James Bay La Grande reservoirs now hold North America’s worst mercury contamination

Evidence

Massive flooding had once again leached methyl mercury from the soil, changing an inorganic mercury compound in the water into organic mercury. The result was mercury contamination in the reservoirs, with levels six or more times what was considered “safe.” The most significant mercury contamination levels in North America—as pronounced as those found in Minimata, Japan, where thousands of people suffered severe neurological diseases—are now present in the waters of the La Grande Complex. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 342

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drowned spruce forests leached mercury contaminating 37 percent of surveyed Innu — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 337