Marine Biologist Takes A Dive In Pursuit of Facts
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Players: Philip Colarusso
Marine Biologist Takes A Dive In Pursuit of Facts
Translating Science Gives Researcher Influence on the Issues
In Profile
Philip Colarusso
Title: Marine biologist, Environmental Protection Agency, New England.
Education: Bachelor's degree in biology, Worcester Polytechnic; master's degree
in environmental science, University of Massachusetts; working on doctorate in
biology, Northeastern University.
Age: 38.
Family: Married, two children.
Career highlights: While at EPA, was also an associate researcher at the New
England Aquarium, 1994-1996; worked with staff from the Edgerton Research
Laboratory on finfish communities in eelgrass meadows of Massachusetts Bay.
Pastimes: Diving, basketball.
Favorite movie: "Jaws" ("I root for the shark," Colarusso says).
By Pamela Ferdinand
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, June 3, 2003; Page A21
BOSTON -- For nearly two decades, Brayton Point Station, New England's largest
fossil-fueled power plant, has been accused of killing the marine life of Mount
Hope Bay in southern Massachusetts.
Environmental Protection Agency scientists and others say fish populations have
declined by more than 87 percent since 1984, when the plant began increasing
the amount of water it withdrew from the bay, and many species have shown no
sign of recovery. Representatives of the power plant, an affiliate of PG&E
National Energy Group, counter that other factors are at work, such as fishing
and global warming.
Most public observers of the ongoing debate can only hazard a guess as to what
truly survives in the bay these days. Not Philip Colarusso, a marine biologist
with the EPA in New England and the lead biologist on this controversial issue.
Because he dives year-round into the region's cold and often murky waters as
part of his job, Colarusso is one of the few people who actually have explored
what lies beneath the surface of Mount Hope Bay. "It's one of the most barren
areas I've ever dived in. Life is definitely not as abundant" as it once was,
he said in a recent interview.
Colarusso, one of three staff EPA biologists in Boston, works on some of the
most environmentally significant projects affecting marine biology in New
England. He handles everything from polluted swimming beaches and disposal
sites for dredged materials to the environmental impact of natural gas
pipelines and proposed windmills off Nantucket Sound.
He often acts as the bridge between scientists and nonscientists, translating
technical jargon into layman's terms for policymakers, lawyers and the public.
And while Colarusso does not have the final say on regional EPA decisions, his
ability to explain complicated processes and interpret scientific data in terms
of real-world impacts on environmental resources is a critical part of the
regulatory process, colleagues say.
"He has a real knack for being able to communicate scientific issues to people
in a common-sense way," said Mark Stein, senior assistant regional counsel with
the EPA. "If you have a scientist who is a very good scientist but [no one can
understand] what they are working on, you've missed a very important part of
what a public agency should be doing."
Colarusso, 38, says he knew what he wanted to do with his life from the time he
was 6 years old. He grew up the youngest of two boys in Winthrop, a seaside
community several miles northeast of Boston, poking through tidal pools and
bringing home whatever washed up on the beach.
His parents encouraged his interest, even when he forgot about a decomposing
sand shark he had stashed in the trunk of their car. He briefly dabbled in
genetics as an undergraduate at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in
Massachusetts, but settled on marine biology over the protestations of an
adviser who told him he was no Jacques Cousteau. He landed at the EPA in May
1989 and has been there ever since, with a two-year break at Northeastern
University funded by the agency to pursue a doctorate focusing on eelgrass. As
an associate researcher at the New England Aquarium from 1994 to 1996,
Colarusso worked with staff members who were examining finfish communities in
Massachusetts Bay's eelgrass meadows.
His water quality unit at the EPA in recent years has handled issues ranging
from contaminated mud on the footings of a Maine bridge scheduled for
demolition to a shipwreck leaking mercury and requests for permits to dispose
of cremated human remains at sea. That means a day at work can be dealing with
a paperwork mountain of data analysis, standing in a leech-infested stream
transplanting freshwater mussels or diving off the end of a runway at Logan
International Airport to survey underwater plant life, Colarusso said.
One of his highest-profile cases dates to the early 1990s, when Maine state
officials planned to construct a major marine cargo port on Sears Island. They
had invested $17 million in the project when Colarusso and other biologists
visited the site and discovered it contained 250 acres of freshwater wetlands
as well as eelgrass, which is protected under the Clean Water Act, and several
types of endangered species. Under pressure, then-Maine Gov. Angus King (I)
wound up relocating the project.
Brayton Point, located over 14 square miles at the head of Narragansett Bay in
Somerset, Mass., has proven equally controversial.
In issuing a draft permit for public comment last year, the EPA, along with
other agencies, concluded that stronger controls were needed on the power
plant, which withdraws nearly 1 billion gallons of water each day and then
discharges the water back into the bay at much higher temperatures.
Power plant officials, who agreed to limited restrictions in 1997 and have
hired their own biologists, have disagreed with the proposed additional limits.
Negotiations are ongoing.
"From our perspective, it's very simple," Colarusso said. "What's at stake here
is the restoration of a very productive area that supports numerous commercial
and recreational fisheries in the past and should still be doing so today."
In the office or underwater, Colarusso faces the often frustrating task of
trying to pinpoint and prove the threat -- or potential threat -- to a specific
marine resource.
"There's so many forces at play with any kind of ecosystem that it's very
difficult to sometimes figure out what is a natural variation or anomaly and
what has been caused by something such as a large power plant. That's the type
of thing Phil does routinely," said Eric Nelson, an EPA biologist and
Colarusso's diving partner. "He's passionate about looking for the subtle
details which might suggest there is a problem."