Scientists Traced Arctic Arsenic Back to a Montana Mine
Atmospheric modeling of the particles’ journey suggests that millions of North Americans were exposed to arsenic levels 12 to 60 times higher than modern levels between 1898 and 1918.
Scientists have traced the source of arsenic found in Arctic ice cores back to the Anaconda Copper Mine in Montana, thousands of kilometers away. This discovery, published in Nature Sustainability, was made possible by a new method developed by researchers to measure arsenic levels in ice cores. The study reveals that the pollution from this mine, which peaked in the 1910s and 1920s, was largely due to delayed regulations and the lack of pollution control measures installed at the mine until years after the invention of electrostatic precipitators.
The findings suggest that these delayed regulations resulted in an additional 60,000 tons of arsenic and 24,000 tons of lead being released into the environment, impacting millions of people in the United States and Canada.
Brief written by urgent.news from Eos's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
