Partners in Pollution

If there were any lingering doubts about whether the Soviet Union had developed a technologically advanced society on a plane similar to that of the U.S., they were dispelled last week. Representatives of both nations signed an agreement to undertake 30 joint scientific projects aimed at combatting mutual environmental problems. The U.S.S.R., it seems, is getting to be as dirty as the U.S.

Under the highly specific agreement, Soviet scientists will help American experts probe the air-pollution problems of St. Louis and then do the same in Leningrad. The water pollution of Lake Tahoe will be compared with that of Siberia's Lake Baikal. The capability of both nations to predict earth quakes will be tested along California's San Andreas Fault and in Tadzhikistan's Pamir Mountains. The murky waters of the Delaware and Potomac rivers will be analyzed, along with those of two Soviet rivers yet to be designated. More broadly, the general urban environmental problems of San Francisco and Atlanta will be compared with those of Leningrad and another Soviet city. Each nation, in short, will be examining the seamier side of the other, perhaps marking a new maturity in two powers long inclined to hide comparative weaknesses.

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