Government▼Watch
An international convention to protect against persistent organic pollutants (POPs) will become legally binding this month. Under the convention, participating governments have committed to stop producing and releasing 12 chemicals, including DDT and PCBs. However, the treaty will not apply to the United States, which has yet to ratify it. The countdown to the entry into force of the Stockholm Convention on POPs was triggered on February 17, 2004, when France became the 50th nation to ratify the pact. Under the agreement, parties will stop producing aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, PCBs, hexachlorobenzene, dioxins, and furans. Certain exemptions are possible, including permission to use DDT to control malarial mosquitoes. Countries have until 2025 to phase out the use of equipment containing PCBs. U.S. officials signed the convention when it was adopted in May 2001, but ratification must be preceded by congressional enactment of amendments to existing U.S. chemi-
COREL
P0Ps treaty takes flight
The ban on DDT is still controversial as countries struggle to find malaria control alternatives.
cals laws. Representatives of industry and environmental groups say that they welcome the treaty and urge more governments to ratify it. The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) described it as “a reasonable, risk-based approach” to regulating POPs. “The convention goes a long way toward establishing a balanced regulatory approach,” ICCA’s secretary-general, Greg
Lebedev, says, “but [this] requires effective national implementation to succeed.” Participating governments will meet for their first session to craft implementing language in Uruguay in early 2005. According to the convention’s U.N. Environment Programme secretariat, the top three priorities are to finalize guidelines for promoting ways to reduce or eliminate releases of dioxins and furans, find DDT alternatives, and establish a committee to evaluate new chemicals for inclusion on the list. The discussion over DDT alternatives may be a difficult one. The World Health Organization allows the use of DDT for disease vector control because the control of malaria is essential in many countries. Critics claim that the DDT ban would result in more malaria deaths in these countries. However, the convention organizers say the ban should encourage research into alternative means of malaria control. Reducing and eliminating emissions of dioxins and furans also will be a challenge, all parties admit, because they aren’t byproducts resulting from the manufacture of other chemicals. —MARIA BURKE
States going it alone on mercury controls In the absence of tougher U.S. federal rules, an increasing number of states are forging ahead on their own and banding together in regional coalitions to protect their citizens from mercury releases. These actions are meant to send a message to policy makers in Washington that not enough is being done on a federal level to address the problems caused by toxic mercury pollution, state officials say. Most of the legislation is aimed at controlling mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and banning the sale and use of products containing mercury. The latest initiative involves legislators from six Midwestern and Great Lakes states who announced in February that they would work together to address regional problems caused by mercury. Mercury is the most pervasive pollutant in the Great Lakes, and more than a dozen new pieces of legislation are being
© 2004 American Chemical Society
introduced in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin as part of the initiative, says Adam Schafer of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. “The legislators know it’s an uphill battle when they take on an industry that’s as prevalent as the coal industry in the Midwest, but they believe that by acting regionally, they’ll have more political power in getting some of this stuff passed,” he explains. The U.S. EPA’s latest proposed regulations would require power plants to reduce mercury emissions 29% by 2008 through the installation of new control technologies or 70% by 2018 under a market-based trading program. EPA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March advised pregnant women and children to avoid more than two meals per week of certain fish and shellfish and refrain from shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish altogether. —KRIS CHRISTEN
MAY 1, 2004 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ■ 157A
