Ecotoxicologist Craig Downs describes his main work goal as “preventing zombies”—communities of coral or other marine creatures that appear to be thriving, but upon closer inspection, turn out to be composed only of adults lacking the ability to reproduce. These populations are like the “living dead,” a generation away from vanishing, according to scientists who discovered them in dying reefs across the Caribbean in 2016.
Globally, coral reefs are in decline for a number of reasons, including climate change, coastal development, and pollution. Over the years, Downs, executive director of Haereticus Environmental Laboratory in Virginia, has studied sunscreen, microplastics, and most recently, beach showers, in an effort to understand the effects of these human-made substances on some of the world's most popular vacation destinations. His latest study, published in July, could also breathe new life into an old law.
In April, the Clean Water Act, the keystone US law on water pollution, took what many environmentalists describe as a tough hit. In a controversial shadow docket decision, the Supreme Court voted to remove states’ power to block federally approved, but environmentally damaging, projects. Commentators decried the attempt to strip states of the right to protect their own waters, one of the core principles enshrined in the act.
Downs' study, which suggests that beach showers are leaching pollutants into the sea, concerns another part of the law—section 502, subsection 14, to be precise. He and his colleagues allege that the showers are “point sources,” defined by the Clean Water Act as "single identifiable sources of pollution from which pollutants are discharged." If Downs and his colleagues are right, attorneys say, this would meaningfully change the current understanding of the 50-year-old statute, potentially allowing citizens to sue many an unsuspecting municipality or resort.
“I wasn’t very surprised to hear about this study,” said Peter Prows, managing partner of the environmental law firm Briscoe Ivester & Bazel in San Francisco. One of his clients, the Republic of Palau, in the Western Pacific, banned several sun filters after connecting a crash in its famous golden jellyfish population, in part, to the sunscreen pollution left by tourists.