On January 20th my group interviewed a man named Mike McGarry. He is an Environmental Consultant and a Ecologist. He does environmental work for a living. During our interview with him we talked about the affects that mercury has on the environment. He told us that when it is released into the atmosphere when it falls down in rain it can get into large bodies of water such as lakes and rivers. He told us mercury affects both fish and humans, because it can be found in lakes if fish are exposed to it they can become sick. The mercury can affect the way that a fish reproduces and it can affect the way that they develop. This means that mercury can be responsible for mutations and birth defects in the fish and even in other creatures as we. Mercury can also affect humans because if a human eats that fish that is infected then they too can become sick. Another way that it can affect humans is that it can get into our water supply. If it does it can be very bad for us and make us sick. During our interview with him we also asked him what he thought about micro plastics and how those affected the environment. When we asked him this he seemed to thing that it was not really a big problem. He told us that he thought micro plastics were banned and that he believed that mercury was a larger problem. He was not really correct thought because all the the research that we had done previously said that micro plastics were a very large problem. However he may have been talking about inland more in rivers and lakes because the main part of the micro plastic problem is in the ocean, not rivers and lakes. This is because in order for larger plastics to be broken down it takes a large force like wind, rain, waves and storms. Overall he helped us better understand why mercury is a problem. This interview was actually really helpful because not long after we interviewed phil about what the school was doing to make sure that the pipes do not have lead in them.
