WRVO – The chemical composition of the Great Lakes is changing.
That's what a new study commissioned by the International Joint Commission has found.
Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at SUNY Albany, was one of the lead researchers on the study.
He said that lake water is showing some levels of unusual chemicals, such as those in Scotchgard and Teflon. He adds that levels of pharmaceutical drugs are also showing up, because they are either being excreted by people who take the drugs or because people are flushing the drugs down the toilet.
Carpenter said there needs to be a systematic analysis of fish in the lake to determine how much of those chemicals has gotten into the fish's fat.
"Those studies are expensive," he said. "They have not been done, they need to be done, and if they were started today they wouldn't give an answer in a short period of time."