Science, Technology, Exercise your eves! from UW News Bureau You’ve heard of exercising your body for improved health. But few people realize that the human eye is a muscle thatcan need exercise to stay sharp. A team of scientists at the University of Waterloo is investigating ways in which people with myopia (near-sightedness) can improve their vision, specifically through exercising their eyes. The team is concentrating on this exercise method hoping it may lessen the need for “invasive” techniques such as surgery in helping those with myopia, says Dr. George Woo, a professor of optometry at the University of Waterloo. Woo says that it has been fairly common to attemDt to correct severe mvonia with surgery, but ‘&at there are possibli &de effects with this Drocedwe and this has spurred the search’for other treatments. Woo’s team includes Dr. Winston Yang, an ophthalmologist, Julie Quant and Joseph Cho, currently in Hong Kong continuing his studies. Yang is an eye surgeon who is studying the effects of eye surgery on patients in Toronto hospitals. Woo has &en investigating myopia and its causes for many years. One of his related studies in the mid498Us involved people who work on video display terminals (VDTs). He explains that myopia is an inability of the eye to focus accurately on objects that are far away, or, a visual defect in which images are focused in front of instead of on the retina, so that objects are seen clearly only when close to the eve. Whatcauses myopia? Woo says theories of what causes this common condition are conmany, rwim3 from environmental ditions to simtlle hereditv. Bv “envirotiental” is meant &ae everyd& conditions under which the eyes must L&on, particularly in the workr&ce if an individ&l works in situations’which can induce eve strain. Myopia is quite common i’n the Far East, &ar&-t~ at a v&y young age, he notes. Thus any studies that can lead to improving this widesDread condition has imnortant health implicsitions for whole groups’ of people. As well, there are significant implications for people everywhere who rely on maintaining healthy, accurate eyesight for their jobs, such 3s airline pilots. For many people, developing shortsightedness, and with it the need for corrective eyeglasses, seems to develop in the teens. But Woo says there may be ways to forestall that unwelcome development. ‘Our research leads us to believe that-there may be ways of improving the focussing aility of the eye through exercising the eye muscle. There have been some encouraging results in our trials,” he says, The methods involve so-called accommodation training. This, simply, is exercising the eye muscle and teaching the eye to relax he accommodation so that the image it is trying is brought into focus. It’s a bit like exercising other parts of your tiy, such as jogging for a healthier heart. If you exercise your eye muscle, it can perform its precise functions better for longer periods Df time. In controlled studies, the UW scientists used training devices to enhance the accommodationabilities of myopic individuals. One study included 12 sqhool children aged six to 12 years. After an initial assessment and test~ng, subjects were monitored every three months for a period of nine months. Results showed that those receiving the accommodaion training had an improvement in unaided &ual acuity, and thatthose with i&ally poor accommodation also showed substantial mprovement after undergoixq training.
Toxic Waste Alert: why
I
by Jennifer
Mkhol
specialto Imprint
and Cheryl
?W!!IRGand CUSEN are
Evans
Imagine living in a town where your water supply is “unfit for human consumption.” You have to make weekly trips to the firehall to pick up a supply of bottled drinking water for your family. Your regional government advises you to travel 15 miles to a nearby city every time you want to shower or bathe. People are moving out of the town because of severe allergies and illnesses and a heavy odour resembling burned metal often permeates the air you breathe day in and day out Does this sound like a frightening excerpt from a book describing eco-doom or ecological Armageddon? Well, although it may be difficult to believe, these living conditions have become very real considerations for the residents of Elmira, Ontario. Elmira, with a population of approximately 7,500 people, is located just twenty minutes north of Kitchener-Waterloo in the midst of prime southwestern Ontario farmland. At first glance, the town appears to be a tranquil, small community, an ideal place to live. Elmira is a picturesque town and common sight of Mennonite families passing through on horse and buggy emphasizes Elmira’s connection to a history of simple, rural living. However, as you walk from the downtown area toward the eastern edge of the town, that image of Elmira is drastically transformed to one of a modem, industrialized town. Smokestacks become visible over the rooftops of houses and the industrial sites of Uniroyal Chemical Ltd., Vknicolor Chemical Ltd., Nutrite Inc., and Sulco Canada Colours Ltd. are a few of the companies which comp&e what John Jackson of Great Lakes United refers to as a “miniature chemical valley.“ Elmira’s Uniroyal plant, which manufactures chemicals used in the production of pesticidesand rubber, has been fingered as one of the main culprits in the contamination of Wa’s water supply. Uniroyal has left a legacy of decades of chemical production and waste disposal which have resulted in severe pollution. Solid waste from the manufacture of the chemicals 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, which were used to make Agent Orange during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and 197Os, was disposed of in pits which formed lagoons on the property. These toxic substances were left to ooze into the soil and the aquifer beneath the town. (An aquifer is a permeable rock laye_r within the earth’s crust and acts as a reservoir for groundwater). In 1981, traces of these chemicals were discovered in wells around the Uniroyal site which were constructed to monitor contamination in the aquifer. Throughout the 198Os, environmental concerns continued to grow about Uniroyal’s effluent levels and the spread of contamination in the aquifer. Concern was expressed that the contamination could spread to the Grand River which flows into Lake Erie. In 1984, the Ministry of the Environment issued a control order to Uniroyal to improve their waste management practices. In response to this, Uniroyal began a two-year toxic waste clean-up of the site which resulted in the excavation of 1,691 drums of toxic waste which had been buried in the past. Vamicolor is another company which has contributed significantly to the contamination of Elmira because of its reckless handling of toxic wastes. Vamicolor billed itself as a “solvent recycler.” However, in February, 1990, an employee of the company blew the whistle on the company’s practice of simply dumping chemical solvents directly into sewers which feed the Canagagigue Creek Severe pollution of the Canagagigue Creek had been suspected for many years. This creek flows through Uniroyal property and feeds into the Grand River, ultimately emptying into Lake Erie. Fishing and swimming in the creek have been avoided by Elmira residents for years because of contamination concerns. In 1963, farmers complained about
testing of the municipal wells conducted by the Ministry of Environment (MOE). It was at this time that two of the wells, which supply most of Elmira’s drinking water, were closbd dnwn __ __-_
Iwrm~P --_-c--
nf --
lm;rrrm3h3hl~ ------r----
rclnrm--------
trations of NDMA (N-Nitrosodimethylamine). The presence of NDMA, a known carcinogen, has been linked to Uniroyal’s manufacture of chemicals. Under the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (Ontario Regulation 654/86), NDMA is classified as “a known toxic agent for which exposure values have not been established and to which ANY
a-
L7
-~--
----
----
wastedepositedin upen 1pit sandlemons 4-w I
Putting out fire with gasoline the death of cattle owing to drinking water from the creek and loss of crops from seepage of chemicals from the Uniroyal site. In November, 1989, the public’s fear of severe contamination was substantiated by
exposure is to be avoided.” In addition to NDMA, Uniroyal and the MOE have identified over 200 known chemicals and 20 unknown chemicals that are presently in the water they are discharging. Before the closure of the wells, most Elmira residents had accepted environmental degradation as a trade-off for the economic stability created by industrial development. However, some citizens were outraged bv the poisoning of their water supply anvd decided that the pollution had become unacceptable. They felt it had become necessary tb take action. A citizen’s group had formed in August of 1989 in Elmira to oppose the construction of an incinerator on Uniroyal property. This called Assuring Protection for ITOUPt
Science NEWS IN BRIEF Success stories in preventing
water pollution
Keeping the water clean is on all our minds these days, but how successfu1 are we? The Water Network, based at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, is hosting a one-day symposium March 31 on “Water Pollution Prevention - Some Success Stories.” It wili be held at the Waterloo Inn, from 9 am to 4:30 pm. Prof. Marie Sanderson, director of the network, says the news media tend to focus on culprits in the water pollution story - industries, municipalities and farmers. “Not so well known are the success stories in the war against pollution in the Grand River region as well as the Great Lakes basin as a whoIe,” she says. The Great Lakes are cleaner today than in the 196Os, as a result of extensive sewage treatment and a shift toward recycling of wastes and reducing toxic discharges. Among industrial and municipal experts presenting success stories are Jack Hull, Region of Waterloo; Ray Funnell, City of Guelph; and Dr. Grace Wever, Council of Great Lakes Industries, Rochester, NY. Waterloo’ -North MPP Elizabeth Witmer will chair the morning session. UW engineering
profs conduct
research
for local company
Researchers in the engineering faculty are doing over $1.5 million worth of contract work for Automation Tooling Systems Inc. Two research teams from mechanical engineering and systems design engineering are part of a recently announced five-year, $9.4-million project at the Kitchener company. A total of $4.7 miIlion is provided by the Ontario Technology Fund. The project will study the construction of automated assemblymachines used by the electronic manufacturing industry for handling placing and automatically soldering surface mount comyonenls onto rinted circuit boards. Profs. Hugh Martin an B Paul Niessen, of mechanical enmeering, will receive $713,000 for research on soldering technology and bonding. In systems design engineering Profs. Andrew Wong, Helen Shen and Mohamed Kamel will receive $slO,OOO for research on vision technology. All three belong to the department’s Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence group.