6

The Chlorine Dilemma

第六章

氯化处理水的困境

After the publication of Silent Spring and the much-publicized fire on the Cuyahoga River, all eyesturned to Washington, D.C., where concerned politicians pushed forward pollution-control legislation. Increased public attention and the lobbying efforts of environmental groups led to the allocation of federal funds to upgrade sewage treatment plants and to standards being set to control smog-producing gases emitted by factories and cars. But the energy andinfluence of the environmental movement did not stop there. The late 1960s was a time when idealistic people put their energy into making the world a better place—and among these idealists was a brash young lawyer and a group of scientists in New York who pioneered a new way of fighting pollution.

《寂静的春天》的出版，以及媒体对凯霍加河大火的大量报道之后，公众的目光都转向了华盛顿特区，因为在那里，关注环境的政界人士正在积极推动通过环境污染控制法案。公众关注度的增加以及环保组织的游说，使得联邦政府增加了污水处理厂的分配资金，并制定了排放标准用以控制工厂和汽车排放的那些导致“烟雾（ｓｍｏｇ）”的气体。然而，环保运动所产生的威慑和影响力，并未就此结束。２０世纪６０年代后期是理想主义者把精力投入到让世界变得更美好的一个时代。在这些理想主义者中，有一位性急的年轻律师，他和一群纽约的科学家，开创了与污染抗争的新途径。

Alarmed by the effects of DDT described in Silent Spring, Victor Yannacone, a thirty-one-year-old lawyer, initiated a lawsuit against a Long Island mosquito control district claiming that in 1966 its use of the pesticidehad caused a fish kill in a pond near his house.¹ Armed with his motto “Sue thebastards,” Yannacone teamed up with an assistant professor of biology at nearby Stony Brook University and an ecologist from Brookhaven National Laboratory inan attempt to prove that the mosquito district’s application of  DDT was not in the public’s best interest.² The group’s approach of using the courts when a government agency failed toprotect the public was a still untested legal concept. While it too twelve years for them to achieve their goal, the success of Yannacone and his associates gave environmentalists a new tool with which to fight pollution: the class-action lawsuit.

３１岁的律师维克多·阎纳康因为《寂静的春天》描述了滴滴涕产生的不良后果而引起警觉，他起诉长岛的一个蚊虫控制地区，在１９９６年使用杀虫剂导致他家附近池塘里的鱼死亡^［１］。他与石溪大学的一位生物学助理教授以及布鲁克海文国家实验室的一位生态学家联手组成三人小组，以“起诉这帮混蛋”为座右铭，试图证明在蚊虫控制区使用杀虫剂滴滴涕不符合公众的最大利益^［２］。该小组的做法在当时属于法律意义上的新尝试，即在政府机构不能保护公众利益时，公民可以通过法庭诉讼方式来维护自己的利益。虽然他们经过１２年的努力才达到目的，但阎纳康和他的合作伙伴们的成功，给环保主义者提供了一种新工具：集体诉讼。

Shortly after the group’s high-profile DDT case went to court, they formed the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. Over the next few years, this non-governmental organization engaged in an ambitious campaign of class-action lawsuits against the users of DDT and other pesticides suspected of harming wildlife. They also hired a team of full-time scientists to support their efforts to branch out into new areas such as land, water, and energy conservation.³

在引人注目的滴滴涕杀虫剂污染案件开庭后不久，他们成立了非营利性的“环境保护基金会”。由于滴滴涕和其他杀虫剂的使用可能会伤害野生动物，这个非政府组织在接下来的几年里，发起了一场轰轰烈烈的集体诉讼运动。他们还雇用了一批全职的科学家，将诉讼范围扩展到土壤、水及能源保护等新的领域^［３］。

(Last two paragraphs of Chapter 6)

We now face a dilemma. Chlorine protects us from waterborne pathogens present in rivers and lakes as well as those that penetrate our water systemsafter the treatment process. It also maintains a protective coating on lead pipes, which are expensive and difficult to remove. But the use of chlorine results in the production of disinfection byproducts that cause cancer and possible other health problems, even if steps taken over the past thirty years have lowered the concentrations of these disinfection by products. The public’s recognition that cutting back on disinfectants could increase the rate of infectious disease, as well as citizens’ hesitancy to add new treatment processes, has meant that we may not be protected from the carcinogens that inspired Congress to pass the Safe Drinking Water Act.

我们现在面临着困境。氯气保护我们免受河水和湖水中的水媒病原体，及渗入消毒处理后的水分配系统的水媒病原体的感染。它也可以在铅管内壁上维持一层保护膜，而更换这些旧的铅管道既费钱又费事。但是，这些消毒副产物会导致癌，还可能引起其他健康问题，即使过去３０年中采用的技术已经降低了氯气消毒副产物的浓度。公众不愿意增加新的（饮用水）处理的过程，他们也认识到减少消毒剂的使用会导致疾病感染率的提高；这都表明我们也许无法避免与水中的致癌物接触，而当年促使国会通过《安全饮用水法案》的正是这些致癌物。

The solution to the chlorine dilemma will require an upgrade of our drinking water treatment systems. We can think of it as Water 3.1. The least expensive upgrade probably would involve the removal of humic substances—the precursors of chlorine disinfection byproducts—followed by continued use of chlorine. Activated carbon, a treatment process that is already being used insome cities, offers a viable means of accomplishing this goal. New technologies like ultrafiltration also could be used to remove humic substances. Alternatively, we could switch to chloramines or ozone and operate our distribution systemswithout residual chlorine, though this change would require large investmentsin maintaining our distribution systems and removing lead from difficult-to-reach locations. Although an increase in the monthly water bill of a few dollars per month would likely be acceptable to people worried about the health of their families, there is not yet a cry for change from the public, because utilities and regulators continue to insist that our drinking water is safe and healthy.

解决氯气消毒困境的办法是对饮用水处理厂的系统性升级。我们可以将它称之为“水３．１”。花费最少的升级系统是移除水体中的腐殖质，因为它们是产生氯气消毒副产物的前提，然后再使用氯气消毒。一些城市已经在使用的活性炭处理工艺，可为实现这一目标提供一种可行的手段。超滤法这类新技术也可以用来去除腐殖质。另外，我们还可以转用氯胺或臭氧，并且不用余氯，但是这需要我们投资大量人力物力来维护水分配系统和消除偏远地区饮用水中的铅。虽然相比家人的健康而言，每个月增加几美元的水费开支是可以接受的。但是，迄今为止公众还没有发出要求改变水系统的呼声，因为水务部门及其监管机构一直坚持认为，我们现在的饮用水是安全和健康的。

ps. I typed up the English myself, so errors are possible.

水４．０：饮用水的过去、现在与未来

［美］戴维·塞德拉克　著

徐向荣　等译    虞左俊　校

上海科学技术出版社

出版时间：2015.08

ISBN：978-7-5478-2729-1

定价：38元

Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource

Paperback：March 31, 2015

by David Sedlak (Author)