Today, many of the largest mineral corporations in the world have launched underwater mining programs. On the west coast of Africa, the De Beers Group is using a fleet of specialized ships to drag machinery across the seabed in search of diamonds. In 2018, those ships extracted 1.4 million carats from the coastal waters of Namibia; in 2019, De Beers commissioned a new ship that will scrape the bottom twice as quickly as any other vessel. Another company, Nautilus Minerals, is working in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea to shatter a field of underwater hot springs lined with precious metals, while Japan and South Korea have embarked on national projects to exploit their own offshore deposits. But the biggest prize for mining companies will be access to international waters, which cover more than half of the global seafloor and contain more valuable minerals than all the continents combined. From Our January/February 2020 Issue
Regulations for ocean mining have never been formally established. The United Nations has given that task to an obscure organization known as the International Seabed Authority, which is housed in a pair of drab gray office buildings at the edge of Kingston Harbour, in Jamaica. Unlike most UN bodies, the ISA receives little oversight. It is classified as “autonomous” and falls under the direction of its own secretary general, who convenes his own general assembly once a year, at the ISA headquarters. For about a week, delegates from 168 member states pour into Kingston from around the world, gathering at a broad semicircle of desks in the auditorium of the Jamaica Conference Centre. Their assignment is not to prevent mining on the seafloor but to mitigate its damage—selecting locations where extraction will be permitted, issuing licenses to mining companies, and drafting the technical and environmental standards of an underwater Mining Code.
During the spring and summer of this year, Shafer and his fellow researchers looked at 37 rainwater samples taken over a week from 30 different sites predominantly near the east coast, though as far afield as Alabama and Washington. They found that each sample contained at least one of the 36 different compounds being studied.
While total PFAS concentrations were generally less than 1 nanogram per liter (ng/l), the highest total concentration was nearly 5.5 ng/l in a single sample from Massachusetts. Several samples contained total PFAS levels at or about 4 ng/l.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a health advisory level of 70 ng/l for combined PFOS and PFOA in drinking water. But many states have either proposed or already set significantly lower drinking water standards. Wisconsin, for example, has proposed a preventative action limit of 2 ng/l for combined PFOS and PFOA.
Shafer says he suspects PFAS chemicals are entering rainwater through a variety of avenues, like direct industrial emissions and evaporation from PFAS-laden fire-fighting foams. Still, “there’s a dearth of knowledge about what’s supporting the atmospheric concentrations and ultimately deposition of PFAS”, he says.
High levels of surface-water chloride were first noticed in Mirror Lake in 2014 when it was surveyed as part of the Adirondack Lake Assessment Program, and so the following year, Wiltse and colleagues began monitoring Mirror Lake more intensely.
Bi-weekly measurements of dissolved oxygen, specific conductance, temperature and pH was collected at 1-meter intervals at the point of maximum depth (18 m) from December 2015 through to January 2018. Sampling continued at monthly intervals when the lake was ice covered, but bi-weekly sampling was resumed as soon as possible to capture both spring and fall mixing events.
Wiltse and his team noticed that Mirror Lake completely mixed seasonally except for the spring of 2017. Concentrations of chloride were highest in the deepwater during the previous winter because of road salt application in the Adirondack watershed. These conditions persisted into the summer due to a lack of spring mixing, which left distinct density differences in the water column.
Seemed like a good song to be playing on the Boston Tea Party day. That said, the water quality is a lot better in Boston thanks to them building the deep-water sewage pipe, which spreads the nutrients from the sewers farther out in the sea, and I doubt the curfew the song was written back about in the mid-1960s is still around.
MWRA's Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant is the centerpiece of MWRA' $3.8 billion program to protect Boston Harbor against pollution from Metropolitan Boston's sewer systems.
The plant removes human, household, business and industrial pollutants from wastewater that originates in homes and businesses in 43 greater Boston communities. In compliance with all federal and state environmental standards and subject to the precedent-setting discharge permit issued for the plant by EPA and DEP, its treated wastewater can be released to the marine environment.
Being that everybody's talking about the Boston Harbor today, it's good to learn about the Deer Island Treatment plant that is helping to reduce the dirty water that tea was once dumped into.
That's the conclusion of the biggest study of its kind, undertaken by conservation group IUCN. While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse. Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s. Researchers say the depletion is threatening species including tuna, marlin and sharks.
New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed into law a bill banning all but trace amounts of 1,4-dioxane in personal care and cleaning products, despite industry protests that it could cost more than $2bn to implement. The legislation (S 4389B/A 6295A), which cleared the legislature in June and was approved by Mr Cuomo on 9 December, is intended to address 1,4-dioxane contamination in drinking water by limiting the amount that can be present in consumer products.
The substance, a possible carcinogen and one of the first ten substances subject to TSCA evaluation, can appear as a contaminant during the manufacturing process of certain cosmetics, detergents and shampoos. It has been found in high concentrations in Long Island, New York, drinking water.
The law puts in place a phase-down schedule that will see permissible levels set at ten parts per million (10ppm) for cosmetics, all the way down to 1ppm for certain personal care and cleaning products, by the end of 2023. And beginning in 2025, the state’s department of environmental conservation will be charged with determining whether those trace concentration thresholds should be lowered to offer better protection to human health and the environment. Those not in compliance could face civil penalties of up to $1,000 for each day of a violation, increasing to $2,500 for a second offense. However, one-year compliance waivers may be given out when a manufacturer "has taken steps to reduce the presence of 1,4-dioxane in that product and is unable to comply with the requirements".
With 1,4-dioxane having an affinity to water, a fairly long half life, and an inability to bind to soil, it's probably a good thing to see it being phased out. Sure it will cost manufacturer significant money to remove the contamination from personal care products -- it's something that rides along with useful chemicals -- but the cost will be spread out over millions of consumers, and it's a pretty nasty chemical that probably is carcinogenic. Wastewater treatment plants and septic systems can eat away at the biological material and remove some of the chemicals that are solids, the truth is most things that get flushed down the toilet or sink, ultimately do end up again in our drinking water.
