Yellowstone River Research Center collecting data from turtles

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as forever chemicals, accumulate in water and in the organisms that use that water source. Those chemicals have links to health issues in humans, from immune disorders to cancer.

Recent Montana Department of Environmental Quality surveys identified the Yellowstone River as having elevated levels of PFAS, with a need for more monitoring.

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Rocky Mountain College professor of environmental studies, Kayhan Ostovar, has been researching turtles in the area for years. This new study will test the blood of spiny softshell and snapping turtles to determine PFAS contaminants in the waters.

“Our goal is to use an organism that's long lived in the river, it's kind of sampling the river all the time for us again as a way, as a bio-sentinal to assess the PFAS contaminants," Ostovar said recently. “If we take their blood, we can assess what’s in the water by sampling their blood, and that’s what this study’s looking at.”

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Ostovar has been working on starting this research for years. He spent last year writing grants for the project. The team recently received a small grant from the U.S. Geological Survey from the Montana State University Water Center.

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Ostovar and his team of four students started the river work last week, setting up traps in channels on the Yellowstone River to safely catch the turtles. A few days after leaving the traps, they go back to check them. They then weigh, measure and tag any softshell or snapping turtles they find.

Many of the turtles they find are already tagged, from previous research Ostovar has conducted.

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If the turtle is a male, the team will also collect its blood and separate the plasma on the river shore.

While MTN News was out with the research team, they caught the biggest snapping turtle they have ever had the opportunity to collect data from. It weighed 46.5 pounds.

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“Because (turtles are) at the top of the food chain, they’re a good indicator of what’s happening in that ecosystem,” Ostovar said. “We eat the fish out of this river. Our drinking water comes from this river.”

The data collected will assist agencies in determining PFAS "hot spots" and "at risk" zones near Billings.

“I’ve always been fascinated by reptiles because they’re really understudied," Ostovar said.

When they aren't searching for turtles, the students are cleaning the shoreline. This year they have removed 391 tires from the banks. No government agency does cleanup work on the Yellowstone, so the over 250,000 pounds of tires, old cars and litter along the banks have made a big difference on the river, not just for the people recreating, but for the animals in the environment, too.