Highlights from the most recent edition of the Cascadia Scorecard.

The score

Soundbite

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2007 results at a glance

• Evidence from multiple sources—including Sightline’s 2004 analysis of Cascadians’ breastmilk—makes it clear that we carry dangerous, persistent toxics in our bodies.
• Although a complete new set of data are not yet available to update the 2004 study, emerging evidence about another hazard, methyl mercury, is disturbing. Levels of this harmful pollutant may be rising, and coal-fired plants are among the biggest culprits.
  

2007 results in detail

Sightline’s 2004 study of the levels of 2 persistent  bioaccumulative compounds in breastmilk samples from 40 first-time mothers found that every sample was contaminated with both toxins.

Especially alarming was that the PBDE levels found are 40 times higher than are typically found in northern Europe or Japan, and that levels of PBDEs were beginning to surpass those of PCBs.

While levels of PCBs have declined since they were banned, they're still ubiquitous. In 2006, officials took the unusual step of warning consumers to limit consumption of chinook salmon from Puget Sound to one meal per week, in part because of the high levels of PCBs.

PBDEs, flame retardants that until recently were used in furniture foam, can impair neurological development and immune-system functioning in laboratory animals. PBDE concentrations have been on the rise for decades, with the highest levels found in North America.

A 2006 analysis of the blood of ten Washington residents found PBDEs in every sample, at concentrations comparable to those in the 2004 study.

Levels of methyl mercury contamination, mostly from our diets, may also be increasing. A recent study found mercury contamination in freshwater fish throughout the American West, with the highest concentrations found among species at the top of the aquatic food chain.

Solutions: Take initiative in combating toxins

Thankfully, jurisdictions throughout North American have begun to take a more precautionary approach toward the compounds, and the production of the most troubling forms of PBDEs has now ceased in the US and Canada.

To reduce future contamination, Cascadians can require that potentially hazardous compounds be tested for safety before they are used widely – and before they enter our bodies.

Because the bulk of mercury pollution is released by human activities such as coal-fired power plants, stopping such pollution at the source is the best—and perhaps only—long-term solution to mercury contamination in the food chain.

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