"But now, researchers from the San Jose State University Moss Landing Marine Lab are isolating clues in an environmentally sensitive waterway known as Elkhorn Slough. "If you think about those particles being airborne, you know, just think about having a box of confetti that explodes. And so they will, you know, they will fall, they will settle away from the from the area where they're coming from, which is what's happening with the smoke plume," said marine geologist Ivano Aiello, Ph.D."
"Aiello said the ash spread across the nearby slough in a thin, patchy layer. He and his team were able to compare the material they recovered to soil samples they'd collected before the fire. Using an X-ray fluorescence detector, they identified increased levels of three different metals: nickel, manganese and cobalt."
"Amanda Khan, Ph.D., is a marine scientist with the lab. She and her colleagues are testing tissue samples from several species to identify early clues. "And so, the ratio of nickel to cobalt was different in January than what we saw in February. But notice I'm not saying that we can say that we detect battery"
Smoke from a January battery storage facility fire at Moss Landing deposited ash across Elkhorn Slough. Ash settled as a thin, patchy layer and was compared to pre-fire soil samples. X-ray fluorescence detected increased levels of nickel, manganese and cobalt in recovered material. A distinctive nickel-to-cobalt ratio provides a fingerprint suggestive of a battery source, but potential ecological effects remain unknown. Questions persist about whether metals washed away with winter rains or entered the soil and food chain. Elkhorn Slough is a research reserve home to otters, crabs and native oysters. Researchers are testing tissue samples from multiple species for early contamination clues.
Read at ABC7 San Francisco
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