Rachel #505: The IJC's 8th Report
=======================Electronic Edition========================
. .
. RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #505 .
. ---August 1, 1996--- .
. HEADLINES: .
. THE IJC'S 8TH REPORT .
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THE IJC'S EIGHTH REPORT
The IJC (International Joint Commission) has released its 8th
biennial report on water quality in the Great Lakes.[1] The IJC
is an international body created by the 1909 Boundary Waters
Treaty between the U.S. and Canada, responsible for water quality
in the Great Lakes. In its 1990, 1992, and 1994 reports, the IJC
codified an important new approach to the control of toxics,
calling for zero discharge and the ELIMINATION of persistent
toxic substances. (See REHW #284 and #378.) The new, 8th report
confirms the IJC's commitment to zero discharge and the
elimination of toxics from the Great Lakes ecosystem.
A New Departure: The IJC's Approach to Toxics
In a joint 1978 Water Quality Agreement, the U.S. and Canada
defined a "toxic substance" as "a substance which can cause
death, disease, behavioral abnormalities, cancer, genetic
mutations, physiological or reproductive malfunctions or physical
deformities in any organism or its offspring, or which can become
poisonous after concentration in the food chain or in combination
with other substances."
The IJC in 1992 recommended defining a class of chemicals called
"persistent toxic substances," which should then be ELIMINATED
because they cannot be managed safely.
The IJC recommended that a persistent toxic substance be defined
as any toxic chemical that bioaccumulates, or any toxic chemical
that has a half-life greater than eight weeks in any medium
(water, air, sediment, soil, or living things). Substances with
either of these characteristics should be ELIMINATED, the IJC
said.
The "half life" of a substance is the time it takes for half of
it to disappear. For example, DDT has a "half-life" of about 20
years in soil; if a pound of DDT is released into soil today,
half of it will still exist 20 years from now. The IJC recommends
that any toxic substance with a half-life greater than 8 weeks be
considered too dangerous to be released and should be ELIMINATED.
A substance bioaccumulates if its concentration increases as it
moves through the food chain. For example, DDT may be found at
one ppm (part per million) in fish and at 10 ppm in fish-eating
birds. Thus DDT bioaccumulates. The IJC says any toxic substance
that bioaccumulates should be ELIMINATED.
The IJC is recommending a completely new approach to chemical
regulation. The standard way of managing toxics, used today by
all federal and state agencies in the U.S. and Canada, is
chemical-by-chemical risk assessment. This standard approach
never bans, or even regulates, a chemical because of its inherent
properties such as toxicity, persistence, or ability to
bioaccumulate. Instead, each chemical is subjected to a "risk
assessment." In a risk assessment, various assumptions are made
about:
** the way the chemical will move through the environment after
it has been released;
** which people and wildlife might become exposed to the chemical;
** and, finally, what sorts of toxic effects the chemical might
cause in those exposed to it.
Such "risk assessments" are based on little more than
sophisticated guesswork because so little is known about the ways
in which chemicals move through the environment, the
characteristics of the wildlife and humans that might be exposed,
and the mechanisms of toxicity. (As one U.S. government risk
assessor said recently: "Quantitative risk assessment to a large
extent is still based on assumptions. There are a lot of
critical assumptions that go into it that have yet to be verified
biologically." --Ralph L. Kodell, U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.[2]) Furthermore, risk assessments can never be
scientific because all humans and all wildlife are constantly
exposed to several (perhaps several hundred) chemicals
simultaneously, and science has no way to predict the effects of
multiple exposures.
Thus risk assessment is a kind of highly-paid intellectual monkey
business, a game played by polluters and government regulators
for their mutual benefit, at great cost to the public and to
wildlife.
Because the results of risk assessment SEEM scientific, yet are
ALWAYS subject to challenge, debate and revision (leaving plenty
of room for political needs to be satisfied), risk assessment has
become the main way that "business as usual" is justified, and
allowed to proceed. Politically powerful polluters claim that
their "risk assessment" shows that no harm will result from
dumping billions of pounds of toxic chemicals and products
directly into public air and water. Risk assessments by
politically-sensitive government regulators typically conclude
that the polluters cannot be proven grossly wrong, so must be
given a license to proceed with their dumping. Everyone involved
claims his or her work is based on "sound science." In the U.S.,
this is what passes for "chemical regulation" at the end of the
20th century.
This system was devised by Congress with the willing
participation of most of the big environmental groups, so almost
everyone has a stake in keeping the system intact, even though no
one actually believes it works. Corporate lawyers and lobbyists
spend their lives complaining that this system stifles
creativity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit, but in
reality corporations are able to do pretty much anything they
want (though they DO have to tolerate the ankle-biting of
environmental lobbyists, the way bears eating honey have to
tolerate bees), so long as they file the necessary paperwork with
the regulatory bureaucrats who apply the necessary rubber stamp.
The system amounts to little more than a job-creation program for
corporate lawyers, government bureaucrats and environmental
lobbyists.
The IJC's proposal is a new departure, would definitely work, and
would prevent harm. It is clear, simple, and well-defined.
Toxic is defined. Persistent is defined. Bioaccumulative is
defined. If a chemical is toxic and either persistent or
bioaccumulative, it should be eliminated, based on its intrinsic
properties. No risk assessment needed.
This is a new direction for environmental management, one that
offers hope that the world can be cleaned up, and that massive
pollution can be PREVENTED at reasonable cost and with minimum
bureaucracy. The 8th IJC report, just released, reaffirms the
IJC's commitment to this new way of doing business:
"Protracted legal battles to remove DDT from use foreshadowed the
continued struggles to reduce environmental contaminants. The
time and resources required to document contamination and injury
to establish linkages between cause and effect has [sic]
inhibited action in a public health policy. A comprehensive
approach to all persistent toxic chemicals is not only the
preferred way to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and
public health, but the only effective way," the new report says
(pg. 8).
The 8th report goes on, "New studies are continuing to find
various effects from exposure to persistent toxic substances on
fish, wildlife and humans. Some effects are quite dramatic.
Earlier studies are being re-examined based on new evidence. For
example, a recent retrospective risk assessment suggested that
dioxin in Lake Ontario may have caused complete reproductive
failure in native lake trout populations by the early 1940s.
This important fishery has required artificial stocking to this,
day, with mixed results." (pg. 10)
And: "Mounting published evidence indicates that harm to humans
from persistent toxic substances is similar to that caused in
wildlife. Since our last Biennial Report, published studies
indicate such harm is being caused, at least in part, by IN UTERO
[in the womb] exposure to elevated levels of environmental
estrogens. A synopsis of research on endocrinal (hormonal)
effects conducted in 1994 by the Danish Environmental Protection
Agency showed that several aspects of human male reproductive
health have declined over the past 30 to 50 years, including
dramatic declines in sperm counts in otherwise healthy men to
levels where fertility may be impaired. (See REHW #438.) Other
cited problems are increased testicular cancer, undescended
testis and genital tract disorders. The authors conclude that
disorders seen today originated 20 to 40 years ago, during fetal
and childhood development. Similarly, chemical influences on
male reproductive health in today's babies may not become
apparent for decades." (pg. 10)
"...[t]he emerging picture is not encouraging. The U.S. Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is completing
studies of potentially at-risk human populations in the Great
Lakes Region, with fish consumption as the primary route of
exposure to chemical contaminants. One study involved human
infants in upper New York State whose mothers ate Lake Ontario
salmon prior to pregnancy. The findings (preliminarily reported
at our 1995 Biennial Meeting) support data of behavioral
abnormalities found 15 years ago in progeny [offspring] of a
similar group of mothers who ate Lake Michigan fish. The higher
exposed infants in New York State were unable to adapt to mild
frustration compared to a less exposed group. These new findings
require us to ask again, what is the wisdom of exposing another
generation of human infants to such toxins?" (pg. 11)
The 8th Report then returns to the subject of
chemical-by-chemical, risk-assessment-based regulation:
"The practice of addressing one chemical at a time is a lengthy
and resource-intensive process. The analysis, debate and
negotiation over the risks, impacts and the restrictions for each
chemical has effectively blocked regulation for years. This has
been the case for dioxin, PCBs, DDT, various pesticides and a
number of other chemicals....
"As a society, we cannot continue protracted debate while the
actual or even suspected injury to living species continues to
occur. Yet, this is precisely what occurs and will continue to
occur until Governments address classes of chemicals rather than
a few specific chemicals at a time....
"Approximately 72,000 chemicals are on U.S. EPA's TSCA [Toxic
Substances Control Act] chemicals list, but regulations have been
issued to control only nine new chemicals in 20 years, and the
Act's provisions have not been used to control any existing
substances other than PCBs....
"While proposed changes to the [Canadian Environmental
Protection] Act are promising, the most restrictive procedures
would be applied to a relatively small number of listed
substances, based in part on risk assessment rather than their
INHERENT TOXICITY....
"Reversing the onus, whereby the proponent manufacturer, importer
or user would have to prove that suspected persistent toxic
substances are not and will not be harmful, is a more reasonable
and logical approach," the 8th IJC report says. (pgs. 15-17)
No doubt about it. This IS a new way of looking at things.
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
===============
[1] International Joint Commission, EIGHTH BIENNIAL REPORT ON
GREAT LAKES WATER QUALITY (Ottawa, Canada, and Washington, DC:
International Joint Commission, July, 1996). Both reports are
available free from the IJC. Telephone (in Detroit, Michigan):
(313) 226-2170. In Canada, phone (519) 257-6700; fax: (519)
257-6740.
[2] Kodell quoted in Leslie Lang, "Strange Brew: Assessing Risk
of Chemical Mixtures," ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES Vol.
103, No. 2 (February, 1995), pg. 144. Kodell is deputy director
of the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research in
Jefferson, Arkansas.
Descriptor terms: ijc; regulation; reverse onus; toxic
substances; zero discharge; persistent toxic substances;
bioaccumulation; risk assessment; ralph kodell; ddt; hormone
disrupters; great lakes; water pollution; wildlife; human health;
danish environmental protection agency; sperm count; central
nervous system; pesticides; dioxin; pcbs; tsca; burden of proof;
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