Freshwater Fish Mercury Concentrations in a Regionally High Mercury Deposition Area

Hutcheson, Michael S.; Smith, C Mark; Wallace, Gordon T.; Rose, Jane; Eddy, Barbara; Sullivan, James; Pancorbo, Oscar; West, Carol Rowan

Freshwater Fish Mercury Concentrations in a Regionally High Mercury Deposition Area

2008

We sampled and analyzed individually, edible dorsal muscle from largemouth bass (LMB), Micropterus salmoides (n = 138) and yellow perch (YP), Perca flavescens (n = 97) from 15 lakes to investigate potential local impacts of mercury emission point sources in northeastern Massachusetts (MA), USA. This area was identified in three separate modeling exercises as a mercury deposition hotspot. In 1995, 55% of mercury emissions to the environment from all MA sources came from three municipal solid waste combustors (trash incinerators) and one large regional medical waste incinerator in the study area. We determined the mercury accumulation history in sediments of a lake centrally located in the study area. Recent maximum mercury accumulation rates in the sediment of the lake of ~ 88 μg/m²/year were highly elevated on a watershed area adjusted basis compared to other lakes in the Northeast and Minnesota. Fish from the study area lakes had significantly (p = 0.05) greater total mercury concentrations than fish from 24 more rural, non-source-impacted lakes in other regions of the state (LMB n = 238, YP n = 381) (LMB: 1.5–2.5 x; YP: 1.5 x). The integration of this extensive fish tissue data set, depositional modeling projections, historical record of mercury accumulation in sediments of a lake in the area, and knowledge of substantial mercury emissions to the atmosphere in the area support designation of this area as a mercury depositional and biological concentration hotspot in the late 1990s, and provides further evidence that major mercury point sources may be associated with significant local impacts on fisheries resources.

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