the natural system through an enormous in- vasion of exotic animals, cattle, sheep and rabbits. Australia has a streamlined sys- tem of generally low quality soils lacking in nitrogen and other nutrients and food limited herbivores with few predators to complicate the direct relationship between mammalian grazers and the plant growth on which they depend. _ The system is run by rainfall and sea- sons, good ones and bad. Very small rain- falls may evaporate immediately or be too light to be of direct use to vascular plants. They may, however, activate the non-vas- cular plants, lichens and mosses. Certain of the lichens have the ability to fix at- mospheric nitrogen and under some con- ditions they can contribute that building block of protein to the system at large. Persistence of that part of the plant com- munity contributes a blanket of long lived minute plants that hold soils in place as long as they are not ground away by the hooves of concentrated herds of stock. More significant rainfalls stimulate ac- tivity of the vascular plants allowing them to take up soil nutrients, fix carbon and invest in growth and reproduction in ad- dition to maintaining themselves. Signifi- cant rainfall in the right time of the year will send a message to the seed bank wait- ing in the soil and elicit germination of a portion of its stores. On rare occasions, perhaps every decade or so, enough rain will fall to trigger trees and shrubs to di- vert energy and resources to making very large crops of seeds. In such good seasons if there are not an overwhelming number of grazing animals to take the seedlings as they become established, the next major generation of woody plants will be launched. If significant rainfall does not come, ephemeral plants may not germi- nate, may appear in the form of only a few individuals or may start growth only to burn off in the dry weather that follows. Little food is then provided for grazing animals. They must turn to the perennial vegetation or leave the area. Much of the perennial woody vegeta- tion presents challenges to the herbivores trying to live on its leaves and stems. Thorns and other deterrants are often present. Sometimes the leaves concentrate salts or nitrogenous compounds that are toxic to herbivores if eaten in large quantities. If the salty leaves and stems are eaten ex- tensively, then the animal will have to find water to drink to rid itself of the salt. Watering points for domestic stock may provide that water. If the water is not available, then the salty food cannot be eaten. For most of the grazing mammals surviving on this kind of vegetation, out- lasting the drought is a waiting game in the face of a negative protein balance. A short drought is survivable on this diet. A long drought may not be for either the stock or the perennial shrubs being browsed. Too many stock kept in a pas- ture through too many droughts will even- tually eat out this vegetation. The native grazers, the kangaroos and their relatives, are offered the same base of resources as the domestic stock. They, along with the sheep or cattle, wait for the end of the drought. If they are fortunate, they sur- vive the times of food and water stress to welcome the returning rains and plant growth that follows or unlike the sheep the native wildlife may move in search of green food elsewhere where the condi- tions are better. If they are unfortunate and the drought lasts too long, they perish. The local area must then await reoccu- pation by animals coming in from another area. This pattern of high drought fre- quencies in a stressful environment pro- vides a background conducive to local ex- tinction of populations of wildlife species. Such has probably been the pattern for many populations for thousands of years. What has changed with pastoral devel- opment is the increased number of ani- mals dependent on the same categories of food resources, fragmentation of the re- sources through their overuse and barriers to the movement of animals between patches of habitat capable of supporting them. When local extinction of a popu- DEVELOPMENT: ARID RANGELANDS 67 lation persists and the phenomenon of lo- cal extinction becomes widespread throughout all of the populations of a spe- cies, the risk of local extinction of popu- lations can become transformed to risk of loss of all the populations, species extinc- tion. This process is likely to underly the loss of roughly half of the medium sized species of mammals described at the time of early settlement in Australia. The story of the Australian fodder grasses is similar to that of the woody perennial vegetation. The original grass communi- ties on which the first European settlers pastured their sheep were never docu- mented by biologists. Their species com- position is unknown. However it is prob- ably safe to infer that the most palatable of these grasses were eaten first by the sheep and that some of these grasses are now rare or missing in sheep paddocks today. One of the grasses, speargrass, that the early settlers viewed with alarm, in- creased its presence in the late 1800’s. The awns and sharp armor of the speargrass seeds sometimes caused great damage to the sheep. The problem of speargrass caused the redevelopment of a breed of African sheep to withstand these hazards. Today, the speargrass is a major arid zone grass species and a mainstay of sheep pas- tures. This is partly due to the relative resistence to grazing of the speargrass. Even SO, grazing exacts a large toll. Under heavy grazing pressure the speargrass has to re- place its leaves as they are eaten. Leaves are necessary to photosynthesis and photo- synthesis permits the plant to establish its root system, increase its size and mature sufficiently to produce seed to found new individuals. When leaf replacement is a major resource drain on the plant, few reserves are stored. Additional grazing pressure and drought conditions may cause the death of the plant. When this occurs on a large scale the perennial habit of the grass is transformed to an annual pattern within the population. Speargrass then joins the ranks of the ephemeral plants. It is no longer available to herbivores throughout a drought, it no longer serves to hold the soil in place between crops of grass. It is also unable to take advantage of each of the windows of time that offer good grow- ing conditions because each year it has to begin again to establish its roots and leaves anew instead of adding to its previous growth. When speargrass is fenced off and protected from grazing it is able to con- tinue to grow throughout even severe droughts. On grazed plots experiencing the same drought conditions, the grass plants are unable to survive both the stress of drought and of depredations by herbi- vores. The plants die and must be restored to the area by germination of seed. This may be the key to the success of the great many species and large biomass of immi- grant ephemeral plants to Australia whose origins are in the Mediterranean region. These plants probably arrived with Eu- ropean pastoral development. They have experienced 8,000 years of grazing by do- mestic stock and are adapted to coexist- ence with sheep and cattle even if they are not adapted to the rigorous aridity and nitrogen-poor soils of Australia. Inside the fenced speargrass plots, the native grass is able to claim more and more of the ground away from the introduced species. In the absence of grazing it is a successful com- petitor when grown under the conditions of the Australian climate persisting and growing each year. The balance is shifted by heavy grazing in favor of annual grasses and the ephemeral herbs which do not contribute to the stability of the system during the times of climatic stress. The solution to the merger of long term development of the pastoral industry in Australia and survival of the productivity of the natural system would come as no surprise to Charles Lindbergh. To stabi- lize production and, over the long run even increase it, management protocols need to approximate the natural ecological system and remove no more resources than the land can produce as interest developed from its biological capital. Numbers of herbi- vores supported must be tied to the car- rying capacity of the land at its least pro- ductive times. Large areas are needed as 68 SYLVIA A. EARLE management units for stock so that sub- units of land can be rested to allow re- newal of perennial vegetation. Infrequent times of high rainfall can trigger setting of seed in woody plants. Subsequent protec- tion of the young seedlings from stock is necessary to allow recruitment of the next generation of shrubs and tree. If the drought is only local, large management units also make possible movement of stock Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 68-72, March 1986 within an extensive area to pastures of rel- atively higher rainfall where ephemeral plant communities can support the herd. Sound pastoral practice has immediate benefits to wildlife as well as to the stock and stockmen. Whatever enhances and protects productivity of the dry rangelands benefits both pastoralism and the native wildlife which can then fit into the inter- stices of the development. Sea and Space: Frontiers for Exploration—an Introduction Sylvia A. Earle Vice President, Deep Ocean Technology, Inc. ‘“.. . The only other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions, must surely be naked space itself, out far be- yond atmosphere, between the stars . . . where the blackness of space, the shining planets, comets, suns and stars must really be closely akin to the world of life as it appears to the eyes of an awed human being in the open ocean, one half mile down.”’* The human body is remarkably versa- tile, able to climb mountains, swing among treetops, swim considerable distances, leap into the air, and briefly enter underwater realms. We are not naturally equipped with wings to fly nor gills to remain for pro- longed excursions in the sea. By using something we are endowed with—inge- nuity—we have been able to respond to *William Beebe, Half Mile Down. and in some measure satisfy another hu- man characteristic—irrepressible curios- ity. The result has been the creation of a gradually expanding wealth of technology that serves to extend human capability, even into environments inhospitable to any life form. To some, “‘technology”’ conveys the spectre of an overly mechanized society, a loss of contact with nature, a spoiler of civilization. Charles A. Lindbergh felt that a balance is possible, that the human pas- sion for creating and using tools can be compatible with maintaining a healthy en- vironment. The use of technology is, in fact, necessary for access to space and to the deep sea. Without machines to take us into the sky, we would be as earth- bound as elephants; without submarines and other special diving equipment, our ability to explore the oceans directly would be approximately equivalent to the ability SEA AND SPACE 69 of dolphins to glimpse the above-water realm. There are parallels in the development of the technology that has made possible the exploration of space and the oceans. Until about a century ago, both were ex- perienced primarily through remote meth- ods. Telescopes magnified the view of as- tronomers, but flight was a dream prior to Lilienthal’s first successful piloted gliding flights in 1881-1896. When the British re- search vessel, Challenger undertook to ex- plore the oceans of the world in 1872, sci- entists aboard used nets and dredges and other devices to blindly sample the oceans. Imagine trying to understand the workings of a forest or city if the only information you had to work with came from frag- ments fortuitously snared from a sky-ship? Five years after the Wright brothers made their first powered, sustained and con- trolled airplane flights near Kitty Hawk in 1903, the British Royal Navy deployed the first diesel electric submarine. Technology designed to master both skies and seas came together in 1911 when Eu- gene Ely flew a Curtiss Pusher and touched down aboard the cruiser, U.S.S. Pennsyl- vania in San Francisco—the first landing of an airplane on a ship. The early 1920’s marked numerous events of historic consequence for aviation including Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolit- tle’s transcontinental flight in a single day (Pablo Beach, Florida to San Diego, Cal- ifornia). Meanwhile, British inventor, Jo- seph Peress, built the first successful ar- moured diving suit, later known as Jim. The “Kitty Hawk” of rocketry occurred in 1926 when Robert Goddard demon- strated the successful operation of a liquid fuel rocket, and two years later, Fredrich Stamer made the first flight of a manned rocket-propelled airplane. During the year between these events, Charles A. Lind- bergh flew from New York to Paris, the first solo non-stop crossing and the first by a single engine aircraft. Balloonists A. W. Stevens, W. E. Kep- ner and O. A. Anderson set a new altitude record—60,613 feet aboard the Explorer I during the same year that William Beebe and Otis Barton set a new depth record— 3,028 feet in a bathysphere designed by Barton and deployed offshore from Ber- muda. The following year, 1935, diver Jim Jarrett wore the diving suit that bears his name and located the vessel, Lusitania, sunk in 330 feet of water off the coast of Ireland. The half century that has transpired since these events has been an era of unsur- passed technological development, dra- matically evidenced in the rapid progres- sion of critical developments leading to manned and robotic aircraft and space- craft. The first successful helicopters, first jet flight, and first passenger plane with a pressurized cabin, Boeing’s 307 Stratoli- ner, all occurred before 1940. In the following decade, regularly scheduled commercial aircraft began transatlantic service, Captain Charles E. Yaeger became the first pilot to exceed the speed of sound and Jacques- Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan perfected the aqualung and used it to dive to 210 feet in the Mediterranean Sea. Balloonist Au- guste Piccard turned his attention to the oceans and, in 1948, with Max Cosyno, tested his subsea “‘balloon,” the bathy- scaphe FNRS2. The 1950’s marked records of depth (13,287 feet in the bathyscaphe FNRS3), distance (U.S. nuclear submarine Nauti- lus, Pacific to Atlantic under the North Pole), and speed (Mach 2 by A. Scott Crossfield; Mach 3 by Captain Milburn Apt). It was the decade that marked the launching of the first remotely operated vehicle into the sea. It was also the decade that signalled the dawn of the space age. Sputnik 1, the first man-made earth sat- ellite, was placed in orbit by the Soviet Union. By the end of the decade, the U.S. had launched a successful satellite (Ex- plorer I) and the Soviet Union landed the first man-made object on the moon, Luna 1, and photographed the farside of the moon for the first time, using Luna 2. New frontiers were attained at an ac- celerating pace during the ten years that 70 SYLVIA A. EARLE followed. Underwater highlights include a descent to the ocean’s greatest depths, 35,800 feet, in the bathyscaphe, Trieste, by Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in 1960. That same year, the U.S. nuclear submarine, Triton, completed the first round-the-world cruise underwater— 30,752 miles in 61 days. Skyward, the first weather satellite, Tiros I, was launched. Major Yuri Gagarin became the first man to view earth from space in 1961, and later that same year, Alan Shepard, Jr. became the first U.S. astronaut to enter space. A year later, Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn orbited earth aboard the Mercury space- craft, Friendship 7, and Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to conduct a fly-by of another planet (Venus). Edwin A. Link, well known for his pi- oneering work in aviation, turned to ocean exploration in the early 1960’s and, con- currently with Jacques Cousteau and U.S. Navy Captain George Bond, pioneered the techniques of underwater living—satura- tion diving. While some men were living underwater in the mid-1960’s (Sealab I; Conshelf IIT), others were walking in space (Voskhodz; Gemini 4). In 1969, while a team of four men occupied the underwater laboratory, Tektite, fifty feet down, three others ascended to the moon. Eleven successive five-person teams spent fourteen to twenty days saturated in the underwater habitat, Tektite. By the time the last Apollo crew visited the moon in 1972, twelve men had left their footprints there. Throughout the 1970’s, advances con- tinued to occur concerning access to space, despite significant funding cut-backs. The U.S. Skylab crew rendezvoused in space with the Skylab orbital workshop and later, Apollo-Soyuz marked the first interna- tional manned space mission. In 1977, the Salyut space laboratory was launched by the Soviet Union and, in due course, was occupied for as long as 139 days. Also in 1977, Paul MacCready’s Gossamer Con- dor achieved sustained man-powered flight, following rigidly prescribed guidelines to win the Kremer Prize. The same year, the spacecraft Voyager I was launched by the U.S. to fly by Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond, carrying greetings from many nations as well as hauntingly beautiful songs of humpback whales. In the 1970’s, groundwork was estab- lished for a series of Space Shuttle missions in the 1980’s, that in turn were designed to lead to a manned Space Station before the end of the century. National support for ocean technology and research in the United States declined during this decade, but the increasing demands for ocean ac- cess by the offshore oil and gas industry provided worldwide incentive to develop new technology. Numerous small sub- mersibles appeared, mostly for industrial applications, and saturation diving tech- niques were pushed to new limits. In 1972, the French company, Comex, conducted a simulated dive to 2001 feet, and working dives in the North Sea to 1000 feet became almost routine. Atmospheric diving suits, including fifteen modernized Jim systems and more than thirty other small one man units called Wasp and Mantis came into being. Nineteen seventy-nine provided an op- portunity for me to evaluate the atmos- pheric diving system, Jim, for scientific re- search in the clear, blue waters offshore from Oahu, Hawaii. As I descended to the sea floor to 1250 feet (Figure 1), I was aware of some of the striking similarities between my situation and that of astro- nauts, while acknowledging the vast tech- nological and economic differences. Although the original Jim design was developed in the 1920’s, modern versions look remarkably similar to equipment used by astronauts, and for good reasons. In space as well as in the sea, it is necessary to take along life support for enough time to sustain you while you accomplish your mission. Exposure to the pressureless vac- uum of space would affect humans in a way different from exposure to 600 pounds per square inch of pressure exerted at 1250 feet or more, but the end result would be equally fatal. In both kinds of protective suits, movement is awkward. Astronauts SEA AND SPACE 71 Fig. 1. Dr. Sylvia A. Earle descended to a world-record 1250 feet in 1979 offshore from Oahu, Hawaii in an atmosphere diving system called Jim. slip their arms and legs into moderately flexible covering; Jim is made of a mag- nesium alloy, weighs half a ton, and uses articulated rings joined by special oil-filled seals. In space, astronauts are alone, aside from human companions who might have come along, and flora and fauna deliberately or inadvertently associated with the space- craft. In the sea, there is no such thing as “alone.”’ Walking along the sea-floor, the abundance and diversity of life is dazzling. Red swimming crabs, small fish illumi- nated by rows of glowing lights, rays longer than I, hovering like giant butterflies; tall spirals of bamboo coral that shimmer with blue, luminescent fire when I brush against fem |. . This, I reflect, is why we must look in- ward to the sea, while simultaneously pushing the frontiers skyward. This is a planet brimming with life, most of it con- centrated in the ocean. In curious, dimly understood ways, our survival, our well- being, is linked with theirs. The history of life is in the ocean, written in the lives of millions of jewel-like creatures that we have barely begun to catalog, let alone under- stand. What is holding us back? During a time when passengers fly seven miles overhead, watching movies and eating lunch, why does no nation possess even one vehicle, manned or not, that is capable of travell- ing to seven miles into the sea, something accomplished in 1960, and not once since. Why, in the mid-1980’s, more than a decade after the last astronaut walked on the moon, are there still more footprints there than there are a half mile under- water? Is it thought that the oceans are already thoroughly explored? Is it imag- ined that the dangers underwater exceed those in space? Will exploration in the sea by divers and manned vehicles give way to robots? Will future space exploration be left largely to machines that are lofted skyward and monitored thereafter by vi- carious, earth-bound explorers? Will Space Shuttle astronaut Katherine 72 WALTER CUNNINGHAM Sullivan,* a marine geologist who has been lured skyward, have her way and be able in the future to work in space with ma- chines, rather than be replaced by them? Will there still be room for the spirit that characterized past explorations to thrive as the new frontiers in sea and space are approached? Anne Morrow Lindbergh was asked to comment on the perils ahead, prior to de- parture with her husband on the first over- the-arctic flight to establish the practical- ity of travelling from New York, ‘north to the orient.” One reporter said: Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 72-76, March 1986 ‘“‘Can’t you even say you think it is an especially dangerous trip, Mrs. Lind- bergh?”’ She responded: “Tm sorry. I really haven’t anything to say. (After all we want to go. What good does it do to talk about the danger?)” The presentations that follow will ac- knowledge the dangers, the risks and com- mensurate rewards associated with ex- ploring the frontiers of sea and space. Two concurrent themes will be repeated, some- times softly, sometimes quite distinctly: “Onward and upward . . . and onward and downward!”’ Research and Development of Resources in Space Walter Cunningham President, The Capital Group The focus of the Lindbergh Fund’s ef- forts is the creation of harmony between technological innovation and the environ- ment. Sometimes the two are in conflict. Technologists may look at the question from a slightly different perspective than environmentalists do. That statement “technology and harmony with the envi- ronment”’ raises the question of balance between the idealistic and the pragmatic. Frequently there is an overworked effort *Dr. Sullivan’s presentation, ‘“Technology for Ex- ploration of Space’’ was cancelled by NASA due to the Space Shuttle Challenger accident. to blame technology for today’s problems. I believe that we should also give tech- nology credit for solving some of yester- day’s problems. For example, I recall reading an article that pointed out that in the year 1805, 2,000 people were em- ployed in the city of London whose sole job was to sweep a path across the street through the horse manure from all the horse-drawn carriages that were going through town. The potential hazards were not just the smell and inconvenience, but the diseases that could be transmitted by the flies. I think that there are a lot of us that would just as soon not go back to that RESOURCES IN SPACE 73 kind of a pastoral environment. Certainly technology has moved us away from things like that throughout history. Just imagine the problem today if we were still trying to maintain our reasona- ble standard of living with live horses in- stead of the mechanical and electrical horsepower that we use today. In addition to the enormous health hazards, the horse/ rider accident rates would project to be ten times higher than what we are having today with today’s modern technology. If we are looking at today’s technology as creating some problems let’s also give it credit for solving some of yesterday’s problems. I am very optimistic that to- morrow’s technology will solve whatever problems we have today or whatever we are creating for today. As a question of balance, people some- times forget that in going after what they want, the needs of everybody else may not be met. This issue is sometimes framed as a quality-of-life problem. It is also a quan- tity problem. We probably are in the fix that we complain about today, because technology has enabled an increasing pop- ulation to use up the shrinking resources of our planet at an ever increasing rate. How do we improve upon that? First we can introduce a more efficient utilization of those resources. Less waste. For ex- ample, turning waste products into useful resources or at least minimizing the waste. Second, we can try to find more resources. That’s going on all the time but it is be- coming more difficult and more expensive to find those resources. Third, we can con- trol population growth—the most signifi- cant controllable factor. Space exploration addresses the quan- titative aspects of the resources problem. There are a lot of people who see moving into the space environment as a way of tapping new resources. With many proc- esses, it offers greatly increased efficien- cies, a few examples of which will be given later. Some things can be done a lot better in a micro-gravity environment than it can be done down on Earth. And outer space is certainly not as crowded. Space is where our future is. We are filling up this planet. That new ocean is more pristine now than the New World was before Columbus and Magellen. We’ve been out there for 25 years and we have just stuck our toe in that particular ocean. And that’s an ocean which Charles Lindbergh would enthusi- astically support exploring today. Our space ocean, the one that we are moving out into, is the most hostile en- vironment that man has ever explored. The exploration of outer space requires the most complex systems ever devised and oper- ated by man if we are to safely move into that environment. We have been explor- ing it 25 years but we have just begun. We have not yet begun to exploit space for man’s benefit yet. We are still at the cut- ting edge of trying to routinely get there and survive. The space shuttle, in fact, is the first step in that direction. It’s the ve- hicle that we are committed to in this country to utilize as our means of com- merce into that new ocean for the next ten years. When I talk about exploiting our move- ment into the space environment—I’'m not talking about mining asteroids, lunar con- struction sites, nor space colonies. I am talking about what we can do in the near term. How do we create an efficient free- market system for a society like ours in order to utilize the space environment? We are spending a lot of money on it. In a government-controlled economy, such as the Soviet Union, the leaders can do whatever they want about exploiting space. There is no need to meet free-market tests. I personally don’t think this is the best way to spend money through a government- controlled economy. Government-con- trolled efforts at commercialization do not have a good record in the past. I do not think that they will be able to change that record in the future. Government efforts to sponsor commercial technology, for ex- ample the nuclear-powered U.S.S. Savan- nah, Operation Breakthrough in housing, the Synfuels Corporation, the Concorde, the TU144, are certainly not economic ventures. Those were all government- 74 WALTER CUNNINGHAM funded projects. Government has been somewhat more successful in brands of ge- neric research such as aviation research. In free economies, government spend- ing is a debatable subject and it’s subject to public pressure. That means that it is impossible to commit funds arbitrarily. The help of private enterprise is needed to take up the slack. A profit motive is essential if private industry is to accept such a chal- lenge. There are various categories of com- mercial participation in the space environ- ment. First, in the aerospace industry pri- vate companies develop rockets, space infrastructure, power systems, space fa- cilities, space labs, and industrial space. A second level of private industry par- ticipation is technology transfer. Technol- ogy transfer for space exploration is not much different than the classical technol- ogy transfer from any new field. I hesitate to mention it because it has always been somewhat embarrassing to stand up and talk about Teflon frying pans and beta cloth which the public tends to appreciate as having flown out of the space program. We should not lose sight of the fact that space technology transfer has been ben- eficial in other areas, for example the in- ertial navigation system of the 747. A 747 can take off from Orlando airport and op- erating purely on that inertial navigation system, the pilot can fly to the final ap- proach going into Honolulu, Hawau, probably to within a half mile of the final approach path. That inertial platform has three such units on the 747 for redundancy and to correct any errors. They have to be cheap enough such that it is economi- cally feasible to put three of them on board. They are only cheap because the same contractor that sells those inertial plat- forms for the 747 was the one that devel- oped the inertial platform and the navi- gation system for the Apollo spacecraft back in the early 1960s. This is a natural exploitation of technology that was de- veloped for one purpose and then diverted to be used in other places. The problem with that in the long-term commerciali- zation of space is its reactive nature. Re- cognizing that technology is available, matching it up with a market demand, and putting it to other use is good for business, but it does not place an initiating demand on space exploitation itself. The third area, and the only one that offers long-term potential for us to suc- ceed in this environment, is exploiting the unique properties of space in order to ei- ther manufacture products or to improve processes for the marketplace here on earth. The customer for that type of devel- opment is the commercial marketplace. Government in the last ten years, NASA explicitly, has been marginally successful at encouraging this type of commerciali- zation. The government and the marketplace are sometimes in conflict. For example, if the aerospace industry wants to create a new booster, they would like to see the government cost of that booster as high as possible. On the other hand, in order to exploit the unique properties of space we need to have the cheapest transportation system possible to get into and out of orbit SO we want the lowest priced booster transportation. The most frequently used example of commercial exploitation is the McDonald-Douglas experiment on elec- trophoretic separation which has been done on about four shuttle missions. This proc- ess is based on the separation of different hormones by virtue of their electric charges. McDonald-Douglas has expended about 15 billion dollars so far in that area and there is hope that some of the products of the process will have a sale value. They claim that this separation of hormones 1s about 700 times more effective in zero gravity than it is on the ground. In addi- tion, the end product is about four times as pure as with other separation processes. What are the properties of space that we can exploit to make a market-driven space economy? First, there is a cost-free, micro-gravity environment. When you start comparing space microgravity with what you can do on Earth, the best scientists have been able to do is the drop tower in Oe RESOURCES IN SPACE 75 which they can let something free fall about 10~°g for four seconds. Or they have been able to fly in parabolic trajectories in an aircraft up to 30 seconds of 10°’g. That’s about one one-hundredth of a g. So far, we have probably conducted less than one hundred hours of active experiments in this micro-g environment. So we have hardly begun to exploit some of these properties. Other, not-so-frequently thought of im- portant properties of this environment are its near-perfect vacuum, its near-perfect sterility, its extremely cold temperatures, (the temperature outside is almost — 273°C), the full electro-magnetic spec- trum of radiation, and unobstructed fields of view. Most of the good things that come out of these new areas come serendipi- tously. If we only plan to look for those we know, we will probably miss the most important new ones. Taking advantage of these particular properties will lead to a commercial mar- ket in zero gravity, estimated to cost be- tween 50 billion and 150 billion dollars by the year 2000. We have to be moving con- tinuously in that direction but there are a lot of obstacles. Most notable is the eco- nomics of doing it. Back in the days of Apollo when I flew, it cost about $1,000 a pound to go into orbit. When they started to design the space shuttle, they were trying to come up with a system that could re- duce that by a factor of 10 which would have meant $100 a pound. Well, every- thing that I read lately says that it has been estimated to run from $1,600 to $5,000 a pound for the space shuttle to put it in orbit. If you convert that back to 1971 dollars, we’re talking about $650 to $2,000 depending on how you do your arithmetic back there. Frankly, it looks to me like in the 15 years or the 20 years since Apollo, we are just about holding our own, cer- tainly we have not cut costs by a factor of 10. General Dynamics has estimated it would take a $10,000 per pound price tag in order to make it economically worthwhile to sell something that was made in space. In an- other study, McDonald-Douglas has es- timated that it cost 31 million dollars per shuttle launch, which is the early price tag for an Apollo launch. The whole subject of what should be charged for a launch on the space shuttle is now up for discussion. There is a wide range of opinions on the issue. The proposed charge now is 87 mil- lion dollars but private industry has indi- cated that the figure ought to be about 137 million dollars. So even with this issue there is conflict. I believe that we cannot afford to raise the price of a launch even to 87 million dollars. There are some things which only the government can do. One of them is having a space program, and providing a transportation system into and out of space. We have stiff competition. The French are charging $3,000 per pound to put sat- ellites up on their rockets. Launch services have been offered by the Soviet Union and China has opened an office in Washing- ton, DC to sell commercial pay loads on their rockets. Brazil, India, and Japan are considering doing the same. The point is that we have to remain competitive. Those governments and those economies are able to subsidize the cost of their launches. If we are going to compete we are going to have to subsidize launches and reduce transportation costs. One of the candidates for the third gen- eration of semiconductor materials is in- dium. It has been estimated that defect- free indium which could be produced in zero gravity (microgravity) would sell for $450,000 a pound. This is an example of a high value, low volume, low weight product that will meet the cost criteria. If launch costs could be reduced to $100 a pound, it could facilitate the creation of a free market on products produced in space. There are a few issues with which we need to be concerned for the future. One of them is a perceived lack of reliability on space shuttle flight schedules. Cer- tainly the Challenger explosion doesn’t en- hance the image in that direction. There’s a suspicion on private companies’ part about government involvement in com- 76 WALTER CUNNINGHAM mercial ventures. Policies can change, they change with the politicians. What is a long- term commitment? What kind of tax breaks? You know right now you can’t take an investment tax credit for some- thing that’s done in orbit because it has to have been used six months out of the year, here in the United States. There are a number of policies that need to be changed, some of which there’s no argument about, but it’s still subject to political whims to have it happen. There is also the problem of insurance costs. You have been reading about them every time something goes wrong. I understand that the insurance company that paid for one of the satellites that they brought back, still haven’t found a customer to buy that satellite. It’s cer- tainly a problem that holds back some of the commercial exploitation. Finally, but not least, and maybe even one of the stickiest ones is the subject of intellectual property. What kind of pro- prietary rights do you have when you are using a government-subsidized launch ve- hicle? I think that this question can be addressed rationally, however, it means changing some policies about government ideas on intellectual property and that doesn’t come easy. Well, none of those problems are triv- ial. They are all being addressed. They haven’t discouraged a whole raft of com- panies, McDonald-Douglas, Rockwell In- ternational, 3M, General Electric, Union Carbide. There are a lot of companies working on the commercial development of this new environment. One of the areas that has not really been opened up yet, one that I believe very strongly in, is en- trepreneurial participation. We have all seen in the past, that the businesses that really make it big in some new field may not come out of the large corporations. Certainly the aerospace companies that should have a leg up on all this knowledge about space have not come forth with great new commercial ventures. McDonald- Douglas seems to be making an effort. But, I think we need to find a means for entrepreneurs to take advantage of this environment. I really only need to emphasize that my discussion here was intended to frame some questions in your mind and give you some information; certainly it’s challengable. I think the analogy of setting sail on this particular ocean in space is an absolutely marvelous one. I will leave you with a quote by Arthur Clark that I really love. Arthur Clark several years back said, ““We have set sail on an ocean whose farthest shores we can never reach.”’ Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 77-81, March 1986 Policies for Exploration and Use of the Oceans The Discovery of R.M.S. Titanic Paul M. Fye, Ph.D. President, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Kenneth Paul Fye, Ph.D., Boston University ABSTRACT The discovery of the sunken luxury liner Titanic on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Summer of 1985 in a French-American cooperative effort not only highlighted the dramatic use of deep ocean technology, but also raised significant policy questions for oceanographic research. Our ability to protect the resting place of Titanic will reflect our ability to manage the exploration of the oceans effectively, to protect their natural envi- ronments, and to successfully negotiate agreements to that effect with other nations. She was the finest, most magnificent ship ever built. Nothing like her had ever been attempted before, and nothing quite like her has, I think, been contemplated since. She carried the rich and famous, the ar- istocracy of Europe and America; the Strausses, the Astors, J. Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star Line, and Thomas Andrews, her builder. She was the latest state of the art, the leading edge in ship building, the most high-tech ship of her day. Every eventuality had been seen to, she carried every convenience, every accoutrement imaginable, including lifeboats for more than a third of her ship’s 77 company, exceeding the requirements of the British Board of Trade. On her third day at sea at 11:40 p.m. she grazed an iceberg that sliced a 300 foot gash in her starboard bow flooding all of her forward water-tight compartments. In less than three hours she had settled to the bottom of the North Atlantic, more than two miles down, near a deep sea canyon. It was unimaginable, her going down that way, with her stern pointing vertically skyward against what Walter Lord called a “Christmas card backdrop of brilliant stars”. She slid so slowly beneath the waves that the ship’s baker stepped off her fantail 78 PAUL M. FYE AND KENNETH PAUL FYE as she went down like getting off an ele- vator. He didn’t even get his hair wet. She had been the ship that “God Himself” couldn’t sink, and now in two hours and 40 minutes it seemed as if ‘““God Himself” had done exactly that. When R. M.S. Titanic went downin April 1912 she took with her 29 boilers, coal enough for burning 650 tons a day, 5 grand pianos, assorted bottles of ale and wine, chamber pots, serving platters, 30,000 fresh eggs, a jeweled copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, an entire way of life, and one thousand five hundred human souls. It was on this very spot 73 years later that a small French research vessel out of Brest began a series of searching sweeps, criss crossing a 150 square mile target area of the ocean bottom. In August, after hav- ing covered 80% of the target, Le Suroit turned over the search to RV Knorr out of Woods Hole which took her turn at the monotonous procedure the technicians called “mowing the lawn’. Below Knorr in the inky blackness was Argo, a towed sled on a 13,000 foot tether of cable feed- ing a television picture to monitors on the mother vessel more than two miles above. She had been on station for 10 days. In the lab, French Oceanographer and Co- Chief Scientist, Jean-Louis Michel had just relieved his American counterpart, Dr. Robert Ballard at the monitors, sending Dr. Ballard to his cabin for a much needed shower and rest. The rest was short lived. Ship’s cook, John Bartolomei, knocked on the door to inform him that something was going on in the lab that they wanted his opinion on. Something going on in the lab. He was to remember thinking that it was odd that they had sent the cook and not one of the technicians to roust him from his bunk. It was a disturbing departure from routine and he pulled his jump suit over his pajamas and made his way to the lab with more than his usual haste. In the lab amid a growing and excited group he peered into the monitor’s blue white flick- ering image of bolts on the side of a boiler, and knew where he was. After 73 years, R.M.S. Titanic had been found. The first order of business was to re- locate the bottom transponders so that Knorr could hold her position over the wreck. Argo was then retrieved for serv- icing. In the process a winch gear was bro- ken off and it took ship’s engineers 14 hours to jury rig a replacement. Dr. Ballard gathered his exhausted exhilarated tech- nicians on the stern where he held a brief memorial service for those lost at sea 73 years before. What followed was hours of frantic imaging, flying Argo around Titan- ic’s stacks and bridge in a series of daring and nerve-wracking close-up maneuvers which twice collided Argo with Titanic. He was later to look down and realize that after 40 hours on watch he was still wear- ing his pajamas under his jump suit. Like most scientific discoveries this one took place by standing “‘on the shoulders of giants’’. It took astute interpretation of 73 year old data, accepting some, discard- ing some, to finally select a 150 square mile area for the search. Le Suroit began in July the lawn mowing proceedure cross- ing the area with their revolutionary deep- search sonar and magnetometer vehicle the “SAR” which can survey a swath of ocean bottom more than a half mile wide with each pass. In heavy seas and gale force winds Le Suroit and Sar eliminated the bulk of the search area making possible the American follow-up in August and September. The American equipment differed dra- matically from the French. Both were sub- merged unmanned bodies connected to the main vessel by a long cable. The Woods Hole submersible was called Argo after the name of the mythical vessel that car- ried Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece. Argo, like Sar, contained sonar gear, but more importantly it carried three cameras with the capability of telemeter- ing their images back to the surface where observers can sit in relative comfort (all comfort at sea being relative) to watch in real time on the monitors what the cam- eras were ‘“‘seeing’’ down below. Argo is towed close to the bottom, depending on the ruggedness of the terrain and the cour- THE DISCOVERY OF THE R.M.S. TITANIC 79 age of the technician and winch operator who operate in the full knowledge that a collision that results in the loss of the vehicle will terminate the expedition promptly. This procedure is called “‘flying” the vehicle. Fortunately Argo has opera- tors with just the right touch so that it can work the bottom for over 70 hours in a single stretch without catastrophe. Argo, like Titanic, was on her maiden voyage at the time of the discovery, but even with very sophisticated gear, worked perfectly. Knorr does carry another submersible sled called Angus. Angus, which has been used in earlier work on the discovery of undersea vents and unusual deep sea an- imals, does not carry video imaging ca- pability. It does carry sonar and 35 mm film cameras, but without video, the op- erator is in effect shooting blind, hoping his cameras are pointed in an interesting direction. Most of the slides taken of 77- tanic were taken with the Angus system, = a. NS B) cae ' < g ee a ! ye im “a y but only after the terrain and wreck were carefully surveyed and locked into the shipboard computers. It is the aforemen- tioned bottom transponders which are es- sential in this very tricky operation. It is the time difference in the arrival of key points of underwater sound between the transponders placed on the bottom and on Argo which permits the calculation of dis- tance to each object and thus later allows for the positioning of Angus for picture taking: a very tricky business indeed (see sketch, Figure 1). The Titanic was found sitting upright in rolling sand dune country with very little cover of sand or mud and very little ma- rine growth. Not far away is a deep sea canyon which could have tumbled the wreck over itself destroying much that was iden- tifiable. There had been much speculation prior to the discovery postulating much greater disintegration and coverage of sand and mud or even that she might be deeply KNORR with ANGUS and transponder is navigation system 80 PAUL M. FYE AND KENNETH PAUL FYE buried in a muddy bottom. Fortunately these speculations turned out to be wrong. Titanic has lost two of her giant smoke stacks, and the stern section has parted from the rest of the wreck, but the re- mainder of the hulk is in amazingly good condition. The photographs of the Angus probe resulted from the computer calculated po- sitions of earlier data secured by Argo’s video system. That they got pictures at all is one of the most amazing parts of the story, but then these are selected from over 10,000 shots. This is after all the secret of all great photography; knowing that you cannot shoot too much film. It has been known for some time that ships on their way to the bottom leave a characteristic debris plume; essentially a collection of material that settles to the bottom on one side of the wreck. Titanic’s debris field extends about 800 meters aft of the wreck. It includes a number of ar- tifacts that have only begun to be cata- loged. We are concerned here, of course, with questions of Ocean Policy, and in fact the political and philosophical questions are likely to prove more lasting and compli- cated than the scientific ones. It is well known that the Titanic disaster resulted in a number of immediate policy changes. It changed many rules of the sea relating to safety and navigation in northern waters, particularly during the iceberg season. Al- most immediately shipping routes were shifted several hundred miles to the south. The International Ice Patrol was created as one of the most important results of the tragedy. The foundation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was indirectly a result of the early work of the Ice Patrol which convinced Henry Bryant Bigelow and others of the need for an oceano- graphic institution on the East Coast. The irony that this Institution should eventu- ally participate in the rediscovery of the Titanic wreck is an additional twist on a story that is laced with irony. The Patrol, supported by several nations, was origi- nally housed at the Oceanographic in Woods Hole, and a great deal of coop- erative oceanography was the result. The Patrol annually plots the field of ice, as well as the approach of rogue icebergs to the active lanes of shipping in the North Atlantic. 7 It is a further ironic twist to the Titanic story that the wreck itself must be pro- tected from the very technological break throughs that made its discovery possible. The knowledge that locating the wreck was possible has awakened the curiosity and greed of souvenir hunters around the world. Protecting our environment (either natu- ral or archaeological) from the uncon- trolled expansion of our technology is, after all, one of the themes of this symposium, and may well be the dominant moral prob- lem of our age. How does one put the technological genie back in the bottle, or at least, in this case, how does one prevent its unscrupulous use by developers? The laws of ownership have not changed for several centuries, and this leaves open the policy question of who, if anyone, owns the Titanic. There are several possible legitimate claimants to the wreck. The original own- ers, The White Star, now the Cunard Line might make some claim to it, but have yet to do so. Their successors-in-interest the Commercial Union Assurance Society could lay claim by virtue of their having paid the insurance on Titanic, but only if they can prove that the wreck has not been abandoned, an unlikely prospect. WHOI and IFREMER could make a more plau- sible claim to at least some of the value of any salvage, by virtue of the excellent work they performed in discovering the wreck. The current proposal, however, is to leave the wreck untouched and to declare it an international maritime memorial for those who died there in 1912. The House of Representatives has passed such legis- lation, which requires the American Gov- ernment to enter into negotiations with other interested powers, primarily Great Britain, France, and Canada. The diffi- culties associated with getting even coun- THE DISCOVERY OF THE R.M.S. TITANIC 81 tries who are allies to agree to a protec- tionist plan are difficult to estimate. Getting the Western Allies to agree on anything these days is a mountainous task. However, the stakes are great. Titanic is magnificent where she lies, and should be protected from those who would tear her apart, as vigorously as we would pro- tect an endangered natural resource. Fur- thermore, although the likelihood of any- one successfully raising her is remote in the extreme, the possibility of reckless sal- vagers dying in the attempt is real. The ultimate tragedy would be for any more seafarers to die on Titanic than those who now lie in watery graves off Newfound- land. “ April maximum ice limit April extreme iceberg limit 1 “a 41 46 Lat. Lees \ 350 14 Long. | \ WOODS HOLE i = + —— We all have a stake in the preservation of the Titanic Memorial so that the lessons learned and paid for at so dear a price will not be lost to future generations. We have seen in pictures the extraordinary pre- servative powers of the deep sea. We are called upon to do no less. References Cited 1. Ballard, Robert D., Jean-Louis Michel. ‘““How We Found Titanic,” National Geographic. De- cember, 1985, 696-719. 2. Lord, Walter. A Night to Remember. Henry Holt, £953: 3. Ryan, Paul R. (ed.). Oceanus. Winter 1985/1986. April 10, 1912: the SOUTHAMPTON Titanic steams out of . Southampton. After brief stops for mail and passengers at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, she begins her maiden voyage to America. ===> NEW YORK knots (26 mph), strikes an iceberg. Three hours later, it sinks to the ocean floor. In the joint U. S./French exploration, the French research vessel Suroit prepared the way by narrowing the search area with sonar scanners. —-— April 14, 1912: at 11:40 p.m., the great ship, steaming at 22/2 Aboard the research vessel Knorr, scientists from France and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located and photographed the doomed liner. A 300-foot tear through five of her watertight compartments sent the Titanic to her final resting place, more than 12,000 feet down. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 82-87, March 1986 Technology for Ocean Exploration Graham S. Hawkes President, Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc. Those afraid of the universe as it really is . . beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition . . . and envision a Cosmos centered on human . But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. What limits ocean exploration? For ac- cess beyond the edge of the sea and in depths greater than a few feet, the use of technology is necessary. But is the lack of appropriate technology the only reason that so little is presently known about earth’s inner atmosphere? I am going to pose a question to help put this issue in perspective. We are meet- ing now on a part of the earth called Flor- ida. Would you describe this place as mountainous? High country or lowlands? Later we’ll come back to this question and show its significance relative to the topic of ocean exploration. Last spring I was among those who paid tribute at a meeting of the Explorers Club to a well known Arctic explorer who de- scribed his recent expedition, an arduous mountain-climbing feat, as “the last great exploration of the planet.” I got the feel- ing that if I put up my hand and announced that I knew where there was a patch of ground ten feet square that no human eyes had ever seen before, I might be crushed in the rush of those who wanted to be the first there. Perhaps a similar spirit motivated some 82 —Carl Sagan, Cosmos of my fellow British countrymen who re- cently walked around the world, pole to pole, north to south and back. The reason they gave for doing it was that no one had done it that way before. Such events do not bode well for those who would like to be explorers. Is it so that we humans have been everywhere, seen everything there is to see on the planet? To do something distinctively dif- ferent, must one now hop backwards to the north pole? I like singlehanded sailing, but to achieve notoriety in this field, it might be necessary to travel around the world three or four times nonstop. It is possible to walk or fly or take a jeep or boat or mule to any part of the planet at the bottom of the ocean of air that surrounds us, the apparent surface of the earth. Thus, there is a popular notion that the only frontier left is skyward, into the distant realms beyond earth’s atmos- phere. But what of that other, more dense atmosphere that mantles the planet—the ocean? Who has seen, let alone climbed the mountains that rest on the surface of the earth covered by water? To overcome the problems of gaining TECHNOLOGY FOR OCEAN EXPLORATION 83 access subsea, several approaches may be used. One may freedive in the manner of whales and dolphins, by taking a deep breath and diving as deep and long as lung and muscle power will allow. Using scuba and saturation diving techniques, depth and time can be dramatically increased. For access to depths beyond a thousand feet, it is necessary to use a submarine, the un- derwater equivalent of an airplane, a self- contained protective system supplied with air maintained at one atmosphere. In the past decade, the use of remotely operated systems and robotic devices has begun to complement the direct approach of “man-in-the-sea.”’ Presently, more than 700 remotely operated vehicles (““ROVs’’) are in active use worldwide, mostly for military and commercial applications, but increasingly, for research and exploration as well. One of the most sophisticated of these is the Argo, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and involved recently in the discovery and documen- tation of the sunken liner, Titanic. Pres- ently, such systems are tethered, with a pilot guiding operations from a surface station. Autonomous, computer-driven systems are being designed that will be equipped with camera eyes and various sensory devices to gather information and react to circumstances encountered with- out moment-by-moment directions from a human being. Half a century ago, the relative state of technology developed for access to the skies and to the seas was roughly equivalent. Aerospace technology has advanced enor- mously during the past half century, but among Ocean engineers, it is still regarded as an event of some note to descend 3000 feet in a small submersible, although the first visit to such depths occurred in the early 1930's. Much has been happening in the past decade, however. I shall recap some high- lights of this era, concentrating on tech- nology that I’ve been involved with, that coincidentally tells the story of recent ad- vances and future directions. The demands of the offshore oil and gas industry stimulated development of var- ious new technologies, starting in the early 1970’s. Saturation diving, originally a con- cept developed to prolong time subsea for scientific research and military applica- tions, grew into a major industry. Oil ng operators paid more than $50,000 per day to keep a team of men ready to work in depths as great as 1000 feet, sometimes to 1500 feet, using exotic mixtures of com- pressed gas and complex life support equipment. Various four to six passenger submers- ibles were also developed to work under- water and to transport divers under pres- sure from one site to another. Costs of operation—$20,000 to $50,000 per day— included a large support vessel capable of withstanding the rigorous offshore envi- ronment. At the time I was an inexperienced en- gineer who aspired to design airplanes, but got involved instead working with torpe- does and diver propulsion systems for the Royal Navy. A small group of people be- came interested in reconfiguring the one man portable iron dress system, called Jim, to work on oil rigs, and engaged me for design work. Jim was originally developed in the early 1930’s for salvaging the sunken vessel, Lusitania. After initial success, it remained idle until redesigned in the early 1970’s. There are now 15 units working worldwide. A man using Jim can go deeper than divers—2000 feet—and can perform work at a much lower cost. The system can only walk on a flat surface, however, and work subsea often requires moving vertically. Thus came the inspiration for a system that ultimately became known as Wasp— it’s yellow and black and, like its insect namesake, it flies. Eighteen Wasp units are presently in operation, but in 1976, when I set about designing the first, the concept seemed revolutionary. Work began not in a grand engineering design facility, crammed with computers and draftsmen and secretaries. Actually, there was no electricity in my office, a derelict cottage by the seaside near Nor- 84 GRAHAM S. HAWKES folk. The front door did not work, so I climbed in the window to get to my desk. The place was quiet and peaceful, how- ever, and within ten months of starting work, the first unit was ready to take to prospective customers. The cost of trans- porting Wasp from England to the Off- shore Technology Conference in Houston was too great, so my colleagues and I took a large photograph and displayed it in a small booth among the giants of offshore industry. Wasp created a minor sensation at its debut. Not only could it go twice as deep as most saturation divers—to 2000 feet it could also be operated for one tenth the cost. We thought everyone would like that. In fact, nobody did. The diving companies were quite happy charging $50,000 a day and did not much like the idea of getting only $5000 for Wasp. They did not want to buy it, but neither did they want their competitors to have it. Within a few weeks, we were avidly courted by several large companies. This was very flattering at first. Then it became clear that they all wanted to buy that one machine and get exclusive rights to ensure that no more would be built. At that point, things began to get nasty. An American company sued us and a British one took the more straightfor- ward approach and simply stole the only Wasp then in existence. The matter was happily resolved in the end, with the American company buying four full years of production. After two years, the orig- inal Wasp was recovered and sold at a nice profit. I tell this story only to emphasize that not everybody welcomes technological ad- vances that enhance working capability and also greatly reduce costs. We got through difficult times with Wasp largely because of our naivete and the sheer blazing con- viction that is borne of righteous indig- nation. Since all production of Wasp was locked up for several years, it was time to design something new. I set to work on another kind of one-man system, Mantis, launched in 1978. Mantis is quite different from the anthropomorphic Jim and Wasp. They, like astronaut’s suits, have articulated limbs operated by muscle power. The operator actually has his arms in metal sleeves. The operator of Mantis uses metal and plastic manipulators controlled from within the cylindrical pressure hull. The system is propelled by strategically positioned thrusters controlled by a push-button panel provided with arrows indicating direc- tions. Thirty Mantis systems have been pro- duced and are employed throughout the world in support of the offshore oil and gas industry. Mantis is successful because it is small, easily transported and de- ployed, and there is working capability normally possible only in much larger, more costly submersibles. At the time Mantis was introduced, about twenty large sub- mersibles were being operated from ships in the North Sea. They soon became com- mercially extinct because Jim, Wasp, Mantis and a growing fleet of ROV’s could do the work required at a fraction of the cost of operating the large systems. Except for a few large submersibles working primarily for science, this type of submersible has become obsolete. Among those that continue to perform sterling service for science are the Harbor Branch Foundation’s Johnson-Sea-Link systems and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu- tion’s Alvin. Let’s go back now to the questions raised at the beginning. Are we sitting here on a mountain, or is this a lowland? Is tech- nology the limiting factor preventing us from gaining access to the sea, or is some- thing else holding us back? Taking the astronaut’s view of the earth, it is obvious that the oceans dominate the planet. Taking the narrow perspective of earth-bound human beings, there is an impression that land dominates. It wasn’t so long ago that the popular concept of the earth was that it is flat, bounded by corners, with a canopy of sky overhead. Proof that earth is round was disquieting to many, but acceptable as long as humans remained the center of the action. People TECHNOLOGY FOR OCEAN EXPLORATION 85 who insisted that we must be the pivotal point of the universe had a difficult time accepting the premise that the earth moves around the sun rather than visa versa. Many still have a problem imagining that the earth may not have been designed just for our pleasure, but most seem to have adjusted to an understanding of where earth is relative to the cosmos—a small blue planet associated with a minor star in one of many galaxies. A typical map of the earth showing con- tinents and islands surrounded by a fea- tureless ocean reflects our self-centered terrestrial bias. If we were to put the same question about Florida to some savvy dol- phins and whales, the answer might be different from the response given by most people. From the standpoint of sea crea- tures, Florida’s base is several thousand feet from its top, and seven miles from the ocean’s deepest location. Doesn’t it make sense to measure the height of a mountain from its bottom, rather than from the in- terface where the air atmosphere meets the water atmosphere? Looking at it this way, Florida is a mountain with a rather level top, but a mountain nonetheless. “Sea level” as a baseline reflects our landbound point of view. Taking the deepest part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench near the Philippines, as the reference point, we are presently standing on a mountain more than half the height of Mount Ev- erest. We are 37,000+ feet from the deep ocean reference point, and Everest stands approximately 62,000 feet above the same point. From the perspective of a dolphin or whale, we humans are poor terrestrial beings huddled together on that bit of land that projects through the ocean, through the inner atmosphere that is home for most of the life on earth. We are literally im- prisoned on the top one third of the planet. The man honored last year by the Ex- plorer’s Club had it wrong when he said that the era of exploration is over. In fact, it is just beginning. We have trampled on Fig.. 1. 86 GRAHAM S. HAWKES the top one third of the planet, but the majority of the earth’s surface that is cov- ered by water has never been reached, even by ROVs, or nets or instruments, let alone by humans who are determined to see and experience for themselves. Suppose it is acknowledged that, in- deed, we don’t know as much as we thought, and that ocean exploration is something that must be undertaken in a major way. Is it technologically feasible? Could we, if we wanted to, explore the base of this Florida mountain, or are there major problems yet to be solved? Before answering, I would like to de- scribe a vision, a dream that began several years ago as a result of discussions with the chairman of this session concerning how to get to the bottom of the ocean— and return. It is a dream shared with and in part supported by the Charles A. Lind- bergh Fund through a grant in 1981. Imag- ine being able to step into the ocean of your choice and glide into the depths with- out being concerned about getting cold or running out of air. Imagine a comfortable seat within a transparent pressure hull and two sensory manipulators that respond to controls that are operated instinctively. Imagine a vehicle called Deep Rover that is not make-believe, but real. The first of what I hope will be many was launched in the summer of 1984. Deep Rover (Figure 1) is sophisticated, but simple to operate. Evidence of how simple it is to operate was achieved one Saturday when fifteen people, including my 13 year old son, Jonathan, were each given 20 to 30 minutes of instruction be- fore they became pilots in command of a free-swimming submersible. They found that slight forward motion on the arm rest engages appropriate thrusters and the sub moves forward; reverse is triggered by leaning back. Such movements soon be- come instinctive and most of the pilot’s attention can therefore be concentrated on what he is there to do. The dream, now closer to reality than when we first started talking about it in 1979, is to dive pairs or teams of Deep Rovers and, by using ceramic glass rather than acrylic for the clear pressure sphere, to make descents to seven miles a routine occurrence. In conclusion, whatever one wants to do in the oceans, can be done, technolog- ically. Put a budget of, say, $100 million or perhaps even $10 million, a fraction of what is spent by this nation on hundreds of matters of no greater importance than this. Allow two or three years, and there is virtually no limit to where it will be pos- sible to go in the ocean. Do you want to go to the deepest part of the sea? It was done 26 years ago by Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard and surely could be done again if we decide to do so. Technologically, solutions to problems re- lating to great pressure and other chal- lenges already are in hand. It is notewor- thy that no nation, including the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Japan, and France, presently has the capability to go deeper than about 20,000 feet in a manned system. The last vehicle in the Trieste series used by Walsh and Piccard was decommissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1984. Technology generally has made rapid advances in the past few decades, the last in particular. Little of this is presently being directed toward the ocean, but the ma- terials are there, the technology is waiting to be used. What do you want to do? Do you want to build cities underwater? We can do that. Do you want a subsea restaurant? We can ~ do that. Do you want to take you aunt and your grandmother down in a tour sub to see coral reefs and visit with dolphins on their own terms? This is underway right now. What do you want to do in the sea? It can be done. The limitations are not technological, they are psychological and self-imposed. If the citizens of this great country, America, ever got it in their heads that they were in prison, unable to move at THE LIVING SEAS 87 will throughout the planet, there would be a clamor to break free, to remove the bar- riers, and to commit to a vigorous program of ocean exploration. Presently, the oceans are ignored, just as the ancients ignored and turned away from the unknown hazards beyond the ho- rizon. It was more conforting, for a while, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 87—88, March 1986 to imagine that monsters were waiting just over the edge of the flat earth, so best stay away. But, just as a few in ancient times risked the monsters and gained priceless new understanding of the world, so must risks be taken again. What, other than ig- norance, is there to lose? The Living Seas Kym Murphy Director, Living Seas Pavilion, Epcot Center, Walt Disney World More than 10 years of design and con- struction have gone into Walt Disney World’s newest EPCOT Center pavilion, The Living Seas. Dedicated to the explo- ration of human-kind’s relationship with the ocean, The Living Seas was designed from start to finish to provide an intensely entertaining and educational forum for the presentation of ocean related sciences. Twenty-seven feet deep and 203 feet in diameter, the man-made salt water envi- ronment has a life support system which recirculates and filters all 5.7 million gal- lons within 3 hours to maintain a natur- alistic eco-system for the sealife of the coral reel. Rockwork at the entrance recreates the organic forms of a natural coastline, with waves cascading into tidepools. A curving wall with a 125-foot-long, stylized ocean mural draws us inside, where we pass through a showcase of man’s historical fas- cination with undersea exploration. Reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of underwater breathing devices and submersibles, John Lethbridge’s div- ing barrel and Frederic de Drieberg’s 1809 breathing device are a few of the curios- ities displayed here. The dive suit from the classic Disney film, ““Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” and the actual 11-foot-long Nautilus model are also showcased. A formal welcome is extended by United Technologies, the pavilion’s participant, in a 24-minute special effect multi-media presentation introducing the pioneers of modern ocean exploration. A high-tech- nology company with worldwide head- quarters in Hartford, Connecticut, United Technologies employs some 194,000 peo- ple. Among some of their best-known products are Pratt & Whitney jet engines, Carrier air conditioners, Sikorsky helicop- ters and Otis elevators and escalators. Ex- amples of United Technologies’ interest in ocean exploration and the highly special- ized equipment supporting these ventures are seen throughout The Living Seas. The ocean’s mysterious depths and its effect on our lives are the subjects of a 7- minute show which combines 35 mm live- action film and computer animation to fo- cus on the ocean’s inextricable link to our survival. After the show, theater doors open to 83 KYM MURPHY reveal elevator-like capsules called ““Hy- drolators,’’ which take us on a simulated plunge to the ocean floor. We arrive at Seabase Alpha, a prototype ‘‘21st cen- tury” undersea research and visitor cen- ter. Boarding two-passenger “‘seacabs,”’ we embark upon a 3-minute voyage that takes us through an underwater world, popu- lated by sea creatures, divers and robotic submersibles darting among the coral, rockwork, and plantlife of a Caribbean coral reef environment. As our vehicles move through tunnels with acrylic view- ports 25 feet below the water’s surface, we look upon schools of tropical fish, sharks and other real ocean inhabitants within their naturalistic eco-system. Some 200 varieties of sealife swim around us, in- cluding sharks and rays, sea bass, puffers, barracuda, butterflyfish and angelfish. Within this environment, the diver crew of Seabase Alpha is testing new diving sys- tems. The crew also conducts experiments in dolphin communication and monitors the chemistry and biology of the ocean environment. The Visitor Center of Seabase Alpha showcases current and future ocean tech- nology in demonstrations, exhibits and in- teractive shows. These exhibits are housed within six modules, each dedicated to a scientific topic crucial to our exploration and understanding of the sea. Seabase Alpha has been designed so that it will be able to keep pace with the leading edge of scientific thought, through the use of varied presentation mechanisms such as: large screen video presentations, in- teractive video-disk systems and the most versatile educational tool(s) of all; the Seabase’s scientific staff who interact with the guests as members of the “crew.” These crew members who will be functioning on and off-stage, will also be taking in on- going research programs which, like The Living Seas itself, are just beginning to evolve. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 89-93, March 1986 Research and Development of Ocean Resources Don Walsh President, International Maritime Incorporated, 839 South Beacon Street, Suite 217, San Pedro, California 90731 ABSTRACT Oceanography, the science of the sea, is the crucial first step in efficient development of marine resources. To know what is there, learn its concentration, study the formative processes, understand life cycles and develop the ability to predict location/occurrence are all vital factors whether the potential resource is living, non-living, or a use of ocean space. Simply having scientific information is not enough. There are three additional steps before effective commercial development can be attained. These are: develop the tech- nology to build machines to work in the sea, undertake an economic evaluation of a proposed resource development and develop supportive public policy. While scientific, technological and economic analysis methodologies are fairly well understood, the policy area often produces the most difficulties and delays. Therefore “research and develop- ment” activities for development of ocean resources must embrace all four areas to insure a balanced approach to uses of ocean space. Ocean Space: A Large Area for a Small Paper Clearly it is not possible to fully describe here the full path of ocean resource de- velopment from the initiation of basic re- search, at the beginning, to commercial resource production at the end. However it is possible to give an overall concept of how events, or developmental steps, must be sequenced to insure a balanced, effi- cient approach to use of this vast region. It might be helpful at this point to ‘cal- ibrate’ the reader with what is meant by “vast region’. The world ocean covers 71% 89 of our planet; its average depth is about two miles, and the maximum depth is seven miles. The volume of the oceans is about 360 million cubic miles, a number so large that it loses meaning. However noting that all of the world’s population could be put into one cubic mile of seawater gives some scale to this number. In economic terms all of the U.S. ocean- related business contributes over $100 bil- lion dollars a year to our gross national product. And there are 138 other coastal nations in the world. Therefore this brief paper, of about 3000 words, can be pro- rated at about $33 million per word just for the value of the U.S. ocean industry. 90 DON WALSH The Uses of Ocean Space: In Four Steps The path from basic research to com- mercial venture involves four broad steps: ¢ Science: What’s There? The study of the oceans in terms of their physical, chemical, biological and geolog- ical properties. * Technology: How Do We Get It? The adaption of technologies to our knowledge of the oceans to produce ma- chines to work in and on the sea. This includes machines science to study the sea. * Economics: Is It Worth Doing? Solving scientific and technological questions does not guarantee efficient uses of the sea. Economic analysis determines whether or not a proposed resource de- velopment program can produce a profit for its operator. * Public Policy: Politics Has the Last Word. This last step involves the ‘man-made’ constraints on uses of the sea. Govern- ment policy determines under what con- ditions resource development will take place. Public interest groups attempt to influence government policies to insure that resource development is undertaken with full consideration given to effect on the environment and to finding balance be- tween alternative uses. Cultural questions also influence policy when traditional ways of life are affected by a resource devel- opment (or non-development). In many ways the whole area of public policy pro- vides the greatest number of difficulties for the development of ocean space. Sci- ence, technology and economics can be reduced to fairly specific scientific meth- odologies and analysis. Human factors used in the development of intelligent govern- ment policies are far more complex. Oceanography: The Provider of Information Oceanography is not very old compared to the fields of pure science such as phys- ics, chemistry, mathematics and geology. In fact, oceanography is not even a pure field of science. It is interdisciplinary, es- sentially embracing most existing fields of science and applying them to the marine environment. An oceanographer gener- ally belongs to one of four major discipli- nary categories: biological, geological, chemical and physical. The first three cat- egories are pretty self-explanatory. The fourth, physical oceanography, can be simply described as the study of the mo- tions of the ocean and its interaction with its air and land boundaries. Oceanography: The Early Days Inquiring men have looked at and stud- ied the sea for literally thousands of years but there was little formal organization and analysis of what was observed. Resources, (uses of the sea) did not depend upon or use this information to any large extent. In the 1840’s a U.S. naval officer, Lieu- tenant Matthew Fontaine Maury under- took a project to organize, analyze and chart voluntary observational data taken by naval, whaling and merchant ship cap- tains. Maury knew that a great mass of information could be available from the hundreds of ships that covered large ocean areas. If this information could be organ- ized by season and region certain useful patterns might evolve that could assist all mariners to be more successful. The result of this work was two publications which revolutionized maritime safety and effi- ciency, ““Wind and Current Charts’ and ‘Sailing Directions’. His book, “The Physical Geography of the Sea’’ (1855) is credited with being the first modern oceanography textbook. Maury’s diplo- macy, hard work and careful studies earned him the unofficial title, ‘‘the first physical oceanographer’’. Oceanography’s formal beginning as an interdisciplinary science was about 110 years ago, when the British Challenger Expedition (1872-76) left England on an around-the-world scientific voyage. About RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF OCEAN RESOURCES 91 this same time (1873) the first marine lab- oratory was established at Naples, Italy. By the turn of the century, oceanographic studies were being conducted in many places throughout the world. Marine biology relating to fisheries was the primary thrust of most marine re- search prior to the beginning of World War J. Prior to that time no marine minerals were taken from the sea and the study of Ocean currents and water depths were ~ mostly confined to improving safe navi- gation of ships in coastal waters. However the tragic loss of the steamship TITANIC in 1912 did set in motion studies of ice- bergs, their formation and drift trajecto- ries. In fact, these studies continue to the present. The war helped stimulate the need to have more information about the oceans, especially in learning how to detect and destroy enemy submarines. Since the pri- mary means of detection was sound prop- agation through the water, the field of ma- rine acoustics was born. World War II research efforts expanded upon this work and by the end of the war effective active and passive sonar (sound navigation and ranging) systems were in- stalled on both submarines and surface ships. Both the knowledge of the marine environment and matching technology now set the stage for a major expansion in the field of oceanography. Predictive Information: Key to Effective Uses of the Sea The product of marine scientific re- search is predictive information. That is, information that can be applied to uses of the sea. Following the scientific method the scientist observes, hypothesizes, and experiments. Finally he develops, and then tests a predictive model for the phenom- enon being observed. Once we can understand and predict marine phenomena, whether they relate to marine weather or to the abundance of fish in a certain area then we can use this information for the benefit of commerce. Not all “‘predictive information” finds an immediate application in the commer- cial marketplace. Actually very little makes it this far. Thus the term “‘resources”’ has a specific meaning. It refers to those ma- terials, properties and space whose avail- ability, predictability and value make them economically important if they were to be exploited. To pass the test of being a re- source the key determinant is the eco- nomic one. Thus while many things of po- tential value are found in the world’s oceans only a few command commecial value. The balance remain scientific curiosities, help- ing scientists to understand more about the sea but not achieving the status of re- source. Of course the situation is not static, new knowledge and new technologies fre- quently convert yesterday’s curiosity into tomorrow’s resource. The Resources of the Sea: A Quick Sampling In considering marine resources we can divide them into three broad categories: living, non-living and oceanspace use. The common thread in all of these categories is the essential need for predictive infor- mation in order to be able to conduct ef- fective and economically viable operations on and under the sea. Living resources means all living things, animals and plants, in the sea and on the seafloor. Other than marine transporta- tion/exploration this is the oldest resource use of the ocean. While only about 15% of the protein needs of the world’s pop- ulation is supplied from the sea, there are promising new developments that may in- crease this supply. The most obvious is to know more about the oceans as a means to better harvest available fish stocks. New technologies such as ocean sensing satel- lites are providing this capability. The new field of bioengineering will permit improvement of natural fish stocks 92 DON WALSH as well as greatly improve the efficiency and yields of fish farming (aquaculture) operations. At present about 10% of the fish consumed in the world comes from aquaculture; this figure could be greatly increased through the application of bio- engineering. Marine organisms (plants and animals) have greater levels of bioactivity than do terrestrial organisms. Of particular inter- est are bioactive compounds that can be derived from living marine resources which can be the basis for new generations of pharmaceuticals. Non-living resources are generally the hard minerals and liquid/gaseous hydro- carbons taken from the subseafloor, sea- floor, and from seawater itself. In addition this category includes renewable ocean energy such as ocean thermal difference, waves and tides. While not economically feasible at pres- ent, it is clear that mining of ocean mineral deposits will be an important source of raw materials early in the next century. The technology is in hand and has been tested; it’s only a matter of time until market de- mand catches up with capability. Oil and gas from the seafloor also is an area where a depressed world market for hydrocarbons has been reflected in off- shore development. But the demographics of the world population tell us that this is only a transient ‘energy glut’. Most of the world’s new discoveries of hydrocarbons will come from beneath the seafloor. Ocean thermal energy which is renewable and non- polluting will become more attractive as the per barrel price of crude oil increases in the future. Again, the technology is in hand and has been tested. Finally, oceanspace use embraces the ocean as a place for certain activities such as transportation of the world’s com- merce; waste disposal, and marine recre- ation. Approximately 99% of world trade (by tonnage) travels by ships between nations. This percentage will remain constant al- though total tonnage will increase as third world economies develop and expand. New technologies such as automated ships and ~ super ships will greatly reduce operating costs while improving maritime safety. Man will continue to generate wastes and as populations increase so will this ‘byproduct’ of numbers of people and in- creasing affluence. The oceans must be considered as one of the acceptable sites for disposal. To safely do this, we must know more about ocean processes. The developed nations create leisure time and disposal income for their citizens. This translates to increased recreational activ- ities, especially in the marine area. In the U.S. marine recreation contributes more than $28 billion a year to the gross national product. This is a major growth area for ocean industry. At present ocean industry is depressed in many areas. Oil and gas are too abun- dant and prices per barrel of crude have fallen dramatically. The ‘oil glut’ has cas- caded throughout the marine industry and related sectors such as offshore drilling services, shipbuilding and tanker opera- tions have all suffered. World shipping has too much capacity for the amount of car- goes available. This is not only in the tanker trades but also in general cargo shipping. Understandably the world shipbuilding in- dustry is badly depressed due to poor off- shore oil and gas prospects and the over- capacity in cargo shipping. Finally world- wide fishing activity seems to have reached a plateau of about 70 million tons a year and there has been little change for sev- eral years. | But the news is not all bad. Marine rec- reation is a major growth area. Port and harbor operations still expand and are profitable for most major seaports. And as always, national investments in navies seem to continue to increase. This mixture of good news/bad news must be understood as a transient situa- tion. One only has to look at forecasts for world demand for energy, minerals and marine protein to understand that there will be a return to demand. The hard part is attempting to calculate when this will happen in each of the resource areas. RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF OCEAN RESOURCES 93 In areas such as oil and gas, and ocean mining the lead times for resource devel- opment are in the order of 10-15 years. Therefore it is not unreasonable to suggest that doing the relevant oceanographic re- search now will provide the knowledge needed to develop the resource in the fu- ture when economic conditions are better. In other words there can never be a world- wide ‘glut’ in marine scientific informa- tion. Summary: Reality Versus Hope The distance between basic scientific in- vestgation and actual commercial practice is great, sometimes too great. As noted earlier, at every step of the way there are major problems which need to be ad- dressed to insure that the people of our planet can enjoy maximum use of the re- sources of ocean space. As Marshall McLuhan said, “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth, we are all crew”. A primary problem is lack of public invest- ment in marine science and technology. Because such activity produces results over the long term (10-20 years) it is hard for governments, which are short term (4-8 years), to be concerned about problems relatively so far in the future. But without the fundamental predictive information, and matching technological capability, the result will be greatly restricted resource uses of the oceans. In the United States our national budget allocations for marine research and tech- nology have just barely kept up with the inflation rate over the past decade. The U.S. is not alone, a similar situation is found in other major maritime nations. Yet we know that only a small fraction of ocean space has been explored for its re- source wealth while an expanding world population continues to put a strain on existing terrestrial resources. Resource development without the sup- porting foundations of science and tech- nology is wasteful, economically ineffi- cient and potentially harmful to the ocean environment. Yet this may be the case if proper support is not given to doing the needed fundamental research in the oceans. This is not an argument for massive gov- ernment support for marine science and technology. The role of government in this area is to fund basic research where there is high risk, the national interest is in- volved and where the rewards are some years in the future. A government part- nership with the entrepreneur will permit a smooth transition from basic research to commercial practice with each player un- dertaking the role that he is best suited to fill. There is still time to do it right. How- ever there must be much greater public involvement to insure government policies encourage more extensive studies of ocean space and that government budgets pro- vide the needed resources. This public awareness can only come from education and information activities which actively lobby the public to become more con- cerned with the care and use of “‘spaceship earth”’. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 76, Number 1, Pages 94-96, March 1986 A Synthesis of Presentations Surgeon Vice Admiral Sir John Rawlins Chairman of the Board, Deep Ocean Engineering, Inc. The philosophy of the Charles A. Lind- bergh Fund reflects that of the man for whom the fund is named. That philosophy is that a balance must be struck between technology and the environment. This is what Lindbergh called, “the wisdom of wildness.” I see a parallel in this and in a sport that I particularly enjoy—judo. Judo is the sci- ence of balance. The philosophy of the Greek athletes was, ‘“‘a healthy mind in a healthy body.” The presumption is that by educating your body to a healthy state, that you thereby would develop a healthy mind. In judo, the objective is to have a balanced mind in a balanced body. Judo depends upon maintaining your own bal- ance, disturbing your opponent’s balance, and in preventing him from regaining it, thereby bringing about his downfall. Good health and good balance are interdepen- dent. I do not think that it is necessary to draw obvious parallels with the state of the planet. A number of important themes have emerged from this conference, some that have become apparent only after reflect- ing on the whole, having heretofore con- centrated on the individual components. Some highlights follow: —Satellite imaging, vital to maintaining an overview of the state of the planet, needs further development, support, and application. 94 —Communication of the conservation ethic via entertaining but instructive films, museums, aquaria, zoos and centers such as Epcot’s Living Seas Pavilion, was repeatedly endorsed. —Development of replenishable energy sources such as solar and wind power and the use of hydrogen must be en- couraged. —The need to stem the loss of species diversity and the use of diversity as a yardstick to gauge a healthy vs. an unhealthy environment was a recur- rent topic. —The loss of species may be on the or- der of 10,000 per year through the destruction of rainforests and other critical habitats, while replacement by newly evolving forms may be only on the order of one per year. Protection for critical habitats and captive breed- ing programs for rare and endangered species coupled with broad public ed- ucation concerning the tragic conse- quences of the loss of species were discussed as some of the ways to ad- dress this imbalance. —The need to solve problems relating to toxic waste disposal is of critical importance. Methods for doing so in- volve legislation and regulation, but these in turn often generate new problems such as stifling innovation and increasing costs. : —Recently developed methods make it A SYNTHESIS OF PRESENTATIONS 95 possible to detect traces of certain toxic substances to and within a quadril- lionth of a percentage. Such sensitiv- ity increases capability concerning understanding and dealing with toxic materials, but can be troublesome as people attempt to grasp the signifi- cance of such small amounts. —A repeated underlying message con- cerning waste disposal was, “‘There is no away, anymore.’ We must face up to the problems of generating and dis- posing wastes or face the regrettable consequences. —The perception that exploration of the planet is essentially complete was shown to be nonsense, in part by evi- dence that most of the planet is ocean, and most of the ocean has not yet been explored either directly by hu- mans or by remotely deployed ma- chines. It was also pointed out that only five or perhaps fifteen per cent of all the species of organisms pres- ently living on the planet have been described scientificially. This suggests that much exploration remains to be done. —It is clear that the responsibility for maintaining a healthy planet rests largely now with the actions of man- kind. —It is both ecologically and economi- cally sound to use ecosystems in a sus- tainable way. —The theme that “‘time is our most pre- cious resource’ came with a corol- lary: ““We need to take advantage of technology in order to ensure its most efficient utilization.” —Increasingly, the resolution of envi- ronmental matters involves law and public policy, often to positive ends, but sometimes with costly and con- fusing results. —Some have suggested protection for remote environments, such as the deep sea, and remote sites of historic sig- nificance, such as the sunken passen- ger liner, Titanic, can be achieved by maintaining a cloak of ignorance. The rationale is that it is more difficult to damage or destroy something that can’t be found or reached. This sug- gestion was countered by the theme, “with knowing comes caring.”” Many historic sites and priceless natural areas have been destroyed deliberately or inadvertently because their value was not appreciated. Education, not ig- norance, is needed to gain lasting pro- tection. —TIt was noted that the earth, seas, sky, and space beyond are as pristine now as they ever will be, if present trends continue. There are opportunities to learn from wildness and set standards for all that follows. This is particularly apparent concerning understanding the balance that comes about in nat- ural ecosystems, but there are other specific examples of the “wisdom of wildness.’ One example is that it takes the very latest aerospace techniques to crudely approximate what nature achieves with ease concerning flight among insects, bats, birds, and even ancient reptiles. Concluding thoughts were provided by Reeve Lindbergh Brown. She said her father, of course, could not have known twelve years after his death, on the an- niversary of his birth, that a group of peo- ple would be meeting to address a topic which was the focus of much of his life— balance. He would be pleased, she thought, to know that individuals were actually tak- ing responsibility for achieving and main- taining the balance he believed to be vital to survival. She recalled an observation I made that a tragedy can be measured by the size of the audience, by the number of people affected. Triumphs, she said, can also be so measured. In her father’s lifetime, personal triumphs and tragedies both involved sizeable au- diences. His concerns for achieving a bal- ance have belatedly been shared by an in- creasingly wide audience, including those 96 SIR JOHN RAWLINS gathered for this symposium, and those who will read the printed results. Noting that one of the panels concerned “outer space” and “inner space,” she made reference to thoughts that her father jot- ted down on a pad just before one of her last visits with him. He had mused, “I know there is an infinity outside of us; I wonder if there is also an infinity within.” This conference has not only expressed the philosophy of Charles Lindbergh; it has also found his spirit. ay he . FP an bes ete J 2 mgos Pesiert st fEnginer - . ‘. UJ ‘Be * aA. } Ra: yen eg ©? i ‘an —e/} ‘4 4 mh % cHct a % ary ‘ neal PA OPAM OO om a) Demteely 7 aoe 7 it >, ‘ . et Gerere Ssicerns ‘damage? oi 7 ’ a - ——) Pe 7 : %s Footy v<« . . om] i N ° - { —~ . }) Ra An etiaks San mae hg hph i a - f har raical heen ea al uy ' ig - he! % MS, Li baie 7 apy Shogtame? Wear I OED tte in ae Prenat wie wae OF SCIENCES, P SOCTETIES Kar Witten Rome ’ a‘é sOrrecs ' Li May Partt 4 Lowe RA iy ak | n CJ0fT Landmat meyer Et rats . i]