by Janet Alderton and San Olson
Our severe recession is a direct result of the deregulation of the banking and financial industries. This experience illustrates that less regulation is not always better. Regulations are adopted to address real problems that arise as our society becomes more complex. The Growth Management Act and the Shoreline Master Program were passed in response to creeping environmental degradation and the loss of open space and farmland. Those who consider the adoption of the GMA and SMP unnecessary may be ignorant of the gradual loss of once abundant species and habitats over decades of human population growth. We accept the degraded state of our local environment as the norm when we are youngsters, or when we move here from another place. If you talk to people who have lived in the San Juan Islands for 40 or more years, they say that the abundance of life on the land, in the skies, and in our waters has declined sharply. Biologists and ecologists have called this process of acquiescence “The Shifting Baseline Syndrome.”
These declines affect the quality of our lives and should alert us to emerging threats to our own health caused by the explosion of man-made chemicals created since World War II. Industrial chemicals have long been assumed to be harmless until proven otherwise. Decades of human illness and early death may pass before a chemical is regulated or banned. DDT and asbestos are prime examples. The pace of development of man-made chemicals is increasing at a rate that makes the careful testing of toxicity to people and the environment logistically impossible. Between August 2005 and August 2007, five million new chemicals became commercially available.
Evidence is growing that our health is affected by the gradual and cumulative exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals. Body weight is increasing not only in people but also in the pets that share our homes and in pests, such as rats, that live off human rubbish. Hormone-disrupting obesogens, such as BPA and the surfactant-derived nonylphenol, are thought to be partly to blame for this. See “Canaries in the coal mine: a cross-species analysis of the plurality of obesity epidemics,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dec. 23, 2010.
Few people realize that many products used in gardens and on the exterior of our homes contain surfactants. When stormwater carries surfactants to low-oxygen environments, the hormone disruptor nonylphenol is produced. Nonylphenol, which is accumulating in our fresh and marine waters, feminizes fish at extremely low concentrations. Fortunately, the complex life forms found in buffers of undisturbed soil and native plants can completely break down surfactants before they reach our waters. Native plant buffers are effective and inexpensive natural filters. To preserve the health, beauty, and wildlife of our islands, support native plant buffers.
Janet Alderton is a retired Research Biologist from the University of California, Berkeley. She resides with her husband on Orcas Island. San Olson, DVM, resides on Lopez Island. San and Janet are board members of Friends of the San Juans.
