Tap water no longer drinkable in Norwegian town as climate-related thawing releases heavy metals

Warning for other Arctic communities as residents told not to use water in Longyearbyen in Svalbard, one of the fastest-warming places in the world

Residents of a remote town in Norway that is in one of the fastest-warming places in the world have been told they must no longer drink tap water due to heavy metal contamination that scientists have linked to the thawing permafrost.

Longyearbyen, in the archipelago of Svalbard, gets its main drinking water supply from a 1.5 mile-long (2.5km) dammed lake called Isdammen, or “ice pond”. Higher temperatures as a result of the climate crisis have thawed permafrost, leading to newly exposed bedrock leaching metals into the pond.