History of Industrial Pollution in Cataño, Puerto Rico

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The municipality of Cataño in the San Juan Metro Area has long been impacted by industrial pollution, beginning with early colonial gold extraction and smelting in the 16th Century, the monocultural plantation export economy, and, more recently, due to a petroleum refinery and other large-scale industrial activities. The effects of air contaminants on the health of the residents of Cataño are documented, but the deep-time accumulated pollution in water and sediments, as well as their impact on the ecosystem health of the area’s wetlands have not been well studied. In this project we focus on the last 200 – 500 years to investigate the levels and types of industrial pollution and the impacts on aquatic microfaunal communities. Using sediment cores, we analyze stratigraphic, geochemical, and microfossil data, to investigate the effects of past and present industrialization on ecosystem health and its potential impact on human health.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow