MERCURY CONTAMINATION

 

From 1929 until 1950, the DuPont plant located in Waynesboro, VA produced a fabric called Rayon (1). Mercury and other hazardous chemicals were used during the manufacturing process. Conveniently, the industrial plant would dump the toxic waste into the South River. Over the years, high levels of heavy metal contamination accumulated in the floodplain soils and up the food chain. Because mercury is a neurotoxin, eating fish with high mercury levels can cause serious health problems. As such, no fish, other than the rainbow trout which are stocker, should be eaten from the stream (2).  

Despite DuPont having to cough up more than $50 million dollars to the state, the damage was already done to the environment (3). To this day, more than 100 miles of river and associated floodplain remain contaminated by mercury. Although the South River is one of the most-studied rivers in the world, there has yet to be a solution for how to clean up the heavy metal contamination once it has spread into the floodplain soils and fish, wildlife, and aquatic species. (1). It is clear that mercury remediation will require a collaborative effort and a strategy that “can link project performance criteria, decision-maker preferences, environmental models, and short- and long-term monitoring information with management choices to help shape a remediation approach that provides useful information for adaptive, incremental implementation” (4).
 
For more info, check out this video:

The Story Of Mercury In The South River Watershed: South River Currents | SRWC

 
1. Fish Consumption Advisories. South River Watershed Coalition. (2022). Retrieved from: https://southriverwatershed.org/advisories  

2. Foran, C. M., Baker, K. M., Grosso, N. R., & Linkov, I. (2015). An enhanced adaptive management approach for remediation of Legacy Mercury in the South River. PLOS ONE. Retrieved from: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0117140  

3. Hirschman, D. (n.d.). Following the threads: Rayon, Mercury, and the South River Watershed. Hirschman Water & Environment, LLC. Retrieved from: https://hirschmanwater.com/the-interweaving-story-of-rayon-mercury-and-the-south-river-watershed/  

4. Stewart, C. (2016). Dupont to pay $50 million over Mercury dumped in South River. https://www.whsv.com. Retrieved from: https://www.whsv.com/content/news/Dept-of-Justice-reaches-50-million-settlement-with-DuPont-over-mercury-dumped-in-South-River-406880795.html