Effect of copper mill waste material on benthic invertebrates and zooplankton diversity and abundance in Lake Superior beaches

From 1900 to 1932 a copper (Cu) mill operated near Gay, Michigan, along the eastern shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula (Lake Superior, Michigan) and discharged waste material (stamp sands [SS]) to a nearby beach. These SS escaped containment structures and have been redeposited by wave action along the beaches in northern Grand Traverse Bay and onto Buffalo Reef, an important spawning area for native fish. Newly hatched fish move into nearby beach habitats where they grow during their first summer. Juvenile fish initially consume zooplankton before switching to benthic invertebrates once they are large enough. SS contain metals (especially Cu) that are toxic to many invertebrate taxa, and studies have observed few benthic taxa in areas covered by SS. We sampled the invertebrate community from four Lake Whitefish nursery areas: one near Buffalo Reef with high SS, one south of the Traverse River with moderate SS, one in nearby Little Traverse Bay with little SS, and a beach ∼58 km away with no SS (Big Bay). We also resampled the benthos at sites that had been sampled as part of an earlier Grand Traverse Bay study. Buffalo Reef (high SS) had fewer benthic taxa, and less density of several taxa than Little Traverse Bay (little SS), especially benthic copepods. All beaches had comparable zooplankton diversity, but the abundance was ∼2 orders of magnitude lower at Buffalo Reef (high SS) than other beaches. Cu and several other metals were elevated at beaches with more SS. We found support for associations between benthic density and diversity with depth (positive effect) and Cu concentration (negative effect). Cu concentration was a better predictor of declines in benthic invertebrate abundance and diversity than SS. We also observed that the relationship between Cu concentration and SS was non-linear, and highly variable. For example, 149 mg Cu/kg dry weight sediment is a consensus toxicity threshold used in the literature, but the prediction interval around that concentration from our model is 26-851 mg Cu/kg dry weight. A better predictive model of this relationship would be beneficial to develop to understand what level of SS reduction would prevent Cu impacts on invertebrates.