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Public health implications of the Great Lakes areas of concern (AOC)
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March 7, 2008
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[PDF-280.28 KB]
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Alternative Title:Great Lakes areas of concern report;Public health implications of hazardous substances in the twenty-six U.S. Great Lakes areas of concern;
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Description:"The purpose of this report is to serve as an informational resource to describe the patterns of morbidity and mortality along with potential sources of hazardous waste within the AOCs. The information used in compiling the report includes recent census data, pollutant discharge and chemical release data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), hazardous waste site locations, county-based community health outcome data, and ATSDR-based reviews of waste sites within each of the AOCs. These data are presented in text format and tables which present the compiled findings, as well as the visual Geographic Information System-based (GIS) maps for each AOC. This report was developed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in response to a request from the International Joint Commission (IJC). As part of their efforts to implement the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), the IJC requested the development of this report in order to fulfill one of the objectives of the Agreement between the U.S. and Canada. This objective calls for the two nations to define "the threat to human health from critical pollutants" found in the Great Lakes basin. The critical pollutants are substances that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate in fish and wildlife, and are toxic to humans and animals. These critical pollutants have been detected in the Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs) that are designated under the Agreement as ecologically degraded geographic areas requiring remediation. This report should not be construed as a traditional analytic epidemiologic evaluation. Instead, it should be viewed as an assessment to identify the co-occurrence of elevated patterns of morbidity and mortality and environmental contamination that may merit further hypothesis-based epidemiologic study. Despite limitations, this report provides a comprehensive evaluation of patterns of environmental contamination and the demographics of vulnerable populations in the 26 AOCs." - p. xxvi
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Pages in Document:electronic; electronic resource; remote
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