sweeping toxaphene under the waves

Earlier this week at a conference in Duluth, the word came out that the chief threat to Lake Superior was shoreline development and associated polluted runoff. The message was also seemingly clear that so-called 'legacy' toxic pollutants are not a serious threat anymore; they're slowly dwindling away.

Lake Superior is recovering well from "legacy" pollutants such as DDT, but faces new threats from shoreline development that have harmed fish habitat and introduced new chemicals, scientists said this morning at a major conference.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1515300.html

I asked Mel Visser, author of Cold, Clear and Deadly, which illuminates the still-pressing issue of global toxic pollutants entering the world's coldest waters -- including Lake Superior -- what he thought. Not so fast, says Mel.

"At the 'Making a Great Lake Superior 2007' conference in Duluth, Lake Superior was described as the cleanest of all the Great Lakes. According to the 400 assembled binational researchers, teachers and natural resource managers, there was a need to focus on emerging issues while twelve tons of toxaphene still reside in the waters of Lake Superior. Why?

"Has toxaphene been purposefully eliminated from our consideration? A Canada Environmental Defense article “Up to the Gills” http://www.environmentaldefense.ca/reports/pdf/Up2TheGills_final.pdf  studied fish eating advisories over the years. In 1999, 68% of Lake Superior's advisories were due to toxaphene. By 2003, 71% were toxaphene initiated and in 2007, the percentage dropped to ZERO! They concluded that the U.S. banning in 1982 caused this decline.

"The real reason was that all States and Provinces surrounding Lake Superior stopped including toxaphene in their fish eating advisories. If included, Lake Superior would be the most toxic, not the least toxic Great Lake.

"Ignoring toxaphene will not make it go away. Toxaphene’s concentration in Lake Superior and all waters north to the Arctic Ocean continue to be at dangerous levels because toxaphene is still used in third world global agriculture.

"We need leaders who can face and address problems. Addressing local and regional burn barrels [to deal with dioxin emissions] while ignoring use rates of tens of thousands of tons per year within our ecosystem will not make a Great Lake Superior."