Great Lakes Recovery: Forest Service Tackles Pollution

People have lived in the Great Lakes region for nearly 10,000 years. It's the region with the greatest amount of fresh water in the world and provides drinking water, food, and recreation for tens of millions of people. Mercury and sulfur are elements that occur naturally in the upper Great Lakes watershed of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. However, industrial activities have increased amounts in the soil and water, causing these elements to become pollutants that threaten ecosystems and humans in the region.
Sulfate, a type of sulfur, can stimulate the action of microbes that methylate mercury to form methylmercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that enters our food stream. So we got really look at both sulfur inputs and mercury inputs into our ecosystems - so we don't have mercury bioaccumulate in big fish like this. It’s in big fish like this where mercury bioaccumulates because of the mercury that's in smaller fish like this perch right here. All the burden of that perch, when the fish eats this perch, goes right into the fish.
And as it eats more and more perch over its lifetime, when it gets older and bigger, bioaccumulation goes up and up. Sulfate can also convert to sulfide, inhibiting the growth and reproduction of manoomin, or wild rice, which is sacred and integral to Indigenous Food Sovereignty. The Ojibwe word for wild rice, or manoomin, roughly translates to “the good berry” or “the good seed.” And for the Ojibwe people, it is the reason why we're here in the Great Lakes region.
And it really is a big part of food culture for the Ojibwe and other tribes who call this place home. Tribal members bear disproportionate health risks from methylmercury and sulfide because they rely on fish and manoomin. The people most susceptible to mercury in fish are pregnant women and children under 15. Over one million fishing licenses are sold annually to Minnesota residents, which indicates a potentially large number of people who are ingesting methylmercury.
In addition, Great Lakes fisheries are valued at $7 billion annually. “We don't want that to sink down after we plant.” The Northern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service works with tribes and other partners to understand the economic, environmental, and social impact of problems caused by mercury and sulfur pollution in the hopes to remediate the problems. Our goal for the project is to understand how investments in bioremediation and phytoremediation can impact and benefit communities in the Great Lakes region.
Bioremediation and phytoremediation may reduce sulfate levels in industrial discharge and polluted watersheds before it reaches areas where mercury has accumulated. Bioremediation uses microorganisms to degrade sulfate. And scientists are working on making bioremediation a practical solution for removing pollution. At this point, we completed our research to the lab pilot scale.
And then currently we are working on to developing the field demonstration pilot scale test. “We will be planting dormant, unrooted hardwood cuttings.” Phytoremediation uses plants to clean contaminated soil. The trees literally suck up the contamination from the soil and they either break it down so it's not a problem anymore, or they actually use it for their growth and the processes that they need to live and thrive and survive.
The Northern Research Station is establishing demonstration sites, in collaboration with municipalities, to integrate bioremediation and phytoremediation into a system that reduces mercury and sulfur. That is what led to the successes that we have. It started with research - it always, in the past, has always started with research. They also seek partners that are interested in raising awareness or tackling challenges through research, demonstration sites, and pollution and land management.
Mercury and sulfur pollution is a pervasive problem, crossing geographic and political boundaries. By working together, we can reduce the threat to our ecosystems and help ensure our health and the safety of our soil, water, food, and cultures.