Study - Adirondacks Among Worst Hotspots For Methylmercury Contamination

[hatrack]

SARANAC LAKE — There are five locations in northeastern North America that are considered biological mercury hotspots, and the Adirondack Mountains are one of them. The Kejimkujik National Park in Nova Scotia, the Upper Connecticut River watershed, the Merrimack River in N.H. and Mass., and the Upper Androscoggin River and Upper Kennebec River watershed of N.H. and Maine, as well as nine other suspected areas which cannot be confirmed until further research is performed, are all at risk.

On Tuesday, 11 scientists from the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation gathered in Washington to announce via a conference call the release of two studies published in the scientific journal BioScience. The articles gather more than three years of work and 7,800 samples, and indicate that fish, loons and other wildlife from New York to Nova Scotia have high levels of mercury contamination.

Mercury, which is a fundamental chemical element, is converted into methyl mercury when it is processed by a specialized bacteria. The risk is that methyl mercury is a neurotoxin that binds to proteins and can bioaccumulate throughout the food chain, and it therefore poses risks to those higher on the food chain who consume plants, insects, fish and wildlife that are contaminated. For humans, those most at risk are childbearing women and children under 12. According to Charles Driscoll, a professor of environmental systems engineering at Syracuse University and one of the HBRF study authors, the hotspots are attributed to three specific conditions: the physical sensitivity and biological character of a landscape, the location of reservoirs and the local sources of mercury emissions. The scientists emphasized that all of these conditions amplify the primary cause of mercury contamination, which is airborne emissions and deposition and is most commonly linked to coal-fired power plants.

The Adirondacks fall under the category of physical sensitivity due to the mountainous and forested terrain, which filters mercury out of the atmosphere. In addition, due to the decades of acid rain that the Adirondack region has endured, its lakes, rivers and streams are more susceptible to mercury contamination due to the fact that acidic waters convert mercury into methyl mercury, its organic and most harmful form. “We have the unfortunate combination of mercury deposition that the rest of the state has, but we also have the multiplying effect of acid rain,” said John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council. “The acidity breaks the mercury down into an organic form, which can be absorbed into living tissue, and as a result we get a much greater mercury impact in the Adirondacks.”

EDIT

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=5537

[rox63]

1. Great, I live along one of those mercury hotspots...

The Merrimack River in MA. :(

[driver8]

2. That is very interesting. My father was diagnosed with cancer in September

and my parents live in the middle of the Adirondacks. When my father was in Burlington seeing a doctor, one of the techs told him that they see a lot of people with cancer from Northern, NY. My Mom is a retired RN, and she said she heard the same thing from doctors several times.

Possible connection?

[NNadir]

3. Not to belabor the point, but there is selection pressure here.

If one is sampling loons who have abandoned their nests, one will possibly get a different result than if one sampled all loons.

I have no doubt that the Adirondacks, the place in which my family vacationed for most of my childhood, where first I learned to love the wild, where I canoed to my first Beaver dam, where I was first alone in the wilderness, is one of the places most damaged by coal on earth.