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Source Identification of Florida Bay's Methylmercury Problem: Mainland Runoff Versus Atmospheric Deposition and In situ Production

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Abstract

The first advisory to limit consumption of Florida Bay fish due to mercury was issued in 1995. Studies done by others in the late 1990s found elevated water column concentrations of both total Hg (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) in creeks discharging from the Everglades, which had its own recognized mercury problem. To investigate the significance of allochthonous MeHg discharging from the upstream freshwater Everglades, we collected surface water and sediment along two transects from 2000 to 2002. Concentrations of THg and MeHg, ranging from 0.36 ng THg/L to 5.98 ng THg/L and from <0.02 ng MeHg/L to 1.79 ng MeHg/L, were elevated in the mangrove transition zone when compared both to upstream canals and the open waters of Florida Bay. Sediment concentrations ranged from 5.8 ng THg/g to 145.6 ng THg/g and from 0.05 ng MeHg/g to 5.4 ng MeHg/g, with MeHg as a percentage of THg occasionally elevated in the open bay. Methylation assays indicated that sediments from Florida Bay have the potential to methylate Hg. Assessment of mass loading suggests that canals delivering stormwater from the northern Everglades are not as large a source as direct atmospheric deposition and in situ methylation, especially within the mangrove transition zone.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Angela Drummond and Mark Kromer (SFWMD) for their help in field sampling. We thank Carl Mitchell and David Rudnick for their comments on an early draft of the manuscript and two anonymous reviewers for a later daft. We would like to acknowledge also the hard work of chemists at FDEP, FGS, and CEBAM, especially Lian Lang. We gratefully acknowledge the use of ENP facilities on Key Largo that were used in support of fieldwork. Finally, funding was provided through NOAA's Coastal Oceans Program and administered by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Prediction and Modeling program (SFERPM). Other funding was provided by the SFWMD and the NMFS's Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach, FL, USA

    Darren G. Rumbold, Sharon Niemczyk, Larry E. Fink & Nicole Howard

  2. Florida Gulf Coast University, 10501 FGCU Blvd. South, Ft. Myers, FL, 33965, USA

    Darren G. Rumbold

  3. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Beaufort, NC, USA

    David W. Evans

  4. The Abaco Group, LLC, Boynton Beach, FL, USA

    Sharon Niemczyk

  5. East Bay Municipal Utility District, Oakland, CA, USA

    Krysten A. Laine

  6. U.S. Geological Survey, Middleton, WI, USA

    David P. Krabbenhoft

  7. U.S. Geological Survey, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA

    Mark Zucker

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  1. Darren G. Rumbold
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Correspondence to Darren G. Rumbold.

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Rumbold, D.G., Evans, D.W., Niemczyk, S. et al. Source Identification of Florida Bay's Methylmercury Problem: Mainland Runoff Versus Atmospheric Deposition and In situ Production. Estuaries and Coasts 34, 494–513 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-010-9290-5

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