walleye - The Environment Report

Ten Threats: Mercury and Health Problems

Fish advisories warn about possible mercury contamination, but many people aren't aware of the risks. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s no disputing that fish is healthful food, but too much of certain
kinds of fish can be dangerous, especially if you’re a woman planning to
have children. That’s because some fish contain elevated levels of
mercury. Mercury is a toxic contaminant that can cause neurological
damage. Julie Halpert filed this report about the harms mercury can
cause:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’ One of the
threats identified by experts was air pollution that in turn pollutes the
lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide
in this series. He says the next report looks at one pollutant that
eventually affects people.

Three years ago, when she was 18, Ayla Brown was healthy, but
suddenly, she started getting sick all the time. She was always tired, she
became anemic and had sore throats. Her tonsils had deteriorated so
much that they had to be removed. Her doctor couldn’t figure out why,
so he decided to test her for heavy metals poisoning.

The result? Ayla’s mercury levels were off the charts. They were five
times higher than the normal level. Her entire family was tested and
their levels also were above normal.

“The only conclusion we could come to is that in the past year or so since
we had moved to Ann Arbor, we had started eating a lot of fish and a lot
of fish that we now know is very known to be high in mercury, such as
swordfish and tuna and stuff like that.”

The Browns ate several meals of fish every week. Some of it was
ocean fish. Some of it was Great Lakes fish. After the diagnosis, they
cut fish out of their diet altogether. Within a year, the mercury levels
returned to normal.

“You are trying so hard to eat healthy and my family always was very
health conscious and so it’s so frustrating when you’ve done something
that you thought was good for you and realize that it was completely the
wrong thing.”

Fish are generally considered part of a healthy diet, but not all fish are
entirely safe. That’s because of mercury. Mercury exists naturally in the
environment at low levels, but higher amounts are getting into the food
chain.

Coal-burning power plants emit mercury, which eventually settles into
the Great Lakes. Then, aquatic microorganisms convert the substance
into methyl mercury, which is more toxic.

Those microorganisms form the base of the food chain. Small fish eat
microorganisms. Then, larger fish eat the smaller ones. As that happens,
the mercury concentrations escalate, making big large mouth fish like
trout, salmon and some walleye especially contaminated.

When people eat the fish, the mercury is passed on to them. Women of
childbearing age and their fetuses are most at risk.

Michael Carvan is with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Great
Lakes Water Institute. He says the exposure isn’t just from the fish that
women eat while they’re pregnant. A woman can pass her entire lifetime
load of mercury to her baby. He says that 15% of all women of
childbearing age have high enough levels so that their fetuses will
contain mercury of one part per million or higher.

“Even at really low levels, around one part per million, you’re talking
about some subtle coordination difficulties, you’re talking about
problems with memory and problems with neuro-processing and IQ
deficits.”

Because of these concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory for women of
childbearing age and children, suggesting they eat fish and shellfish only
twice a week.

But one expert is concerned by all this talk about how mercury harms
people. John Dellinger was on a task force, which provided guidance on
fish consumption advisories. Dellinger studied people who lived on
Lake Superior who he thought would eat a lot of fish, but he found
something else.

“We basically discovered that from an epidemiologic point of view, these
populations have other things that are adversely affecting their health,
that in fact will probably overshadow anything we’re going to see from
the contaminants in their fish.”

Dellinger said the people were so concerned about contaminants in
fish, that they started relying on store-bought, processed food instead.
Those foods were higher in fat and sugar and contained other, less
healthful, ingredients. So, obesity and diabetes caused health problems,
not mercury poisoning, and Dellinger says that ended up being a worse
situation.

He says the key is to choose wisely, avoiding fish such as swordfish,
tuna steaks and the larger predator Great Lakes fish that are high in
mercury. That’s the only measure you can take right now, but that doesn’t
solve the problem. The real challenge will be to get rid of the mercury
that ends up contaminating the fish.

For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

Ten Threats: Break in the Food Chain?

Diporeia are disappearing from Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. The actual size of a diporeia is ½ an inch. (Courtesy of the EPA)

Some of the life in the Great Lakes has been hit hard by industry and trade. Pollution and
invasive species have hurt some of the native plants and animals important to the food
chain. While popular game fish might be the first to come to mind, it’s a little organism
at the bottom of the food chain that has biologists and fishing experts most concerned.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

In a survey, experts said one of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is a disappearing
species. Some native fish populations and organisms are declining. Our guide through
the Ten Threats series is Lester Graham.

(Sound of swinging doors)

Jack Donlan is taking me behind the fish counter at Donlan’s Fish House. In the
backroom he’s scaling and filleting some whitefish.

“Of the fishes caught in the Great Lakes, whitefish is one of the big volume fishes. Lake
perch, walleye bring more money per pound, but I would think from a tonnage-wise,
whitefish, it’s an extremely popular fish.”

This is a popular place to get Great Lakes fish, but Donlan’s suppliers, the commercial
fishers, are worried about the catch. At some places in the Great Lakes whitefish aren’t
doing too well.

(Sound of Lake Guardian motors)

Tom Nalepa is trying to figure out why whitefish are struggling. He’s onboard the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency research ship, the Lake Guardian. Nalepa is a
biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes
Environmental Research Lab. He’s been studying Lakes Michigan and Huron, and on
this day he’s getting ready to study the bottom of Lake Erie.

He’s not studying whitefish. He’s actually looking for a tiny shrimp-like crustacean, only an
eighth to a quarter inch long, called diporeia. Eighty-percent of the whitefish diet is
made up of diporeia.

“And what we’re seeing is a dramatic drop in populations, and not only drops, but there are
large areas now in all the lakes, except Lake Superior, that no longer have diporeia. This
is real concern because diporeia is a very important fish food.”

Researchers used to find eight to 10-thousand diporeia or more in a square meter of sediment just
a few years ago. Now, there are only a dozen or so, or none at all. Diporeia is one of the
mainstays of the bottom of the food chain, and Nalepa says whitefish aren’t the only ones
that eat the tiny critters in the sediment at the bottom of the lakes.

“Just about every type of species found in the Great Lakes will feed on diporeia at some
stage in its life-cycle. Diporeia is high in calories and has a high-energy content. It’s a
very good food, nutritious food source for fish.”

Without it, fish are not getting enough to eat. Marc Gaden is with the Great Lakes
Fishery Commission. He says when diporeia disappears, commercial fishers can’t help
but notice.

“Right now we’re seeing skinnier whitefish. Whitefish that are somewhat emaciated in
some areas because they just don’t have as much of these low-end of the food web organisms
to eat, and we think it’s related to an invasive species that came in.”

That invasive species is the zebra mussel, and more recently another invader that was
likely carried to the lakes in the ballasts of ocean-going cargo ships, the quagga mussels.

Back on the Lake Guardian, Tom Nalepa says he’s seen the connection again and again.

“There’s no question that it’s related to zebra mussels and quagga mussels. In every area
that we’ve studied, regardless of the lake area, declines were happening a couple of years
after the quagga mussel or zebra mussel were first found, but that connection remains
elusive.”

Biologists thought the invasive mussels might have been filtering out all of the food the
diporeia eat, but when they find diporeia, they don’t appear to be starving. They appear
healthy. Now, scientists are wondering if there’s some kind of disease or toxin spread
by the mussels that’s wiping out the diporeia.

Even if researchers learn why the diporeia are disappearing, there might be nothing that
can be done to help. Some scientists worry that the decline of diporeia and other
organisms at the base of the food chain might ultimately lead to a massive collapse of fish
stocks in the Great Lakes.

For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Ten Threats: Predicting New Invaders

Some say it's only a matter of time before the Asian Carp enters the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS)

More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:

Transcript

There are new problems for the Great Lakes on the horizon. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide in a series that explains that new invasive species are one of the Ten
Threats to the Great Lakes:

(Sound of boat motor)

Jim Barta is a charter boat captain just above Lake Erie on the Detroit River. He says over the last decade, zebra mussels and other foreign species have altered the habitat of the walleye he fishes for.

Water that once had a brownish hue is now clear. That’s because Zebra mussels have eaten the algae and plankton that used to cloud the water, and that means Barta’s boat is no longer invisible to the fish he aims to hook.

“You could catch the fish a little closer to the boat because they weren’t as spooked by the boat. They weren’t as afraid of what was taking place.”

So Barta had to rethink his tactics. He now casts his lines out further, and he’s changed lures to continue catching walleye.

But there are other problems the zebra mussel is causing. Eating all the plankton means it’s stealing food at the bottom of the food chain. And, that affects how many fish survive and how much the surviving fish are able to grow.

Anthony Ricciardi is trying to help Barta, and other people who rely on a stable Great Lakes ecosystem. He’s an “invasion biologist” at McGill University in Montreal.

Ricciardi looks for evidence that can predict the next non-native species that might make it’s way into the Great Lakes. He says species that have spread throughout waterways in Europe and Asia are prime candidates to become Great Lakes invaders.

“If the organism has shown itself to be invasive elsewhere, it has the ability to adapt to new habitats, to rapidly increase in small numbers, to dominate ecosystems, or to change them in certain ways that change the rules of exsistence for everything else, and thus can cause a disruption.”

Ricciardi says most aquatic invasive species are transported to North America in the ballast tanks of ocean freighters. Freighters use ballast water to help balance their loads. Some of the foreign species hitchhike in the ballast water or in the sediment in the bottom of the ballasts.

Ships coming from overseas release those foreign species unintentionally when they pump out ballast water in Great Lakes ports. Ricciardi says one of the potential invaders that might pose the next big threat to the Great Lakes is the “killer shrimp.” Like the Zebra Mussel, it’s a native of the Black Sea.

“And it’s earned the name killer shrimp because it attacks invertebrates, all kinds of invertebrates, including some that are bigger than it is. And it takes bites out of them and kills them, but doesn’t necessarily eat them. So, it’s not immediately satiated. It actually feeds in a buffet style: it’ll sample invertebrates, and so it can leave a lot of carcasses around it.”

Ballasts on cargo ships aren’t the only way foreign species can get into the Lakes. Right now, scientists are watching as a giant Asian Carp makes its way toward Lake Michigan. It’s a voracious eater and it grows to a hundred pounds or more.

This non-native fish was introduced into the Mississippi River, when flooding allowed the carp to escape from fish farms in the South. A manmade canal near Chicago connects the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.

If it gets past an electric barrier in the canal, it could invade. Many scientists believe it’s just a matter of time. Another invasive, the sea lamprey, also got into the Great Lakes through a manmade canal.

But, researchers don’t usually know when or where an invader will show up. David Reid is a researcher for the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. He says they can’t predict the effect an invader will have when it arrives in its new ecosystem.

“That’s the problem. We don’t know when the next zebra mussel’s going to come in. We don’t know when the next sea lamprey type of organism is going to come in. Generally, if you look at the invasion history of the Great Lakes, you’re seeing about one new organism being reported probably about once every eight months.”

Knowing what the next invader might be could help biologists, fisheries experts, and fishermen know what to do to limit its spread. Invasional biologists hope that their work will help develop the most effective measures to limit harm to the Great Lakes.

For the GLRC, I’m Zach Peterson.

Government Releases Plan for Great Lakes Restoration

Congressman Rahm Emanuel speaks at the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration meeting. (Photo courtesy of house.gov)

A coalition led by the federal government is proposing a massive restoration effort for the Great Lakes. Environmental groups say they like most of what’s in the plan, but they’re worried the money to carry it out might not be there. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

The draft plan from the government’s task force makes dozens of recommendations. The recommendations include spending billions to modernize municipal sewer systems near the Lakes to cut down on pollution, new federal laws to fight invasive species, and cleaning up some of the Lakes’ most toxic spots.

Andy Buchsbaum is with the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office. He says a lot’s been done over the last few decades to clean up the Lakes, but there are signs the Lakes are still sick.

“So what you’re seeing is you are seeing real depression of the yellow perch in Lake Michigan, you’re seeing problems with whitefish – they’re sicker and leaner – and you’re seeing some crazy things happen with walleye. Right now there is a good walleye fishery in places, but they were depressed for awhile, and the fluctuations are getting wilder and wilder.”

President George Bush created the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration last year. The task force includes several federal agencies, along with state, local and tribal officials from the region. It also includes representatives from business and conservation groups.

Its members say the group’s draft proposal represents a great opportunity for governments to work together to coordinate the dozens of programs underway throughout the region to restore the Lakes. It can also help bring new money to carrying out those programs. Scott Hassett heads the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

“So if there’s a realistic likelihood of getting the kind of resources and money and brining them to bear, these eight states have to come up with a unified plan, it is a very important point in the process.”

It’s still up in the air how much all this will cost. Environmental groups estimate about twenty billion dollars over the next five years, though the EPA says it’s too soon to put a price tag on the proposal.

Tom Kiernan with the National Parks and Conservation Association. He says the plan is a good one that will make a difference, if Washington and the states commit to paying for it.

“But now we must call the question as to whether federal and state governments will fully fund this plan. If they fully fund the plan, the health of the Lakes and our collective quality of life will improve. If they do not, the Great Lakes as we know them and love them will continue to slowly die.”

The task force will collect public comment on the proposal during the next two months. It also plans to hold five public meetings on the plan throughout the Great Lakes region. The final document’s due out in December.

For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

Cormorant-Killing Policy Ruffles Feathers

Cormorant populations have risen exponentially from their previously dismal numbers. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)

Across the Great Lakes region, the recovery of the cormorant
is booming. But some anglers and resort owners think the cormorants are eating too many of the fish that people like to eat. In some areas, wildlife managers have resorted to killing cormorants on popular fishing lakes. In one case, critics say there’s not enough evidence to justify the killing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Across the Great Lakes region the recovery of the cormorant is booming. But some anglers and resort owners think the cormorants are eating too many of the fish that people like to eat. In some areas, wildlife managers have resorted to killing cormorants on popular fishing lakes. In one case, critics say there’s not enough evidence to justify the killing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Larry Jacobson is the third generation in his family to run the Hiawatha Beach Resort on Leech Lake, about two hundred miles north of Minneapolis. Three years ago, on fishing opener weekend, all of his twenty-one cabins were full. This year, he had no guests. Jacobson says the word has spread that fishing is down on Leech Lake. He blames the cormorants. The birds nest on a small island in the south end of the lake. Eight years ago, there were fifty nests; last year, there were two thousand five hundred.

“The cormorants eat about a pound fish a day. The way the population was just exploding out there, you could see writing was on the wall, that this was really going to make dramatic impact.”

Jacobson says his guests are still catching big walleye, but the smaller, pan-sized walleye are getting hard to find.

There are several reasons why the walleye population might be down, but Jacobson and other business owners blame it on the cormorants, and they’ve asked the Department of Natural Resources to do something about the birds.

“Leech needs to be maintained as high quality fishery. There’s such an economic impact to the area from walleyes, that if you don’t maintain it that way, everyone’s going to be suffering.”

(Sound of boat motor)

Resource officials are responding to the resort owners’ concerns. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe owns the island. John Ringle is wildlife manager for the tribe.

“Okay we’re headed right at Little Pelican Island right now.”

Little Pelican Island is about three acres of sand and scruffy shrubs. Hundreds of cormorants cover the shore. Ringle says they fish out here in the open waters of Leech Lake.

“They’re omnivorous so they’re eating all sorts of different varieties of fish. Right now they’re probably eating large numbers of perch.”

Ringle is working with state and federal agencies to reduce the number of cormorants nesting here, eating fish, and crowding out other birds, such as the endangered common tern.

Normally, cormorants are a federally protected bird, just like eagles. That’s because they were almost wiped out by the insecticide DDT before it was banned in 1973. But a new rule allows resource officials to harass and even kill cormorants where they’re damaging other wildlife.

This summer, workers are sitting in hunting blinds on Little Pelican Island, shooting cormorants. They use air rifles to make as little noise as possible, so the other cormorants aren’t spooked away.

So far, they’ve killed more than two thousand birds. They plan to leave about five hundred nesting pairs alive. Ringle says nobody’s happy about shooting cormorants, but he says he thinks it’s necessary.

RINGLE: “My philosophy is that as mankind utilizes the resource, we have to manage them, we’re not in finite supply.”

HEMPHILL: “Do you think we know enough to manage them?”

RINGLE: “Not really. I think the public is demanding action prior to any conclusive study being conducted.”

And that’s a big problem for Francie Cuthbert. She’s a professor and cormorant researcher at the University of Minnesota. Cuthbert says the agencies that want to cut down the cormorant population skipped an important part of the management process: finding out what’s actually happening on Leech Lake.

“They’re really being driven by complaints from citizens and resort owners who are concerned about local economics, and who just don’t like the birds; they’re afraid of the numbers. If we responded to all natural resources conflicts this way, we’d be in a state of chaos.”

Cuthbert says even with the cormorants’ dramatic comeback since the days of DDT, there still aren’t as many as there were a hundred years ago. She says rather than kill cormorants, wildlife officials should try to boost the number of fish.

The state of Minnesota is working on that. It’s stocking Leech Lake with walleye for the first time this year. Conservation officials are studying some of the birds they killed to find out what they’re eating. And the state is also limiting what size of walleye anglers can catch so the fish can recover.

That makes resort owners like Larry Jacobson nervous, because he says a lot of anglers don’t like the limits. But at least he’s glad someone’s doing something.

“The fishery is a business, there’s no question about that. If you want to sustain our economy in this area, you’ve got to manage the lake.”

Workers will continue shooting cormorants occasionally through the summer. And the control effort could continue. Experts say it’ll take several years for the fish to recover enough to draw anglers back to the lake.

For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Mercury Rule’s Impact on Great Lakes Fish

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Environmental Protections Agency has a new rule to reduce mercury
emissions from coal-burning power plants. But it might mean higher
concentrations of mercury in fish in some inland lakes. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

The Bush administration’s EPA rule will use a cap and trade program to
reduce mercury. That means that overall mercury emissions will go down
over time, but some dirtier power plants can buy the rights to emit higher
levels of mercury. That could cause mercury hot spots. Higher levels of
mercury in nearby lakes would work up the food chain and concentrate
in fish. Mercury can cause neurological damage, especially to young
children. The toxin also can be passed on to fetuses.

Canadian studies last year already have shown higher levels of mercury in
people who regularly eat Great Lakes fish. The problem is expected to
become more severe in mercury hotspots.

Historically, walleye has had more mercury than some other types of fish in
the Great Lakes, but other large fish such trout and salmon, can also have
higher levels of mercury in their flesh.

For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Walleye Discovery to Change Management Practices

Researchers have found a strain of walleye that is adapted specifically to the Ohio River. (Photo Courtesy of the USGS)

Scientists have identified a unique strain of walleye that lives in the Ohio River. The discovery has wildlife officials thinking about the way things were and how they could be once again. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight explains:

Transcript

Scientists have identified a unique strain of walleye that lives in
the Ohio River.
The discovery has wildlife officials thinking about the way things
were and how they could be once again.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight explains:

Fishing for walleye is a big sport on Lake Erie, but many people do
not know that the fish also live in the Ohio River.
Matthew White is a Biological Sciences professor at Ohio University.
He helped determine that the Ohio River walleye have a different
genetic
make-up from those in Lake Erie and other northern lakes.

White says the original walleye species was severed from the other
tens of thousands of years ago when the river that is now the Ohio was
blocked and stopped flowing into Lake Erie.

“These walleye evolved in the river, so they’re well adapted to the
river environment. And these walleye have also survived the 100 years of
abuse that we heaped on the river.”

Armed with this new information, wildlife officials are taking steps
to alter their practice of importing Lake Erie Walleye.
Instead, they’ll use the native species for their stocking program.

For the GLRC, I’m Fred Kight.

Epa Administrator Touring Great Lakes

This spring, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt was asked to head up a task force to coordinate local, state, and federal agencies in cleaning up the Great Lakes. Now he’s touring the region to learn more. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lucy Nalpathanchil reports:

Transcript

This spring, EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt was asked to head up a task
force to coordinate local, state, and federal agencies in cleaning up the
Great Lakes. Now he’s touring the region to learn more. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lucy Nalpathanchil reports:

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt recently stopped in Buffalo, New York to see
Lake Erie firsthand. Leavitt met up with two local fisherman and he tried to catch some walleye.
He came back empty handed but the fishermen did teach him about how invasive species are
impacting the Great Lakes.

“I had the chance to actually see a zebra mussel. And to understand from
their perspective of 100 years what’s changed in the lake and what their
aspirations are. They told me about wanting the next generation to be able to
catch blue. They haven’t caught any since the 50’s.”

Leavitt will visit other Great Lakes communities this summer. A report by his task force on Great
Lakes cleanup is due next year.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lucy Nalpathanchil.

The COMPLEXITIES OF ISSUING FISH ADVISORIES (Part I)

Fish is healthy food, but contamination from pollution means people should limit the amount of inland lake and river fish they eat. Photo by Lester Graham.
States are struggling with ways to warn people, especially women of childbearing years and children, about the hazards of eating too much sport fish contaminated with toxic chemicals.

There are three major questions often asked when considering the environmental health of a body of water. Can you drink the water? Can you swim in it? And… can you eat the fish? Often the answer to the last question is very complicated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the first report in a two-part series on the fish that ends up on your table:

Transcript

There are three major questions often asked when considering the
environmental health of a body of water. Can you drink the water? Can you
swim in it? And… can you eat the fish? Often the answer to the last
question is very complicated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham has the first report in a two-part series on the fish that ends up on
your table:

Mark Ford goes fishing almost every weekday. This day, he’s at a small
marina off of Lake Michigan. He’s carrying several rods and reels and a
couple of tackle boxes with him to an old dock…

Lester Graham: “Now, what do you fish for?”

Mark Ford: “Right now, whatever bites on the hook. Basically, I fish for bass,
catfish, walleye.”

This day, he’s just testing some new gear…

“Set my drag. Too loose.”

When Ford got his fishing license, he also got a guide telling him that the fish
he eats is contaminated. All inland lakes have some level of contamination
which could include pesticides, PCBs, and mercury.

Ford has a pretty good idea about what to do to reduce his exposure to the contaminants when he eats the fish..

“Yeah, first thing you want to do is cut off all excess fat to get away from a lot of the chemical
pollutants that’s not in the actual meat of the fish. That’s where most of the chemicals lie, in the fat. So, you cut that off and get to cookin’.”

Ford’s preparation is a good start. Trimming the fat will reduce exposure to PCBs and
similar compounds that are stored in fatty tissue. And just cooking the fish reduces some of the exposure to contaminants. But if a contaminant such as methyl mercury is present in the flesh of the fish, no amount of rinsing, boiling or frying will change that.

Unfortunately, many anglers are not as well informed as Mark Ford. A study in Canada
found a lot fishers don’t understand the contaminants or what to do about them. They judge
whether the fish is safe to eat by how well it fights on the line… by the color of the
flesh… or by the clearness of the eye. None of those things is an indicator of whether a fish is contaminated by toxic chemicals.

Alan Hayton is with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. He says how much fish are
contaminated depends on the body of water. A ban on PCBs in manufacturing
has helped, although there are still decades worth of the pollutant in some lake
sediments. Agricultural pesticide restrictions and bans have helped reduce
contaminants in some other lakes.

“Well, if you want – are fish getting better or worse? Certainly over the years,
when you look at the Great Lakes, there’s been a considerable decline in the level of
contaminants in fish. Many of the inland lakes, both in Ontario and elsewhere – not
just around the Great Lakes, but elsewhere – there’s mercury in those fish. Mercury
concentrations don’t appear to be changing. They seem to be quite stable.
So, we find that in quite a high proportion of the inland lakes there are some consumption
restrictions.”

Mercury remains a problem because as coal-fired power plants release mercury
into the air… it’s brought down into watersheds by rain. There the problem is
complicated in some areas by any number of factors, including some bacteria that transform
simple mercury into the more toxic methyl mercury.

So, some bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, have lower levels of some
pollutants, but some other contaminants are just as bad as ever. To complicate things
even more, some fish are more contaminated than others.

Faith Shottenfeld is with the New York State Department of Health.

“You know, it’s complicated because it’s going to vary from state to state, from body of
water to body of water and from fish species to fish species.”

Shottenfeld says that makes getting the message to anglers all the more difficult.
States are trying to figure out how to get the information to the people who eat
the fish, but there are very few general guidelines.

“So, I think that the best way to work your way through the complexities
is to really have a dialogue with somebody who understands the advisories and can
help you figure out what you need to do.”

But generally speaking, eating smaller fish, and limiting sport fish meals from local lakes to about once a week for men and once a month for women helps.

Angler Mark Ford says he’s not worried. He says to him, the health benefits of
fish offset the health risks of the contaminants.

“A month, I’d say I eat about twelve to 15 pounds of fish. I eat a lot of fish.
I like fish. Fish is healthy for you, too. It’s low in cholesterol if you cut the fat away from
it. It’s good brain food. That’s scientifically proven. And, if you prepare it
right, it tastes good!”

And Ford says he’s healthy. But experts indicate it’s hard to say what long-term
exposure to the contaminants in sport fish from area lakes will mean to human
health. They caution that children and women of child-bearing age should severely
restrict their intake of sport fish because the contaminants can damage the
development of fetuses and children.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

The COMPLEXITIES OF ISSUING FISH ADVISORIES (Short Version)

States are struggling with ways to warn people, especially women of childbearing years and children, about the hazards of eating too much sport fish contaminated with toxic chemicals.

Health officials are trying to get the word out about contaminants in sport fish. But the issue is complicated. So, it’s difficult to give people an easy answer on how to reduce the health risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Health officials are trying to get the word out about contaminants in sport fish. But the
issue is complicated. So, it’s difficult to give people an easy answer on how to reduce
the health risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Sport fish contain contaminants such as PCBs, pesticides, and mercury. But the amount
of contaminants in a fish depends on the body of water, the species of fish, and
even the age of the fish. So, there are very few general guidelines. That makes it difficult for
health officials to tell people what’s best for them.

Faith Shottenfeld is with the New York State Department of Public Health. She says safe
consumption levels vary.

“For some fish, a meal a week, a meal a month. You certainly can talk in general
about eating smaller fish because as you move your way up the food chain, you
know, the bigger fish eat the little fish so they get more and more and more chemicals,
but there are some examples of smaller fish that are highly contaminated.”

Shottenfeld notes that children and women of childbearing age are at more risk
from ill effects of the contaminants in fish than men. She says the best bet is to talk to someone
who’s familiar with your state and area’s fish consumption advisories.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Tag: walleye

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