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The West Virginia Department of
Health and Human Resources provides detailed
information on this fish advisory online at
http://www.wvdhhr.org/fish/current.asp
Fish mercury poisoning
warning goes statewide
W.Va. residents advised to limit eating of sport fish
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer
Coal River Mountain Watch,
www.crmw.net, December 14, 2004
West Virginians should limit
their consumption of fish from all state rivers and streams because of
high levels of mercury poisoning, state regulators announced Monday.
The statewide advisory -- the first of its kind in West Virginia -- warns
residents not to eat more than one meal per week of all sport fish except
rainbow trout.
For some species, including bass and catfish, state officials advised as
few as one or two meals per month.
The general advisory also continues fish consumption warnings for dioxin
and PCBs for 17 rivers and lakes, including the Kanawha, Ohio and Potomac
rivers.
State public health, environmental and natural resources officials
announced the much broader fish warning on mercury after a two-year study
found widespread mercury contamination of state waterways.
In that study, state officials found levels of mercury that warranted
consumption advisories in 78 percent of the streams sampled, said Bill
Toomey of the state Bureau of Public Health.
"We didn’t have any information, and now we have a pretty good bit," said
Pat Campbell, an assistant director with the state Department of
Environmental Protection’s Division of Water and Waste Management.
Still, the DEP lists only about 17 waterways as being impaired by mercury
pollution.
If DEP does not include the streams on its official "impaired waterways"
list, regulators have no way to force a cleanup.
"There is no mechanism for cleaning up these streams," said Margaret Janes,
senior policy analyst at the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the
Environment. "The fish advisories have no regulatory impact whatsoever."
Mercury is a highly toxic metal. When emitted into the air, it can fall
with rain, enter water bodies and move up the food chain to humans.
In West Virginia and in the United States at large, coal-fired power
plants are considered the largest source of mercury emissions. Those
emissions remain unregulated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
under a court order to issue new mercury regulations by mid-March.
Mercury can cause neurological problems, and is particularly dangerous to
pregnant women and unborn children. A federal study found that between
300,000 and 600,000 of the 4 million babies born in the United States in
2000 may have been exposed to "unacceptable" levels of methyl mercury
because their mothers ate a diet rich in fish.
On its Web site,
www.wvdhhr.org/fish/default.asp, the public health agency provides
detailed explanations of the advisories, and how to calculate the size and
frequency of meals that include sport fish from West Virginia waters.
The agency warned that the advisories "should not be viewed as law or
regulation."
"It is intended to help anglers and their families make educated choices
about where to fish, what types of fish to eat, how to limit the amount
and frequency of fish eaten, and how to prepare and cook fish to reduce
contaminants," the agency said in a news release.
Bret Preston, a fisheries program manager for the state Division of
Natural Resources, told The Associated Press, "I don’t think the message
is people should stop fishing. I think the message is people should be
careful about what they are eating."
In 1998, federal regulators began questioning why West Virginia had no
fish consumption advisories for mercury. At the time, most surrounding
states had mercury-based consumption advisories.
In 2001, DEP obtained EPA funding for a statewide survey of the levels of
mercury and PCBs in fish. Nearly 400 samples from 56 water bodies were
collected.
State officials received the final study in May 2004. Since then,
officials have been privately debating whether to issue a statewide or a
more limited advisory.
"It’s a bittersweet thing to me," Campbell said Monday.
"I'm glad we were able to get the money and do the study so we could
answer these significant questions," he said. "But the bitter part is we
do have fish with levels of contaminants that warrant low-level
advisories."
Campbell said that DEP does not list all streams with mercury fish
advisories in its impaired streams database because the state’s water
quality standard for mercury is outdated.
Currently, Campbell said, the state’s legal limit on mercury is 0.5 parts
per million in fish tissue. Fish advisories are issued based on lower
levels than that, and EPA recommends the state use 0.3 parts per million
as a legal limit on mercury in fish.
"The 0.5 number in the state rule is obviously outdated," Campbell said.
"It’s something that needs to be updated."
Campbell said such a change would have to be made by the state
Environmental Quality Board, and approved by the Legislature.
Over the last few years, lawmakers have been trying to strip the
environmental board of its rulemaking authority. Industry lobbyists allege
the board writes rules that are too tough and expensive to follow.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.
Fish consumption advisory
The Associated Press
A two-year study that sampled fish from 56 locations prompted state
health, environmental and natural resource officials to issue a statewide
advisory warning residents about possible mercury contamination from fish
caught in state waterways.
Species/Meal limits:
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Black bass (largemouth,
smallmouth, spotted) less than 12 inches/Two meals a month
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Channel catfish larger than 17
inches/Two meals a month
-
Sauger/Two meals a month
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All suckers/Two meals a month
-
Black bass (largemouth,
smallmouth, spotted) greater than 12 inches/One meal a month
-
Walleye/One meal a month
-
Saugeye/One meal a month
-
White bass/One meal a month
-
Hybrid striped bass/One meal a
month
-
Rainbow trout/No limit
-
Channel catfish less than 17
inches/One meal a week
-
All other species/One meal a
week
Article Courtesy Maria J.
Gunnoe
Coal River Mountain Watch
www.crmw.net
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