Mount Arsenic? (Image: Gordon Wiltsie/Getty)

Following in Edmund Hillary’s footsteps? Don’t drink the water on your way up. Dangerous levels of arsenic and cadmium have been found in snow samples from mount Everest.

Both heavy metals were found at levels higher than those the US Environmental Protection Agency considers acceptable, says Samantha Langley-Turnbaugh of the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.

Langley-Turnbaugh’s student Bill Yeo climbed most of the way up Everest in 2006, taking soil and snow samples every 300 metres between 5334 and 7772 metres up. All the snow samples had high levels of arsenic and cadmium, and all the soil samples had high levels of arsenic.


Steep challenge

Mountaineers rely on melted snow for drinking water, so the toxic metals “could be a concern”, says Langley-Turnbaugh. It is not clear how much of the pollution makes its way into rivers further down the mountain, where it might enter the local drinking water.

High winds blow the contaminated soil around as dust, so breathing it in could also pose a risk. “People at Everest base camp often wear ventilators, simply because there is so much dust,” Langley-Turnbaugh says.

Air pollution from Asian industry is probably to blame. Concentrations of both arsenic and cadmium were higher in the soil further up the mountain, as would be expected if high-altitude winds were depositing them.

Langley-Turnbaugh says there is very little information available about pollution on high mountains like Everest – because to get samples you have to climb them.

Journal reference: Soil Survey Horizons, vol 51, p 72