Are micro-pollutants in the water causing harm to people, plants, fish and animals?
That is the question that Dr. Seth Moore, director of biology and environment for Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Trust Lands is seeking to answer with his on-going environmental studies of the land, air and water in Grand Portage and northern Minnesota.
Several years ago Moore conducted a small pilot study, sampling a couple of lakes in Grand Portage. In one lake—a remote lake with no human habitation near it—Moore found pharmaceuticals in the water, which was an alarming surprise.
In 2015 Moore sought more than $800,000 from the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR) to fund his wide-ranging study. And while his request made it through the first round, it didn’t make the final cut, which was sent to the Minnesota Legislature for approval.
This year was different. Moore sought a $400,000 grant to study Chemicals of Emerging Concern in Minnesota Fish, and he recently learned his request made the last cut when LCCMR whittled its list of proposals recommended for funding from 88 to 69.
Initially the commission received 195 proposals for funding totaling $159.6 million. Its first recommendation included 88 proposals and totaled $86 million. The second round totaled $59.3 million; the amount the commission expects to be available in 2017.
Dr. Moore said the money will be used to hire either a post-doctoral student or Ph.D student to assist with the work, as well as to pay six University of Minnesota faculty members to help test and assess the chemicals found in the 30 northern Minnesota lakes that Moore and his team will sample, looking primarily for pharmaceuticals in fish, water and sediment.
The study will encompass two and one half years and, said Moore, “I can guarantee that we will find some surprising things in this study.”
While he isn’t sure what will come of the results, Moore suggested doctors might slow down on prescribing large doses of medicine.
“Typically what happens now is that if a person gets, say, a 90 day prescription of pills and than after four of five days of suffering some side effects from that medicine, they dump the bottle of pills down the toilet. Maybe, when we find out what these medications are doing to the environment, doctors will cut back on the length of their prescriptions to patients.”
Moore also said that while wastewater treatment plants do a good job of treating urine and feces, they don’t do a good job of sifting out chemicals found in pharmaceutical drugs. “We may find that we have to build better wastewater treatment plants to weed out these chemicals,” he said.
When asked how much affect miniscule amounts of chemicals can have on the environment, Moore said, “There have been studies that show that 1 part per trillion of birth control pills can cause a minnow population to crash in a lake. No minnows in a lake cause the lake trout population to crash. One part per-trillion isn’t very much. It’s the equivalent to 10 square inches of land in all of Cook County, so it doesn’t take much to affect a lake. And think of it, we have 55 years of birth control use in our population.”
Dr. Moore said it was a big relief when he learned that Grand Portage was awarded the grant money.
“Not many tribes get this grant. We were fortunate. I think my first request might have caused some sticker shock, so I found some other grant money to help pay the rest of the costs.
“While the study will encompass areas in northern Minnesota, my first goal will be to asses how eating fish is affecting people in Grand Portage, especially women who are pregnant.”
The LCCMR recommendations will now go to the 2017 Minnesota Legislature for approval. The commission makes recommendations for funding from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which is funded with Minnesota Lottery and investment proceeds.
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