European Commission, Brussels Dioxins & PCBs: Environmental Levels and Human Exposure in Candidate Countries Reference: ENV.C.2/SER/2002/0085 Final Report 16, June 2004 ELICC Consortium: Environmental Levels In Candidate Countries under Supervision of Gunther Umlauf (JRC) BiPRO Beratungsgesellschaft für integrierte Problemlösungen Contents Executive Summary 5 1 Background & Objectives 12 2 Methodology 14 2.1 Structuring of information 14 2.2 Collection of Information 16 2.3 Capacity building and know how transfer 17 2.4 Conclusions and recommendations 18 3 Research & Monitoring Activities 19 3.1 Air 19 3.2 Surface and Groundwater 21 3.3 Sediment 21 3.4 Soil 23 3.5 Vegetation 25 3.6 Wildlife 25 3.7 Food & Feed contamination 26 3.8 Human exposure 27 3.9 Comparison with EU Member States 29 4 Environmental Contamination 30 4.1 Air 30 4.2 Water 44 4.3 Sediments 52 4.4 Soil 60 4.5 Vegetation 73 4.6 Wildlife 76 4.7 Emission sources and Hot spots 90 5 Human exposure 94 5.1 Food and Feed contamination & Dietary intake assessment 94 5.2 Tissue levels 105 6 Legislation, Administrative Structure & Capacities 117 6.1 Legislation 117 6.2 Administrative Structures 117 6.3 National Capacities 117 7 Priorities & Plannings 117 8 Gaps, Deficits and Capacity building 117 8.1 Gaps and deficits 117 8.2 Capacity building 117 9 Conclusions & Recommendations 117 9.1 Research and Monitoring Activities 117 9.2 Environmental Contamination and Human Exposure 117 9.3 Legislation, Administrative Structure and Capacities 117 9.4 Priorities & Plannings 117 9.5 Capacity building 117 10 List of abbreviations 117 11 References 117 Annex I: Questionnaire and Structure of the Homepage Annex II: Monitoring and Research Annex III: Environmental Contamination Annex IV: Human exposure and tissue levels Annex V: Legislation – Experts – Plannings Annex VI: National hot spots for PCDD/F & PCBs Executive Summary Background and Objectives With the project "Dioxins & PCBs: Environmental Levels and Human Exposure in the Candidate Countries" launched by the European Commission DG Environment in January 2003 it is intended to gather available information on dioxin and PCB related issues in Accession Countries (AC) and Candidate Countries (CC) in order to develop a general overview on the current situation with respect to environmental contamination and related human exposure, legislation, enforcement, capacities and related activities in the fields of research and monitoring. The collected information shall serve as a decision basis for the European Commission to take appropriate measures to close important data gaps and to develop a common strategy for comparable and reliable results on Community level, improved information exchange and a consistent Community response system. To assure comparable and reliable data the information collection has been based methodologically on the four pillars internet and literature research, questionnaire to all competent ministries, personal contacts and project homepage as communication platform. Research and Monitoring Activities Concerning monitoring and research activities the highest level of activity can be found in the Czech Replica with countrywide monitoring in all environmental compartments and related to human exposure, in the Slovak Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia. Other countries do restrict their activities to specific compartments or only started real monitoring activities in the framework of GEF funded projects for the development of national implementation plans under the Stockholm Convention. Specific deficits exist in most countries with respect to monitoring of dioxins (PCDD/Fs) and with respect to human exposure. An overview on Monitoring activities in AC/CCs is given in Table 0-1 and Table 0-2. Environmental Contamination It can be concluded that in general the contamination levels in the AC/CC do not exceed the levels in the Member States. In some countries according to the collected information they might be even significantly lower (Hungary and Bulgaria). However the situation can be different for specific "hot spots". With respect to PCBs elevated levels have been reported for different environmental compartments and human tissues in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and to some extent also Slovenia. There is some evidence that local problems might also exist in Latvia and Lithuania but so far the provided data do not allow any conclusions. For Poland some data on food might give raise to concern. Furthermore the following limitations have to be taken into consideration: As data collected in the ongoing GEF funded projects are mostly still not available, the data base is quite small or even completely missing for many issues in the majority of countries. Besides this available data are often difficult to compare because they differ in a number of important parameters such as number of ELICC page 5 congeners, year of data collection, location of sampling sites, analytical standard, etc. Furthermore in many cases the number of samples is so small that the results are not representative. With respect to comparison with Member State (MS) levels there is the problem that in MS recent data collection is mainly focused on dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs whereas in the AC/CC mostly information on Indicator PCBs has been collected in the corresponding period. Furthermore it has to be stated that especially in the central European Countries with industrial background there exist extremely high contaminated "hot spots" for PCBs that urgently need remediation measures to prevent further dissemination and exposure of the local population. With respect to dioxin emission, industrial facilities without abatement devices as well as uncontrolled burning on waste disposal sites and domestic burning seem to be the major sources for pollution The time trends of contamination shown in a number of time series are similar to the situation in the Member States showing a strong decline over the last decade in most of the countries. On the other hand there is some evidence that the levels have reached a steady state in the last 2–4 years and in part even slightly increase. An overview on contamination levels in AC/CCs is given in Table 0-3 and Table 0-4. Legislation According to the received information most of the relevant regulations of the European Commission have been transposed into national laws. Problems with implementation only seem to occur in the field of waste management, the phasing out of PCBs and with respect to the IPPC Directive. But it has to be stated that information on specific legislation, separation of permitting and control as well as information on food and feed monitoring has not been complete and problems with the level of awareness on the local administrative level and in the general population have been reported. Administrative Structure and Capacities Problems with laboratory capacity and with quality standards seem to exist in a number of countries. Consequently further training measures as well as reflections on an effective improvement of the capacity for dioxin analyses might be necessary. Environmentally sound storing and destruction capacities seem to be insufficient in the majority of AC/CC so that further support will be necessary even if several projects in this field have already been started. Priorities and Plannings In the process of GEF funded projects all AC/CC are currently generating inventories on emission sources and stocks of POPs including PCBs and dioxins. As a consequence of this process the identification and destruction of existing stocks, the establishment or extension of data bases and monitoring systems, the implementation of existing legislation, educational measures and the cleaning up of relevant "hot spots" have been stated as priority actions for the majority of countries. Capacity Building ELICC page 6 In the field of capacity building measures a large number of initiatives has been started and funded by the European Union and the WHO in the last years. Furthermore the participation in international conventions and databases as well as scientific networking has provided good possibilities for knowledge exchange and know-how transfer. In the consequence the awareness at the scientific level is comparable to the level in the Member States, but the awareness in the general population and at the local administrative level has been reported to be still relatively low in certain countries so that further educational efforts may be necessary to assure a good implementation of the established regulatory framework and to reduce emissions from uncontrolled and domestic burning as well as from inadequate management and disposal of hazardous waste. Recommendations As a result the following recommendations are suggested: ♦ The number of measurements in key compartments (soil, sediments, indicator feed and food, human milk) should be increased in all countries (AC/CCs & MS) that do not dispose of a representative data base ♦ AC/CC should be encouraged to participate in international monitoring activities (WHO milk study, GEMS Food , EMEP, etc.) and to adopt international standards for sampling and analysis ♦ Support should be provided with respect to further information exchange between MS and AC/CC and within AC/CC to avoid double work and benefit from existing experience ♦ Structures and systems should be established that assure that research and monitoring activities are continued even if external support is decreasing ♦ AC/CC should be encouraged to identify further hot spots