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The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is a leading national 

 environmental organization with over 200,000 members which links 

 science, economics and law to create economically viable solutions to 

 today's environmental problems. EDF has launched a major initiative 

 to address Arctic environmental issues, including an assessment of the 

 multi-media pollution threats to the Arctic and an evaluation of the 

 effectiveness of the existing legal regime to provide sufficient 

 protection for the Arctic 



We are concerned that the Arctic environment is faced with 

 significant threats from a wide variety of anthropogenic sources of 

 contamination. In order to assess how much the Arctic is now at risk, 

 we need to get a better understanding of the sources, pathways, 

 accumulation zones, and effects of pollutants entering the Arctic. We 

 are beginning to define some of the sources of pollution, in particular 

 the nuclear reactors and wastes dumped in the shallow waters near 

 Novaya Zemlya. But we have other concerns as well: oil spills and 

 leaks, acid rain, heavy metals, PCB's, diozin, DDT, global warming, 

 ozone depletion and Arctic haze are all stresses on the Arctic 

 environment and are placing the Arctic and its people at risk. 

 Pollutants are transported throughout the Arctic by wind, water and 

 sea ice, as well as with migrating species. Here we describe the 

 possible fate of pollutants entering the Arctic atmosphere and oceans. 



The Arctic Ocean receives a large volume of fireshwater input 

 from the surrounding Arctic rim States. The majority of it originates 

 from Russian rivers of which a large percentage are severely polluted. 

 Figure 1 depicts the distribution of these rivers around the Arctic 

 Ocean. Former Soviet scientists have measui«d high concentrations of 

 PCB's, heavy metals, radioactive contaminants, and raw sewage in 

 many Siberian rivers. Effluents firom these rivers reach out into the 

 surface waters of the Arctic Ocean and may be transported eastwards 

 with the near shore currents towards Alaska. Figure 2 depicts the 

 surface salinity of Arctic Ocean water during the summer time. These 

 data were compiled by (Sorshkov, a Soviet scientist, in 1980 and 

 probably represent extensive sampling of the nearshore waters. 

 Freshwater flowing out from the rivers into the seas can be seen as 

 regions of low salinity (marked in black) near the Siberian margin. 

 These pulses of low salinity extend far out onto the continental 

 shelves and may indicate that pollutants are carried far ofifishore into 

 the Kara, Laptev and East Siberian Seas. 



Figure 3 is a detailed compilation of surface currents within the 

 Arctic Ocean presented by Gorshkov, 1980. Of major interest is the 

 eastward flowing Siberian Coastal current, which may transport 

 polluted coastal waters towards the Bering Strait. 



