In new research published in a special issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and in "Sources to Seafood¹: Mercury Pollution in the Marine² Environment" -- a companion report by the Dartmouth-led Coastal³ and Marine Mercury Ecosystem⁴ Research Collaborative (C-MERC), scientists report that mercury released into the air and then deposited into oceans contaminates seafood commonly eaten by people in the U.S. and globally. Over the past century, mercury pollution in the surface ocean has more than doubled, as a result of past and present human activities such as coal burning, mining, and other industrial processes. The research findings by C-MERC published December 3 also examine the effects of local mercury inputs⁵ that dominate some near-shore coastal waters.

 

C-MERC's research is presented through nine scientific papers in Environmental Health Perspectives and is the culmination⁶ of two years of work by approximately 70 mercury and marine scientists from multiple disciplines including biology, ecotoxicology, engineering, environmental geochemistry, and epidemiology. The research provides a synthesis of the science on the sources, fate, and human exposure to mercury in marine systems by tracing the pathways and transformation⁷ of mercury to methylmercury（甲基水银） from sources to seafood to consumers.

 

Two other papers focusing on the health effects of methylmercury were published earlier this year in Environmental Health Perspectives. Methylmercury has long been known as a potent⁸ neurotoxicant, particularly as a result of acute and high level human exposures primarily through seafood consumption, but more recent research has revealed health effects at increasingly lower levels of exposure.

 

The companion report, "Sources to Seafood: Mercury Pollution in the Marine Environment," looks at the pathways and consequences of mercury pollution across marine systems by drawing on findings from the C-MERC papers, scientific literature, and data from a range of marine systems and coastal basins. Specifically, the report examines mercury sources, pathways, and inputs for the Hudson River Estuary⁹, San Francisco Bay, Gulf¹⁰ of Mexico, Long Island Sound, Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Maine, Arctic Ocean, and the open ocean.

 

C-MERC's research findings are especially timely, as the U.S. and other nations prepare for the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Programme's Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC5) on January 13-18, 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland, which is working to prepare a legally binding¹¹ instrument to control mercury releases to the environment.

 

"Despite the fact that most people's mercury exposure is through the consumption of marine fish, this is the first time that scientists have worked together to synthesize what is known about how mercury moves from its various sources to different areas of the ocean and then up the food chain to the seafood most people eat," said Celia Y. Chen, Ph.D., Research Professor of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth. She is a co-author of the new Environmental Health Perspectives papers on nutrient¹² supply and mercury dynamics¹³, and mercury sources in the Gulf of Maine, and authored an editorial on the subject in the journal, and is also a lead author of "Sources to Seafood." Chen will represent Dartmouth as an accredited¹⁴ non-governmental organization at INC5 in an observer status. Copies of C-MERC's Sources to Seafood report will be made available to INC5 attendees.

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