THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010448
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
A new study shows that levels of TBT, a highly toxic boat paint, have declined significantly in the lower Chesapeake Bay since Virginia passed a law curbing its use in 1987.
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science also found that concentrations of TBT, short for tributyltin, dropped tenfold in some oysters sampled throughout the lower Bay.
``We're very encouraged,'' said Michael A. Unger, assistant professor of environmental chemistry at VIMS, who headed the study on behalf of the Virginia Environmental Endowment. ``It appears the legislation is working.''
Such upbeat conclusions about eight years of strict regulation come as the state Department of Environmental Quality has proposed dropping TBT limits from water-pollution permits at major shipyards in Hampton Roads.
The move, if approved, would allow shipyards that occasionally use the controversial paint to discharge TBT without fear of violating any numerical limit built into their permits.
They still would have to monitor discharges in public waters, inform the state before applying TBT, and use emission controls, state officials say in defending what they call a new and more reasonable approach to regulating the toxic paint.
``We do want to have a restriction on it,'' Gov. George F. Allen said recently during a radio talk show in Richmond. ``But you do have to have some practicality. That is what is being discussed.''
Environmental groups, led by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, call the move backsliding. And they point to the VIMS study among other evidence that stern government controls of TBT, which previous research has linked to genetic problems in shellfish and fish, should not be relaxed.
``If it ain't broke, why fix it?'' asked Roy A. Hoagland, staff attorney for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Richmond.
``This is one of the most toxic substances we know of in the Bay. We know controlling it through regulation is working. Yet the state, on its own, wants to change the program,'' Hoagland said.
Unger, of VIMS, said his study looked at the performance of a 1987 state law that targeted recreational vessels and marinas. Pleasure boats were believed to contribute nearly 70 percent of TBT in the Bay, and the law banned TBT on boats less than 82 feet long. That restriction remains in effect.
The study, Unger said, did not tackle the question of shipyards and a 1-part-per-billion standard for TBT approved in 1988 by the Virginia Water Control Board.
As such, Unger was uncomfortable commenting about the proposed scrapping of permit limits, saying only that he would support any effort to reduce the amount of TBT entering state waters.
Except for Newport News Shipbuilding, the yards in question all discharge into the Elizabeth River. State officials could not say which yards would be affected, estimating their number at ``seven or eight.''
The Bay foundation learned of the proposed change after reading a small legal notice about a permit renewal for Norshipco in Norfolk. It included no limits on TBT.
The foundation quickly asked for a public hearing on the permit. Although the state had not responded directly, a department spokesman said last week that a hearing will be scheduled ``sometime in August.''
Tom Beacham - environmental, safety and health engineer for Norshipco - said his company did not ask for the permit change.
Norshipco used TBT on ``less than 10 ships'' last year, Beacham said. Most jobs were on foreign cruise ships that prefer the efficiency of TBT to less-potent alternatives, such as copper-based paints.
Instead, the state approached Norshipco with the idea, after concluding that permit limits were too difficult to monitor and were being wrongly applied, said Frank Daniel, regional director of the state Department of Environmental Quality.
Newport News Shipbuilding had asked the state to study the question of doing away with numerical limits at about the time the department was poised to add TBT limits to the company's pollution permit, Daniel and others have said.
TBT is a tin-based antifoulant that keeps barnacles and other marine life from attaching to hulls and creating an energy-wasteful drag. Used since the 1960s, the material was first regulated in France in 1982 and then England in 1985. Studies there showed TBT was damaging native oyster stocks.
In the VIMS study, oyster samples were taken at 26 sites in the lower Bay. They were compared to those recorded in 1987, the year Virginia passed its anti-TBT law.
The results: Concentrations of TBT in oysters sampled in 1994 ranged from 17 parts per billion to 3,200 parts per billion. In 1987, the concentrations ranged from a low of 180 parts per billion to 5,600.
As for water quality, VIMS has compiled data from nine stations in the lower Bay every month since 1986. A sharp and consistent decline in TBT levels is noted in seven of the nine stations.
State officials have said the permit limits are difficult to enforce because the state lacks the technology to monitor TBT at such minuscule levels.
Unger noted that VIMS has developed technology that measures TBT traces to the parts per trillion. However, Unger and Norshipco's Beacham said, such monitoring is not readily available to shipyards and can be expensive. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
SOURCE: Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Chart
This chart records TBT levels measured at sampling stations along
the lower part of Chesapeake Bay in 1987 and 1994.
Research by SCOTT HARPER; graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS/Staff
KEYWORDS: ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION STUDY CHESAPEAKE BAY by CNB