Social scientist wins Stockholm Water Prize

In recognition of the sweeping water management reforms that he spearheaded as South Africa's minister of water affairs and for­estry from 1994 to 1999, Kader Asmal has been tapped to receive this year's Stockholm Water Prize, which is considered the Nobel Prize of water conservation.

Asmal, a noted human rights scholar, teacher, and activist, pio­neered South Africa's 1998 Na­tional Water Act, which has been hailed by many as the most "comprehensive and visionary" in the world. Among its key provi­sions is the concept of a water reserve, which puts human needs and basic ecological functioning ahead of commercial or industrial interests. To do this water use is paid for on a sliding scale with

major water users such as industry and agriculture paying more and the poor paying only what they can afford.

Another of As-mal's initiatives involved the so-called "feminiza­tion of water poli­cy", which gave millions of South Africans reasonable access to safe drinking water and sanitation, thereby reducing the burden on women who have had to spend hours every day obtain­ing and hauling water for their families.

Asmal is the first African to

win the prize, and at its announce­ment, he called it "a vindication of ev­erything we've done in South Africa." He has since become South Africa's min­ister of education, but he still plays a major role in inter­national water management as chair of the World Commission on

Dams and as a member of the World Commission on Water for the 21st Centurv

The $150,000 prize will be awarded in August by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during World Water Week in Stockholm.

Kader Asmal

No new industry requirements under U.K's endocrine disrupter plan Following the long-awaited re­lease in April of a strategy to re­duce the amount of potentially hormone-disrupting substances in the environment, the Environ­ment Agency of England and Wales is getting ready to target some chemicals known to harm wildlife.

Work needs to start now to minimize discharges of certain substances, said Jan Pentreath, the Environment Agency's chief scientist and director of environ­mental strategy. He acknowl­edged, however, that there is a high level of uncertainty in deter­mining which substances should receive priority action.

The agency plans to target a number of substances believed to disrupt endocrine system func­tions, including alkylphenols, such as nonylphenol and octyl-phenol, used as industrial deter­gents; steroids that are not com­pletely removed by sewage treatment processes, such as oes-trone and ethinyl oestradiol, the latter of which is used in contra­ceptive pills; some pesticides, in­cluding atrazine and trifluralin;

and other substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls and tributyltin, which is used to stop the fouling of boat hulls.

Pentreath said the agency has identified some of the sources and pathways by which each of these substances may enter the environment and intends to man­age their presence in the environ­ment through measures ranging from requiring companies to im­plement pollution reduction pro­grams for regulated hazardous substances to developing quality standards or targets for steroids and alkylphenols (where these do not already exist); encouraging industry to implement voluntary reduction measures; and review­ing whether more can be done under an integrated pollution prevention and control rppime to minimize source npr-er f a i .rill

be no new regulatory requirements nlared on industry said Steve Tnllppn Fnvironment A cnnkp«man

Meanwhile, the European Com­mission is awaiting a major review of EU chemical legislation before committing to any EU-wide strat­

egy, although it is unclear when that strategy will be completed. At present, mere is a list of several hundred compounds thought to be potential endocrine disrupters, but no guidelines or safe limits have been set.

The U.K. Chemical Industries Association (CIA) welcomed the "sensible and pragmatic ap­proach" of the Environment Agency, particularly its recogni­tion that a high level of uncer­tainty prevails in determining substances for priority actions. The proposed approach is similar to one adopted globally by the chemical industry in its initiative to carry out hazard assessments as part of the Confidence in Chemicals program.

But environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth have heavily criticized the strategy, calling it a weak response to a serious problem. The group ac­cuses the agency of giving in to pressure from industry, failing to apply the precautionary principle, and not considering human health aspects sufficiently. —MARIA BURKE

JUNE 1, 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 2 4 7 A