The findings are based on samples gathered from 47 garden plots in the area in 2020, as part of a two-year study that aims to answer the question: is it safe to eat vegetables grown in gardens around Yellowknife, Ndilǫ and Dettah?
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Available Expert - Queen’s Geologists help to solve the mystery of how arsenic got into the soils in the Yellowknife area
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Queen’s University expert Heather Jamieson (Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering and Environmental Studies) is available to speak to the media about research by Queen’s graduate students, Dr. Jamieson and other colleagues. The senior author is Michael Palmer, manager of the North Slave Research Centre, Aurora College, Yellowknife regarding arsenic contamination in the region around Giant Mine in Yellowknife, NWT. The research was published in The Science of the Total Environment
“We have the tools here at Queen’s that can distinguish the particles of arsenic trioxide that were released from the Giant Mine roaster stack from natural arsenic in the soil samples. For many years, people thought that the arsenic was naturally high in near surface soils in the Yellowknife area (because of the bedrock geology), but w