Dartmouth workshop sets research agenda for environmental mercury

Many of the 43 scientists at the 2006 workshop in Durham, N.H., have done extensive research on the way mercury accumulates in fish and other wildlife that inhabit inland forests, streams, lakes, and reservoirs. The meeting, titled "Fate and Bioavailability of Mercury in Aquatic Ecosystem and Effects on Human Exposure," also included experts on mercury in marine systems. All gathered agreed that insights from freshwater and upland systems should be applied to understanding mercury in marine ecosystems.

Dartmouth's Toxic Metals Research Program has been supported since 1995 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP). The 2006 workshop, funded by the SBRP with support from the New Hampshire SeaGrant Program, addressed three major themes: the biogeochemical cycling of mercury in marine ecosystems, the mechanisms of mercury transfer in the food web, and the risk of human exposure of mercury from seafood and shell fish consumption.

"Science should inform regulatory and public health decisions about issues such as the accumulation of mercury in our environment," says Nancy Serrell, the director of outreach at Dartmouth and a co-author on the paper. "The Superfund Basic Research Program provides support for workshops such as these that interpret findings in terms useful to decision makers that incorporate their perspectives into the research agenda."

Future efforts will include convening workshops to compile and evaluate existing mercury data in marine environments and in seafood.

Additional authors on the Environmental Health Perspectives paper include: David C. Evers with the BioDiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine; Bethany J. Fleishman formerly with the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Research Program; Kathleen F. Lambert, formerly with the Ecologic: Analysis & Communications in Woodstock, Vt., and currently the Dartmouth Sustainability Coordinator; Jeri Weiss with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Robert P. Mason with the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut; and Michael S. Bank with the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.