Arctic Science Journeys
Radio Script
1997

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Pollution Goes Up, Comes Down in the Arctic
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STORY: Novelist Robert Service's gritty stories about the far north have made places like Lake LaBerge in Canada's Yukon Territory famous. The stories reflected a time when the Arctic was a pristine land. Now scientists say the lake is polluted and its fish tainted. Mark Palmer is with the Canadian Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

PALMER: "It sorta caught everyone in the Yukon off guard, that all of a sudden there's this chemical, toxaphene. Nobody knew what it was, it was never used around that lake, why is it in our fish. Everybody was sort of thinking the Yukon was pristine, and there's no problems here. All of a sudden, wham! We got hit with this."

Toxaphene is a pesticide once used extensively on cotton and soybean crops in the United States. Banned in the United States since the 1970s, it's still commonly used in many developing countries. Although such countries are thousands of miles from the Arctic, toxaphene is making its way to the Arctic by hitchhiking aboard global air currents. Mark Palmer explains.

PALMER: "Chemicals like toxaphene are quite volatile. As soon as it warms up it evaporates into the atmosphere. And when it cools, it'll come back down in rain or snow. When it warms up, the cycle will repeat. Some people refer to it as the 'grasshopper effect' because everything sort of bounces north and gets stuck up here."

Toxaphene becomes trapped in the Arctic because it's too cold much of the year for evaporation to occur. As a result, the pesticide accumulates first in the lakes and later in the organs of fish. Indians and Eskimos consider eating fish kidneys and livers a delicacy. But health officials have warned against the practice.

PALMER: "The levels of toxaphene are so low they don't mean a thing in the drinking water, but once they get into the fish, they're actually at quite high levels. As a result, Health Canada advised people not to consume the livers of burbot and only eat limited quantities of lake trout."

Scientists say toxaphene and other chemicals pose a danger in only a few of the territory's thousands of lakes. To keep it that way, Mark Palmer says Arctic nations will have to lobby countries far from the Arctic to stop using dangerous chemicals.

OUTRO: For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Debra Damron reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.