Arsenic in Urban Lakes

Description

In the Puget Sound region, lakebed sediments are contaminated with arsenic emitted from the former Tacoma copper smelter (shut down in 1985) and they now act as a long-term source of arsenic to surface water and animals living in the lakes. We are investigating the mobility, bioaccumulation and ecological toxicity of arsenic within these impacted urban lakes. The contamination affected lakes with different mixing regimes and we have detected arsenic in the waters of both shallow unstratified lakes and deep seasonally stratified lakes. Our specific aims are to:

• Identify physical and biogeochemical lake attributes that promote arsenic mobilization from sediments and maintain elevated aqueous concentrations of arsenic in lake water of both seasonally stratified and unstratified lakes.

• Determine the physical and biogeochemical factors that control arsenic bioaccumulation through aquatic food webs in both seasonally stratified and unstratified lakes.

• Assess ecological toxicity of arsenic at different trophic levels within both seasonally stratified and unstratified lakes using established and novel molecular biomarkers that indicate arsenic stress and injury.

These efforts will establish the human and ecological health-threat posed by arsenic contamination, and will provide information needed to revise arsenic water-quality guidelines, which are under review.

People Involved

Past —  Becca Neumann, Sam Fung, Pam Barrett . Jim Gawel (UW Tacoma) . Alex Horner-Devine 

Funding

FY2015 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Superfund Research Program

Press & Outreach

Publications

Barrett PM, Hull EA, Burkart K, et al (2019) Contrasting arsenic cycling in strongly and weakly stratified contaminated lakes: Evidence for temperature control on sediment–water arsenic fluxes. Limnology and Oceanography 64:1333–1346. https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.11119

Barrett PM, Hull EA, King CE, et al (2018) Increased exposure of plankton to arsenic in contaminated weakly-stratified lakes. Science of The Total Environment 625:1606–1614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.12.336

Fung SR, Hull EA, Burkart K, et al (2022) Seasonal Patterns of Mixing and Arsenic Distribution in a Shallow Urban Lake. Water Resources Research 58:e2022WR032564. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR032564

Fung SR, Hull EA, Gawel JE, et al (2024) Short-Term Arsenic Cycling in a Shallow, Polymictic Lake. Water Resources Research 60:e2023WR035842. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR035842

Hull EA, Barajas M, Burkart KA, et al (2021) Human health risk from consumption of aquatic species in arsenic-contaminated shallow urban lakes. Science of The Total Environment 145318. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145318

Hull EA, Stiling RR, Barajas M, et al (2023) Littoral sediment arsenic concentrations predict arsenic trophic transfer and human health risk in contaminated lakes. PLOS ONE 18:e0293214. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293214