The 2010 sport fish consumption advisory is nearly identical to that for 2009.
Bill Toomey is a program manager for environmental services
in the Bureau for Public Health. He says this year, they took off an advisory
specifically pertaining to the channel catfish in the Monongahela
River.
“We had a little additional restrictive advisory for the
channel catfish along the Mon based on data that was collected the previous two
years,” he said. “We were able to reduce that advisory just to match our statewide
consumption advisory.”
But there are still general advisories for all channel catfish throughout the
state, as well as most species of bass, walleye, and other fish. This is
because of high levels of both mercury and Polychlorinated Biphenyls—or PCBs—in
West Virginia’s waterways.
PCBs are toxic chemical compounds that used to be used in florescent
lights, paint and adhesives. They aren’t manufactured anymore, but still exist
in soil, air and water.
Mercury has always existed in West
Virginia’s waterways—it’s a naturally-occurring
element. But since humans began burning fossil fuels for energy, the amount of
mercury has increased. In West Virginia,
three-fourths of the mercury air emissions come from coal-fired power plants.
In large amounts, both mercury and PCBs can cause serious
problems in humans, especially in pregnant women and children who eat contaminated
fish.
Dr. Gina Solomon is a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“In an adult the health effects we see from high blood
mercury, mostly include things like difficulty concentrating, headaches, memory
loss, usually short term memory loss, and some sensory problems, so can include
vision changes, numbness, especially around the lips and the fingertips, and
people’s reaction time gets delayed,” she said.
In May, West Virginia
sought approval from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to loosen the
state’s standards on mercury in its waterways. They said it was because a
statewide survey showed that West Virginians were eating
less fish than the national average, so mercury levels could afford to be
higher. The EPA eventually approved this change.
But critics say the logic makes no sense, and that West
Virginians would eat more fish if they weren’t scared of being
poisoned by mercury and PCBs.
Toomey says the state doesn’t have enough funding to take
samples of every species of fish from every waterway every year. This year’s
fish advisory is based on the last complete sampling the state did—eight years
ago—as well as some more recent selected samplings.
He says it’s important to pay attention to the fish
consumption advisories, but also to remember that fish a great source of a lot
of nutrients.
“We feel from the health department’s side that eating fish
is good for your health,” he said. “It contains a lot of quality material, such
as omega-3 fatty acids, the vitamins and the minerals. And also the fish are
low in cholesterol, et cetera.”
The 2010 fish consumption advisory recommends that people fishing in West
Virginia’s waters limit their consumption of certain
types of fish to only one meal a month.