THE ENVIRONMENT
Pesticides such as DDT, parathion, aldrin and dieldrin are both ally and enemy to man. The chemicals annihilate predators: the aphids that plague rose fanciers, disease-bearing mosquitoes, beetles that spread Dutch elm disease, in sects that devour crops. As a farmer's helper, pesticides increase crop yields, hence profits. But poison is blind. Loosed annually by the ton from planes, boats, trucks, tractors and handy spray cans, it cannot isolate its target. Since Rachel Carson exposed the pesticides' threat seven years ago, in Silent Spring, evidence of the chemicals' pernicious effects on birds, plants, fish, animals and occasionally man has continued to grow. Yet little in the way of effective control has been attempted— until now.
Arizona has outlawed DDT for one year to determine just how harmful it is. Similar legislation is pending in Pennsylvania and Michigan, while the Illinois house of representatives has passed two pesticide-control bills without a single dissenting vote. The Wisconsin department of natural resources is in the midst of pesticide hearings. Among other things, DDT, with its long-lived potency, is blamed for causing birds to produce eggs with thin shells, thereby contributing to the disappearance of the bald eagle, osprey and peregrine falcon.
Poor Fish. In the U.S. Senate this week, Wisconsin Democrat Gaylord Nelson is commemorating the fifth anniversary of Rachel Carson's death by introducing a bill to create a national commission on pesticides. Although federal regulatory legislation governing labeling and registration is on the books, it has rarely been enforced. There has not been a criminal prosecution under this statute for 13 years. As a result, the chemical industry, which annually produces 1.05 billion pounds of pesticides (value: $787 million) continues to be secretive about registration data.
Reacting to the growing pressure for stricter enforcement, the Food and Drug Administration last month seized 28,150 pounds of Lake Michigan coho salmon infected by pesticide residue. But no one knows how much of the fish plucked from U.S. lakes daily by commercial and sport fishermen is contaminated. A classic example is Clear Lake, Calif., where DDT (at the minuscule proportion of two one-hundredths of a part per million parts of water) was used to kill off a troublesome, lake-hatching insect. As a result, plankton accumulated DDT residues at five parts per million; fatty tissue of fish feeding on lake-bottom life was found to contain several hundred to 2,000 parts of DDT per million; grebes and other diving birds died from eating the fish. The New York health department reports high concentrations of DDT in trout in the state's central and northern lakes. "What is happening in Lake Michigan is an indication of what to expect elsewhere," admits John Gottschalk, director of the bureau of sport fisheries and wildlife. "There will be a day, and it may not be until the year 2000, when we are the coho salmon."