New law protects Anchorage streams, drinking water, and public health
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Last night, the Anchorage Assembly decided in a 10-1 vote to pass AO2017-59, an ordinance that establishes pesticide-free policies and restrictions for parks, public lands and properties. This measure strengthens the public’s right to know and fosters a healthy approach to caring for our parks and public lands that minimizes the use of harmful pesticides.
The Stockholm Convention established a science-based process for new persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the Stockholm Convention. The Convention recognizes that a lack of full scientific certainty should not prevent a candidate substance from proceeding in the evaluation or listing and clearly mandates Parties to decide on listing “in a precautionary manner.” This new Guide highlights three new candidates for listing in the Convention in 2017 - decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE), short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs), and hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD) - and provides the POPs Review Committee's recommendation for which annex the POPs should be listed under in the Convention, the chemicals' uses, alternatives, adverse effects, and more.
IPEN and colleagues in the European Union (EU) sent a letter to Representatives of the European Commission and EU Member States urging them to support decisions at the upcoming Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions' Conference of the Parties that uphold Convention principles and EU commitments to protect human health and the environment.
