| Montreal, 4/09/1997 – A new report prepared by the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)—with the contribution of scientists from Canada, Mexico and the United States—calls for joint action by the three NAFTA countries to address the health and environmental problems posed by transboundary air pollution.
Recommendations to the three governments include the establishment of targets and timetables for reducing air pollution throughout the continent and a review of the impact of the pending restructuring of electricity markets. The Secretariat of the CEC also calls on the governments to reverse the current disturbing trend in North America of severe cuts to the funds that are allocated to cross-border pollution research and air pollutant monitoring and modeling programs.
The study was initiated under the authority of Article 13 of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the environmental side accord to NAFTA. A group of over 30 scientists from the three countries contributed to the study, reviewing the sources, pathways and effects of air pollution in North America.
Major findings in the report include:
· Pollutants such as mercury and pesticides—and even ozone and particulate matter—travel great distances in North America and, once deposited on land or in water, bioaccumulate through food webs. Some of these pollutants can also remain in the atmosphere for decades, and are linked to increased rates of chronic health problems and early mortality.
· So much mercury has been emitted to the atmosphere in North America from electrical power plants, waste incinerators and other key sources—particularly in the US and Canada—that global atmospheric levels of this toxic element have been increased two-to-five-fold during the past century.
· Many of the most harmful pollutants are generated primarily by a relatively few sources common to the NAFTA countries: electric power plants, motor vehicles (particularly trucks), the combustion of fossil fuels by some industries, municipal and medical waste incinerators, and chemicals used in agriculture. Of these, mobile sources burning fossil fuels (cars, trucks, buses, etc.) are responsible for approximately one-third of the NOx and VOC emissions in North America.
· Major North American ozone transportation corridors include the East Coast from Washington, D.C., to Maine, the industrial areas of the midwestern United States, a large area stretching through southern Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Windsor, Ontario, to Quebec City, and the Gulf Coast region, including much of the Texas and Louisiana coast. | 
