How Do Air Toxics Affect the Environment?
Toxic pollutants in the air, or deposited on soils or surface waters, can have a number of environmental impacts. Like humans, animals can experience health problems if they are exposed to sufficient concentrations of air toxics over time. Numerous studies conclude that deposited air toxics are contributing to birth defects, reproductive failure, and disease in animals. Persistent toxic air pollutants are of particular concern in aquatic ecosystems because the pollutants accumulate in sediments and may biomagnify in tissues of animals at the top of the food chain to concentrations many times higher than in the water or air. Toxic pollutants that mimic hormones also pose a threat to the environment. In some wildlife (e.g., birds, shellfish, fish, and mammals), exposures to pollutants such as DDT, dioxins, and mercury have been associated with decreased fertility, decreased hatching success, damaged reproductive organs, and altered immune systems. What Has EPA Done to Reduce Air Toxics?
