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Warnings about eating Michigan fish intensify
$300,000 plan will teach U.P.
By Gene Schabath / The Detroit News
HARRISON TOWNSHIP -- Sport fishing in Michigan is great this season, but with it comes a potential problem: Michigan Department of Community Health officials fear that new and old warnings against eating tainted Great Lakes fish are being widely ignored.
Ebony Hudson, 22, of Detroit caught an 8-pound carp in Lake St. Clair recently and was unaware of the dangers until a stranger brought her up to speed.
"I was going to eat it. But not now," she said.
The problem of tainted fish has gone beyond dockside chatter to the political arena.
Some $300,000 in federal funds will be used to conduct a pilot project in the Upper Peninsula to re-educate Michiganians about the dangers of eating fish laced with mercury and PCBs, said Heraline Hicks, senior environmental health scientist with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta.
"The Upper Peninsula is a remote area, and it may be hard for them to get the advisories," Hicks said. "They are isolated from the main body of the population, and they eat a lot of fish."
Atop the state's danger list is the mercury-contaminated muskellunge, which the Community Health Department warns is unsafe to eat regularly.
Such advisories are not new. State health officials have had them for at least three decades.
But they're stepping up efforts to publicize the dangers of eating Michigan game fish regularly because too many people aren't paying close enough attention and could get sick as a result, said Mike Murray, a staff scientist with the Michigan office of the National Wildlife Federation.
Health advisories against eating "muskies" -- the nickname veteran Michigan fishermen have given to the muskellunge -- have been put out since the 1970s.
And warnings triggered by reports of mercury-laced fish have been in effect since 1988 for all of Michigan's inland lakes for perch, salmon, northern pike, rock bass, yellow perch and crappies, Murray said.
Mercury in bodies of water becomes dangerous when microorganisms convert it into methylmercury, making it toxic to people and animals, Murray said. Fish absorb the methylmercury when they feed on the organisms.
The bad fish don't make anyone sick right away. But a constant diet of them can make a person ill because of the accumulated mercury, health officials warn.
"There is a concern that some people -- women of child-bearing age and young children -- are more vulnerable than others, and that's why we have these advisories," said Lorri Cameron, an environmental epidemiologist with the state health department.
State health researchers are studying 200 charter boat captains and hundreds of fishermen in Michigan to see if they have any ill health affects from eating fish, Cameron said.
Some fish species -- such as catfish, sheephead and carp -- are also laced with PCBs that make them unsafe to eat. Health officials advise people not to eat more than one meal a week of fish caught in state waters.
"PCBs are the next most common advisories in the state," Murray said. "There are more than 100 individual bodies of water that have PCBs in them. All the Great Lakes have PCB advisories."
Gov. Jennifer Granholm created a task force aimed at reducing the amount of mercury in the state's waterways, said Zoe Lipman, who heads the National Wildlife Federation's mercury contamination program at the Ann Arbor branch.
The biggest source of mercury in the environment is coal- fired power plants in the state, Lipman said. There are 20 in Michigan.
"Power plants are responsible for 52 percent of mercury emissions in a year -- about 3,000 pounds of mercury a year," Lipman said.
The state is considering studying a substance that is used to make plastics to see whether it's safe because it is showing up in fish, Cameron said.
"It has become a real concern because it has been found in human breast milk," she said.
Some fishermen are playing it safe, warnings or not.
"I haven't eaten fish in a year because I heard about all the stuff in the lake," said Adam Gross, 18, of Sterling Heights.
Gross hasn't decided yet what he is going to do with a huge 35-inch sheephead he caught a few weeks back.
"It's in the freezer, but I haven't had the guts to eat it," Gross said.
You can reach Gene Schabath at (586) 468-3614 or gschabath@detnews.com.
$300,000 plan will teach U.P.
By Gene Schabath / The Detroit News
HARRISON TOWNSHIP -- Sport fishing in Michigan is great this season, but with it comes a potential problem: Michigan Department of Community Health officials fear that new and old warnings against eating tainted Great Lakes fish are being widely ignored.
Ebony Hudson, 22, of Detroit caught an 8-pound carp in Lake St. Clair recently and was unaware of the dangers until a stranger brought her up to speed.
"I was going to eat it. But not now," she said.
The problem of tainted fish has gone beyond dockside chatter to the political arena.
Some $300,000 in federal funds will be used to conduct a pilot project in the Upper Peninsula to re-educate Michiganians about the dangers of eating fish laced with mercury and PCBs, said Heraline Hicks, senior environmental health scientist with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta.
"The Upper Peninsula is a remote area, and it may be hard for them to get the advisories," Hicks said. "They are isolated from the main body of the population, and they eat a lot of fish."
Atop the state's danger list is the mercury-contaminated muskellunge, which the Community Health Department warns is unsafe to eat regularly.
Such advisories are not new. State health officials have had them for at least three decades.
But they're stepping up efforts to publicize the dangers of eating Michigan game fish regularly because too many people aren't paying close enough attention and could get sick as a result, said Mike Murray, a staff scientist with the Michigan office of the National Wildlife Federation.
Health advisories against eating "muskies" -- the nickname veteran Michigan fishermen have given to the muskellunge -- have been put out since the 1970s.
And warnings triggered by reports of mercury-laced fish have been in effect since 1988 for all of Michigan's inland lakes for perch, salmon, northern pike, rock bass, yellow perch and crappies, Murray said.
Mercury in bodies of water becomes dangerous when microorganisms convert it into methylmercury, making it toxic to people and animals, Murray said. Fish absorb the methylmercury when they feed on the organisms.
The bad fish don't make anyone sick right away. But a constant diet of them can make a person ill because of the accumulated mercury, health officials warn.
"There is a concern that some people -- women of child-bearing age and young children -- are more vulnerable than others, and that's why we have these advisories," said Lorri Cameron, an environmental epidemiologist with the state health department.
State health researchers are studying 200 charter boat captains and hundreds of fishermen in Michigan to see if they have any ill health affects from eating fish, Cameron said.
Some fish species -- such as catfish, sheephead and carp -- are also laced with PCBs that make them unsafe to eat. Health officials advise people not to eat more than one meal a week of fish caught in state waters.
"PCBs are the next most common advisories in the state," Murray said. "There are more than 100 individual bodies of water that have PCBs in them. All the Great Lakes have PCB advisories."
Gov. Jennifer Granholm created a task force aimed at reducing the amount of mercury in the state's waterways, said Zoe Lipman, who heads the National Wildlife Federation's mercury contamination program at the Ann Arbor branch.
The biggest source of mercury in the environment is coal- fired power plants in the state, Lipman said. There are 20 in Michigan.
"Power plants are responsible for 52 percent of mercury emissions in a year -- about 3,000 pounds of mercury a year," Lipman said.
The state is considering studying a substance that is used to make plastics to see whether it's safe because it is showing up in fish, Cameron said.
"It has become a real concern because it has been found in human breast milk," she said.
Some fishermen are playing it safe, warnings or not.
"I haven't eaten fish in a year because I heard about all the stuff in the lake," said Adam Gross, 18, of Sterling Heights.
Gross hasn't decided yet what he is going to do with a huge 35-inch sheephead he caught a few weeks back.
"It's in the freezer, but I haven't had the guts to eat it," Gross said.
You can reach Gene Schabath at (586) 468-3614 or gschabath@detnews.com.
