ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

PERSISTANT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are chemical substances that persist in

the environment, bioaccumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of
causing adverse effects to human health and the environment. With the
evidence of long-range transport of these substances to regions where they
have never been used or produced and the consequent threats they pose to
the environment of the whole globe, the international community has now, at
several occasions called for urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate
releases of these chemicals.

Persistent Organic Pollutants: An Assessment Report on DDT, Aldrin,

Dieldrin, Endrin, Chlordane, Heptachlor, Hexachlorobenzene, Mirex,
Toxaphene, Dioxins, Polychlorinated Biphenyls, and Furans.

AIR POLLUTION

What is Air Pollution?

Air is the ocean we breathe. Air supplies us with oxygen which is essential for
our bodies to live. Air is 99.9% nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor and inert gases.
Human activities can release substances into the air, some of which can
cause problems for humans, plants, and animals.

There are several main types of pollution and well-known effects of pollution
which are commonly discussed. These include smog, acid rain, the
greenhouse effect, and "holes" in the ozone layer. Each of these problems
has serious implications for our health and well-being as well as for the whole
environment.

One type of air pollution is the release of particles into the air from burning
fuel for energy. Diesel smoke is a good example of this particulate matter.
The particles are very small pieces of matter measuring about 2.5 microns or
about .0001 inches. This type of pollution is sometimes referred to as "black
carbon" pollution. The exhaust from burning fuels in automobiles, homes, and
industries is a major source of pollution in the air. Some authorities believe
that even the burning of wood and charcoal in fireplaces and barbeques can
release significant quantities of soot into the air.

Another type of pollution is the release of noxious gases, such as sulfur

dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and chemical vapors. These can
take part in further chemical reactions once they are in the atmosphere,
forming smog and acid rain.

Pollution also needs to be considered inside our homes, offices, and schools.
Some of these pollutants can be created by indoor activities such as smoking
and cooking. In the United States, we spend about 80-90% of our time inside
buildings, and so our exposure to harmful indoor pollutants can be serious. It
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is therefore important to consider both indoor and outdoor air pollution.

How can air pollution hurt my health?

Air pollution can affect our health in many ways with both short-term and long-
term effects. Different groups of individuals are affected by air pollution in
different ways. Some individuals are much more sensitive to pollutants than
are others. Young children and elderly people often suffer more from the
effects of air pollution. People with health problems such as asthma, heart
and lung disease may also suffer more when the air is polluted. The extent to
which an individual is harmed by air pollution usually depends on the total
exposure to the damaging chemicals, i.e., the duration of exposure and the
concentration of the chemicals must be taken into account.

Examples of short-term effects include irritation to the eyes, nose and

throat, and upper respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia.
Other symptoms can include headaches, nausea, and allergic reactions.
Short-term air pollution can aggravate the medical conditions of individuals
with asthma and emphysema. In the great "Smog Disaster" in London in
1952, four thousand people died in a few days due to the high concentrations
of pollution.

Long-term health effects can include chronic respiratory disease, lung

cancer, heart disease, and even damage to the brain, nerves, liver, or
kidneys. Continual exposure to air pollution affects the lungs of growing
children and may aggravate or complicate medical conditions in the elderly. It
is estimated that half a million people die prematurely every year in the United
States as a result of smoking cigarettes.

Smog is a type of large-scale outdoor pollution. It is caused by chemical

reactions between pollutants derived from different sources, primarily
automobile exhaust and industrial emissions. Cities are often centers of these
types of activities, and many suffer from the effects of smog, especially during
the warm months of the year.

For each city, the exact causes of pollution may be different. Depending on
the geographical location, temperature, wind and weather factors, pollution is
dispersed differently. However, sometimes this does not happen and the
pollution can build up to dangerous levels. A temperature inversion occurs
when air close to the earth is cooler than the air above it. Under these
conditions the pollution cannot rise and be dispersed. Cities surrounded by
mountains also experience trapping of pollution. Inversion can happen in any
season. Winter inversions are likely to cause particulate and cabon monoxide
pollution. Summer inversions are more likely to create smog.

Another consequence of outdoor air pollution is acid rain. When a pollutant,

such as sulfuric acid combines with droplets of water in the air, the water (or
snow) can become acidified . The effects of acid rain on the environment can
be very serious. It damages plants by destroying their leaves, it poisons the
soil, and it changes the chemistry of lakes and streams. Damage due to acid
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rain kills trees and harms animals, fish, and other wildlife.

The Greenhouse Effect, also referred to as global warming, is generally

believed to come from the build up of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is produced when fuels are burned. Plants convert carbon
dioxide back to oxygen, but the release of carbon dioxide from human
activities is higher than the world's plants can process. The situation is made
worse since many of the earth's forests are being removed, and plant life is
being damaged by acid rain. Thus, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is
continuing to increase. This buildup acts like a blanket and traps heat close to
the surface of our earth. Changes of even a few degrees will affect us all
through changes in the climate and even the possibility that the polar ice caps
may melt. (One of the consequences of polar ice cap melting would be a rise
in global sea level, resulting in widespread coastal flooding).

Ozone depletion is another result of pollution. Chemicals released by our

activities affect the stratosphere , one of the atmospheric layers surrounding
earth. The ozone layer in the stratosphere protects the earth from harmful
ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's)
from aerosol cans, cooling systems and refrigerator equipment removes
some of the ozone, causing "holes"; to open up in this layer and allowing the
radiation to reach the earth. Ultraviolet radiation is known to cause skin
cancer and has damaging effects on plants and wildlife.

What are toxic air pollutants?

Toxic air pollutants, also known as hazardous air pollutants, are those
pollutants that are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious
health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse
environmental effects. EPA is working with state, local, and tribal
governments to reduce air toxics releases of 188 pollutants to the
environment. Examples of toxic air pollutants include benzene, which is found
in gasoline; perchlorethlyene, which is emitted from some dry cleaning
facilities; and methylene chloride, which is used as a solvent and paint
stripper by a number of industries. Examples of other listed air toxics include
dioxin, asbestos, toluene, and metals such as cadmium, mercury, chromium,
and lead compounds.

What are the health and environmental effects of toxic air pollutants?

People exposed to toxic air pollutants at sufficient concentrations and

durations may have an increased chance of getting cancer or experiencing
other serious health effects. These health effects can include damage to the
immune system, as well as neurological, reproductive (e.g., reduced fertility),
developmental, respiratory and other health problems. In addition to exposure
from breathing air toxics, some toxic air pollutants such as mercury can
deposit onto soils or surface waters, where they are taken up by plants and
ingested by animals and are eventually magnified up through the food chain.
Like humans, animals may experience health problems if exposed to
sufficient quantities of air toxics over time.
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Where do toxic air pollutants come from?

Most air toxics originate from human-made sources, including mobile sources
(e.g., cars, trucks, buses) and stationary sources (e.g., factories, refineries,
power plants), as well as indoor sources (e.g., some building materials and
cleaning solvents). Some air toxics are also released from natural sources
such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires.

How are people exposed to air toxics?

People are exposed to toxic air pollutants in many ways that can pose health
risks, such as by:
⦁ Breathing contaminated air.
⦁ Eating contaminated food products, such as fish from contaminated
waters; meat, milk, or eggs from animals that fed on contaminated
plants; and fruits and vegetables grown in contaminated soil on which
air toxics have been deposited.
⦁ Drinking water contaminated by toxic air pollutants.
⦁ Ingesting contaminated soil. Young children are especially vulnerable
because they often ingest soil from their hands or from objects they
place in their mouths.
⦁ Touching (making skin contact with) contaminated soil, dust, or water
(for example, during recreational use of contaminated water bodies).

Once toxic air pollutants enter the body, some persistent toxic air pollutants
accumulate in body tissues. Predators typically accumulate even greater
pollutant concentrations than their contaminated prey. As a result, people and
other animals at the top of the food chain who eat contaminated fish or meat
are exposed to concentrations that are much higher than the concentrations
in the water, air, or soil.

Which Risks Are of Greatest Concern?

Health Problems of Concern

The toxic air pollutants of greatest concern are those that cause serious
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health problems or affect many people. Health problems can include cancer,
respiratory irritation, nervous system problems, and birth defects.

Some health problems occur very soon after a person inhales a toxic air
pollutant. These immediate effects may be minor, such as watery eyes. Or
they may be serious, such as life-threatening lung damage.

Other health problems may not appear until many months or years after a
person's first exposure to the toxic air pollutant. Cancer is one example of a
delayed health problem.

EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT

DOSE-RESPONSE ASSESSMENT

or, What Are the Health Problems at Different Exposures?

How Toxic Air Pollutants Move Through the Body

Entering the Body. [picture at left] Toxic air pollutants get into the body mainly
through breathing. They can also be ingested (for example, children eating
soil contaminated with lead) or absorbed through the skin.

Movement and Changes in the Body. [picture at right] Once a pollutant enters
the body it can stay in the lungs (like asbestos), be exhaled, or move into the
blood from the lungs (like the oxygen we breathe) or from the digestive
system or skin. In the blood it is carried to all parts of the body. As it moves
around the body, a pollutant can undergo chemical changes, especially as it
passes through the liver, becoming less, or more, toxic.

Fate. The pollutant can be exhaled, it can leave the body in urine, bowel
movements, sweat, or breast milk, or it can be stored in hair, bone, or fat.

How Toxic Air Pollutants Change the Way the Body Works

Toxic air pollutants can cause health problems by interfering with normal body
functions. Most commonly they change chemical reactions within individual
cells, the building blocks of living things. These changes can kill cells, impair

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cell function, or re-direct cell activity. The results can be damaged organs,
birth defects when the cells of an unborn child are damaged, or cancer that
develops when cells begin to grow at an uncontrolled rate.

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Dose-Response Relationships

The dose-response relationship for a specific pollutant describes the

association between exposure and the observed response (health effect). In
other words, it estimates how different levels of exposure to a pollutant
change the likelihood and severity of health effects. Just as in the hazard
identification, scientists use results of animal and human studies to establish
dose-response relationships.

Dose-response relationship for cancer.

In the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, EPA assumes that there are
no exposures that have "zero risk" -- even a very low exposure to a cancer-
causing pollutant can increase the risk of cancer (albeit a small amount). EPA
also assumes that the relationship between dose and response is a straight
line -- for each unit of increase in exposure (dose), there is an increase in
cancer response.

Dose-response relationship for noncancer effects.

A dose may exist below the minimum health effect level for which no adverse
effects occur. EPA typically assumes that at low doses the body's natural
protective mechanisms repair any damage caused by the pollutant, so there
is no ill effect at low doses. However, for some substances noncancer effects
may occur at low doses. The dose-response relationship (the response
occurring with increasing dose) varies with pollutant, individual sensitivity, and
type of health effect.

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Water Pollution

Water pollution is the introduction into fresh or ocean waters of chemical,

physical, or biological material that degrades the quality of the water and
affects the organisms living in it. This process ranges from simple addition of
dissolved or suspended solids to discharge of the most insidious and
persistent toxic pollutants (such as pesticides, heavy metals, and
nondegradable, bioaccumulative, chemical compounds).

Examples of Water Pollution

⦁ Industrial effluents

Water is discharged from after having been used in production

processes. This waste water may contain acids, alkalis, salts, poisons,
oils and in some cases harmful bacteria.

⦁ Mining and Agricultural Wastes

Mines, especially gold and coal mines, are responsible for large
quatities of acid water. Agricultural pesticides, fertilisers and herbicides
may wash into rivers and stagnant water bodies.

⦁ Sewage Disposal and Domestic Wastes

Sewage as wel as domestic and farm wastes were often allowed to

pollute rivers and dams.

Land Pollution

Land pollution is the degradation of the Earth's land surface through misuse
of the soil by poor agricultural practices, mineral exploitation, industrial waste
dumping, and indiscriminate disposal of urban wastes. It includes visible
waste and litter as well as pollution of the soil itself.

Examples of Land Pollution

Soil Pollution

Soil pollution is mainly due to chemicals in herbicides (weed killers) and

pesticides (poisons which kill insects and other invertebrate pests). Litter is
waste material dumped in public places such as streets, parks, picnic areas,
at bus stops and near shops.

Chemical Pollution

Pollution by chemical substances can be a threat to the health of

cetaceans. A huge range of chemicals find their way into the sea from the
air, rivers, domestic waste, industrial discharges and run off from the land.
Many of these chemicals have harmful properties. Very little work has been
carried out to investigate these impacts and their effects on whales and
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dolphins. One of the main problems is that we know very little about how
these chemicals behave in the marine environment what combined effects
they may have.

Cetaceans are at the top of the food chain and are at risk from persistent
compounds which accumulate up the food web. Cetaceans are mobile
animals and are therefore exposed to potentially a wide range of pollutants.
Coastal species such as harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin may be
at increased risk due to their proximity to main centres of population and
discharge outfalls. There is only limited information about the effects of
pollution on whales and dolphins in the west of Scotland. The paragraphs
below outline the main groups of chemical pollutants and the threats they
present.

Organochlorines

Organochlorines is the name for a group of synthetic chemicals which are

very stable in the environment. Some of the most infamous organochlorines
include DDT, PCB's, and many pesticides and insecticides. They hate
water and love fat and therefore accumulate in fatty tissues, such as
blubber, and bioaccumulate very effectively up the food chain. It is believed
that increased levels of organochlorines in mammals can cause a decrease
in their ability to reproduce and also suppresses the immune system.
Because of the long life span of cetaceans, they are particularly at risk from
contamination over the long term. It is found that baleen whales often have
a lower organochlorine burden than toothed whales. This is because they
feed on prey which are lower down the food chain and therefore do not
contain such high levels of chemicals.

Analysis of blubber in stranded animals in the Hebrides has revealed that

many cetaceans in Scotland carry organochlorine burdens of a magnitude
equal to those where reproductive and immune system disorders have
been observed in species of small cetaceans.

Heavy metals

Heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium and zinc are byproducts of many
industrial processes and once in the environment tend to accumulate in
protein rich tissues such as muscle and liver. High levels of heavy metals
have been observed to cause lesions, degeneration of fatty tissue and a
poor nutritional state in cetaceans. As with organochlorines, these metals
can build up over time from consumption of prey species. Analysis of liver
and kidney tissue of stranded animals in the Hebrides has revealed that the
highest concentrations of heavy metals occur in striped dolphins and long
finned pilot whales which feed predominantly on squid.

High levels of mercury in otters has also been reported from West
Scotland, which suggests that other aquatic species occupying the same
coastal and sea loch habitats, such as harbour porpoises and bottlenose
dolphins, may also be exposed to relatively higher mercury levels.

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Hydrocarbons

Hydrocarbons exist in many forms from the very inert paraffin to the very
toxic Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). They are released into the
environment from many sources including accidental discharges, oil spills,
sluicing out the tanks of oil tankers, offshore oil and gas production.

The main threats to cetaceans are from the ingestion, inhalation and
physical contact with oils. Oil-related pollution is generally thought of in
terms of crude oil slicks, however there are less apparent forms of oil-
related pollutants. For example, within the oil industry, use is made of
drilling lubricants which may contain high concentrations of hydrocarbons
as well as toxic heavy metals.

The most toxic group of hydrocarbons are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

(PAHs). These are a cancer-forming group of pollutants which come from
oil-related industries and the burning of fossil fuels. A harbour porpoise calf
stranded on the Isle of Islay, is the only cetacean from the west coast of
Scotland which has been examined for the presence of PAHs . The
porpoise had detectable levels of PAHs and it could be construed that
adults would be expected to build up higher concentrations of this pollutant.

Butyl-tins

One class of toxic pollutants which has been highlighted as being a risk to
the marine biota are the butyl-tins (BTs), the most famous of which is tri-
butyl-tin (TBT). Butyl-tins are extremely toxic and can cause growth
retardation and reproductive abnormalities in marine organisms at low
concentrations. They are also known to disrupt the immune system of
mammals This class of pollutant has been described from several species
of whale and dolphin in recent years and there is concern about its toxic
effects on cetacean populations.

Historically, butyl-tins were primarily used as anti-fouling treatments upon

ship hulls and marine structures, such as fish farm cages. Studies in the
late 80's reported that BT contamination was high in sea lochs, as a result
of contamination from fish farms. In 1986, the use of TBT on boats less
than 25m was banned in Scotland. Since then the use of TBT has also
been banned on fish farms. It is hoped that due to these laws the amount
of TBT entering the system is now much reduced.

However, BT's are very stable and bio-accumulate through the

ecosystem. There is concern that the historical inputs of TBT will bio-
accumulate up the food chain to cetaceans. It would be expected that
coastal species inhabiting sea lochs, such as bottlenose dolphins and
harbour porpoises would be most likely to be exposed to these elevated
levels of BT contamination. So far there have been no studies upon the
level of BT contamination in whales and dolphins from West Scotland .
Although, it is hoped that levels of BT in the environment will not increase,
the toxic effects of BTs on cetaceans from past inputs is still of concern.

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Fish farm related pollutants

Fish farms produce a variety of pollutants, the monitoring of which is the

responsibility of the fish farm operators and overseen by SEPA. These
pollutants have included butyltins (see above), which were used as anti-
foulants on cages. Farmed fish are also treated with various chemicals
such as treatments to kill fish lice populations. The cultured fish are also fed
with hormonal growth promoters and antibiotics to improve fish yields and
reduce disease. Laboratory risk assessments are carried on these
compounds before use; however, the impacts of them once they enter the
marine environment are little understood.

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