Jack Vallentyne may be remembered best, especially by citizens and school children in the Burlington area, for carrying the whole weight of the global world on his back. He was a passionate defender of environmental values. But for me, the most vivid memory of Jack is in connection with the great detergent phosphate debates and hearings of the early 1970s.Jack Vallentyne assisted in drafting the phosphorus controls section of the ‘International Joint Commission (IJC) Study Boards’ reports in 1969 on pollution of Lakes Erie and Ontario (IJC, 1969). These rather quickly set the stage for action in Canada and became the phosphorus control Annex of the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1972.A draft of the phosphorus control recommendations was written one evening in 1969 on our dining room table, by Dr. Vallentyne and me. It was the first of the 4-part recommendation, subsequently agreed to by the IJC Boards, which was to provoke a major controversy. It recommended in the Board's version that: “phosphates in detergents be immediately reduced to minimum practical levels, with total replacement by environmentally less harmful compounds by 1972.”Subsequently Canada acted to obtain legal authority to control detergent phosphate levels through a specific section incorporated in the Canada Water Act of 1970, then going through Parliament. Upon receipt of the Boards’ reports on pollution of the lower Great Lakes, the IJC held a series of public hearings. At these, representatives of detergent manufacturers testified vigorously that: Other nutrients were more important than phosphorus (e.g. nitrogen, carbon and micro-nutrients such as iron),Without phosphates, detergents would be useless and epidemics would break out in hospitals,There was no safe substitute for the water softening and chelating properties of the phosphates (actually sodium triphosphate—STP),Most of the phosphorus entering the lakes came from human and animal wastes.This controversy has had disturbing echoes over the years in its similarity to other industry-inspired arguments over the sciences of acid rain and of global warming.Jack Vallentyne led the scientific defence of the detergent phosphate control recommendation in the series of IJC Public hearings in 1971 on both sides of the border. He was armed with photos of a telling laboratory demonstration which proved that adding phosphorus, but not other nutrients, to water from the Lakes promoted algal blooms. This was subsequently demonstrated on a lake-wide scale by David Schindler's studies in the Experimental Lakes Area of Northwestern Ontario. Jack was also able to point out that about one half of the phosphorus entering sewage treatment plants was from detergents, and removal of this burden would substantially reduce the ongoing costs of chemical precipitation of phosphorus and removal of sludge from these plants. Other more complex limnological allegations were similarly refuted by Jack. In sum, he demonstrated to the Commissioners’ satisfaction that phosphorus was by far the most controllable of nutrients which affect algal growth and eutrophication.By this time, work commissioned from Canada Centre for Inland Waters had demonstrated a large range of STP concentrations in commercially available detergents in Canada. One, which had found widespread acceptance by the public, had just 20% phosphate (P2 O5) or 8.7% as phosphorus, although others being widely sold had double or more this concentration.Later in 1970, the Canadian government (Minister Joe Green) adopted this already publicly accepted 20% level as the first step in regulation. Several letters from abroad asked for the limnological scientific basis for this original regulation level–but we had to confess that it was set for quite practical reasons. This regulated level was further reduced by Canada at the end of 1972 to 5% P2 O5 or 2.2% as P by Mr. Jack Davis, then Environment Minister, after the IJC Commissioners had accepted the recommendations of the Study Boards. New York and some other States enacted similar regulations, but the U.S. federal government, under much industry pressure, did not, but rather chose other more expensive methods to reduce phosphorus discharge to the lakes. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement based on the IJC Report, was signed by President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa, 1972.Of course, the national regulation of detergent phosphates, effectively defended by Jack, has had far reaching positive effects in slowing eutrophication of Canadian lakes throughout the country. The issues involved are discussed in more detail in Dr. Vallentyne's excellent publication The Algal Bowl (1974). This volume was brought up to date in 2008, through the collaboration of Dr. Schindler (Vallentyne and Schindler, 2008). These volumes are a valuable legacy of Jack Vallentyne's work, but the more lasting and important legacy is the large number of still healthy Canadian lakes, spared the impact of detergent phosphates.
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