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211  Viable Substitute Proposed for Detergent Phosphates
     The Washington Post  Saturday, May 30, 1970

     Eutrophication is a word that might be translated as "banquet"
from its Greek roots, but it is bad news to anyone who thinks of a
river or lake as other than a sewer.  It refers to the fertilization
of a body of water with plant nutrients, starting a cycle of algal
growth and decay, now too well known as the Lake Erie syndrome.  It is
a natural process in the evolution of a lake, but is greatly speeded
up by man's works.

     The specific factors involved in eutrophication vary greatly with
local conditions, and are not always known in sufficient detail.  Some
experts conclude that the discharge of phosphates is the chief stimulus
to eutrophication in the Great Lakes basin and several other
areas.

     It has also been calculated that about half the phosphate load in
these regions can be traced to detergents.  The remainder comes from
human wastes, runoff from fertilized farm lands and the like.  The
phosphates could be removed from the sewage, but only by more expensive
methods of treatment.  Hence, there has been great pressure to
eliminate a large part of the phosphate load at the source by banning
the use of phosphates in detergents.

     A large dent could probably be made in the phosphate load by less
drastic pressures such as a tax on the phosphate content in markets
where euthrophication is a problem.  Furthermore, housewives are
encouraged to use larger quantities of detergents than are needed for
most washes.

     The chemical industry, however, is fairly happy with another
solution: a substitute for phosphate called "NTA".  This is nitrogen-
triacetic acid, and its chemical composition is N(CH2COOH)3.  It has 
been the subject of considerable testing in the United States and
Sweden and is being pressed very hard as a synthetic replacement for 
phosphates in a market of two billion pounds a year.

     NTA is remarkably nontoxic in short-term feeding experiments. 
However, very little has been published about its potential for long-
term damage to man or complex ecological systems.  In this respect, it
is in a situation similar to DDT 20 years ago.

     Unlike DDT, NTA will be extensively degraded and transformed in
the course of sewage treatment, and elsewhere in the environment.  On
the negative side, we will not have the easy chemical identification
of NTA derivatives that made it possible to detect DDT at levels of
parts per billion in Antarctic fish.

     Preliminary Swedish studies on NTA have suggested some genetic
effects with fruit flies, but "only at high doses."  Less efficient
tests with mice gave no sign of trouble.  A speech by Environmental
Health Administrator Charles C. Johnson paraphrased the report as
saying that "clinical data revealed no genetic effects" but that
further studies are needed to "shed light on the possibility of long-
term toxic effects in humans."  Not surprisingly,  a trade journal
quoted the first but not the second statement.

     The main potential for trouble is not from NTA itself but from
some of its probable, but poorly understood, products of partial
breakdown.  Not all of the NTA in an effluent is completely broken
down in a typical sewage plant.  Moreover, NTA will inevitably find
its way into ground waters without having been treated at all, or
after a variety  of treatments.  Nothing is known of the interaction
of NTA and its products with other chemicals, for example, chlorine.

     A rational response to this level of uncertainty about a product
intended to be dispersed so heavily throughout the environment would
be intensive research on the biochemistry and ecological potential of
NTA before we have made an irreversible commitment to it.  In fact,
the fiscal 1971 budget request for water hygiene research eliminates
the entire program of research and training grants.

     According to an analysis of the verbiage in the Congressional
Record, rhetorical concern over the environment is second only to
that over Vietnam, exceeding even crime.  Any further comment on my
part would only add to the pollution.
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