A Toxic Food Chain, Forged of Mine Metal

October 23, 2013- A recent study reveals more evidence that eating seafood from areas near contaminated sites may put humans at risk.

In an article entitled "Mine Metals at Maine Superfund Site Causing Widespread Contamination," ScienceDaily is reporting that Dartmouth researchers have determined that toxic metals from the Callahan Mine Superfund Site in Brooksville, ME (America's only hard-rock open pit mine in an estuary system) are widespread in the surrounding sediment, water and fish and may be a adversely affecting marine and coastal animals that feed on them.

The new study, part of Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program, was published in the journal "Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology" and titled "Spatial Variability of Metal Bioaccumulation in Estuarine Killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) at the Callahan Mine Superfund Site, Brooksville, ME."

ScienceDaily says the study is "one of the first to look at the impacts of an open pit mine on an estuarine environment and the coastal marine food web," and that "the results are further evidence that humans who eat seafood from areas close to contaminated sites may be at risk."

Researchers studied toxic metal concentrations in the sediment, water and Atlantic killifish in the Goose Pond estuary at the closed Callahan Mine, now an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. The Atlantic killifish live in shallow coastal waters and serve as an important food source for the larger fish caught for human consumption.

ScienceDaily reports the Dartmouth researchers found surprisingly high levels of copper, zinc, cadmium and lead in "distinct areas, indicating the metals are continually seeping from the mine's waste rock piles and debris." The metals being "taken up" by the killifish in the estuary "have potential to affect fish, birds and other animals that feed on them in nearby Penobscot Bay in central Maine."

Read the full ScienceDaily post here.

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