Nike McCampbell pulled on her dry suit and air canister and walked down a concrete ramp to the edge of the water at Smitty’s Cove in Whittier.
She dove below the surface and swam about 80 yards from shore to collect water samples at different depths.
On shore, she said APU is studying how microplastics are transported through ocean currents.
“We're going to see where microplastics are moving,” McCampbell said. “We’re going to see if there's any sort of correlation in certain areas through certain time periods, if the wind and the waves are showing similar patterns and traits.”
McCampbell is part of a new team at Alaska Pacific University, or APU, in Anchorage studying microplastics — the tiny particles of plastic found in nearly every environment that can likely work their way into human tissues.
Last year the APU team got a $5 million grant from NASA to study microplastics in Alaska. In addition to their space program, NASA funds ocean research to better understand Earth’s environment.
Microplastics have already been found in the most remote corners of the state, so the university’s research aims to expand that understanding by looking at how microplastics enter all water sources, including oceans and rain. The researchers will also study the chemical properties of the microplastics they find, which can help scientists understand how the tiny particles might impact human health.
Kian Muldoon, a graduate student on the research team, said the ultimate goal of their work is to help reduce the harmful health effects of microplastics.
“We're not so concerned as necessarily showing that they're there, but knowing where they came from, and how they move, and hopefully using that research to either inform cleanup efforts or anything to try to mitigate harm,” Muldoon said.
Back at the APU lab, Muldoon and his colleagues will use new specialized equipment to help identify various microplastics in the samples.
The team has already collected samples from the summit of Denali, the Eklutna Lake watershed and Prince William Sound, where Smitty’s Cove is. That’s according to Dr. Dee Barker, a chemist and head of the research team.
Barker said with new instruments funded by the grant, the team can identify particles small enough to likely pass through human tissues and study the chemistry behind the microplastics they find.
“To find out what type of plastic is most likely to be found of a size that would enter into the human body, and then what size would transport through human tissues, and then the chemistry of that particle,” she said. “How does that interact with the chemistry of a human being?”
She said that analysis of chemistry is missing from much of the existing microplastics research.
Ultimately, Barker said, they aim to get their lab accredited for microplastics testing through the California Water Board. Dee said that would put APU’s lab among only three other labs worldwide that are accredited by the board to test for microplastics.
Once the lab is accredited, Barker said, Alaska communities can send in water samples to test for microplastics. Barker said some communities could pay for the testing but the grant funding will allow them to test water for free for communities who can’t.
“Why they've helped us get this instrumentation, is not only (to) do research, but also serve the community,” Barker said. “That's the key piece in this.”
Graduate student Muldoon said the importance of this testing was shown when they processed the water of one remote community.
“Their drinking source was a natural drinking source, was extremely clean in terms of bacteria and coliforms, extremely clean in terms of heavy metals, extremely clean in terms of PFAs, but did have microplastics,” Muldoon said.
He said that could be surprising to communities who have seemingly pristine water sources, but microplastics can travel through the atmosphere.
Pam Miller, who directs Alaska Community Action on Toxics, said many communities they work with are concerned about microplastics in water.
“This effort is really critical, because our Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has not developed a systematic way to look at microplastics in our drinking water,” Miller said.
She said it’s important to work toward prevention, too, by reducing plastics contamination on a policy level.
But for water that is already contaminated, Barker said it’s relatively easy to filter out larger microplastic particles. She said individuals can do that, even with a simple pitcher water filter at home. And she said testing water sources for microplastics is the first step in understanding how communities could protect themselves from the tiny plastic particles.
