Community-based participatory research projects and policy engagement to protect environmental health on St Lawrence Island, Alaska.

Objectives: This article synthesizes discussion of collaborative research results, interventions and policy engagement for St Lawrence Island (SLI), Alaska, during the years 2000-2012.

Methods: As part of on-going community-based participatory research (CBPR) studies on SLI, 5 discrete exposure-assessment projects were conducted: (a) a biomonitoring study of human blood serum; (b-d) 3 investigations of levels of contaminants in environmental media at an abandoned military site at Northeast Cape--using sediment cores and plants, semi-permeable membrane devices and blackfish, respectively; and (e) a study of traditional foods.

Results: Blood serum in residents of SLI showed elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) with higher levels among those exposed to the military site at Northeast Cape, an important traditional subsistence-use area.

Polychlorinated biphenyls in serum of the Siberian Yupik people from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska.

Objectives: To determine serum levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Siberian Yupik adults from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, and to determine the relative contribution of atmospheric transport of PCBs and local contamination to body burdens.

Study Design: Siberian Yupiks of various ages were recruited from three populations: residents of the village of Gambell, residents of the village of Savoonga who did not have family hunting camps near the Northeast Cape (NEC), a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) known to be contaminated with PCBs, and residents of Savoonga whose families had a hunting camp at the NEC.

Combined steam distillation and electrochemical peroxidation (ECP) treatment of river sediment contaminated by PCBs.

A combined treatment process utilizing steam distillation followed by electrochemical peroxidation (ECP) has been utilized to remove >90% of the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in St. Lawrence River sediment and destroy 95% of the PCBs recovered in the condensate. 2 l of condensate were collected by boiling 500 grams of sediment containing approximately 4.

Remediation of metal-contaminated aqueous systems by electrochemical peroxidation: an experimental investigation.

An innovative technology, electrochemical peroxidation (ECP), was investigated for remediation of mixed metal-contaminated aqueous systems by application of direct electric current to steel electrodes and of dilute H(2)O(2) solution to promote Fenton's reactions, forming sparingly soluble solid hydrous ferric oxides (HFO). Bench scale experiments evaluated the sorption and distribution of As, Be, Cd, Cr, Cs, Cu, Li, Ni, Pb, Se, V, and Zn among the soluble and solid state HFO formed as part of the ECP process. The effects of pH, hydrogen peroxide concentrations and electric current process times on the efficiency of metal removal were studied.

Enhanced airborne polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations and chlorination downwind of Lake Ontario.

Air samples were collected simultaneously at three sites downwind of Lake Ontario and at a control site near Lake Erie from March to July of 1999. The Lake Erie site (Stockton, NY) had PCB concentrations similar to rural Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN) sampling sites across the Great Lakes, exhibited limited seasonal variation, and approximates regional background. Samples taken along Lake Ontario's southeastern shore (Rice Creek and Sterling, NY) had elevated PCB concentrations averaging approximately 1 ng/m3 and were more chlorinated than air collected at IADN sites and at Stockton.