Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts blog

Richard Luthy is the Silas H Palmer professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, US. His interests include water quality and water reuse for ecosystem and human requirements

What inspired you to become an environmental scientist?
From an early age, I was influenced by my father who gave me gifts that inspired my curiosity. At one time, I had a gigantic chemistry set and used to do the experiments in the garage. I later went on to study chemical engineering. In the late 1960s, there was a race to the moon and a race to the bottom of the ocean. Jacques Cousteau was very active then and, almost on a whim, I decided I wanted to study ocean engineering. At that time, the Vietnam War had started – I was advised that it was better to volunteer than be drafted, so I volunteered for the navy civil engineer corps and became a deep sea diver leading a team in underwater construction. By the early 1970s, the US Environmental Protection Agency was founded and the Clean Water Act was passed. Around this time, I read Rachel Carson’s book about the dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane – or DDT – problem, Silent Spring. Being in the military gave me time to think about my future and environmental issues and I decided that on leaving the navy, I would do a PhD in environmental engineering.

What’s your main focus?
I’ve always had an interest in physical chemical processes and in trying to understand what mechanisms are at work in environmental systems such as sediments and wetlands. Everything is connected in natural systems – some connections are more important than others and we need to try to quantify these. The use of modelling can then enable you to make predictions about the system. My work is focused particularly on water quality.

What’s the most exciting thing about the work you do?
I enjoy working with colleagues from other disciplines, including biology and the social sciences. We’re looking at how to manage contaminants in sediments and I’ve learned a lot about aquatic biology, which you need to understand as well as how compounds are taken up and how we can control the availability of contaminants in sediments. Better management and use of our water resources are two of the most important problems in the western United States. It has been exciting partnering with excellent colleagues in the various disciplines and by working together, we have been able to put forward proposals to address the challenges ahead.

What’s the next big challenge?
In California, the water infrastructure is old, fragile and needs replacement. Back in the 1950s, we pumped water all over the place but now we’ve got to think about energy costs and the competing needs of agriculture and other human activities. Of course, part of the solution will come from technology that requires less energy. We are also thinking more about ecosystems. For example, the issue is no longer about not killing fish with discharge from wastewater treatment plants, we now have to consider how to leave the fish with enough water to live in. Ecosystems have an equal claim to water as industry and agriculture and we have to find a way of satisfying these competing claims.

There are issues with regard to management and institutions. In California, there are around 500 different major water suppliers, each with their own pricing structure. That makes it difficult to introduce a new water process or system since you have to discuss the changes with all those different bodies. Also, we view groundwater as a separate entity to surface water, but they’re connected. Having one set of laws that govern groundwater and another set for surface water makes the management of both resources much more difficult. Financial costs are the biggest hurdle in introducing improvements in water reuse, so it’s important to have business models that help us recover these costs.

Another issue is how we deal with climate change and risk in the future. There are risks from natural phenomena and from intentional acts and in the end you want a system that is robust and resilient. In the field of water quality and supply, we can either do things differently or just keep muddling along. Human society needs water and changes will happen anyway in how we maintain our water supplies, but ideally you like that change to happen in a way that is well planned, cost effective and serves the various needs I’ve described.

To read more see the Chemistry World story.

Articles of interest:

New methods to monitor emerging chemicals in the drinking water production chain
Annemarie van Wezel, Margreet Mons and Wouter van Delft, J. Environ. Monit., 2010, 12, 80
DOI: 10.1039/b912979k

Implementation of E.U. Water Framework Directive: source assessment of metallic substances at catchment levels
Ho-Sik Chon, Dieudonne-Guy Ohandja and Nikolaos Voulvoulis, J. Environ. Monit., 2010, 12, 36
DOI: 10.1039/b907851g

Fate and removal of estrogens in municipal wastewater
LeeAnn Racz and Ramesh K. Goel, J. Environ. Monit., 2010, 12, 58
DOI: 10.1039/b917298j

Ned Stafford, Hamburg, Germany
As workers battle to cool down damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant reactors after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March, the potential environmental impact from the release of radioactive material remains uncertain. Already political fallout from the disaster has spread to Europe and will no doubt have a lasting impact on nuclear power policy and research funding.

Four days after the earthquake, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that seven nuclear power plants, that began operating before 1980, will be shut down for safety review until at least June. The closures reverse a controversial decision made last year by Merkel’s coalition government to extend the life of older nuclear power plants. And France, where nuclear power provides 80 per cent of total electricity supply, announced safety tests on its 58 reactors.

Francis Livens, research director at Dalton Nuclear Institute at the University of Manchester, UK, told Chemistry World that the global impact of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant depends on how the situation develops. ‘If the situation gets no worse and everything is brought back under control over the next few days, then there will be an argument that the reactors did their job,’ he says. ‘If the situation deteriorates further, then it will depend on just what the end result is, so one can’t say at this point. However, I would be astonished if public perception of nuclear power as a risky technology hasn’t increased.’

Radioactive contamination by the nuclear reactor problems at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are not as serious as Chernobyl

Mats Jonsson, head of nuclear chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, says: ‘From what we have seen so far, this situation will initiate discussions and debates concerning the safety of nuclear power in Europe and in the rest of the world. My guess is that chemistry, as well as related research fields, could switch from chemical problems in new reactor types and reprocessing, to issues more related to safety and the environmental impact of nuclear energy.’

Some experts fear the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi accident could approach the level of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the Ukraine. In April 1986 during a routine systems test a power surge followed by an attempted emergency shutdown triggered a series of explosions and the release of radioactive fallout over a large area. Yoshihito Watanabe, a chemist and vice president at Nagoya University in Japan, tells Chemistry World that, thus far, ‘radioactive contamination by the nuclear reactor problems are not so serious.’

Depending on the outcome of the attempts to cool down Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the major problem now is the physical damage from the earthquake and tsunami, he says. Toyota, Honda, and other automotive manufacturers have had to stop production due to automotive part shortages and Tohoku University in Sendai suffered major damage to research facilities. It is far too early to speculate what the effect might be on Japanese research, he says, adding: ‘The first priority for the government to consider right now is how to support the recovery of the earthquake area, including the lifeline, construction of houses, reconstruction of factories, offices and so on.’

The future for nuclear power policy in Japan also remains uncertain, he says. ‘Currently, people even who are against the nuclear power policy are quiet on this issue, because so many people are working hard to stop the current troubles at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant under very dangerous and risky conditions.’

The Japanese people are highly appreciative of the global outpouring of support and sympathy in the wake of the earthquake, he says, adding that the embattled nation will persevere.

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