This undated handout photo U.S. Geological Survey shows USGS scientists, Lia Chasar and Erica Rau, analyzing fish for mercury in the St. Marys River in northern Florida. (AP Photo/USGS, Mark Brigham)
Dina Cappiello at The Associated Press nailed it with the lead of her story on this new U.S. Geological Survey study on the contamination of fish nationwide with toxic mercury pollution:
No fish can escape mercury pollution.
The study, available online here, reports that USGS scientists found mercury in every fish they tested in nearly 300 streams — 291 to be exact — all across the country. According to a USGS news release:
About a quarter of these fish were found to contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish, established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More than two-thirds of the fish exceeded the U.S. EPA level of concern for fish-eating mammals.
And, as the USGS also reported:
Atmospheric mercury is the main source to most of these streams — coal-fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the United States — but 59 of the streams also were potentially affected by gold and mercury mining.
The Obama administration has said it plans to seek more stringent controls on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, abandoning the industry-supported approach advanced by the Bush White House and EPA.
Mercury, according to the USGS, “is one of the most serious contaminants threatening our nation’s waters.” It damages the nervous system and can cause serious learning disabilities in children.
The AP story explained that all but two states — Alaska and Wyoming — have issued fish-consumption advisories because of mercury contamination.
In West Virginia, public health officials urge residents to limit their consumption of fish from every stream and lake statewide because of mercury contamination.
But, it takes the state of Maryland to come in and force one of the state’s biggest mercury polluters — the PPG chlorine plant in Marshall County — to reduce its emissions.
And, we’ve reported on WVDEP’s “slippery logic” on mercury limits before. You remember, agency officials said there was no need to tighten the state’s mercury limits to match EPA’s national guidelines, because West Virginians eat less fish than the national average. You think the statewide mercury fish advisory has anything to do with that?
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In addition to mercury problems, there have been a series of scientific reports about unexpected “intersex” conditions being found in fish in the Eastern Panhandle (and in adjoining states, too). An April 2009 Fish and Wildlife press release is at: http://www.fws.gov/chesapeakebay/pdf/IntersexPR.pdf.
The cause is thought to be some as-yet-unidentified polluting chemicals in the rivers that affect a fish’s hormones/cell growth. . . . (and ours?)
South Florida Restoration Science Forum
http://sofia.usgs.gov/sfrsf/
Is Mercury the Achilles Heel of the restoration effort?
http://sofia.usgs.gov/sfrsf/rooms/mercury/
Forum Showcases Restoration Science
http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/sfrsf/plw/sfrsf.html
Excerpts
It was a forum of firsts, highlighting the connection between science and resource management for the historic south Florida restoration effort. And it also served as a model for similar landscape-scale restoration projects across the nation.
The South Florida Restoration Science Forum, which was aimed at improving the flow of information between managers and scientists, brought together more than 200 scientists and nearly 100 displays and resource management exhibits. It was the first time that the numerous national, state, tribal, regional, and local governmental agencies collectively showed the science behind their collaborative restoration efforts in south Florida. More than 70 organizations participated.
Bob Mooney, USGS, developed and coordinated the forum.
August 21, 2009
…according to the National Park Service, mercury testing on two dozen captured Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park revealed extraordinarily high levels of mercury in the meat. These levels are well above those considered safe to eat in freshwater fish and alligators. The FWC is working with the National Park Service and the Florida Department of Health to get a broader view of this issue. It will provide updates as further information about mercury levels becomes available.
Source: http://myfwc.com/NEWSROOM/09/statewide/News_09_X_Python4.htm
Conerns about mercury levels in fish have been around for many decades — warnings about those concerns are still scarce.
This cover story feature remains among my favorite about government unresponsibility.
Awful Fishy
For Broward’s canal fisherman, potentially toxic levels of mercury are a part of the catch of the day
By Roger Williams
published: April 27, 2000
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/130606
Excerpt
Although the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Department of Health, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), and the South Florida Water Management District all insist anglers have been amply warned, the evidence appears contrary.
Many anglers who fish the canals that border the wetlands and agricultural fields east and south of the Everglades remain unaware of the danger. When a New Times reporter queried 16 men and women fishing in the canals recently, none could say what specific danger they faced or how much they should limit their fish consumption in accordance with state warnings found in pamphlets.
Not a single explanatory warning sign posted by any of the four state agencies responsible exists in the popular fishing areas along the canals where the Keys family gathers. At parking areas with boat ramps in western Broward and Palm Beach counties, signs erected by Fish and Wildlife and the South Florida Water Management District refer only to their administrative responsibilities — none contains warnings about mercury poisoning.
State bureaucrats from those departments say they have not seen a need to erect signs and express little faith that signs will prevent people from eating the fish they catch. Instead they point to brochures available at the county tax collector’s office, at stores such as Wal-Mart and Kmart, or on state Websites where the computer-equipped can go online. At those Websites, as in the brochures, warnings are buried amid glowing copy that promotes freshwater fishing in the canals as among the best in the state. The FWC even advertises private fishing guides familiar with the water of western Broward and Palm Beach counties by providing their names and telephone numbers.
Readers of the site can learn in a single paragraph that the $1.4 billion freshwater-fishing industry includes 1.14 million recreational anglers who take 16.5 million trips, generate $37.4 million in taxes, and provide 18,773 jobs.
Warnings that might discourage anglers are not offered side by side with such breathy boosterism.
August 18, 2009
How Mercury Becomes Toxic In The Environment
http://news.duke.edu/2009/08/mercury.html
You can’t “escape” mercury as it is a metal found in nature. Mercury was in fish long before the dawn of man; in fact worst case estimates put only 2/3 of the global Hg burden to man, and only 1% of the global burden comes from US coal plants. – Source US EPA.
“Mercury emitted from coal-fired power plants comes from mercury in coal, which is released when the coal is burned. While coal-fired power plants are the largest remaining source of human-generated mercury emissions in the United States, they contribute very little to the global mercury pool. Recent estimates of annual total global mercury emissions from all sources — both natural and human-generated — range from roughly 4,400 to 7,500 tons per year. Human-caused U.S. mercury emissions are estimated to account for roughly 3 percent of the global total, and U.S. coal-fired power plants are estimated to account for only about 1 percent.”
http://www.epa.gov/mercuryrule/factsheetfin.htm
“Natural sources of mercury—such as volcanic eruptions and emissions from the ocean—have been estimated to contribute about a third of current worldwide mercury air emissions, whereas anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions account for the remaining two-thirds. These estimates are highly uncertain. Land, water, and other surfaces can repeatedly re-emit mercury into the atmosphere after its initial release into the environment.”
http://www.epa.gov/mercury/control_emissions/global.htm