If there is anywhere on earth we can consider pristine and pure, it must be remote locations like the Antarctic region. But it actually has a dirty secret, according to a new report issued this past summer in the PLOS One journal. Parts of the sea floor near Australia’s Casey research station may be as polluted as busy in-use harbors today, like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, according to researchers.
The contamination is likely to be widespread across Antarctica’s older research stations as well, announces Jonathan Stark, a marine ecologist at the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart who was a co-author of the latest paper. “These contaminants accumulate over long time frames and don’t just go away,” he told Nature.
an ozonesonde balloon.
In the new report Stark and his colleagues documented high concentrations of hydrocarbons — those are compounds found in fossil fuels — and they also reported heavy metals, such as lead, copper and zinc. Many of the samples they took were also full of polychlorinated biphenyls, which are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds that were common before being banned in 2001.
As part of the study, the researchers compared their samples with data from the World Harbour Project — which is an international collaboration to track pollution and the health of large urban waterways –– and to their shock they found that lead, copper and zinc were similar to those in Sydney Harbour and Rio de Janeiro over the last 20 years.
The human ‘footprint’ and spatial extent of human activities and associated impacts in Antarctica, continues to grow as national Antarctic programs establish, expand, modernise and rebuild stations. There are currently 112 scientific research stations or national facilities established in Antarctica, including both year-round and summer only operations.
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Many research stations have been operational for a long period of time, with 44 of them established prior to 1980; while a further 35 established between 1980 and 2000.
Prior to the 1980’s little attention was given to the environmental impacts of station activities, the scientists document in their report: waste and rubbish were disposed of by dumping into landfill sites, onto sea ice, or into the ocean. From the 1980’s onwards environmental management practices improved greatly, largely due to the introduction and ratification of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (known as the Madrid Protocol).
For example, solid waste is now mostly exported from the continent. Historical practices have however, resulted in a legacy of environmental contamination. As most stations are located in coastal areas, this can lead to contamination of local marine environments, with sources including sewage and wastewater discharges, oil spills, and waste disposal sites.
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While pollution of marine environments is likely to occur at all coastal stations to varying degrees, it is not well documented and has only been reported for a few stations in the Antarctic.
The researchers sum up: “Our understanding of the processes that affect contamination of the Antarctic coastal marine environment is relatively limited. For example, it is not known how long existing contamination will persist or if natural processes will attenuate and/or distribute contaminants beyond existing contaminated areas.
“Similarly, our understanding of the impacts of such contamination on marine benthic ecosystems adjacent to stations, and the significance of such impacts in local and regional contexts is limited. To begin to address such issues it is important to ascertain the nature and extent of contamination of marine ecosystems around Antarctic stations.”
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Most of the stations are built on ice-free areas where most of the diversity of plant and animal life subside. Only about 1% of the Antarctic is ice-free so pollution these areas can have dire consequences for the nature there.
While each nation is responsible for the operations of their research stations, each country practices its responsibility differently. The researchers propose an action plan which includes at the very soonest upgrading wastewater treatment facilities.
The Argentine Antarctic Institute in Buenos Aires are using bacteria to remove hydrocarbons from soil around Argentina’s Carlini Base on King George Island. This is a similar approach to the use of fungus on a pristine island damaged by a US military base.
Does this issue move you? Check here on Wikipedia if your country has an Antarctic research base. If you want to get involved reach out to your federal governments or researchers in the universities working at these bases.
