A few months into its development, the Alaska and Arctic Waterways Analytics lab at Alaska Pacific University has already found microplastics in water samples taken all over Alaska.

APU received a $5 million grant from NASA's Minority University Research and Education Project Institutional Research Opportunity, which allowed Dee Barker, an associate professor of chemistry and environmental science at APU, to purchase a cutting-edge microscope and spectrometer. This instrument has the ability to identify the chemical composition of plastics in water samples.

Microplastics are plastic particles that are 5 millimeters — the size of a grain of rice — or smaller. Since plastic is not biodegradable, it slowly breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces over time. Microplastics have been found in every ecosystem on Earth.

The Alaska and Arctic Waterways Analytics lab that APU is currently in the process of developing hopes to gain accreditation from the California Water Resources Control Board in about a year.

The lab aims to be self-sufficient by the time funding from the NASA award runs out. The facility will potentially become the first microplastics lab in Alaska to be accredited by the California board, which was the only statewide organization in the U.S. to implement regulations for testing microplastics in water. Once it's accredited, the Anchorage lab will charge to test water for microplastics. Barker hopes this income could also offset the cost for rural communities that are concerned about their water and also want to have their water tested.

The NASA funding will help the lab begin "to get these protocols and materials" and "our training up to speed," Barker said this month about the journey to accreditation.

The lab is following protocols from the California water board to ensure that each step is standardized. By standardizing each step, results can be compared easier, according to Barker.

The Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometer microscope enables Barker and other researchers to find and identify the chemical composition of particles down to 5 microns in size. A micron is one-millionth of a meter. Researchers like Barker hope to go the extra mile to confirm that what she and other researchers are seeing is, in fact, plastics.

Microplastic research is fairly new to Barker, who received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of South Florida. A few years ago, a couple of her students were interested in researching microplastics, however APU did not have the tools they needed.

"I was so invested in this, that's when I had sort of the wake-up call," Barker said. "I had to do this due diligence to serve the community."

Barker wrote draft after draft, budget rewrite after budget rewrite — she even pulled "four or five" all-nighters until she had a polished application to submit to NASA. Four months later, Barker heard that they had received the award and a cooperative agreement had been formed.

"NASA has provided this for us, their goal is to look at microplastics and drinking water," Barker said.

A couple years ago, Barker and other researchers worked with a remote community in the Norton Sound area, looking at their traditional drinking water source. Those sources included natural streams and springs. According to Barker, the community was interested in the researchers looking at "the chemicals that might be in the water."

"It was amazing how clean it was," said Barker.

Although the water was clean, Barker was shocked by what she found: "a lot of particles" that appeared to be plastics.

She hypothesized that through atmospheric deposition — where airborne microplastics get transported — these microplastics landed on the water they were sampling.

"In the few days that we were out there collecting water ... there was a wind current that was blowing off the ocean toward the area where we were collecting," said Barker. "We're suspecting that this was material that was blowing off the ocean."

This lab isn't just for researchers, Barker says, "it's also for student explorations and projects."

In 2024, Barker partnered with two students from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who collected snow from various altitudes on their trek to the summit of Denali.

"We were surprised, even near the summit, plastics in the remote areas and in the high-traffic areas" were almost the same concentration, said Barker.

She is still working with this data to see if the microplastics were also a result of atmospheric deposition. Another group went up Denali, collecting samples as they ascended. Barker hopes to compare the samples from both Denali trips to see if there is a consistency.

Denali is not the only area that students have traversed to in order to collect samples. Nathan Anderson, associate professor of environmental science at APU, rafted the Yukon River with a group of students. As they traveled, the group would take samples from the river.

Turning toward glaciers, Jason Geck, professor of environmental science at APU, took ice cores of the Eklutna Glacier. Barker hopes to use these ice core samples to see when microplastics came into this environment. She can do this by seeing where the concentrations of plastics lie within the core.

Providing nearly 90% of the drinking water for the Municipality of Anchorage, Eklutna Lake was one of the urban water sources tested by Barker. She found microplastics in the water from Eklutna Lake, Chester Creek, Campbell Creek and University Lake.

They often find plastics "in home systems that are municipal based or have trucked water," Barker said.

"It's going to be more of a problem ... our communities are going to pay attention to and try to mitigate," Barker said.

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