Melvin J. Visser

Melvin J. Visser had a distinguished thirty-five year career with the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Early retirement allowed him to pursue a solution to the mystery described in Cold, Cl...

Cold, Clear, and Deadly
Unraveling a Toxic Legacy

Melvin J. Visser

CLICK here for a 7-minute YouTube video, LAKE SUPERIOR IS STILL POLLUTED AND SENDING US A MESSAGE. Author Mel Visser, walking along Lake Superior shores, discusses in detail the global toxic threat we still face: in the Great Lakes, the Arctic Circle, and in the world food supply.


Winner: 2008 AAUP Book, Jacket and Journal Show Award Certificate of Excellence for Book Jacket Design

From Lake Superior to the Arctic Circle, this is the powerful story of a scientific search for the source of chemicals that continue to poison our air, food supply, and water.

Cold, Clear, and Deadly is both a mystery and the story of the evolution of its author: from a chemical and bioprocess scientist to the vice president in charge of a major company's corporate environmental division; to engaging in international research and travel to discover the source of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in cold northern waters ranging from the Great Lakes to the Arctic.

POPs —PCBs and chlorinated pesticides such as DDT, toxaphene, and chlordane that came into use following World War II— were used in a wide range of seemingly benign scientific enhancements of modern life, from increasing crop yields to preventing fires. Initially, they were used in the West with abandon. However, pesticide POPs and industrial PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were banned when they were found to cause cancer in humans and to devastate wildlife near their areas of application. Yet, to this day they remain in the environment at dangerous levels. The question of why that is has occupied Visser for more than a decade.

The attempts of Visser and other international environmental scientists to understand POP contamination in the far north, where the POP content of whale blubber would classify it as hazardous waste, leads to unraveling the mystery of continuing contamination of the Great Lakes. Scientists discovered that the POPs ban was not global and that POPs evaporating from agricultural and industrial uses in developing countries were circling the globe and traveling north. Air sweeping North America and Europe is contaminated with more than 100 million POPs molecules per adult human breath, a toxic blanket that keeps our waters dangerous to man and wildlife. This devastating toxicity and the fact that our current efforts to clean up POPs residues in developed countries— "Thinking Globally and Acting Locally" will not solve the problem— makes Cold, Clear and Deadly a must-read for anyone concerned about the silent but deadly persistence of toxic chemicals in our food and water.

Reviews

...If the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes ever found himself searching 'for an honest man' on the shores of the Great Lakes, he need look no further than Mel Visser in his intrepid and relentless quest for the truth behind toxic contamination, its causes and its consequences. From Lake Superior to the Arctic Circle, and back again, Visser brings his impressive scientific knowledge and moral integrity to the search for answers to difficult questions which vexpolicy makers across the globe.
—G. Tracy Mehan, III, former Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. EPA, and director of the Michigan Office of the Great Lakes.

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"how it could be that even after the banning of POPs, their levels in waterways remained constant. Call it serendipity, providence, or destiny...Visser was left with a POPs conundrum that was to lead to a moment of clarity, and the penning of Cold, Clear, and Deadly. A big component of the POPs dilemma is a relatively simple one; the POPs ban is not global. Visser's team discovered that POPs used for agricultural and industrial purposes in developing countries were traveling north and dispersing themselves across the globe. According to Visser's calculations, the POPs wafting over the vast populations of Europe and North America are equivalent to over 100 million POP molecules per adult human breath...more than enough to be dangerously toxic to man and beast alike."
- www.scienceagogo.com