Deal to ban killer chemicals
Canada became the first country to sign and ratify a United Nations convention banning or severely restricting 12 dangerous chemicals, known as the dirty dozen, in Stockholm on Wednesday.
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Subject: Deal to ban (some of the) killer chemicals............................
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 13:26:56 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State
of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an article from the Globeandmail.com Web Centre. It was POSTED AT 10:45 AM EDT - Wednesday, May 23, 2001 and is entitled: Deal to ban killer chemicals.
Globe and Mail Update
Canada became the first country to sign and ratify a United Nations convention banning or severely restricting 12 dangerous chemicals, known as the dirty dozen, in Stockholm on Wednesday.
"Canada's signature and ratification of the [convention] is the culmination of over a decade of hard work by Canadian scientists and officials who were determined to help reduce the environmental and health damage caused by these 12 substances," Environment Minister David Anderson, who signed the deal in a ceremony Wednesday, said in a statement.
Martin Mittelstaedt reported in Wednesday's Globe and Mail that environmentalists and government officials hailed the convention, adopted by delegates from 100 countries on Tuesday, as a major victory for public health and wildlife preservation and as a rare case of a successful global environmental deal.
"It's really a good example of international co-operation on a major environmental issue," John Crump, executive director of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, said. "These days when we tend to see less than unanimous support for things like the Kyoto agreement, this is one where the world community actually got together and got something done."
The agreement will eliminate, where feasible, the production and use of so-called persistent organic pollutants, or POPs; a list that includes such hazardous substances as dioxins and PCBs. Under the agreement, DDT use will still be permitted only in areas where malaria is a problem until safer alternatives are found.
Canada took a leading role in lobbying for the treaty and Environment Minister David Anderson was among the first government officials to sign the convention Wednesday.
A total of 50 countries must ratify the treaty to make it legally binding on the international community. Enough countries are expected to do so to reach this milestone by 2004.
"This is the first major global convention on toxic chemicals since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring," Sarah Dover, a policy adviser for the World Wildlife Fund of Canada, said, referring to the influential book written in the early 1960s about these chemicals.
Even the United States, usually a laggard on international treaties, has indicated it will sign on to the pact, a contrast to its rejection of the Kyoto global-warming treaty negotiated in Japan in 1997 to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases.
Part of the reason for the relative ease with which the treaty has been accepted is that most industrial nations have phased out the chemicals on the list, so there are no powerful industrial lobbies to push for their continued use.
The treaty will apply initially to the following substances:
othe pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene;
othe industrial chemicals PCB and hexachlorobenzene;
oand dioxins and furans, which are unwanted industrial byproducts.
The treaty has provisions that can be used later to ban other dangerous substances.
Of all the pollutants human activity releases into the environment, the 12 covered by the agreement are among the most feared. They are long lasting, do not break down readily into less harmful substances and are absorbed easily into the tissues of living things.
Since the chemicals came into widespread use after the Second World War, they have found their way into the tissues of all living things, from polar bears in the Artic to fish in the Great Lakes.
The chemicals are suspected to cause horrific health effects, such as cancers, tumours, impaired immune systems, birth defects and hormonal disruptions.
One of the most notable environmental problems caused by the chemicals was the near elimination of some eastern North American bird species, such as bald eagles, whose reproductive systems were disrupted by DDT.
Peter Ewins, director of Artic research programs for the World Wildlife Fund of Canada, said concentrations of some chemicals in northern wildlife are reaching levels that first alarmed scientific researchers back in the 1960 and 1970s, when they were detected in animals living in the Great Lakes.
Canada is at risk from the toxic chemicals because global weather patterns tend to push pollution toward the Northern Hemisphere.
Well Mr. Helliker, at what point did your "registered" POISONS become so dangerous? When we found out or when you "registered" them?
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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