May 25 1976
From The Space Library
The Environmental Protection Agency, at a Washington briefing for science writers, described its techniques of airborne remote sensing combined use of aerial photography and heat-sensing instruments-to detect 98% of water-pollution discharge points in the U.S. John Moran, EPA director of monitoring, said the agency had long used aerial photos to map the extent of oil spills; other devices in EPA's "growing arsenal" included a laser system to measure ground contours and determine whether strip-mined land had been properly restored; an airborne laser firing energy pulses toward the ground to define particle layers in the atmosphere below the aircraft and thus measure the air-inversion ceiling during urban air-pollution alerts; and a system for laser fluorosensing that would monitor water pollution by measuring surface oils, dissolved organic matter, and even algae, by sensing responses to an ultraviolet beam. An earlier EPA report described use of techniques or devices developed for other purposes by NASA or DOD, to detect smoke drift in the atmosphere, oil spills, runoff from illegal stock feedlots, and sick vegetation. (W Star , 26 May 76, A-11)
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