THE BATTALION
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1978
Page 9
oncern grows over envvronment
Electromagnetic pollution coming
United Press International
WASHINGTON — A toaster that
ays music, a truck that brakes
ien a CB radio transmits and a
art pacemaker that goes awry are
mptoms of what may become one
the nation’s most perplexing
ivironmental problems in the
— electromagnetic pollution.
This is the plethora of radio waves
other energy radiated from the
irgeoning number of electronic
oducts and components in our
imes, offices, factories and vehi-
53
a diver [»;
Experts say the electronics revo
lution is only in its infancy and as
engineers apply solidstate circuitry
and the minicomputers known as
microprocessors to more and more
jobs, their unintended conse
quences may become more serious.
The big problem is interference.
Signals from one device can disrupt
another.
Another possible problem may be
biological effects that might be
caused in some cases by the non
ionizing types of electromagnetic
radiation usually considered harm
less.
Natural electromagnetic waves
have been around as long as the
Earth has, but the amount of man
made electromagnetic waves in the
environment was relatively slight
until after World War II. The in
crease since then has been dra
matic.
According to Charles K. S. Mil
ler, of the National Bureau of
Standards, there are now 4,524 AM
and 3,975 FM radio stations in the
Dredge dumping seen
ivorse on land than sea
it Ocean Pai
1 preventing i
ute is less tk
Chin said,
is very low.
t
of any aquari
itch l^ Tverall environmental damage of
posal of material dredged from
rbors and rivers may be less if it’s
in deep water than on land,
experts believe.
Evidence supporting open water
posal was presented at the 11th
edging Seminar in New Orleans.
Dredging is essential to keep
anhels open for export and import
goes. Accidental spillage of some
goes in poorly maintained chan
is viewed as having worse ef
ts on marine ecological systems
dredging.
[Present federal regulations re
land, at cost higher than if it were
me at sea.
i low
are thousandsi
utilities viilP^ 6 ^ sc ^ ar 8 e dredged material
said, state-1
rovided "
ance.” iDr. John B. Herbich, director of
mber saidM 6 Center for Dreging Studies at
val oflet T< lS A&M University said that
price ofa® 1 !d> s P 0Si d is five to 15 times more
itly than open water discharge.
ed to
insumen
g shut
“We’ve got to re-evaluate our
Inking,’’ Herbich said. “Are we
ingmore damage by dumping on
id?” He emphasized that besides
nov/ng land from agricultural
Auction, dredge spoil kills vege-
ion and prevents land from sup
porting life forms normally found
there.
Findings were presented in a pa
per, “Impacts of Open Water
Dredged Material Discharge,’’ by
Drs. Robert M. Engler and Richard
K. Peddicord. Their studies were
conducted at the U. S. Army Engi
neer Waterways Experiment Sta
tion in Vicksburg, Miss.
They concluded that open water
disposal “may generally have a neg
ligible impact on physical, chemical
and biological variables,” for the site
studied.
The idea was discussed earlier at
the second International Sym
posium on Dredging Technology at
Texas A&M in November, 1977.
The seminar was sponsored by
the Texas A&M dredging center and
the Sea Grant Program in coopera
tion with the Gulf Coast Dredging
Association and Gulf Chapter of the
World Dredging Association.
A paper by Drs. Willis E.
Pequegnat, of Texas A&M’s Ocean
ography Department, and David D.
Smith stated that although some
temporary and local damage may
occur to the species at the bottom of
the water, dumping of dredge spoils
in deeper waters . . . will not cause
significant or long-lasting damage
to the ocean floor species.
It is believed that the oceans’
bottom-dwelling organisms can eas
ily burrow up through spoil and sur
vive.
Herbich, with Frank DiGeorge
and Dr. Wayne A. Dunlap of Texas,
also presented a paper at the New
Orleans seminar. Titled “Labora
tory Determination of Bulking Fac
tors,” it states that bulking, a ten
dency of dredged material to occupy
more space, tends to decrease with
increasing water salinity.
Other seminar papers dealt with
dredged sediment stability, dredged
material as a resource, containment
area performance, disposal opera
tions and others. The seminar in
volved 115 participants from most
of the states and Korea, Venezuela,
Canada and the Canal Zone.
e;ht coolirii
:ause dfc
nt limitati
of transpks
mmon prol
mid be gra
even elimiK!
azur sai'i
e biologist
illy presen
; dim. Van
ology, tboe
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earch hasoi
s that may
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413 Texas Ave.
United States, 993 television sta
tions, about 30 million CB radios
and more than 35 million industrial
radio frequency sources in manufac
turing plants.
In addition, there are countless
mobile radios for police, fire, sea
and airmen, radar for harbors, air
ports and national defense, mi
crowave relay communications
links, shortwave radio and mi
crowave ovens.
Even if the radiation levels are
below those at which biological ef
fects could occur, Miller said the
radiation can still be intense enough
to affect the performance of the mul
titude of solid-state devices in use
today.
Such a problem developed, for
example, when electronically con
trolled anti-skid braking systems
were installed on trucks and buses.
It was found that the operation of a
CB radio nearby could trigger the
braking mechanism. Some 18,000
new trucks were recalled in 1975
because of this problem.
When electronic devices are used
to control a vital function, such as
the regulation of the heartbeat by
pacemakers, interference can be
particularly dangerous. It is possible
that interference could trick, some
devices into erroneously allowing a
heart to beat too slowly or quickly.
It can also be annoying when a
household toaster starts playing
music because it happens to be near
a radio station, or when the picture
on your television suddenly looks as
if a blizzard hit.
The Bureau of Standards held a
recent conference to discuss the
problem and specialists agreed
there are few answers to their many
questions.
“The question that has to be ad
dressed within the country is what
are the safe levels, how do we con
trol them, and how do we deter
mine what they are so we know
what we are living in,” said Miller,
manager of the Bureau’s elec
tromagnetic interference program at
Boulder, Colo.
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CUERVO ESPECIAUBTEQUILA. 80 PROOF IMPORTED AND BOTTLED BY © 1978 HEUBLEIN, INC.. HARTFORD, CONN.