By Andrew Mcglashen
Environmental Health News
A most-wanted list of toxic substances–including PCBs, dioxins, mercury, lead and pesticides–has lingered in western New York’s Eighteenmile Creek for decades, leaving its salmon, trout and other fish unsafe to eat and jeopardizing its wildlife. Now the nation’s sour economy has complicated and delayed the already daunting cleanup of the Lake Ontario tributary, as well as several dozen other toxic hotspots around the Great Lakes. “Given the fiscal situation in the State of New York, it’s really up in the air if the cleanup will get done,”said Victor DiGiacomo Jr., who chairs a local group of landowners, officials and others aiming to restore the area. Eighteenmile Creek, a meandering, lush stream in Niagara County known for its salmon and trout runs, is one of 43 highly contaminated sites that were designated “Great Lakes Areas of Concern” more than 20 years ago as part of a water-quality pact between the United States and Canada. As a promise to expedite the cleanups, Congress passed the Great Lakes Legacy Act in 2002, and then last fall, reauthorized it for another two years.