State to Eliminate Fish Advisory Program?

Many states across the country are slashing their budgets for the second year in a row. And this year, some Midwest states are making cuts in their fish advisory programs. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer reports, Ohio could be the first state in the region to eliminate its fish advisory program altogether:

Transcript

Many states across the country are slashing their budgets for the
second year in a row. And this year, some Midwest states
are making cuts in their fish advisory programs. As the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer reports, Ohio could be the first state
in the region to eliminate its fish advisory program altogether:


The state says it will have to cut the ten-year old program that informs
Ohioans about the safety of eating fish caught in local waters. Jay Carey
is a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, which works with two other
state agencies to produce the annual fish advisories. Carey says state
budget cuts left the health department with no resources to continue the
program. But he says there may yet be a way to keep the advisories intact.


“The Ohio Department of Health is going to be meeting with the Ohio
Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources
before the next budget cycle to see if there’s another way we can fund our
health assessment portion of the fish advisory program.”


In addition to providing people with essential health information, fish
tissue testing also gives policymakers important water quality data. Other
states like Michigan have already cut back their programs in response to
budget cuts, but so far none has been eliminated.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Schaefer.