Annie Alowa, a community health aide and elder from Savoonga, called on us and we worked together to catalyze some action. Annie herself contracted cancer and asked me to interview her just before she died. Until I Melt, has been distributed widely to EPA officials, Pentagon officials, media folks, Congress, and many people who request it. Sterling Gologergen, also from Savoonga on Saint Lawrence Island, has worked here for about a month in a staff position with both Alaska Community Action on Toxics and Indigenous Environmental Network. These chemicals are transported northward by wind and ocean currents and trapped in the cold environment.
POPs tend to accumulate in the fatty tissues of fish, seals, polar bears, and humans.
The Arctic has become a hemispheric sink for many of these toxic chemicals. People in Alaska and around the world have an historic opportunity to encourage the United States to enact and ratify a strong treaty that could eliminate major sources of toxic chemicals that affect our health. The U.S. position has been weak thus far. We are working to remind the State Department, the lead negotiator for the U.S., that this is a crucial issue for us, one that has real effects on our health and the health of our environment. All rights reserved.