High PCB levels reported in Alaska islanders
Date: 04-Oct-02
Country: USA
Author: Yereth Rosen
The study released by Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT), an Anchorage-based environmental group, said elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were found in the blood of St. Lawrence Island residents.
Average PCB levels for the 60 tested islanders were 7.5 parts per billion, compared to a national average of 0.9 to 1.5 parts per billion, said the study.
The highest PCB levels were found in the blood of people who spent time at a site known as Northeast Cape, where an Air Force post was once located and where the Yupik Eskimo islanders have long gathered their traditional foods.
The study was launched because of concerns about cancer and other diseases striking the island's 1,300 residents, said June Martin, St. Lawrence Island project coordinator for ACAT.
At stake is not only the residents' health but their Yupik culture, which is based on collection of fish, game and wild plants, said Martin, who is from Savoonga, one of the island's two villages.
"Our future generation on St. Lawrence Island is going to be impacted by these contaminants," she said. "They're too scared to harvest food at Northeast Cape because of these contaminants."
The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the organization's environmental justice program.
At the height of the Cold War, St. Lawrence Island was considered a strategic site for U.S. military operations, just 40 miles southeast of the Russian mainland. An Air Force post at Northeast Cape and an Army post at the village of Gambell conducted surveillance and communications operations.
But when they shut down in the 1970s, they left behind junk piles, heavy metals, fuel spills and chemical deposits, including PCBs. Wastes were buried or simply left on the tundra's surface.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working since the late 1980s on a cleanup of the St. Lawrence Island sites. Corps spokeswoman Pat Richardson said the agency had received the blood-sample report but had no comment yet on the findings.
St. Lawrence Islanders are at risk from more than military pollution, said Dr. David Carpenter of the State University of New York School of Public Health, who coordinated the blood-sample study.
Some of the PCB contamination likely results from pollution emanating from more temperate climates, Carpenter said. So-called "persistent organic compounds" are carried by atmospheric currents to high latitudes, where they collect in fish and wildlife and, ultimately, the people who eat wild foods. Other studies have found such contamination in remote Alaska villages, Carpenter said.
But the blood study presents convincing evidence that the old military sites are causing health problems on St. Lawrence Island, he said.
