*********** 080194A.BIO *********** Contributory Category: ENV Country: Hong Kong From: South China Morning Post 28 July 1994 p. 3 KEYWORDS: Hong Kong; Estuaries, Fish kills, Red tide, pollution +++++ News item on fish kills in Hong Kong. Question is: are the kills part of a natural phenomenon related to Red Tides, or are they due to excess oxygen demand in the water caused by organic waste pollution? This gets to the real problem of attributing all "bad" environmental happenings to human intervention in natural system, when nature itself produces some "not nice" phenomenon such as ugly plankton blooms with resultant fish kills. The answer is to understand what is going on and only then can one assign relative "blame". The adversarial approach of many so-called environmentists, probably due to the fact that in many countries the EPA is run by lawyers and not scientists, may highlight a problem but does little to add to a solution. This is a classic case of development in an area of historic red tides. Nobody ever takes the side of the anerobes!! ************** END Msg. A.BIO **************