Concern About an Unseen Contaminant

What are Contaminants?

The term "environmental contaminant" is another name for pollution. A contaminant is any potentially undesirable substance (physical, chemical or biological). It usually refers to the introduction of harmful human-made substances. However, some substances that may have harmful effects at high levels, like cadmium, occur naturally in ecosystems and may also be introduced through human activities. Tissue samples taken from Porcupine caribou, for example, show traces of cadmium which is naturally present in the lichens the caribou eat.

Contaminants can be man-made substances produced by factories, such as DDT or toxaphene. It is the substance's long life and its ability to spread over a wide area that makes an industrial contaminant such a problem. Chemicals used in other parts of the world enter into the upper atmosphere and end up falling to the ground here, contaminating our homelands. Contaminants may be found in soil, plants, air, water, sea animals, land animals, and birds.

There are thousands of different types of contaminants, but they are often grouped into three categories. You can click on each group to learn more about it.

Examples of concerns:

Sarah Kunaknana of Nuiqsut said about eating caribou kidneys, "They love caribou. When we catch caribou and after they take the skin off and when we get to the kidneys while it's warm, when they cut an animal up you go to the kidneys while it's warm. You eat it and you don't get hungry or thirsty while it's warm--even in summer."

Enoch Sheidt of Kotzebue noted, "We used to walk way up to go caribou hunting, but nowadays most of our caribou are getting sick. We eat from the caribou and they eat the lichen, the moss. They need to study the caribou because it is our main diet inland. Is it coming in the rain to the moss?"

Orville Huntington of Huslia noted, "I think one of the causes--I don't know about all causes--a lot of my brothers and extended family came back from Viet Nam--they got cancer from stuff that was sprayed there. Around home, I think it 's an accumulation. All those poisons dumped in the river are in the fish and they accumulate in your body. In your fat, your leg, your stomach. Now we have vegetables brought in with chemicals on them. Now we have two sources of bad stuff coming in. The store and now the land too. Fish, vegetables."

Charlie Johnson from Nome, noted, "What we've done with the walrus commission - we've sampled blubber, kidneys - ugruks, ringed seals, some spotted seals. It shows our marine mammals are relatively clean. There should be no problems with eating them. One of the things of concern, if you take one thing like mercury it might appear not safe to eat, but if you have selenium with the mercury, it detoxifies it and it is safe to eat."

Larry Willard of Ketchikan noted, "One of the studies I have been doing is on seals. There is a big study up around the Pribilofs. They were doing a genetic study, a toxicity study, and a food habits in the winter. I have a study on seal population trends in the southeast area. Originally we were doing a toxicity study in the fat, liver, and skin, but I wanted to see why a lot of people aren't harvesting as much seal as before. For one thing, the economy is better and you don't have to eat seal. A lot of the old people are dying off. The younger kids don't eat seal as much. I learned how to prepare the meat, the oil, the intestines, taking care of the bones to show respect. In the toxicity study there were no traces of toxicity in them. I was glad.

Nome Elder's Conference participants noted, "Several workshop participants highlighted concern with the greens, berries and roots which form a significant portion of the Native subsistence diet: are these dietary staples threatened by contamination from polluted groundwater, streams and airborne contaminants? Is there any research addressing these potential problems? Has any effort been made to draw correlations between such research, if it exists, and rising cancer rates among Native populations?"

After you have looked at these short descriptions of types of contaminants and examples of peoples' concerns, please close this window by clicking on the "x" in the upper right hand corner to go back to the main window.

03/31/2003