Hydroelectric dams spike methylmercury risk for indigenous people: Harvard study
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — The Muskrat Falls project will cause a spike in toxic methylmercury in wild food sources that are crucial to Labrador communities, says a new Harvard University study of hydro dam effects on indigenous people.
“Methylmercury concentrations in locally caught fish, birds and seals — which nearby Inuit populations use as a source of food — likely will increase up to 10-fold” in the dammed lower Churchill River, it says of Muskrat Falls.
“After flooding, expected mean methylmercury concentrations in lake trout, seal, tern eggs, brook trout and char liver are all projected to be at or above the Canadian retail limit for methylmercury.”
Average exposure to the neurotoxin for local Inuit “is forecasted to double following flooding, and over half of the women of childbearing age and young children in the most northern community (Rigolet) are projected to exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s” guidelines, says the study.