Pamela Miller reports from the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Pamela Miller reports from the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
A Dispatch from Geneva—
Why are the Deliberations of the Scientific Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Important?
Chlorinated naphthalenes, hexabromocyclododecane, hexachlorobutadiene, pentachlorophenol, short-chained chlorinated paraffins—these are not household words that come tripping off the tongue. However, they are among the chemicals under consideration this week in Geneva at the international meeting of POPs Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Decisions are being made this week that have important implications for global environmental health—the health of all of us and particularly the health of people living in the Arctic. Since this is a very technical meeting and this is my first blog post, I have struggled with how to write this. Here it goes…
I am part of a small group of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), collaborating organizations of the International POPs Elimination Network (www.ipen.org), who participate in these week-long meetings each year. We participate in plenary and work group sessions throughout the day and evening, offering scientific evidence to advance consideration of the chemicals. We also provide the perspective of civil society to ensure the application of the precautionary principle and the scientific integrity of the work of the Committee. We are up against a large contingent of representatives of international chemical corporations, including the major manufacturers of pesticides and other industrial chemicals.
The Stockholm Convention is a living treaty that includes provisions to add new chemicals that meet scientific criteria for persistence, long-range transport, adverse effects, and bioaccumulation. The POPs Review Committee makes determinations about whether chemicals meet these criteria. I came prepared for this meeting with over 50 scientific papers, focusing on the chemicals that I was the designated “lead” for within our IPEN team—these included pentachlorophenol and hexachlorobutadiene. Pentachlorophenol (PCP), is a widely used wood preservative and historically as an agricultural pesticide. Due to its widespread use and disposal, PCP is now detected in air, water, and soil throughout the world, as well as in the blood, urine, seminal fluid, and breast milk of people. Hexachlorobutadiene is mainly a by-product produced in the manufacturing of certain chlorinated solvents such as perchloroethylene, an industrial solvent used for dry cleaning.
When the Committee made favorable (!) decisions on pentachlorophenol and hexachlorobutadiene, advancing them to the next stage of evaluation, I ended up focusing on another substance, short-chained chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs). Short-chained chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) are industrial chemicals used in metalworking, paints, adhesives and sealants, plastics and rubber, flame retardants and in fracking fluids. Exposure to SCCPS has been linked with cancer. These chemicals are found in Arctic marine mammals such as beluga whale, seals, and walrus. SCCPs have also been found in the breast milk of Arctic Indigenous women. I have a personal interest in this matter because I grew up in the small town in Dover, Ohio that bears the dubious distinction of having the largest manufacturer of SCCPs in the United States, Dover Chemical—now among the most severely contaminated sites in the country. My brother Jerry died at a young age of cancer and there seems to be a cluster of cancers and illnesses in our neighborhood—so it is personal to my family and to me. In February of this year, Dover Chemical was charged $1.4 million in an enforcement action by the EPA and Department of Justice for violations of the Toxics Substances Control Act. And now, I find myself in this international scientific meeting and deeply concerned as well about the fact that SCCPs contaminate a place and people that I also care about in the Arctic.
In prior meetings, the Committee had already determined that SCCPs met the required scientific criteria and yet, they decided at this meeting to take no action on this substance. This is after delaying action for the past 6 years. For me, this was the most disappointing decision of the Committee meeting. As my colleague Mariann Lloyd-Smith of IPEN said:
We are not giving up! After this meeting, we will continue our work to ensure the global elimination of SCCPs. In the meantime, we celebrate the significant progress on the other nominated chemicals.
Background
The Stockholm Convention is particularly significant as a means to protect the health of the Arctic environment and people because it addresses persistent, toxic chemicals that can migrate long distances on wind and ocean currents. POPs tend to accumulate in the fat-rich food webs of northern environments. Arctic Indigenous Peoples have among the highest levels of POPs contamination in blood and breast milk of any population on earth, even though most of these chemicals have never been produced in the Arctic. Exposure to low levels of POPs can harm human health, including interference with learning and development, diseases of the immune system, reproductive disorders, and cancers. The Convention is strongly based on the precautionary principle.
“Arctic ecosystems and indigenous communities are particularly at risk because of the biomagnification of persistent organic pollutants and that contamination of their traditional foods is a public health issue.” —from the Preamble of the Stockholm Convention
The Stockholm Convention was adopted by governments from around the world in 2001 and entered into force in 2004 when 50 nations had ratified the treaty. Currently, the Convention includes more than 180 nations or “Parties” that agree to work together toward global elimination of the world’s most dangerous chemicals. The Stockholm Convention is a living treaty that includes provisions to add new chemicals that meet scientific criteria for persistence, long-range transport, adverse effects, and bioaccumulation. In addition to the initial list of twelve chemicals included in the Convention, the “dirty dozen” (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, hexachlorobenzene, PCBs, dioxins, and furans), the Parties agreed (in 2009) to add 9 new substances and an additional pesticide, endosulfan, was added in 2011. The U.S. has not yet ratified this important treaty and does not participate constructively in its implementation. The scientific committee of the Stockholm Convention, the POPs Review Committee (POPRC), works to determine whether chemicals that are nominated for inclusion under the Convention meet the scientific criteria and warrant global action.
Additional Resources:
- Stockholm Convention website
- Text of the Stockholm Convention
- International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) website
At their 2009 Conference of Parties signatories to the treaty agreed to phase out nine additional highly dangerous chemicals, the first time new chemicals have been added to the original twelve. In 2011, nations agreed to phase out the antiquated insecticide endosulfan.
Alaska Community Action on Toxics and other organizations belonging to the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) were instrumental in ensuring the addition of the nine new chemicals in 2009 and endosulfan in 2011.
