Probe

(continued)

By John C. Weil

Back at his office alongside the lab, Bruckman nervously slipped on wire-rimmed glasses and hunched over a big mahogany desk, pursing his lips in thought as he read a high-security document outlining the situation. Eight states were now on full red alert. All were faced with blue ponds and streams. Several scientists reported seeing a blue pond near the Great Lakes. If it spread to the lakes, they would have a disaster on their hands. As it were, animals were dying from drinking the water just before it turned blue. Deer were found bloated; one had its stomach explode when the water hardened inside its belly. Hundreds of thousands of frogs were belly up in each state. Bruckman was a political appointee, but a well-qualified scientist. In forty years of work he had never seen anything like this. His men had waded waist deep, hundreds of frogs bumping off their hips.

He knew that frogs are considered a sentinel species, the first to succumb to problems that may later affect humans. Chemicals and pathogens easily affect them, because they have permeable skin. Frogs also live, both on land and in water, providing mankind with a strategically-placed early warning system. "Why are they dying now?" he asked himself. "Why all over the world, but only in certain areas? Why one stream, but not another just fifty yards away? And why do some die deformed? Why are the streams changing color and hardening this way?"

He rubbed his forehead, fighting a headache that was coming on fast. Bruckman was stumped by many situations in his personal life but never on the job. He did not understand his wife. But science was clear to him.

Thinking out loud, he said, "Frogs are an early warning system. They have survived for 350 million years. Now something awful is happening to them. Whatever it is, it's soon going to reach humans. We must stop it now. The clock is ticking for the human race!"

An hour later Bruckman left his office to meet down the hall with representatives of the National Science Foundation, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the federal departments of agriculture, education, defense and environmental health, and many foreign scientists from friendly countries around the world. Prior to the meeting, his contact at NASA called to tell him there had been no meteor strikes anywhere in the world in the past sixty days.

The representatives were gathered around a long mahogany table to debate the cause of death of millions of frogs around the world. He had already briefed the president and his advisors.

Twenty men and women became tired and grumpy after a grueling ten-hour discussion. The table was littered with coffee cups, pads, pens and crumpled paper. Staff members shoved ten pizzas and six packs of Coke on the table. "Dinner," someone announced.

Bruckman grabbed a slice, thinking how ironic it was that he was here to save frogs. As a kid he had been fascinated with frogs. Indeed, many of the scientists at the table had been, too. Something about little boys and frogs seemed so Americana. He even dissected a frog in junior high school. Frogs may have prompted his interest in biology and science, he realized. Bruckman also remembered making water change color in science class by using the right combination of chemicals.

Now tempers were running short over the issue of dead frogs and colored water. They were no longer kids, and this was no longer amusing. Bruckman did not want to lose control of the situation. At home, he kept everything in its place to maintain order. Colored socks on one side. Tan socks on the other. This problem of blue water did not conform to order.

A Harvard biologist with a shock of fiery red hair firmly repeated his opinion once again. "We have an environmental disaster on our hands! Longterm toxins in the soil or the water. Someone may be dumping in the watershed, perhaps over a period of decades."

"But it's so random," the female scientist next to him said. "Frogs wash up where there are no industrial plants within hundreds of miles."

"Maybe they truck the chemicals in under the cover of darkness."

"That's got to be it. The FBI and local police all over the country are on it."

"This phenomena is now worldwide," a female scientist from Egypt remarked. "The Nile is hardening at one-hundred feet per day. How do you account for that?"

"I can't."

"Then you don't know what you are talking about!"

Bruckman interrupted them. "Let me remind everyone that sixteen teams of scientists from around the world cannot identify the chemical or chemicals that are causing the problem. A multi-national company may be testing something, but that would mean they have something new. Something that has never been seen before by any of us."

"That's not so unusual," a chemical expert from England said. "But that does narrow the field to maybe fifty thousand businesses."

"There are a wide range of toxins and chemicals that could be responsible for killing frogs," Bruckman said. "But nothing that changes the properties of water. My team believes the chemicals are from space."

They stared blankly at him in dead silence. He said, "I know it doesn't sound reasonable. But please give it some thought."

They began debating his statement. He tried to sound as if he had faith in their ability to find an answer. He tried to sound like a leader. But his voice wavered. "Look, this is our tenth meeting. We have been locked in this room for twelve hours at a time. Yet we are no closer to discovering a solution than when we started. I must see results! Water is solidifying all over the world. It doesn't dry up. After several stages of change, it hardens. We now have vats that weigh more than a ton. In not one single case has it reverted back to water. We could soon lose all our water. If these chemicals get in our aqueducts and reservoirs it could mean the end of the human race! Millions upon millions will die. I need all of you to focus on your area of expertise while working together."

A U.S. Army general spoke up. "News reports are beginning to cause panic. There are reports of people stocking up on bottled water. There's already a shortage. People are filling vats, plastic containers, anything they can get their hands on."

They were quiet. These men and women had never been stumped like this before. Many couldn't stomach food. Five pizzas lay uneaten in the boxes. Finally a representative of San Diego County's Department of Environmental Health spoke up. "Even legal dumping in landfills could expose our watershed to unknown toxins. Decades' old linings are beginning to deteriorate."

But a White House official argued with him. "There isn't a landfill in operation today that doesn't meet strict federal standards. They're all double-lined..."

"Could be a leak somewhere! Maybe a lab dumped a chemical that ate right through it..."

"Give me a break..."

"The chemical could be finding its way to the food chain. Perhaps the frogs digest it. Perhaps their digestive tract changes the chemical. Their excretion affects the water."

Bruckman said, "I don't want to rule out anything. But that sounds far-fetched."

He purposefully walked to the blackboards where he had already scribbled dozens of scenarios and numbers. "My teams ran tests on dirt, water and the mud from thirty ponds and lakes in twenty states. Governments around the world have conducted similar tests. We all agree it is a chemical that we have never seen before. One we cannot identify. We don't know if it is a combination of chemicals because we cannot break it down..." His voice trailed off. Then he admitted, "We... we are stumped."

A petite, professionally-dressed woman from the federal Department of Environmental Health said, "We dug deep during soils testing, probably ten to fifty years back. Nothing showed up."

"How about the fungus normally found in the soil?"

"Clean. And tests on food sources for frogs turned up negative."