Issue Brief

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Acadia National Park

Mercury Contamination
at Acadia National Park
Why Mercury Matters at Acadia National Park
While Acadia National Park (NP) is often perceived as a pristine natural area along Maines coast, some of the parks fish and wildlife are contaminated with high levels of mercury. Research has documented that certain fish, amphibians, and even tree swallows from Acadia NP carry heavy burdens of mercury. Mercury levels in these species are high enough to put them at risk for harmful effects, including decreased survival rates. Levels of mercury in some fish sampled also exceeded wildlife and human health consumption thresholds. Mercury concentrations magnify up the food chain and thus diet is the primary pathway for mercury contamination. The major source of mercury in the parks environment is deposition from the atmosphere a result, in part, of emissions from industrial sources in states to the south and west. The National Park Service (NPS) is concerned about the effects of mercury because this airborne pollutant threatens the natural resources the NPS is charged with protecting.
Research indicates that ecosystems at Acadia NP contain elevated levels of mercury, a toxic heavy metal atmospherically transported to the park from distant sources.

How is Mercury Affecting Acadia National Park?

The National Park Service has been engaged in research into the sources, movement, and concentration of mercury in Acadia NP ecosystems for more than two decades. The park is one of the most intensively studied areas for mercury in the United States. Research results consistently indicate elevated and pervasive levels of mercury across Acadia NPs landscape. Mercury is elevated in some of Acadia NPs surface waters (Figure 2), sediments, soils, and biota such as plankton, tadpoles, salamanders, fish, common loons, tree swallows, and bald eagles. Documented effects of observed mercury levels include low growth rate in tree swallow chicks and increased vulnerability of certain fish to predation. Concentrations of mercury in fish from Acadia NP exceeded statewide human health consumption thresholds for sensitive populations, such as women of childbearing age and children. Fish also exceeded mercury thresholds established for fish-eating wildlife such as loons (Figure 3). While the deposition of mercury is ubiquitous across Acadia NPs landscape, much of the research has also focused on which types of landscapes might have higher concentrations of mercury and how mercury cycles through the parks environment. Findings indicated that forested areas act as air filters, raking mercury from the air and collecting it on foliage, which later drops to the ground in rain or snow, or with falling leaves and needles. This process, referred to as throughfall, is

Where Does Mercury Come From?

While there are natural sources of mercury such as volcanoes, human activities have greatly increased the amount of mercury in the environment through processes such as burning coal for electricity, burning mercury-contaminated waste, and the production of chlorine. Once emitted to the air as an elemental or inorganic chemical, mercury can travel great distances before it is eventually returned to the earth by wet (rain, snow), dry (dust, other airborne particles), or occult (cloud, fog) deposition. In the environment, particularly certain types of wetlands, natural biological processes convert these forms of mercury into a toxic, bio-available form called methylmercury. Methylmercury builds-up in organisms and increases in concentration with each level of the food chain through a process called biomagnification (Figure 1). Toxic effects of methylmercury upon wildlife and human health can include reduced reproductive success, impaired growth and development, altered behavior, and decreased survival. There are a few localized factors that contribute to the mercury contamination problem at Acadia NP, including the parks steep slopes, high peaks, and exposure to coastal fog that create an environment conducive to trapping polluted air masses. Furthermore, the park is downwind of many large coal-burning power plants in the Midwestern U.S. Though Maine releases less than a thousandth of a percent of U.S. emissions, airborne mercury is transported from distant sources and deposited into Acadia NP. Additionally, the parks forested areas and abundant surface waters create an environment especially susceptible to mercury contamination. Mercury is a heavy metal but can vaporize easily from land and water surfaces and repeatedly re-enter the atmosphere, particularly during wildfires.

Figure 1. It only takes a very small amount of mercury (Hg) to contaminate an ecosystem and become a significant health threat to humans and wildlife. Through a process called methylation, naturally occurring bacteria act on mercury to create methylmercury, which accumulates in organisms and magnifies in concentration with each level of the food chain. Continued

EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICA

June 2010

estimated to be the largest vector of mercury input from the atmosphere to the parks terrestrial ecosystems. The mercury that is washed to the ground with throughfall collects in the soil and eventually moves into streams and lakes. Additional findings from the park show that coniferous forests of spruce, fir, and pine trees capture more mercury from the air than deciduous forests because needles have more surface area to grab the mercury than leaves. In addition, forests that are located on southwest-facing slopes of Acadia NP were hardest hit because they directly intercept polluted air masses drifting eastward across the U.S. Research in two park watersheds indicated events such as fire can have tremendous influence, even decades later, on an areas susceptibility to mercury and other air pollutants. Reconstructing the history of Acadias landscape, researchers showed that the southeast slope of Cadillac Mountain, which burned during a major fire in 1947 and was re-vegetated by deciduous trees, better retains mercury as compared to other unburned areas of the park that flush more mercury into streams. As evidence of this, salamanders living in unburned forests had higher levels of mercury in their bodies than those in the burned areas. The difference between burned and unburned areas can be attributed to increased deposition in coniferous, unburned sites and changes in soil structure and carbon content that influence how mercury is retained and processed in soils. Current ongoing studies include the continued monitoring of wet mercury deposition (1995 present; Figure 4) and a methylmercury risk assessment for park watersheds. Research gaps include the need to document the extent of physiological and ecological implications of elevated mercury concentrations in park wildlife and gain a better understanding of the role of fog in contributing to the mercury deposition burden to the parks ecosystems. Additionally, the NPS hopes to facilitate research on the synergistic effects of climate change on mercury contamination.

Figure 3. The average concentration of mercury in fillets from predator fish (e.g., bass, pickerel) from 11 lakes at Acadia NP exceeded health thresholds established for the safe consumption of fish by humans and wildlife such as loons. Additionally, the average concentration of mercury in whole body fish exceeded the health threshold for wildlife, an important distinction when considering that wildlife are more likely to consume the whole body than humans.

What Are The Implications?

Mercury deposition and its potential toxic effects to wildlife and human health at Acadia NP represent a significant concern for the National Park Service. Park natural resources are threatened by sources of airborne mercury far from national park boundaries. Continued coordination with federal and state regulatory agencies charged with protecting the nations air quality will be essential in the effort to reduce mercury emissions, and thus mercury deposition, from national and international sources the first step toward improved ecosystem conditions.

Figure 4. Wet mercury deposition is monitored weekly at Acadia NP. Data indicate that the current rate of mercury deposition is about 4 times greater than what scientists think rates were before industrialization.

More Information
Acadia National Park Division of Resource Management Phone/Email 207-288-8720 acadia_information@nps.gov

Links & Resources Air Quality in Parks: http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/permits/ARIS/acad/ Acadia NP Air Quality: http://www.nps.gov/acad/naturescience/airquality.htm Figure 2. While mercury concentrations in streams from Acadia NPs Mount Desert Island (MDI) fall within the statewide range, mercury levels in MDI streams are unusually high within the regional context of coastal and Downeast Maine. The vast extent of wetlands within the park provides environments conducive to increased methylation of mercury, likely contributing to greater mercury contamination. EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICA Acknowledgements Contributing text provided by S.J. Nelson, Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research at the University of Maine. Edited by Colleen Flanagan, NPS Air Resources Division, Denver, Colorado.