Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 21/99) - The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development allocates $5.4 million a year in the territories to deal with Arctic contaminants.

Now, with the creation of Nunavut, much of that funding will go to the East.

DIAND contaminants manager Carole Mills said there won't be a contaminants office established in Nunavut for several years, although the bulk of their research dollars will go to Eastern projects. Currently, they are forming a Nunavut Contaminants Committee.

"When it comes to contaminants resources, our priority is to focus on areas or peoples who have the greatest exposure to contaminants," Mills said.

"Right now, we need more information about the Eastern Arctic."

For the past six years, the Northern Contaminants Program has done most of its work in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. They are now operating major research projects in Nunavut partly because they're finding marine mammals, especially those at the top of the food chain, are being affected by contaminants.

"We're focusing on marine mammals because they have the highest levels of man-made contaminants such as PCBs," Mills said.

"The reason they have such high levels is because they are part of a long food chain."

The Northern Contaminants Program has tested marine mammals such as polar bears, walrus, seals and beluga whales for contaminants.

They've also examined everything from saltwater fish, land mammals, and birds to plants and berries.

What they found is that creatures on the lower rungs of the food chain, such as bugs and shrimp, are only slightly contaminated.

But the smaller species of fish eat enormous amounts of the contaminated food over its lifetime and becomes more highly contaminated. Larger fish eat thousands of smaller fish and become even more saturated with contaminants. The process continues up the food chain.

Seals have higher levels of contaminants because of the amounts of large fish they consume. Polar bears eat seals. The whole process is called biomagnification.

Mills points out that the contaminants they record in the Arctic are being deposited here from all over the world.

Once pollutants are in the atmosphere, they travel in the jet-stream. Major air currents over the Northern part of the Earth tend to travel towards the Arctic. Through a series of hops -- characterized by travel in the atmosphere, rain, evaporation, travel and rain again -- they eventually end up in the North. That's called the Grasshopper Effect.

"The only solution is to turn off the taps that are producing the pollutants," said Mills. "Because the Arctic does not produce these contaminants, it will require an international co-operative effort to do that.

"The challenge is going to be to find alternatives to producing these pollutants, especially in developing countries. It seems difficult, but I'm absolutely impressed by all the countries who are willing to stop using and producing the worst of the contaminants."

She said the work they do on animals is essential to finding out the extent of the effect contaminants have on the Northern population, who depend on traditional food to survive.

"I would say that although the levels (in marine and land mammals) are elevated, they do not appear to be at a level of concern yet," Mills said.

"We have a good understanding of contaminant levels in the animals, but we know little about how much of these animals are consumed. We need this to determine exposure rates of people to contaminants."