IPEN Newsletter No.5:

July 2007

Welcome to the IPEN newsletter!! This newsletter will be a monthly brief of POPs chemical safety issues of interest to IPEN Participating Organizations (POs).

1- IPEN STEERING COMMITTEE RE-FORMULATED

The IPEN Steering Committee re-formulation and vetting process under the new IPEN governance is now complete. The re-formulated IPEN Steering Committee is regionally and gender balanced, with 13 males and 11 females, and members from Africa, Asia, Caucasus and Central Asia, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America, the Pacific Islands, the Middle East and Western Europe regions. The IPEN Steering Committee now consists of the following persons (in alphabetical order):

Anne-Sofie Andersson    International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), Sweden
Fernando Bejarano    Red de Acción sobre Plaguicidas y sus Alternativas en México (RAPAM- RAPAL), Mexico
Jayakumar Chelaton    Thanal, India
Joseph DiGangi, Ph.D.    IPEP Global Manager, Environmental Health Fund, USA
Dr. Mohamed El Banna    Day Hospital, Egypt
Dr. Shahriar Hossain    Environment and Social Development, Bangladesh
Genon K. Jensen    Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), France
Professor Jamidu Katima Ph.D.    IPEN Co-Chair, AGENDA-Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development, Tanzania
Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith, Ph.D.    IPEN Co-Chair, National Toxics Network Inc., Australia
Sharyle Patton    IPEN Community Monitoring Working Group Chair, Commonweal, USA
Dr. Romeo F. Quijano, MD    IPEN Co-Chair (1998-2006), Pesticide Action Network Philippines, Philippines
Dr. Paul Saoke    Physicians for Social Responsibility - Kenya, Kenya
Dr Olga Speranskaya, Ph.D.    Eco-Accord Centre on Environment and Sustainable Development, Russian Federation
Dr. Claudia Strauss    World Information Transfer (WIT), USA
Ravi S. Agarwal, MBA    Toxics Link, India
Dr. Lilian Corra, MD    Int'l. Society of Doctors for the Environment, Argentina
Henry Rene Diouf    IPEN/PAN POPs Pesticide WG Co-Chair, Pesticide Action Network, Africa, Senegal
Kathryn Gilije    Pesticide Action Network North America, USA
Imogen Ingram    Island Sustainability Alliance C.I.Inc., Cook Islands
Rachel Kamande    iLima Kenya, Kenya
Silvani Mng'anya   AGENDA- Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development, Tanzania
Jindrich Petrlik, Ph. D.    IPEN Dioxin, PCB & Waste WG Co-Chair, ARNIKA Association, Czech Republic
Sarojeni Rengam    Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific, Malaysia
Glenn Wiser    Center for International Environmental Law, USA

2- REGIONAL ASSESSMENTS UPDATE

In follow-up to the International POPs Elimination Project, the IPEN Regional Hubs are presently advancing efforts to strengthen regional communication and coordination, as well as collect information on NGO priorities and needs. To date, over 200 NGOs from more than 50 countries have been surveyed and have provided input towards an IPEN Regional Assessment Report. While the assessment exercise promotes regional coordination and relationship building, the Regional Reports will also provide insight to NGO needs and priorities, plus identify potential opportunities for future work. Over the next months the IPEN Hubs will begin drafting their Regional Report. In the meantime, where there were not already, regional list serves have been established in local languages in order to improve information flow within the regions. Additional information about the Regional Assessments is available via your Regional Hub or the IPEN Secretariat

3- REGIONAL FOCUS: CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

Each IPEN Newsletter includes a Regional Focus section that provides an opportunity for IPEN Participating Organizations (POs) to share their NGO's work, news, updates and/or local information as it pertains to our shared mission for a Toxic Free Future. We encourage all interested IPEN POs to share their work and information with the global IPEN network. In an effort to be inclusive and comprehensive, all articles are welcomed; however, lengthy articles are summarized for the newsletter and then added at the end in their original form.

This month Central and Eastern Europe is the Regional Focus. We encourage IPEN POs from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia to submit articles for the next IPEN Newsletter (submit to jenniferfederico@ipen.org).

News from: Arnika- Czech Republic- by Jindrich Petrlik

New analyses confirmed the necessity of decontamination of the obsolete pesticides storage in Klatovy

Results of the newest analyses of plasters, samples swept from floors and attic of the former pesticide storage in Klatovy - Luby confirmed the necessity of decontamination of the buildings. It tuned out that contamination of the buildings not only persists, but it is even more serious than expected. Limit, exceeding of which makes decontamination of certain area necessary according to the Czech Republic environmental laws (designated as "limit C"), was exceeded in the case of ten pesticides in the samples taken this year. This is much higher number than expected by us on the basis of the previous measurements.

The samples were tested in the laboratory of ALS Laboratory Group. The analyses proved the highest exceeding of the limit C in the samples in the case of fenson, concentrations of which were five-times higher than set by the limit C for industrial areas. Very high concentrations persist also in the case of atrazine, simazine, nitrophen and the total sum of DDT with its metabolites, and MCPA. This time, we commissioned testing of a broader spectrum of pesticides than before in the case of one of the taken samples. It turned out that more hazardous substances than detected by previous measurements are present in plasters and samples swept from floors of the former pesticide storage.

Arnika commissioned the new measurements because the last sampling and measurements of the pesticide contents in the storage itself took place four years ago. "During negotiations with authorities an argument was stated repeatedly that the contamination was decreasing and that the measurements on which Arnika and my family based our arguments were old. However, as can be seen from the new measurements, this is obviously a problem which will not solve of its own accord even during the years," said Mr. Václav Rychta?ík, owner of the contaminated buildings. The fact that the case does not concern only the buildings themselves any more was confirmed by measurements and expert opinions commissioned by the Arnika Association in the last year. High pesticide levels were measured in fish from the Drnový creek and subsequent analyses of sediments from the creek showed that the source of pollution is just the obsolete pesticides storage.

The storage was received in restitution by the Rychta?ík family, which has been struggling several years already with the fact that it was returned in the condition polluted by pesticides, majority of which is banned today already, by the Agropodnik Klatovy, a.s. (nowadays, Proagro) company and by the state.

Results of analyses of sediment samples for contents of DDT and its metabolites in comparison with analyses carried out in the Drnový brook under Klatovy by the company Povodí Vltavy (Vltava River Basin).

Used abbreviations: o,p'- optionally p,p'-DDD, DDE and DDT - abbreviations for metabolites of the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane).

More information is available at http://english.arnika.org.

Note: (1) Limit C (for residential, industrial or versatile use of the territory) set by the Methodical Instruction of the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic of 1996 was in some of the samples exceeded in the case of the following pesticide substances: Exceeding of limits C represents pollution which could mean significant risk of endangering of human health and environmental components, and requires preventive intervention, i.e., decontamination of the contaminated site.

News from E.A. Planetum- Republic of Macedonia- by Mitko Sopov

Strumica and the Strumica-region are situated in the south-eastern part of the Republic of Macedonia and, like other parts of the country, these areas all face the same problem of unselective collection and dumping of waste. The organised collection of unselected waste, which is the job of the pubic communal organization, happens only in the city of Strumica and two other rural areas, and the unselected waste ends up at the dumping grounds already in existence. The reasons for not selecting waste are because of economical factors, It is a process that requires an enormous financial input, which at the moment the local government and the public communal company are not able to deliver.

On the other hand, the problem in the rural areas is even bigger. For example, in the Strumica region, which is well known as the place with intensive vegetable production using plastic tunnels, the plastic sheets which are used in the agriculture have a life time of 3 to 4 years.

In 2004 the Republic of Macedonia ratified and signed the Stockholm Convention for health protection for humanity and the environment. Macedonia took responsibility for the non-deterring of organic polluters to make a plan for reducing and eliminating POPs. The implementation plan is already finished and it plans for the reduction of the emissions of Dioxins and Phurans, which most of the time are caused by the burning of plastic materials. The regulations have created opportunities for the development of systems for organised collection and selecting of all types of waste, including plastic folia.

In covering this subject, E.A Planetum has conducted research on the amount of household and agricultural waste produced in the Strumica region. The research was conclusive and the program showed that the figures cannot be ignored.

All farms that produces agriculture are producing 70 -80 kg of plastic waste every year. Within the framework of the project "Integrated approach for reducing POPs" is the answer for solving the problem of using plastic folia as a waste and achieving local economic development; financial support is given by GEF and PMG. E.A. Planetum has identified two larger areas where many people make a living from agriculture and hence produce large amounts of plastic waste.

In cooperation with the local communities in those two areas, the formation of two civil committees each with seven members from the same village is now in existence. With surveys and questionnaires, the civil committees collected information and details from institutions and organisations through direct contact with people who come from the same villages, and regarding the situation of the environment with the aim to understand the priorities of ecology and the needs of their places of living.

To cover this subject, public meetings were held and citizens were introduced to the situation of the environment in their communities, based upon the information collected and processed from the survey. The people themselves gave their opinions and suggested possible solutions for some of the ecological problems in their villages. At the end a plan was prepared according to ecological needs and priorities and also a purchase point for the old plastic folia has been set out.

At the moment E.A Planetum is working to educate and motivate the farmers to participate in organized collection of the used plastic folia. E.A. Planetum, in cooperation with the POPs office for educational workshops for the farmers, will create flyers to inform the local people of the danger of burning the plastic folia as well as possible ways to become involved in organized collection and selection of the used plastic folia.

Next steps will include preparation of the plan for collection of the old plastic folia in local communities and setting out purchase points in those places. The collected plastic will be purchased from E.A Planetum for an already agreed-upon price; the same plastic will be redone and resold to some of the recycling capacities in the country.

The money made from the sale of the plastic will be used for solving ecological problems and priorities in those places.

With the realization of this project, the percentage of emitted dioxins and phurans will be reduced, and diseases caused from those POPs will also be reduced among animals and humans.

The project offers new ideas for waste management, and through organized collection, selection, and sale of the plastic an opportunity to raise financial material that will be returned back to the community arises, Hopefully this project will be replicated in the other areas of the Strumica region and even more widely, in places where the main occupation of the people is intensive growth of vegetable under the so-called plastic tunnels.

4- OTHER NEWS

(Taken from the Democracy Now website)

One hundred years ago this year, the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson was born in the US. In 1962 she published the groundbreaking work "Silent Spring" that helped launch the environmental movement. It was one of the most controversial books of the 1960s. Her warnings about the dangers of DDT and other chemical pesticides helped launch the environmental movement. At the time, Carson was widely attacked by the chemical industry and much of the press.

Time Magazine claimed Carson's research was filled with oversimplifications and downright errors. That was in 1962.Time Magazine would later name Rachel Carson one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, largely because of Silent Spring.

She died of cancer at the age of 56 in 1964, just two years after the book's publication. This is Rachel Carson in her own words (speaking in 1964, Pacifica Radio Archives):

"Is industry becoming a screen through which facts must be filtered, so that the hard, uncomfortable truths are kept back and only the harmless morsels are allowed to filter through? I know that many thoughtful scientists are deeply disturbed that their organizations are becoming fronts for industry. More than one scientist has raised the question of whether a spirit of Lysenkoism may be developing in America today, the philosophy that perverted and destroyed the science of genetics in Russia and even infiltrated all of that nation's agricultural sciences. But here, the tailoring, the screening of basic truth, is done, not to suit any party line, but to accommodate to the short-term gain, to serve the gods of profit and production."

July 16, 2007- Volume 85, Number 29 p. 6

Persistent Organic Pollutants

More chemicals may have to be flagged as risky - Celia Arnaud

SOME PERSISTENT organic pollutants (POPs) can reach high concentrations in humans and other air-breathing animals even though they don't bioaccumulate in fish, according to a study by Canadian researchers (Science 2007, 317, 236). The observation suggests that the regulatory criteria now used to flag potential POPs may need revision.

Some persistent organic pollutants can bioaccumulate in air-breathing animals such as polar bears even though they don't accumulate in the fish the bears eat.

Bioaccumulative compounds are usually assumed to be hydrophobic and fat-soluble if they have an octanol-water partition coefficient (KOW) greater than 100,000. Screening of commercial chemicals to identify potentially bioaccumulative compounds is usually based on the KOW or laboratory tests with fish. But research by environmental chemist Frank A. P. C. Gobas, grad student Barry C. Kelly, and coworkers at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, British Columbia, shows that such an approach may overlook a significant fraction of pollutants that pose health risks to air-breathing animals.

The Canadian researchers show that even moderately hydrophobic compounds with KOW between 100 and 100,000 can increase in concentration at each step in the food chain, a process known as biomagnification. Biomagnification of such a compound can occur in food webs that include humans and other air-breathing animals, even when it doesn't happen in food webs that are limited to fish and aquatic invertebrates. To biomagnify in air-breathing animals, a compound must have a high octanol-air partition coefficient (KOA), and it must be metabolized slowly.

Gobas and his coworkers first hypothesized in 2001 that compounds with high KOA would biomagnify in air-breathing animals. At that time, they observed that certain substances with a relatively low KOW biomagnified significantly in the lichen-caribou-wolf food chain. They have now looked at a variety of food webs, including one with only water-respiring organisms, one with only air-breathing organisms, and one with both (including humans). All the food webs they studied are found in northern Canada.

The polychlorinated biphenyl congener 153 (PCB153) is an example of a compound with high KOW and high KOA. As expected, it biomagnifies in all three food webs. In contrast, ?-hexachlorocyclohexane (the insecticide lindane) has a low KOW and a high KOA. It does not biomagnify in the food web that includes only water-respiring organisms, but it does biomagnify in both webs that include air-breathing animals.

Gobas hastens to point out that their model assumes that the chemicals are not metabolized. "The degree to which chemicals are transformed in organisms is difficult to predict at this point," he says.

Gobas hopes that environmental regulations will change as a result of this work. "For regulatory agencies and chemical manufacturers, it is important to recognize that chemicals with a high octanol-air partition coefficient have the potential to bioaccumulate in terrestrial and human food webs," he says.

Lynn R. Goldman, a professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, says that the paper suggests "a broader range of chemicals, with high KOA but lower KOW, should perhaps be considered to be persistent organic pollutants." Goldman served as assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides & Toxic Substances during the Clinton Administration.

"Current risk assessments that classify a chemical as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) have based their conclusions primarily on science drawn from aquatic toxicology," says Lawrence Burkhard, an EPA research chemist. "This paper strongly suggests risk assessment methodologies need to be changed to include data on bioaccumulation in birds and mammals. If this is done, more chemicals may be classified as POPs than have been in the past."

5- FUTURE NEWSLETTERS

In future Newsletters, we will continue to have a section that will focus on a regional component within IPEN. As with IPEP, the regions consist of:
Eastern Europe, Caucasus & Central Asia (August)
South Asia (December)
Francophone Africa (September)
Latin America (October)
Middle East (November)
Southeast Asia (January)
Western Europe (February)
Pacific & Island States (March)

For the next Newsletter, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia will be the featured region for the IPEN Newsletter. Therefore IPEN POs located in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia are invited to submit a short article (under 500 words), press release, or other news/updates from this region for the newsletter.
Please send your emails to Jennifer at the IPEN Secretariat at: jenniferfederico@ipen.org

Additionally, if you have something newsworthy that you think should be in an upcoming Newsletter, you may feel free to pass it along, even if it is not your specific region's month.

Website
Please note that the Newsletter can now be found on the IPEN website at http://www.ipen.org/ipenweb/news.html

6- IPEN CALENDAR OF EVENTS

September
3rd- 7th: 6th Session of the Open-Ended Working Group of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal- Geneva, Switzerland. The 6th session of the OEWG will consider, inter alia: Basel Convention regional and coordinating centers; the establishment of a regional center for South Asia in the South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme; technical guidelines on environmentally sound management of used tires; persistent organic pollutants; classification and hazard characterization of wastes; harmonization and coordination; and dismantling of ships. For more information contact: tel: +41 22 917 8218; fax: +41 22 797 3454; e-mail: sbc@unep.ch; Internet: http://www.basel.int/meetings/frsetmain.php

18th-27th: Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the WHO Core Assessment Group on Pesticides Residues (JMPR), Geneva, Switzerland. This meeting will consider a list of substances scheduled for evaluation. The list has been prepared by the Joint FAO/WHO Secretariat of the Meeting and is based on recommendations of the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR), previous Expert Meetings, and direct requests from governments, other interested organizations, and producers of substances that have been evaluated previously. For more information contact: tel: +39 06 570 55757; fax: +39 06 570 56347; e-mail: gero.vaagt@fao.org; Internet: http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPP/Pesticid/JMPR/DOWNLOAD/2007JMPRcallfinall.pdf

20- 22nd: 9th International HCH and Pesticides Forum for Central and Eastern European, Caucasus and Central Asia Countries, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. Theme: "Obsolete Pesticides in Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia Countries- Start of Clean-Up". For more information, including call for papers, inquire at jenniferfederico@ipen.org.

October
26-29: The 12th International Conference of the Pacific Basin Consortium (PBC) for Environment and Health Sciences: Environment & Health in the 21st Century, Peking University, Beijing, China. Technical Session 2 Saturday October 27, 2007- Environmental and Health Impacts of POPs - Challenges and Solutions. For more information, including on submission of abstracts, contact Dr. Mahmood A. Khwaja (kwaja@sdpi.org).

If there is an upcoming event that you would like to have listed here, please let me know! Jenniferfederico@ipen.org

7 - REMINDER:

IPEN SURVEY / DATABASE
If your organization has yet to complete the IPEN online survey, please take a minute to do so!! It's very short and simple, and by completing it you can be assured that your organization is listed in the IPEN database. Go here: http://www.oztoxics.org/ipen/IPENform1.html to complete it. Many thanks!!

WEBSITE SUBMISSIONS
In an effort to keep the IPEN website updated with important, current information, and to ensure that it is a helpful resource, we have created a simple template for you to send in when you would like to post something. Please take note of this procedure for requesting information to be posted on the IPEN website.

GUIDELINES
What can be posted? Some examples include:
Reports from skill-share events, international, regional, or local conferences
Announcements of meetings, new publications, victories
Photos from events, demonstrations

We would like to post on the website any item that is of wide interest, is of long term importance, or that promotes IPEN and the website as a good information resource.

How should you make the request?
Send Jennifer a request (jenniferfederico@ipen.org) asking for the template for website submissions

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE TEMPLATE:
-As noted on the template, documents, brochures, briefs, etc- anything that has been specifically formatted MUST be sent in Adobe Acrobat .pdf so that its content does not inadvertently get changed or rearranged. Other items may be sent in Microsoft Word filename.doc or as a .txt file.

- As noted on the template, everything (even photos!) sent in must be accompanied by a 1-5 sentence description written by the person submitting it.
- Send photos in formats ( .jpg .tif .gif ) if possible and in their original size. We will change the size if needed to fit the web.

As noted on the template, with each submission you should list a page ID number that would indicate where on the IPEN website you think the item should be placed. Each page on the website has a page ID number at the bottom. For example, if you wanted to put something on the page titled "News Center", under "Press Releases", you would send in your template with page ID 06-3-2 notated (you can go to the "News Center" page and see the ID number at the bottom of the page http://www.ipen.org/ipenweb/news/3_2_pr.html).

Please do not send confidential information until the IPEN-secure section of the website is up and ready to be used.

The website is a great resource that has not been used to its fullest potential!! Please think about whether you could be posting things on the website and take advantage of this important tool!!

Questions - Inquiries - Comments?
Please contact jenniferfederico@ipen.org

IPEN Secretariat:
1962 University Ave., Suite 4, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
Tel: 1 (510) 704 1962/3
Fax: 1 (510) 883 9493
www.ipen.org

Version: 2.0 (July, 2007)

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