American Anglers Face Record Number of Mercury Warnings

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, August 25, 2004 (ENS) – More than a third of the nation's lakes and nearly a quarter of its rivers are under fish consumption advisories because of contamination from mercury, PCBs, dioxin and other industrial pollutants, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday.

According to the agency's annual report, fish consumption advisories increased nine percent in 2003 from the previous year, with most of the new advisories due to mercury contamination.

Forty-five states now have advisories for mercury, and 21 of these have statewide advisories for mercury contamination in every freshwater lake and river.

Mercury can cause permanent neurological and developmental damage and is of particular concern to children and women of childbearing age.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt downplayed the record number of advisories, which he said is due to increased monitoring and fish sampling, rather than increased pollution.

The economic health of the $30 billion recreational fishing industry - and the health of part time anglers - could suffer from the increase in consumption advisories due to pollution. (Photo by George Gentry courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

"More and more of our waters are being tested, and that is protective for children and pregnant women," Leavitt said. "Emissions are down, and emissions will continue to go down as the Bush administration takes the first ever steps to regulate mercury from coal fired power plants."

The nation's 1,100 coal fired power plants emit some 48 tons of mercury each year, accounting for about 40 percent of the nation's mercury pollution.

The Bush administration has proposed using a cap and trade program to cut these emissions some 70 percent by 2018, but the plan has been the target of criticism from state pollution control officers, scientists, environmentalists and public health advocates.

Opponents of the Bush plan say it is far too lax and want the EPA to proceed with a rule that adopts "maximum achievable control technology" standard under the Clean Air Act. They say these technologies are available and could reduce mercury emissions by some 90 percent by 2008.

Industry groups and the administration say such technologies are too expensive and not commercially viable, and they dispute the idea that power plants are responsible for mercury found in fish.

Mercury is also a naturally occurring metal and mercury pollution is clearly a global problem.

Industrial emissions of mercury add to the existing pool, which is continuously mobilized, deposited on land and water, and remobilized.

"There is no mercury control technology that exists today that can achieve the reduction levels proposed in the mercury rule, let alone the 90 percent reductions advocated by some activists," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.

Critics are not convinced and believe the increase in fish consumption advisories adds to the evidence that more stringent regulation of mercury emissions from the nation's largest unregulated industrial sector is warranted.

"The widespread mercury pollution problem threatens the health of millions of Americans," said John Walke, director of NRDC's Clean Air Program. "These alarming advisories underscore the need for aggressive control of mercury polluters, such as power plants, but the Bush administration's air pollution policies have been dangerously weak."

The report released Tuesday found 48 states, the District of Columbia and American Samoa issued a record total of 3,094 fish consumption advisories in 2003 - an increase of 280 from the previous year.

Tightening emissions standards for coal-fired power plants is key to reducing mercury emissions. (Photo courtesy Energy Department)

But the actual number of polluted water bodies may be much higher as neither Alaska nor Wyoming issue advisories and the figures in the EPA's summary do not include the Great Lakes. The agency notes that 100 percent of the Great Lakes and their connecting waters are under fish consumption advisories.

In addition, 16 states have issued fish advisories for all of their coastal waters. The EPA report details that 75 percent of the U.S. coastline, bar Alaska, is under fish consumption advisories.

A large part of the increase detailed in the report occurred because Montana and Washington issued statewide advisories for all their lakes and rivers in 2003 and Hawaii issued a statewide advisory for its entire coastline.

The EPA says it is difficult to draw national conclusions because the advisories differ from state to state.

The advisories range from complete bans on fishing to limits on individual species or sizes of fish and are for a broad range of fish, including bass, yellow perch, lake trout, walleye, pike as well as some salt water species such as tuna and swordfish.

Consumers could be forgiven for feeling confused about the health risks from mercury in freshwater and saltwater fish.

In March the EPA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released joint consumer guidance for fish consumption, advising women who may become pregnant, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children to avoid some types of fish and eat fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury.

Federal officials said the guidance aims to balance the desire to encourage consumption of fish, which has ample health benefits, with the concerns over mercury contamination.

The guidance called on individuals check local advisories about the safety of fish caught in local lakes, rivers and coastal areas - if advice is not available, federal official say women can eat up to six ounces per week of fish from local waters, but should not consume any other fish during that week.

Environmentalists say the guidance is too lax and vague to protect the public's health, and have sued to force the agencies to revise it.

For example, the advisory states that children should eat less than 12 ounces of fish a week, but does not specify how much less.

In addition, the advisory does not provide a comprehensive list of fish species known to have a high or low risk of mercury content

A report released earlier this month by environmental groups analyzed recent EPA tests of fish caught in 260 U.S. lakes and found every sample had at least low levels of mercury.

Some 55 percent of samples contained mercury levels that exceed the EPA's safe limit for women of childbearing age, and 76 percent exceeded the safe limit for children under age three.

The EPA says as many as one in six U.S. women of childbearing age already has levels of unsafe levels of mercury in her body, putting an estimated 630,000 newborns at risk each year from the adverse effects of the toxic metal.

The EPA's summary of state fish consumption advisories can be found here.