Studying Great Salt Lake’s High Mercury Levels (NY Times)

[depakid]

he Great Salt Lake is so briny that swimmers bob in the water like corks. It is teeming with tiny shrimp that were sold for years in the back of comic books as magical “sea monkeys.” And, for reasons scientists cannot explain, it is laden with toxic mercury.

Exactly where the poison is coming from and how much danger it poses to the millions of migratory birds that feed on the Great Salt Lake are now under investigation.

“We’ve got a problem, but we don’t know how big it is,” said Chris Cline, a biologist for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service who has been collecting the eggs of cinnamon teal ducks from nests along the rim of the lake so that they can be cracked open and analyzed in the laboratory.

Three years ago, in an alarming finding, tests by the federal Geological Survey showed the lake had some of the highest mercury readings ever recorded in a body of water in the United States. The state warned people not to eat certain kinds of ducks because of the mercury.

This summer, scientists are fanning out across the lake and its marshy shoreline for the start of what is expected to be a multiyear study. The Environmental Protection Agency and the state are paying most of the $280,000 bill for the initial phase.

One major question is whether the mercury is accumulating naturally, from some as-yet-unknown source in the ground, or is the result of industrial pollution.

Researchers say mercury released into the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants in the West, gold mines in Nevada, volcanoes in Indonesia or industries in rapidly developing countries such as China or India may be settling in the lake.

Mercury can cause neurological damage in birds and affect their ability to fight off diseases. High mercury levels have been detected in some of the lake’s birds. But so far there is no evidence that it is sickening them.

“The jury’s kind of still out on the impact, but it can’t be a good impact,” said Tom Aldrich, migratory game-bird coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/science/earth/10saltlake.html