The sky is falling
on lake and land,
on face and hand,
on what we drink,
and eat,
and touch.
We believe we are out in the fresh air, thousands of kilometers from smelters, incinerators, cotton farms and refineries.
We believe our waters to run clear and clean if we have no industry in the wilderness.
Think again!
"48 % of Ontario's upland forests receive acid depositions in excess of the critical load." page 67 Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management in Canada, National Status, 2005 Can Council of Forest Ministers
The Canada wide standard for ground-level ozone set in the year 2000, was to reach 65 ppb (parts per billion) by the year 2010, but it was not specific "to forest ecosystems but served as a benchmark." ibid p. 66
The majority of Lake Superior ranged from 65 to 75 ppb. Researchers have found that high-level ozone "tongues down" and "licks " the earth spiking the ground - level ozone. Information on eposodic ozone events on forest ecosystems is sparse. Ozone damages living cells i.e. interferes with normal functioning of living organisms, man included. Ground - level ozone creates significant impacts on forest health and productivity. "Reduced tree vigor also increases potential adverse impacts from climate variations - drought or extreme temperatures." ibid page 67
In the past, most studies on plant response to ozone have ignored the forest - except for a few on young, immature trees. Now, Canada and the U.S. are using 32 hectares of Wisconsin forest to study the long-term response of trees to CO2 and ground-level ozone.
The Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management in Canada, (National Status, 2005, Canada Council of Forest Ministers) recognized the problem:
#2.4 Core Indicator: area of forest with Impaired Function Due to Ozone and Acid Rain.
Chlorinated Organic Chemicals
"Exposure for the people of the Great Lakes Basin is 80 to 90% intake is through Chlorinated organic chemicals in food. That's the price of being at the top of the food chain. When larger fish, birds or humans eat the fish the contaminants move up the food chain in higher and higher concentrations... a process called biomagnification." page 29, A Citizen's Guide to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, by Tim Eder and John Jackson, Great Lakes United, 1988
PCBs increase in concentration 25 million times as they pass from water, through the food chain to, say, the eggs of a herring gull. ibid page 29
Again, scientists have only limited knowledge about the effects of toxic substances - of combined effects of more than one toxic compound, even less.
PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyis) are used in electrical and hydraulic equipment, lubricants and more fluids that need to be heat resistant. Their use has been restricted and they are no longer manufactured, however, PCBs are persistent and will cycle through the environment. page 43, Toxic Chemicals in the Great Lakes and Associated Effects, Synopsis, 1991, Government of Canada.
A persistent toxic substance: any toxic substance that is difficult to destroy or that degrades slowly, i.e. with a half-life in the water greater than eight weeks.
606 kilograms per year of PCBs enter Lake Superior and 90% of that comes from the atmosphere. DDT was introduced into North America in 1946 as an insecticide. Shortly after, an amateur naturalist noted many eagles in Florida had failed to nest and that their eggs did not hatch, thus likely being the first bird species known to be affected by the widespread use of DDT and its metabolite DDE.
Canada restricted the use of DDT in 1974 and suspended it in 1985 but never out-right banned it until 1989. It is still used elsewhere in the hemisphere.
92 kilograms per year enters Lake Superior, 97% of which comes from atmospheric deposition. Noted Improvement
60 Bald Eagle over-wintered in Thunder Bay in 2012.
"The return of normally reproducing eagle pairs to their former habitat and the expansion of their population should also serve as the biological definition of the "Virtual Elimination" of persistent toxic substances from the Great Lakes Ecosystem. " page 29 Toxic Chemicals etc.
Benzo {a} pyrene, B{a}P is one of several polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) that are formed by the incomplete combustion of :
- fossil fuels
- wood
- tobacco
- garbage incineration
- steel production
- coke production
- coal liquification
- coal gasification
page 43 Toxic Chemicals ...
It's found in sediments in industrialized areas within the Great Lakes basin. Its presence in river and lake sediments is associated with liver tumours in fish.
The chemical load of B{a}P in Lake Superior is 72 kilograms per year, with 96% coming from atmospheric deposition.
The chemical load of Lead in Lake Superior is 241 kilograms per year of which 97% comes from atmospheric deposition!
How can Lead fly?
"Alkylated Lead - Alkyl lead compounds are produced mainly as lead additives for gasoline. Levels of Alkylated lead in the environment have decreased since 1981 and will continue to decrease as it is phased out of gasoline." page 45 Toxic Chemicals...
The St. Lawrence and the St. Clair Rivers are the most contaminated ...just follow the fish consumption guidelines to be safe. Problem Animals can't read.
THE CHEMICAL SOUP
In Lake Michigan moralities of Lake Trout and Coho Salmon fry were first reported in 1969. Studies found 167 organic chemicals in their flesh, but couldn't identify the killer.
Lake Superior has a surface area of 82,000 square kilometers with a total volume of 12,230 cubic kilometers. The land drainage area (basin) is 127,700 square kilometers. That's a massive area of land and water for the chemicals in the sky to fall on.
The Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem is defined in Article 1, (g) of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement:
The interacting components of air, land, water and living organisms, including humans, within the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence River beginning with all the rivers and streams from the Western extremes of the Lake Superior drainage basin all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
The "chemical soup" of Lake Superior will theoretically drain into the Atlantic Ocean. I use the word "theoretically"because Lake Superior , as the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes, has a retention time of almost 200 years. Retention time - the period of time during which water stays in the lake before being flushed out. Once the sediments are contaminated you are looking at a longer period.
"In 1985, the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada found that the residents of the Great Lakes Region are exposed to more toxic substances than any other comparable group of people in North America." page 3, Cleaning up Great Lakes Areas of Concern, How much will it cost? , Northeast-Midwest Report August 1989, Northeast-Midwest Institute. Animals, waterfowl and even turtles are exposed to even higher levels of these contaminants. Snapping Turtles in Ontario are nigh on to becoming a species at risk, mainly through habitat loss and road-kill in Southern Ontario,(2012 newspaper report). Now add to that turtles dying in the Hamilton Harbour area in the mid 1980's with high levels of PCBs and the pesticide HCB, Chlordane and DDE.
HCB, Hexachlorobenzene is a persistent chemical originally manufactured as a fungicide for cereal crops. page 45 Toxic Chemicals...
Snapping Turtle eggs from Hamilton Harbour area (Lake Ontario) were more contaminated with PCBs, dioxins and furans than eggs from elsewhere. Turtle eggs from Lake Ontario wetlands had embryos and hatchlings with deformities similar to Cormorants, gulls, terns and fish. There seems to be a" direct correlation between dioxin equivalents and levels of embryo mortality."
Mink are sensitive to PCBs, HCB and dioxin poisoning. Mink raised on fur farms in the 1960's , fed on a diet of Lake Michigan Salmon suffered complete reproductive failure. Control groups fed West Coast Salmon were not affected. This is consistent with the pattern observed in the River Otter (Michigan and Wisconsin) . The River Otter's diet is mostly fish. Inland rivers of Michigan and Wisconsin had healthy populations but near Lake Michigan they became sparse.
ANNEX 15 to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement as amended by Protocol, November 18, 1987
AIRBORNE TOXIC SUBSTANCES
'The parties, in co-operation with State and Provincial Governments, shall conduct research, surveillance and monitoring and implement pollution control measures for the purpose of reducing atmospheric deposition of toxic substances, particularly persistent toxic substances, to the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem.
"The co-operation of all levels of society is needed to reduce further the concentrations of contaminants in the environment." page 42 Toxic Chemicals...
"Canada and the U.S. Governments should become part of international efforts to "sunset" chemicals on a global scale with priority given to toxic chemicals contaminating the Great Lakes from long-range atmospheric deposition." page 23 A prescription for Healthy Great Lakes, Report of the Program for Zero Discharge, Feb 1991 , Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy and National Wildlife Federation.
SUNSETTING :
Banning the production and use of toxic chemicals
