EPA Divers:Getting Downto theNitty Gritty

by Roy Popkin

They tell jokes on themselves: "What'sa large orange monster from the deep

that smells like a hog farm on a hotsummer evening? No, it's not the LochNess monster. It's just another EPARegion 4 diver completing a routineoperation." Or, "That photo looksoverexposed because it's solid black, butit really shows EPA divers at work."

Translated, the first "joke" describesan EPA scientist wearing a dry suit andfull face gear who has just emerged froma 60-foot, zero-visibility descent into asix-foot bed of bypassed sewage sludgeduring a sediment oxygen demandstudy. The second reflects the fact thatover 70 percent of the dives made byEPA's underwater teams take them intopoor visibility or total darkness createdby sediments, underwater growth, andpollutants.

From the "Flower Garden" in the Gulfof Mexico to the polluted bottom ofBoston harbor and Seattle's Puget Soundand the site of the "Delaware Wreck" inthe Atlantic Ocean, EPA divers aredoing a job that is far from the glamourof a Cousteau film or a Barbados TVcommercial. They don't find sunkentreasure or the remains of privateers, butthey do find evidence of illegaldumping, the impacts of on-shorepollution, and, in many ways, ascientific treasure trove.

EPA's divers are not a separateorganzational unit, although their rolehas been formally recognized for at least10 years. There are a formal certificationand training program, "dive masters" ina number of locations, and a divingchapter in the Agency Safety Manual.

Many of the dives made byEPA's underwater teams take

them into poor visibility or totaldarkness. This diving candidate

at Gulf Breeze, Florida, uses amodified mask that gets its airsupply from the surface. This

type of dry suit has been safelyused in hazardous environments,

such as oil spills. Steve Barskyphoto.

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Currently, there are about 35 men andwomen who are EPA-certified divers, anequal number with equivalentcertification, and arrangements with asmall number of contract divers fromsuch resources as the University ofRhode Island. Even though diving is notan official EPA job category,it is animportant activity performed by EPAmarine biologists, engineers,technicians, and others whose jobsrequire underwater sampling, research,or exploration. In fact, only one-fourthof the Agency's divers ever dove forsport or recreation. Most of themlearned diving skills because theyneeded them to better perform theirEPA duties. This year three members ofthe Emergency Response Team assignedto Edison, New Jersey, are being trainedas divers.

Says Jonathan Amson, the dive masterfor EPA headquarters and Regions 2 and3: "EPA diving is hard work; it's notmacho. It's not like sport diving. It's notplaying. You may have six to eightthings to do on the bottom and only 15minutes in which to do them. It's anecessary part of the Agency's highquality science. Fortunately, you canmake a diver out of a scientist even ifyou can't always make a scientist out ofa diver."

The divers support a variety of EPAprograms involving ocean dumping,Section 404 estuary actions, wastemanagement activities related to spills,National Pollution DischargeElimination System (NPDES) permits,and technical assistance to states. Theyalso perform Superfund reconnaissance,enforcement efforts (where they becomeunderwater detectives), and thecollection of data for water quality,oceanographic, and other ecologicalsurveys. About a quarter of the dives aredone from the EPA Ocean Survey Ship,the Peter W. Anderson, two to 150 milesoff-shore. And perhaps another 25percent are inland in rivers, deep lakes,estuary waters, and quarries-the latterusually part of Superfund investigationsto determine if drums of toxic wasteshave been dumped there.

According to Amson, who has toapprove all dives planned from theAnderson, EPA limits diving depths to130 feet, beyond which decompressionchambers would be required. Theaverage depth is between 80 and 90 feet,he says, but Region 4 divers working inestuaries and shallow harbors often divein six to ten feet of water ("sort of likediving standing on your head").

Perhaps the busiest group is the sevendivers in Region 4. The team is led from

the Athens, Georgia, research laboratory.Some of them have done over 500individual dives on EPA missions; thecore group has been diving togethersince 1976.

Often called "dean" of the divingprogram is Region 4 dive master DonLawthorn, an engineering technicianwho began diving in 1969, whileworking for the Interior Department, buthas never been a recreational diver. Helearned to dive in connection with astudy of effluents from power plants inthe Miami-Fort Lauderdale area. Hisdeepest dive was 18 miles from Tampa,in the Gulf of Mexico, where a team ofdivers went down over 100 feet to findflat, ecologically safe areas in which todump the product of dredgingoperations. One member of that team,Bruce Reynolds, now stationed at EPA'sNarragansett, Rhode Island, laboratory,recalls that, in contrast to most dives,"the water was so clear you could seeother divers 35 yards away and youcould lay out your tools just as youwould in a laboratory."

Diver Phillip Murphy credits "theuncertainty associated with collectingbottom samples through remotedevices" as an important factor behindthe creation of the team. Obviously awater quality model, for example, isonly as accurate as the data input to it.New and innovative approaches weredeveloped that required diving for geardeployment and data collection. Today,all sediment oxygen demand chambersin waters deeper than three feet areplaced by diving teams to protect theintegrity of the samples and resultantmodels. The lidded chambers used forsediment samples and monitoring therate at which sediment uses up oxygen,are anchored so they don't leak. Becauseeach operation involves sevenchambers, attached to 18 cables,

The worst place Reynolds hasworked is the bottom of LongIsland Sound, where heavyalgae growth and sedimentsmake it so "totally dark youcan't tell whether your eyesare open or closed."

deploying them is tricky andnecessitates being under water longerthan one can breathe without a maskand tank. The danger of becomingentangled in the mass of cables meansthe divers work in pairs.

Unfortunately for the divers, suchstudies are usually related to thecleanup of degraded waters. "Dirtywater diving" involves chemical andbiological hazards such as oil/asphaltspills and bypassed sewage sludge,physical conditions such as zerovisibility and currents approachingthree knots or more, and a variety ofmarine creatures.

Amson provides another insight intohow divers have improved EPA'sunderwater science. His first EPA dive,in 1973, was to place monitoringequipment in the "Flower Garden," acoral reef 150 miles southeast ofGalveston in the Gulf of Mexico, for thepurpose of measuring the results ofeffluent from the mouth of theMississippi River. "In those days," hesays, "there was a lot of trial-and-errorwith results that often didn't show whatwas needed. Since the diving programbegan, we have done innovative thingslike using the ship and trailing tapecameras to study the bottom. We cantrack densities and movement ofchemicals because we can return to theexactly the same place time after time tomonitor the growth or impact ofpollutants on the same groups ofunderwater plants, which may be only afew inches tall."

Dive master Jim Patrick at the GulfBreeze Laboratory was another instigatorof the "formal" EPA dive program. "By•1978, there had been a lot of shallowwater diving in the south and up atNarragansett. Region 4 had a team. Thetime seemed right to formalize what wasgoing on. There was a need to getserious about it." Patrick contactedTony Brown, director of the Agencysafety program, who took steps to set upan appropriate training program. Nowthere are one or two EPA trainingprograms annually, at Gulf Breeze.Initially, the training was providedunder a contract with the NationalOceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA). Now it isconducted by EPA. Considerableemphasis is placed on the physics andphysiology of diving, diving intocontaminated waters, and accidentprevention.

Safety is a paramount consideration.In addition to the 130-foot depth limit,EPA divers are not allowed to go into

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areas with unknown dangers. InSuperfund investigations, for example, aremote observation vehicle is often usedfirst to find out what might be in aquarry or deep lake. Divers going intoknown or suspected pollution wear adouble-lined suit specially developed bythe EPA and NOAA called the "SUS"(suit under suit). It was designed toprovide maximum protection fromchemicals in the water. Also, a buddysystem is used to protect divers againstbeing trapped, alone, in the dark.

Patrick himself recalls collectingsamples for a pathologist in a channel atthe bottom of Pensacola Bay. It wasdark, and littered with bridge pilingsand pieces of steel cable. He and hisbuddy had to keep each other out oftrouble. Actually, the most seriousaccidents to EPA divers have beenruptured eardrums, but dive masterDwayne Karna of Region 10, whosedivers work in heavily trafficked LakeUnion and Puget Sound around Seattle,worries about the danger from boats ofall sizes whose pilots "often ignore ourflags and markings."

On the east coast, EPA divers areinvolved in a number of biomonitoringresearch projects, in which they test theeffects of pollution on mussels placed inunderwater cages. The divers have tocollect, replace, and otherwise servicethe mussels and the cages. They alsocollect sediment cores for analysis, aswell as collect worms and smallshellfish with a suction dredge thatworks like a small vacuum cleaner.They dive into extremely polluted areaslike Boston Harbor to study the impactof pumping sewage into the harbor. Theworst place Reynolds has worked, hesays, is the bottom of Long IslandSound, where heavy algae growth andsediments make it so "totally dark youcan't tell whether your eyes are open orclosed."

For other regions he has helped checkthe fate of sewage sludge in the NewYork Bight, the effluent from a bigchemical plant in Toms River, NewJersey, and was part of a diving teamthat examined a 750- by 150-foot floatingdrydock deliberately sunk in 120 feet ofwater 30 miles off the Delaware Coast,at an Atlantic Ocean site informallyknown as "Delaware Wreck." The teamstudied the wreck to see how thewooden parts had withstood

submersion, what underwater plantswere growing on it, and whether fishhad turned it into a habitat.

In another unusual east coast project,Richard Traver, an engineer at the EPAReleases Control Branch in Edison, NewJersey, is coordinating an underwatersearch the Army is conducting inChesapeake Bay to locate drums ofwhite phosphorus dumped by theAberdeen Proving Ground in the early1920s.

Karna heads the only dive team onthe west coast. Its divers, one of whomis stationed in Alaska, do manyinspections related to NPDEScomplaints, generally in locationsaround company or publicly ownedtreatment works outfalls. They also do alot of underwater investigative work forSuperfund and did the underwatersampling that located hydrocarbons inSeattle's Lake Union, subsequentlyposted as unsafe for swimming andfishing. They also check for organicenrichment under floating fish farms inthe area.

The divers frequently participate inenforcement investigations. Three yearsago, Reynolds was asked to collectsamples off a Rhode Island company'soutfall to see if the company wasdumping pollutants illegally. The"above water" team included the RhodeIsland state police and stateenvironmental inspectors. Reynolds andhis colleagues found blasting sand inthe bottom sediments; the company wasultimately fined for its actions.

There was one Region 10investigation that could have beenespecially dangerous. Although most ofthe companies being inspected arefriendly, Karna recalls that in thisinstance there was a phone call to theregional office in which the callerimplied that a lift suspended over thepier would be dropped on the divers.The harbor police boat crew workingwith the divers donned their guns whilethe divers continued below, in muck sodark they had to hold hands to keep incontact. They did find, by the grittyfeeling, illegally dumped pollutants.The company was convicted.

On the lighter side, EPA divers do runinto marine creatures, but to date theyhave not caused serious problems.Murphy reports that a manatee cub oncemistook an EPA diver in a wet suit forits mother and paired with him untildriven away, and Amson came up froma dive off the Delaware coast to be askedif he'd seen a six-foot shark close to

him. He hadn't, even though sharkswere his special interest when he wasin graduate school; the big fish had lefthim alone during the dive. EPA diverschecking effluent discharges from aseafood plant in Petersburg, Alaska,found a giant octopus living in anoutboard motor casing.

Light moments, however, are few andfar between. Says diver Reynolds,"Sports divers run around, takepictures. It's all fun. Research divingcan be dangerous. It's all work ... butworthwhile." o

(Popkin is a Writer/Editor for EPA'sOffice of Public Affairs.)

EPA Diving Training Director JimPatrick exits the water duringdiver certification training.Instruction is given in divingphysiology, use of underwaterequipment, and safetyprocedures required to monitorpollution or to documentpollution damage.

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