He stressed that the disease poses no threat to people who eat lobsters, as dead lobsters are thrown away, sick lobsters don't get sent to market and healthy lobsters are boiled before they're eaten. Maine produces about a quarter of the lobster caught in the United States and Canada, and last year sold a record 46.3 million pounds. But it recently made front-page news in Maine newspapers. A survey later calculated their losses at 12 percent of their stock. This summer, lobstermen reported their catches were down as much as 50 percent.
Close quarters seem to make the problem worse.
The program, agreed to by the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the Environmental Defense Fund and the EPA, builds on Gore's Earth Day challenge to the chemical industry to perform risk assessments on widely used chemicals and to disclose their toxicity to the public. The agreement was endorsed by the American Petroleum Institute, whose members produce many of the chemicals that will be tested. The program covers high-production chemicals either produced or imported in the United States in a volume of more than 1 million pounds per year. The tests are to be completed by 2004. Manufacturers will have 13 months to volunteer their products for tests, after which the EPA will order tests for the remaining chemicals not tested.