The New York State Department of Health recently released new guidance about eating fish caught in local waterways.
The updated advice recommends that women up to age 50 and children up to age 15 can safely consume to up to four, one-half pound, meals a month of brown bullhead, rainbow smelt, rock bass, white sucker, and yellow perch from the following waters: Lake Ontario, Niagara River, and most of the St. Lawrence River. It also states that they can eat one, one-half pound meal per month of salmon from Lake Ontario. This has changed from former guidance advising women and children not to consume fish taken from these waters.
This new guidance has loosened up restrictions for Fourth Lake in the Adirondack Region, too. It is now suggested that women and children can eat up to four meals a month of brook trout, brown trout, bullhead, crappie, rainbow trout, rock bass, and sunfish from Fourth Lake. This is an increase from the prior guidance of up to one meal per month from Fourth Lake.
In the Finger Lakes Region, guidance has changed for the Skaneateles Creek, as well. It now safe for women and children to eat up to one meal a month of brown trout and rainbow trout, and up to four meals a month of all other fish, the state advised. This was changed from a prior advisory urging them not to eat from this waterway.
Anglers across the state can safely reap the health benefits of eating wild fish while also reducing exposure to contaminants by following the New York State Department of Health advice on where, and what kind of fish, to consume.
The process to collect the crucial data required to set consumption guidelines for sport fish is ongoing. Fish are collected from waterbodies throughout New York State, DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino explained. The fish are dissected, homogenized, and then analyzed by DEC’s Analytical Services Unit at the Hale Creek Field Station as well as private contract laboratories.
Mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been the primary contaminants in New York State fish for decades. These contaminants build up over time from repeated consumption of sport fish. Health problems that can result from exposure to these contaminants include birth defects, reproductive and developmental effects, and cancer. Mercury can pass from a mother to her baby during pregnancy and, in smaller amounts, through breast milk after birth, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Exposure to mercury can affect an infant’s nervous system and brain development.
“Most chemicals that result in fish consumption advisories are produced by manufacturing processes and subsequently released into the environment,” Severino said. “They usually enter the environment through discharges during manufacturing, from spills or improper disposal, and from the breakdown of products made with them. Organochlorine pesticides were intentionally broadcast to control pests before they were banned. Mercury is a partial exception to being anthropogenic, as it is naturally present in the environment, but human activities have greatly increased its concentration.”
Other contaminants that have shown up in fish across some of the state’s waterbodies are cadmium, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, dioxin, mirex, and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, previously known as perfluorinated chemicals or PFCs), according to the DEC.
“All of the chemicals that are the source of advisories are highly persistent in the environment,” Severino said. “Even though PCBs, dioxins and organochlorine pesticides have not been used in the U.S. for many years, they continue to be a problem even as concentrations in fish have tended to slowly decrease. Mercury is a globally transported pollutant with much of the mercury now entering New York’s environment coming from elsewhere in the world.”
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