freshwater contaminants

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Freshwater Contaminants

Glacier Bay National Park and PreserveKlondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

Sitka National Historical Park

M. Humling/USFS

Justification

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Marineenterprises

G eolog ic patte rnsand processes

O cean pa tte rnsand processes

Islandbiogeography

Climatechange

H um an activ ity

Glaciers

G loba l andreg iona l c lim ate

M arine Freshwater

Terrestrial

Airborne contaminantsMarine contaminantsFreshwater contaminants

Justification

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

M. Humling/USFS

?

Objectives

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Initial assessment: baselines, geographic and landscape variability?

Create long-term status and trends monitoring program for Hg and POPs

T. McCabe/USDA NRCS

P. Kaiser/USFWS

NPS Photo

Source: Wikipedia.com

Logistics and Budget

2007 initial assessment (Nagorski et al.) = $85K

FY12 funding for protocol development (O’Hara et al.) = $55K(incl. initial literature review)

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Andres Lopez, UAF

Grad student(protocol

development)

Todd O’Hara Lab, UAF

Lisa Hoferkamp, UAS

What we’re learning

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Generally, the watersheds of SEAN parks are quite cleanMercury and POPs found in all watersheds, but no human or wildlife health exceedances

Streamwater and sediments extremely low levels

Age-1 coho elevated mercury levels (up to 80 ng/g)

But…

What we’re learning

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

OR, WI, & FL Sherman Cr. SEAN

Total Mercury (ng/g)

0

50

100

150

200Mayflies

What we’re learning

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Watershed age (years)

10 100 1000 10000

Total mercury (ng/g)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

YoungMedium

Old

Age-0 coho salmon

watershed age = methylmercury

What we’re considering

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

(from Van Metre and Mahler 2005)

Lakebed sediments

(from McIntyre 2004)

Fish tissue

Southeast Alaska NetworkInventory and Monitoring Program

Program Delivery

+ SEAN staff

christopher_sergeant@nps.gov 364.1591

M. Humling/USFS