The importance of mercury as an environmental contaminant stems from its ubiquitous nature, due largely to the multitude of sources, its volatility and its persistence in nature. While mercury was once thought to be a threat only in the areas surrounding large industrial facilities, recent research has found that even remote and pristine waters can have elevated levels of mercury compounds in fish and other wildlife. An important factor in our ability to understand the chemistry, transport, bioaccumulation and toxicity of this multimedia contaminant, is the requirement that an interdisciplinary and regional approach be applied.
The Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission (IJC) charged the Atmospheric Deposition Monitoring Task Force with the goal of developinga comprehensive plan to quantify the atmospheric input of selected contaminants, including mercury, to the Great Lakes. The Task Force was also asked to identify, where possible, the sources of these contaminants so that corrective measures can be developed and implements (IJC Report, 1988). The overall objective of the Great Lakes Atmospheric Mercury Assessment Project has been to provide scientists with a assessment of the levels of mercury across the entire Great Lakes Basin and to utilize various meteorological and hybrid modeling techniques to assist in the diagnosis of the major sources of mercury, a pollutant designated as a "critical pollutant" by the IJC. The measurement sites which make up the GLAMAP's Atmospheric Mercury Network are shown in Figure 1.
Preliminary results from the Great Lakes Atmospheric Mercury Assessment Project can be found in the GLAMAP Newsletter.
Back to the UMAQL Homepage.