January 17, 2007: New Study

A Dartmouth researcher is part of the team that has identified five known and nine suspected biological mercury hotspots in northeastern North America, and the researchers suggest that coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are major contributors. The team reports their findings in two studies published in the January issue of the journal BioScience.

The studies are the result of a three-year effort by the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation (HBRF), and Celia Chen, a research associate professor in Dartmouth's biological sciences department, was part of the 11-person team.

In the two studies, the authors say that U.S. coal-fired power plants are the major source of the problem and document new ways that airborne mercury emissions can cause biological hotspots — namely in watersheds sensitized by decades of acid rain and reservoirs manipulated for power production. The HBRF team of scientists used an extensive database of more than 7,300 samples to quantify mercury levels in fish, loons, and other wildlife from New York to Nova Scotia.