I've been doing more investigation into extremist speakers gracing political events sponsored by Minnesota's right side.
But that's not the only concern burdening the North Star State. Healthy habitat and wildlife conservation is also dear to many of us in the Upper Midwest.
At the Duluth News Tribune, John Myers reports in From bug spray to antidepressants, chemicals harm fish in northern Minnesota:
GRAND PORTAGE — Dozens of chemicals, from DEET bug spray to antidepressants, hormones, antifungals, antihistamines, antibiotics and heart medications, are showing up in fish in even remote lakes across Northeastern Minnesota and are impacting the health of those fish.
That was the finding of a lengthy research project by the University of Minnesota and Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa published last month in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management .
Researchers took samples from hundreds of fish from two dozen lakes and rivers in developed, urban areas as well as lakes with a few cabins and homes and lakes with little or no human impact.
Many of the substances found in those samples are “chemicals of emerging concern,” which scientists suspect can cause health issues such as cancer in fish, wildlife and humans. And fish in remote lakes showed as many or more signs of health issues as those in urban areas.
“Our results suggest that the health of fish is adversely affected in lakes in various ways across a spectrum of” human development, the study concluded, “from remote, undeveloped wilderness to lakes directly impacted by wastewater effluent.”
The study found “potentially concerning health effects at the organism level and the presence of some (chemicals of emerging concern) that could lead to potential population-level effects.”
"We found them in every system we looked in. We tested for 140 possible chemicals and found 117 of them," Seth Moore, environment and natural resources director for the Grand Portage Band, told the Duluth News Tribune.
While previous studies have looked at the distribution of chemicals, and others the impact of chemicals on fish in labs, this is the first to look at how chemicals in widespread Minnesota lakes and rivers are impacting wild fish. It's a follow-up to a 2020 report by the same researchers that outlined where the chemicals are showing up. . . .
Read the entire article at the Duluth News Tribune.
Photo: A research crew collects fish from a northeastern Minnesota lake to test for chemicals in the fish and for health problems those chemicals may be causing. Researchers found 117 chemicals, many of them considered toxic, in fish from even remote Minnesota lakes. Contributed to the Duluth News Tribune / University of Minnesota.
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