"The water tells us we are one."

John Trudell

The health of the world's people can be no better than the health of its water -- the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. Many of the persistent toxic chemicals that are found today in all reaches of the oceans can also be found in the bodies of virtually all the people of the world.

Many scientists, national governments and non-governmental organizations are calling for an end to those industrial activities that are causing the accumulation of persistent organic pollutants (POPS) in the world's oceans and people. Those most at risk by POPs are people whose lives are most intimately linked to the oceans. With over half the people of the world now living within 100 kilometers of a coastline, the threats are significant.

POPs are a class of pollutants that by definition have the following characteristics:

1. POPs remain in the environment and resist degradation,
2. POPs can travel long distances on currents of air or water and
3. POPs are highly toxic and can injure humans and animals at very low concentrations.

Through a process called "global distillation," airborne POPs are deposited in colder regions, such as those of the northern lakes and seas and the polar and sub-polar regions. POPs released in the tropics are eventually deposited in colder regions. Global distillation contributes to the unexpectedly high concentrations of POPs that have been observed in the air, seawater, precipitation, plankton, wild animals, and people of the Arctic region.

For many indigenous people, who depend on the ocean for sustenance, their survival as a people depends on a global halt of POPs releases. POPs are initially created and released into the air, water and soil from industrial activities thousands of miles away. Carried by wind and water, the POPs eventually reach the oceans, where they accumulate in the flesh of fish and marine mammals.

Those who consume these creatures accumulate POPs in their own tissues. Some of the POPs identified in the Arctic include:

• Dioxins: These complex organochlorines are accidental by-products created during the manufacture, use and combustion of chlorine-containing chemicals such as the plastic polyvinyl chloride (vinyl or PVC), organochlorine pesticides and solvents. They include some of the most toxic chemicals known to science;
• Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs): These industrial chemicals are no longer deliberately manufactured. However, like the dioxins, they are formed as unwanted by-products during the manufacture, use and combustion of other chlorine-containing chemicals. Also, like the dioxins, they are super toxic;
• Toxaphene (camphechlor): a toxic organochlorine insecticide containing over 670 individual compounds which, until 1982, was among the most heavily used pesticides in the US. Although listed as a probable human carcinogen and banned by the USEPA in 1990, its release from waste dumps, and its use in other countries, continues.
• Hexachlorobenzene: This organochlorine was initially used as a pesticide. However, like dioxins and PCBs, it is also the accidental by-product of the manufacture, use and combustion of chlorine-containing materials; and
• DDE: This organochlorine, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene, is the most persistent of the degradation products of the pesticide, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) which is still being manufactured in some parts of the world.

Health Effects From POPS

When a woman becomes pregnant, her body burden of POPs is shared with the fetus. Likewise, when she breast feeds her infant, part of her POPs body burden is transmitted to her nursing infant in her breast milk. As a result, fetuses and nursing infants are subjected to even higher POPs exposures than their mothers.

Impaired brain development has been noted in some infants exposed to PCB levels similar to those found in breast milk of the Inuit women. Nonetheless, the Inuit infants appear to be developing normally in this respect. Scientists speculate that certain fatty acids in fish and blubber may protect against such neurological damage.

Nevertheless, research has linked impaired growth of Inuit babies with exposure to organochlorines from the mother. In addition, the higher incidence among the Inuit infants of infectious disease, including otitis media (chronic ear infections) and meningitis, suggests that their immune systems are suppressed by prenatal and postnatal POPs exposure. Research is currently underway on other developmental impacts of POPs in the Arctic.

Yet scientists and pediatricians still believe that the benefits of breast feeding outweigh the risks from exposure to POPs. The recent report of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) concluded that "weighing the known benefits against the suspected, but not yet fully understood, effects of contaminants, the concensus at present is that consumption of traditional foods should continue." Nevertheless, the assessment recognises the need for advice on consumption and possible avoidance of some traditional foods, while respecting cultural sensitivities.

Phasing Out POPS

As evidenced by these and many other cases, POPs are a global concern that can only be solved through global action. Once created and released, these persistent toxic chemicals are carried to the most remote areas of the planet.

Over the past decade, Greenpeace and other public interest groups have been calling for an international legal agreement to ban the production and discharge of POPs. The dispersal of toxic chemicals in the oceans has never before been considered on the global scale. However, since 1995, the United Nations Environment Program has sponsored international meetings to negotiate a legally binding agreement on POPs among all nations. An effective agreement must eliminate any industrial process that introduces these pollutants into the marine environment.

Unfortunately, progress is slow on the agreement and formal negotiations are not expected to begin until 1998. Greenpeace is urging that an international and legal agreement be signed by UN nations by 2000.

Arctic communities and non-governmental organizations around the world are urged to contact their political leaders, calling on them to support the swift adoption of an international agreement on POPs. In the US, contact Vice President Al Gore at the White House, Washington, D.C. 20500.