‘Seas are a cocktail of dangerous pollutants’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If you think the BP’s oil well rupture was the worst thing to happen to marine life, then you have not heard of heavy metals leaching out from hundreds of tonnes of e-waste dumped in the sea or of the hazardous ionizing radiations being emitted by the ‘invisible’ nuclear waste, also conveniently dumped into the sea.

The world’s seas are now a cocktail of not just traditional wastes from pesticides, industry wastes and oil spills, but also heavy metals with a nice topping of radioactive substances, says Dr Valeria Matranga from Italy, who is a renowned scientist working in the areas of immunology, embryology and toxicogenomics of marine organisms.

When field studies were published in international journals on detection of heavy metals and radioactive areas in several areas in the international seas, there was a European Union call for scientific research in such areas. Valeria and her team took up the challenge and decided to study the effects of such pollutants on the embryos and larvae of sea urchin which, she says, is in a way more closely related to mammals than fly or nematodes.

They used the same dosage of pollutants in the lab, as was noticed in the field. ``We found skeletal abnormalities, expression of stress genes, overexpression of several proteins and breakage of DNA, leading the sea urchin cells to commit suicide,’’ said Valeria, who had come to the city to deliver a lecture on emerging pollutants in marine environment at the Department of Aquatic Biology, University of Kerala.

Most of the work by the Cell Stress and Environmental Research Unit at the Institute of Biomedicine and Molecular Immunology at Palermo focused on cadmium and manganese as they were found to be the new pollutants in the sea. ``Well, the oceans are facing a problem of oxygen depletion and this favours the release of manganese that is otherwise locked in the ocean floor. The warming up of the sea as part of global warming and the resultant acidification also contributes to this,’’ she explained.

The origin of the several hazardous radiations detected in the ocean is simply obscure. ``There are so many nuclear plants across the world and nobody knows where all the waste goes. Field studies have measured radioactivity in North Sea and the Mediterranean. Obviously, the seabed is getting contaminated and with as many more power plants coming up, we need to have more safety rules in place,’’ she said.

Even after working at different polluted sites in the world, Valeria was appalled to see indiscriminate use of pesticides in the Kuttanad area, where she went on a visit. As a scientist who usually studies polluted areas in contrast with non-polluted areas, Valeria asked around for non-polluted areas in Kuttanad. ``Would you believe it - they said they had no such area and that every area is polluted. This is too bad,’’ said Valeria in total aghast.

While talking about the various opportunities for students to do higher studies and research in Europe, Valeria observed that there aren’t many Indian students in Italy. ``It is surprising because southern Italy such as Sicily where I come from is more like India than an European country, it’s more tropical and I would say there are a lot of opportunities for Indian students,’’ she said.

reema_narendran@expressbuzz.com