As Lance Armstrong proved, micro-dosing performance enhancing drugs led to tremendous improvements in his athletic performance. But what about taking in incredibly small amounts of chemicals that could cause potential harm to plants, animals and humans? What are the long-term implications of those micro pollutant to the environment?
Grand Portage Wildlife Biologist Dr. Seth Moore is head of the biology and environmental departments at Grand Portage Trust Lands and he would like to find answers to those questions.
Toward that end Moore submitted a request for $834,878 from the Minnesota Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund to complete a 2½ year project aimed at determining levels of emerging and unregulated pollutants, termed micro pollutants, in subsistence species and the environment in and around Grand Portage.
Moore’s proposal was presented to the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources this past summer. It was one of 97 presentations that were reviewed, evaluated, and ranked out of 186 received. Unfortunately the committee decided to forward only 88 of those projects to the 2016 Minnesota Legislature for approval.
“I was really disappointed we didn’t make the cut,” Moore said. “We have already started the project and are going to continue with the study on a shoe-string budget.
“We recently collected water and fish samples from four different sites for study. I feel this is important work. Even if we had gotten half of what we requested, that would have helped a lot. I submitted the same proposal to two federal agencies and both replied back that they thought it was an excellent project but they didn’t have money to fund it.
“We will submit it next year again,” said Moore. “Maybe it will get passed then.”
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