Heavy Metals in Wild Rice Grown in Mining-Impacted Areas in the Keweenaw Bay

Wild rice is an important component of the Ojibwe diet and is known to have been abundant in the Great Lakes region. The KBIC has been working toward developing and expanding wild rice cultivation since the early 1990s. Three wetland systems, namely Sand Point Sloughs, Pinery Lakes, and Mud Lakes have been the focus areas. Operating from 1902-1919 about 4-miles north of Sand Point, Mass Mill disposed approximately six-billion pounds of mine waste rock tailings known as stamp sand into Lake Superior’s Keweenaw Bay. Lake currents move the stamp sands southward onto Sand Point beaches. In the early 2000s, it was estimated that approximately 500,000 cubic yards of stamp sands covered a total of seventy-one-acres at Sand Point. The low nutrient content, coarse texture, and heavy metal content combine to construct a human-created wasteland. Sand Point’s waste rock contains measurable, harmful levels of copper, iron, mercury, and arsenic in the soils, groundwater, surface waters, and fish. The sands have high levels of heavy metals. This project is designed to serve the interests of KBIC, to understand the uptake and accumulation of toxic metals in food crops from contaminated mine tailings.

Undergraduate students will work in collaboration with KBIC to collect and analyze water, sediment, soil, and plant samples to understand the movement of metals in wild rice at Sand Point Sloughs wetlands. In addition to sampling, extraction, and analytical methods for environmental samples, students will learn to calculate human health risk from exposure to toxic metals. Students will be given laboratory safety training and trained in fieldwork protocols. Students will interact with the KBIC Wildlife Biologist, Erin Johnston, and environmental specialist Dione Price, with expertise in wildlife, habitat, and wetlands surveys.