Toxics/Mercury Effects
Alaska Wilderness
"Air toxics" or airborne contaminants (such as persistent organic pollutants – POPs
and heavy metals) have the potential to cause ecosystem impairment in national parks, because the compounds
are long-lasting, can accumulate in biological tissue of organisms, and may alter key ecosystem processes.
The National Park Service has recently begun a coordinated effort to understand bioaccumulation of toxics to NPS areas, and to develop a strategy for an air toxics monitoring network in the western U.S. and Alaska, the Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project (WACAP). The geographic focus on the west is based on concerns over trans-Pacific transport and accumulation of these toxics in Arctic, near-Arctic, and mid-latitude mountain snowpacks. In addition, monitoring of air toxics such as dioxin and mercury has been ongoing in a few selected parks in the eastern U.S. for several years.