Ottawa February 26, 2001
Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada and Vice-President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference, today released the text of letters sent to ten industrial plants and medical and municipal waste facilities in the United States and Canada. These facilities release dioxins (by products of combustion, especially of plastics and of chlorine product manufacturing and paper bleaching) to the environment which are then carried by winds to the Canadian Arctic. When in the Arctic, dioxins bioaccumulate in the marine food web, and in animals hunted and eaten by Inuit.
These ten plants, which contribute over 25 percent of all North American dioxins that migrate to the Canadian Arctic, were identified in a recent computer modeling study by Dr. Barry Commoner of Queen’s College, City University of New York. Dr. Commoner estimated the percentage contribution of dioxins from individually identified facilities to eight communities “receptors” in Nunavut. Dr. Commoner’s research was sponsored and published by the Montreal-based North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation.
Ms. Watt-Cloutier said: “Our purpose in writing is to alert these industrial, medical, and municipal waste disposal facilities to the Arctic dimension of their activities, and to find out whether they are reducing emissions.” She added: “By linking receptor communities in Nunavut with named, individual facilities in southern Canada and the United States that release dioxins, Dr. Commoner has given all concerned with public health a tremendously useful tool.”
While noting that levels of dioxins in Inuit in northern Canada are similar to or slightly above levels found in many people in southern Canada. Ms. Watt-Cloutier added:” We have been impressed with Dr. Commoner’s work and hope that his computer modeling will be applied to additional substances, such as PCBs, found in significantly higher levels in Inuit than in people living in the South.”
For additional information contact:
Ms. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, President Inuit Circumpolar Conference Canada
Ottawa 613-563-2642 or Iqaluit 867-979-4661;
Dr. Terry Fenge, Special Counsel to the President of ICC Canada, 613-722-7006;
Ms. Stephanie Meakin, Advisor to the President of ICC Canada, 613-258-9471.