PCB-Laden Salmon Polluting Alaskan Lakes
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
A new study says some of Alaska’s pristine and remote lakes are being polluted with industrial PCBs through an unlikely source: sockeye salmon.
The fish pick up the chemicals in the northern Pacific Ocean and then return to the lakes to spawn. When they die, their bodies release the pollutant, raising PCB concentrations in lake sediment more than sevenfold in some cases, researchers conclude Thursday in the journal Nature.
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