By Doug Draper
Forty years after the first Earth Day, industries in Canada and the United States are continuing to treat the Great Lakes like a toilet for their toxic fallout.
Mercury and other air-borne poisons emerge from the stack of a coal-fired energy plant. A U.S. Department of Energy photo.
A report released this April 21 by the Toronto-based citizen organizations, Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defence, the latest figures from governments in the two countries show that in 2007 some four million kilograms (more than 8.8 million pounds) of air-borne pollutants known or suspected of causing cancer have drifted into the waters of the Great Lakes.
These pollutants are reaching all five Great Lakes and their adjoining watersheds from countless smokestacks and exhaust pipes from all over the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes region and beyond, including private industries and publicly owned facilities that burn coal and other fossil fuels to generate energy.
“Chemical threats to the Great Lakes need the attention of our governments more than ever,” said Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association CELA following the release of the report. “Our governments must commit applying an elimination and prevention approach to persistent toxic chemicals and other toxins including cancer causing chemicals.”
What’s sad about the report CELA and Environmental Defence released this April is that is so much like reports I received as an environment reporter from these groups and others 20 or more years ago, and in the wake of the Love Canal disaster in Niagara Falls, N.Y. – one of the first environmental stories I covered for a daily newspaper in Niagara, Ontario.
One would hope that at this point, with climate change and all of the other more complex and global challenges we face today around endangered species, deforestations, the depletion of the world’s great fisheries and so on, we would have at least graduated past mega-volumes of toxic chemicals spewing from industrial pipes.
But then consider what has happened. Over the past two decades, governments in Canada and the U.S. have weakened or scrapped many of the environmental regulations and programs that were put in place in the years following the first Earth Day, and have slashed the budgets of environmental protection agencies. The cutting and gutting has been even worse in Canada than it has been in the U.S., which may explain by the report by CELA and Environmental Defence shows Canadian sources of toxic air pollutants to the lakes are now worse than U.S. sources.
On top of all of that, the mainstream media is not longer giving environmental issues – especially if they have anything to do with industrial pollution – the kind of coverage it did three decades ago. There was a time when at least a dozen of us would show up to cover a meeting on Great Lakes pollution. Last June, when I attended a public meeting the Canada/U.S. International Joint Commission held in Niagara Falls, N.Y. on environmental challenges facing our Great Lakes, I was the only reporter there.
So the public isn’t getting the information from the media that they need to approach their political representatives and urge them to take action. That is good for the polluters.
For your information, Niagara At Large is posting an executive summary of the report on the Great Lakes released this April 21 by CELA and Environmental Defence, along with a link and other contacts for obtaining more information.
Great Lakes Still Under Siege from Toxic Pollution
New report shows Canadian companies in Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin produce more cancer-causing air pollution than US counterparts
Toronto, ON – Canadian companies in the Great Lakes basin reported releasing more cancer-causing pollutants to the air than companies in the United States, according to a report released today by Great Lakes-area environmental groups from both sides of the border.
Per facility, Canadian facilities emitted to the air, on average, almost three times more known cancer-causing pollutants. The comparison is based on a matched dataset of 2007 data provided to the Canadian National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) and the US Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), and is outlined in Partners in Pollution 2: An Update on the Continuing Canadian and United States Contributions to Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Ecosystem Pollution.
In total, four million kilograms of substances considered known carcinogens were released to the air in 2007 from matched NPRI and TRI facilities in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin.
“Facilities in the Great Lakes basin are major sources of pollution in the Great Lakes ecosystem, particularly cancer-causing chemicals to air,” said Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director of Canadian Environmental Law Association. “Chemical threats to the Great Lakes need the attention of our governments more than ever. Our governments must commit applying an elimination and prevention approach to persistent toxic chemicals and other toxins including cancer causing chemicals.”
According to the report, Lake Erie, which includes Lake St. Clair, St. Clair River, and Detroit River in its watershed, had the highest level of releases to air of known carcinogens. Lake Erie is the smallest and shallowest of the Great Lakes. The watersheds of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario come second and third, respectively. The majority of Canadian NPRI facilities reporting releases to air of known carcinogens are located in these two watersheds.
The report has been released to coincide with the renegotiation of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a landmark agreement between Canada and the United States to address threats to the quality of the Great Lakes.
First signed in 1972 by the US and Canadian governments to address non-point sources of pollution from nutrients and phosphorus loadings, the Agreement was later revised in 1978 and amended in 1987. Through these revisions, the Agreement shifted its emphasis to focus on the virtual elimination of persistent toxic chemicals. It was instrumental in saving Lake Erie from excessive algal growth, achieving reductions of persistent toxic chemicals such as lead, mercury and PCBs, and it initiated cleanup of contaminated sediments and areas of concern.
However, in the 23 years since its last renegotiation, government commitments to its principles have waned as funding for cleanup has been cut and hundreds of new chemicals have emerged on the market and are now being detected in the Great Lakes ecosystem.
“Clearly, the goals of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement have not been fully achieved,” said Mike Layton, Deputy Outreach Director, Environmental Defence. “With the number of chemicals in market growing every year and new chemicals being detected in the waters, air and land of the Great Lakes, governments and facilities cannot keep pace by simply applying end-of-pipe technology or upgrading wastewater treatment plants. A greater emphasis on prevention of use of these chemicals is absolutely necessary.”
The report provides a small snapshot of the pollution entering the Great Lakes. It examined only matched data between the NPRI and TRI. This encompasses 204 of 605 pollutants, and only in overlapping sectors. For example, mining and sewage treatment plants are not included. Meanwhile, only the largest facilities report. Medium and small sized plants – whose cumulative discharges are greater than the largest facilities combined – do not have to report to the NPRI and TRI.
“This report analyses 285 million kilograms of pollutants reported to NPRI and TRI. While this data is shocking enough, it represents less than 10 per cent of the pollutants discharged to the Great Lakes each year,” said John Jackson, Director of Clean Production and Toxics with Great Lakes United. “We must expand the NPRI and TRI so that we can get a more complete understanding of the toxics that endanger the Great Lakes.”
Other key findings from the report include:
* 285 million kg of pollutants were released and transferred (excluding recycling) from NPRI and TRI facilities in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin in 2007.
* Approximately 75 million kg of pollutants were released into the air from matched NPRI and TRI facilities.
* About 5 million kg of pollutants under Canada’s NPRI and US TRI were released to water. However, this is a large underestimate of the pollutants released to water because wastewater treatment plants do not report to TRI and, therefore, are not included in the matched dataset. On a per facility basis, TRI facilities released to water over twice as much as NPRI facilities.
Environmental groups working to protect and restore the Great Lakes basin ecosystem are recommending that governments in Canada and the US:
* quantify and report annually the pollution loading to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin;
* develop and implement a binational strategy for elimination and reductions of persistent toxic chemicals and other chemicals of concern such as, but not limited to, carcinogens, reproductive and developmental toxicants, endocrine disruptions, principally through a strengthened Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement;
* expand and strengthen Canada’s NPRI and US TRI programs; and,
* expand and strengthen the role of the International Joint Commission (IJC) for Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River protection
Partners in Pollution 2 is available to download for free on the PollutionWatch website www.PollutionWatch.org .
PollutionWatch is a collaborative project of Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association. The web site tracks releases and transfers of pollutants across Canada based on data collected by Environment Canada through the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) and emissions of greenhouse gases based on the federal government’s mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program. NPRI and the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program do not include data from all pollutants or sources.
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For more information, please contact:
Fe de Leon, Canadian Environmental Law Association, (416) 960-2284 ext. 223; (416) 624-6758
Jennifer Foulds, Environmental Defence, (416) 323-9521 ext. 232; (647) 280-9521 (cell)
John Jackson, Great Lakes United, (519) 744-7503
Michael Murray, National Wildlife Federation (734) 887-7110
Kathleen Schuler, Institute for Agriculture, Trade Policy (612) 870-3468
Lin Kaatz Chary, Great Lakes Green Chemistry Network, (219) 380-0209
(Visit the Canadian Environmental Law Association at http://www.cela.ca/ . Visit Environmental Defence at http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/. )
(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
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