Scientists Pinpoint Sources of Dioxin

Using a computer program that simulates North American weather on an hour-by-hour basis plus detailed information on

dioxin releases from 40,000 sources, scientists at Queens University in New York City have pinpointed specific sources of dioxin reaching the Arctic. They found that just 35 municipal waste incinerators, cement kilns, and steel plants in the eastern and central U.S. account for a third of all dioxin reaching the Nunavut Territory in northern Canada. The tracking is extremely precise, according to the researchers, allowing them to track individual “puffs” of contaminated air and where it goes. A single municipal incinerator near Harrisburg, for example, accounted for 5% of the dioxin reaching Broughton Island, just above the Arctic Circle. Critics of the report claim that the dioxin emissions data used are out-of-date and that emissions today are significantly lower. Dioxin is of particular concern in the Arctic, because native people there have high-fat-content diets, and it is in animal fat that dioxin is stored. Dioxin can be created whenever chlorine and carbon are burned together.