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Decades-long monitoring shows reduced levels of regulated contaminants in Arctic people’s bodies

Amelia Landess

Photo credit: Yereth Rosen / Alaska Beacon - Trees are reflected in the waters of Lake Spenard on the evening of May 16. Lake Spenard and Lake Hood, to which it is attached, showed high levels of PFAS contamination in an Alaska Community Action on Toxics study published in 2023. While levels of regulated contaminants appear to be declining around the Arctic, levels of unregulated PFAS contaminants are on the rise in some areas, an Arctic Council study says.

Read the full article by Yereth Rosen (Alaska Beacon)

“Around the far north, including in Alaska, levels of certain contaminants found in people’s bodies have declined over the past three decades, likely showing the positive effect of regulation, according to a newly released study from an Arctic Council research group.

The blood and breast milk of people in various Arctic regions shows declining levels of regulated pollutants and growing levels of unregulated ones.

Within the blood and breast milk of people in various Arctic regions, levels of a class of chemicals used in electrical equipment and industrial lubricants, and certain pesticides fell steadily from about 1990 to the early 2020s, said the report from the council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, or AMAP.

However, in several areas, blood and breast milk showed increasing levels over time of unregulated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are known as PFAS, the study showed.” …

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