Nurdles in Nipigon Bay: Local Microplastics Concern (Videos)
CLICK ON VIDEO (above) TO WATCH (scroll past article for Part 2 of video below)
What’s a nurdle? Glad you asked.
Nurdles are a pre-production plastic pellet about 1 to 5mm in diameter, and they’re on the North Shore’s doorstep.
The InfoSuperior Team learned of nurdles washing up on Lake Superior’s North Shore from a Nipigon Bay resident, Chuck Hutterli. He contacted our office at Lakehead University with pictures from a recent cleanup he had done on the beach in front of his home. Hutterli and his wife Danielle live some 45 minutes outside of Nipigon, residing directly on Lake Superior’s North Shore.
After a recent storm, Hutterli invited us to see the nurdles for ourselves. When we showed up, we could see sizeable groups of the microplastics washed up on a stretch of shoreline about a kilometre in length.
While he appreciates CP Rail’s efforts, he admits he is still frustrated after seeing the nurdles continuously wash up on shore. It’s hard to keep up, especially after a storm.“When we get these [beads] in wind rows, they’re fairly easy to pick up,” he says. “But if a week or two passes and people are walking on them, they get disturbed. They become even more difficult to pick up.”
One of Hutterli’s cats strolls among the nurdles. Photo InfoSuperior
“I’d like to know where they’re vectoring in from,” he says.
He’s not alone in wondering. People along the North Shore have been puzzling over the pellets for years. Hutterli tells us they’ve shown up in Sault Ste. Marie, Pancake Bay, and Rossport. Last fall, Northern Hoot profiled similar concerns by Jeremy Frech, a kayaker who found the pellets on six beaches between Sault Ste. Marie, ON and Wawa, ON, all consistent in colour and size. They also spoke with Dr. Patricia Corcoran, Associate Professor with the Department of Earth Sciences at Western University, who has been studying the beads and their source since 2009.
In August 2015, a reporter from SooToday.com spoke to Kate Jordan, a Ministry of Environment and Climate Change rep, about potential impacts on wildlife since the accident. Jordan said that “Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry fish sampling has not turned up any accumulations of the beads in Lake Superior fish, nor of damage to birds or bird habitat.”
Hutterli is part of an burgeoning environmental group in Nipigon, and the nurdles are a topic that will be tabled at their first meeting. The group aims to share existing knowledge about the nurdles, engage in productive discussion about their impact, and explore collaborative solutions for clean up efforts going forward.
Anyone is welcome to the meeting. It will be held at 7pm on May 3rd, at Lake Helen Community Centre, just outside of Nipigon. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be served. If you can’t attend, join the meeting via livestream at www.infosuperior.com.
Click on video to watch(Scroll up for Part 1 of video above article)
