Nathan Gabriel Armatas
x6921
x2narma@stlawu.edu
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ning Gao

Oral Presentation

Lake Champlain, on the border of New York and Vermont, is under attack from increasing amounts of hazardous chemical compounds, including phosphorous, PCB’s, and mercury.  The biota in the aquatic environment is affected the most by mercury contamination.  The hazards that these organisms face are death and defects in birth.  If humans consume too much Hg there is a better chance for neurological problems to occur.  There are elevated levels of Hg in zooplankton and fish.  Consumption of 250 g fish per month exceeds EPA’s recommended maximum Hg dosage.  Mercury has both natural and anthropogenic sources, and enters Lake Champlain via many different pathways. Mercury enters the lake by tributaries, and wet and dry atmospheric deposition.  Once it enters the lake, mercury is cycled through the food web, or become a part of the lake sediment. Chemical transformations frequently occur in the food web (e.g., mercury biomagnification) or in the sediment due to microbial action (e.g., mercury methylation). Sediment re-suspension often allows the pollutants to re-enter the aquatic environment.  The objective of this project is to develop a computer model to evaluate the levels of mercury.  The mass balance theory is based on the Law of mass conservation.  Using this theory and STELLA v6.0 software a computer model is being constructed that will account for these chemical and physical processes to get a better assessment of the problem developing within the lake.