Assessing Legacy and Emerging Contaminants in Canadian Arctic Air and Water Bodies as an Entry Point into the Arctic Food Chain: 2022-2023

Part of Canadas commitment to international agreements is to monitor levels of specific contaminants in the environment. To comply with this obligation and to know how contaminant levels are changing in the Arctic, we collected air, water, zooplankton and sediment samples for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging compounds of concern in the Canadian Archipelago during the summers of 2020, 2021 and 2022 in collaboration with ArcticNet. The major concern with these compounds is exposure to Northerners when eating traditional foods such as fish, seals and whales that are in turn exposed through the Arctic ecosystem. We have described trends for many POPs in air and water over time at different locations in the Canadian Archipelago. For example, we have documented the widespread presence of organophosphate esters in Arctic air and that levels of some could be increasing. We propose to continue to monitor these trends and to collect data to describe trends for emerging compounds of concern. This research has set baseline concentrations against which changes can be benchmarked as the climate and compound emissions change. Additionally, we propose to once again recruit and train northern students during each summer from Northern Colleges/University to participate in ArcticNet on board the CCGS Amundsen. Finally, we will visit each territory over the next three years to consult with the local community and to engage with and build capacity with high school and college students.