U.S., Soviets Agree to Jointly Study Environmental Issues

The United States and the Soviet Union signed new agreements on Friday to jointly study climate change, ozone depletion, wetlands management, arctic ecology and other environmental concerns, officials announced here.

For instance, U.S. scientists soon will board Soviet research vessels to conduct joint atmospheric studies in the South Pacific, EPA Administrator William K. Reilly said.

Also, cooperative studies will soon get under way to assess the degree of global warming, he and a Soviet environmental official announced. “Our countries cover a large mass of the Northern Hemisphere, and we can make absolutely essential contributions,” Reilly said.

The agreements were reached at the 12th meeting of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Committee on Cooperation in Environmental Protection, which was created in 1972.

At a news media briefing, Valentin G. Sokolovsky, a senior Soviet environmental official, detailed new Soviet initiatives to combat pollution in his country, calling them “radical perestroika .” Among them, he said, are an emerging system to tax and fine polluters and the recent creation of a broadly based citizens’ group to advise the government on environmental issues.

Sokolovsky said also that the Soviet State Committee for Environmental Protection intends to combat urban air pollution, which he said is among the country’s “most dangerous” problems.

In no less than 103 cities, he said, air pollution is often 10 times the legal limit. Sixty-eight additional cities have “rather steady violations of air pollution norms,” he said.

An increasing source of such pollution, Sokolovsky said, is the automobile. In more than 250 cities, he said, auto emissions now are more responsible for air pollution than industry emissions. As a result, Sokolovsky said, plans are being developed to ban leaded gasoline altogether, either by 1996 or 1998.

Reilly hailed the Soviet environmental initiatives, calling the Soviets’ pollution problems “serious, difficult and daunting.”

Earlier, Sokolovsky had given Reilly a document that the EPA boss called “the very first Soviet state of the environment report ever to be published.”

The Soviets’ newly created Citizens Advisory Council is made up of 150 environmental activists, scientists, architects, journalists, trade unionists and artists, among others, according to Sokolovsky, who is first deputy chairman of the State Committee on Environmental Protection. He said six of the members have been elected to the Supreme Soviet.

The collaborative environmental studies will include not only government agencies but numerous scientific organizations, academic institutions and trade associations.

WORLDWIDE WARMING--A British report says global temperatures in 1989 were the fifth highest on record. A24