Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau: Oceanographer

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PLOWBOY: Sir, it's a two-fold question. First of all, on the pollution of the seas, how extensive, how widespread through the seas is the pollution; that is, is it the first 20 meters, or does it extend throughout the whole sea? Second of all, can we possibly ease this pollution, especially the chemicals, such as DDT, which we've produced? Can we use these . . . as a tracer, possibly trace through currents in the ocean?

COUSTEAU: Two questions, how widespread is pollution? Second, can we use such poisonous elements as DDT as tracers? The first question is difficult to answer, but I will. The second one is very easy. First, when we speak of pollution, we don't know what we are talking about, because there are pollutions of many kinds – chemical pollution from factories discharging chemicals, especially plastic factories. You have the oil and – I don't know the English word – pollutions which spread very much. You have the micro-biological germ pollution. You have the nuclear pollution. You have the thermal pollution. Unfortunately, each one of these must be taken separately, because they have their own effects and are cumulative, but independent.

The most insidious of them all is probably thermal pollution, because I don't know how we can avoid it. We are heating the globe and the water, especially with the nuclear plants of the future. In the year 2000, I think the difference will be very noticeable, but today, yes, DDT, as Dr. Revelle has told you, was found in the liver of penguins in Antarctica. Detergents – stable detergents – stay on the surface and destroy the neuston in the sea. The coastlines are polluted to a much bigger degree, and even deepsea fish can be found extremely polluted, because there is a constant rain of organic matter from the surface to the bottom.

Pollution is actually invading the entire ocean – everywhere. There's no place where pollution is not acute, but, of course, in coastal areas it is more so. Just off some very popular jet-set types of beaches, the pollution is so bad that, if a swimmer drinks about half a glass of sea water, he has a chance out of five to get hepatitis. The oil pollution – the big, spectacular things like the Santa Barbara Channel or the TORREY CANYON disaster – moves the press and the mass media. There are tremendous destructions on local points, but they represent about 3% of what the private yachts are polluting every year. Each time you start your outboard motor, which has the exhaust end in the sea, you are polluting the sea. So it's a vast problem, a very difficult problem. That's one thing.

The second question was, "Can poison be used as tracers?" remains very simple; why not use something that is not a poison? We have very good tracers that don't poison.

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