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| East Asian Factories May
Be Polluting North America Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer |
Monday, October 9, 2000
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Ocean air currents carry an increasing amount of industrial pollutants across the Pacific from the teeming industrial economies of Asia, threatening wildlife and human health along the West Coast, scientists warn. Reviewing results of several recent studies, experts from the United States and Canada found a disturbing pattern of evidence that points to ``a potential pan-Pacific air quality problem.'' The new warning, which appeared last week in the journal Science, stems from an international conference in Seattle this summer on the issue of transpacific air pollution. The event was organized by the Nautilus Institute in Berkeley and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Kenneth Wilkening, an atmospheric scientist and specialist in international environmental policy at the University of Northern British Columbia, led the conference and co-wrote the new report with Leonard Barrie of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and Marilyn Engle of the EPA. ``It's certainly a topic of concern,'' Wilkening said. ``With increasing industrialization around the world, everybody is upwind or downwind of everybody else.'' He called for a greatly expanded international effort to track pollutants wafting our way. Although the source of these gases and particles is unclear, an increasing amount is presumed to originate in eastern Pacific Rim factories and power plants. The pollutants of prime concern include coal combustion aerosols, ozone, mercury and other heavy metals, and so-called ``persistent organic pollutants,'' or POPs, from pesticides, insecticides and industrial chemicals. They glide in aboard mid-latitude westerly winds, especially in winter and spring, that can take only five to 10 days to reach North America from the Eurasian continent. The area of the West Coast most affected stretches from roughly the Mexican border to Juneau, Alaska. ``Even remote areas such as Arctic and alpine environments are threatened,'' the authors concluded. ``Pollutant concentrations in snow, fish, wildlife, sediments and Arctic inhabitants indicate that some substances may already be working their way into ecosystems and humans.'' Although evidence of Asian dust has been noted in the atmosphere over Hawaii for more than 30 years, the potential environmental threat has only recently been taken seriously by researchers in Canada and the mainland United States. In 1997, scientists detected rapid transport of pollutants from Asia to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Satellite observations in 1998 showed particles racing across the Pacific from a dust storm in western China. When crossing the ocean, the plume moved along about two to five miles above the the water's surface, but it dropped down rapidly when it hit the North American coast, in some places reaching ground level, said Rudolf Husar at the Center for Air Pollution Impact and Trend Analysis at Washington University in St. Louis. ``When the dust layer settled, that's when the bells started ringing,'' he said, noting that the event even sparked dirty-air health advisories in Oregon. Preliminary findings from a three-year study financed by the National Science Foundation documented five springtime ``Asian pollution events'' showing up in the form of smog and dust at Cheeka Peak Observatory in Washington State. Other scientists have estimated that smog-building ozone concentrations in the western United States could rise by 2 to 6 parts per billion by 2010, resulting from an expected tripling of industrial emissions by the east Asian economies. An increase of such magnitude -- measured in terms of average monthly ozone concentrations -- would make it difficult to achieve recent U.S. air-pollution cleanup goals. But until more is known, scientists said, it's too soon for regulatory or legislative action. ``We are not ready to really push this in the policy world,'' Wilkening said. |
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