Recent Advisory News

• New Statewide Advisory To Be Released in Illinois - The 2002 version of the Illinois Fishing Digest includes many changes to the state's fish consumption advisories. The new advisories in the digest will take effect on April 1, 2002. In addition to issuing 21 new advisories for PCBs and rescinding 3 advisories for chlordane, a statewide mercury advisory will also be in effect after April 1. The statewide advisory recommends that women of childbearing age and children under 15 years of age restrict their consumption of predator fish to 1 meal per week. The advisory also lists out all of the predator species (15+ species) that are specifically covered under the advisory. For more information, visit the state's web site where the new 2002 fishing digest will be posted soon.
• North Dakota Statewide Mercury Advisory Released in 2001 - North Dakota's fish consumption advisory was updated early last year to cover all waters in the state, due to mercury contamination. The advisory states that although mercury levels in smaller fish are usually low, the larger fish of some species can contain higher levels of mercury that pose a health risk if those fish are eaten too often. The advisory offers different meal frequency advice for 4 populations: children age 5 and younger, children between ages 5 and 15, pregnant and nursing women, and the general population. Advice is given for largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, white bass, chinook salmon, northern pike, walleye, channel catfish, and yellow perch. The advisory also explains that children over 5 and other adults can frequently consume smaller fish of some of these species. For more information visit North Dakota's website.
• Pennsylvania Fish Consumption Advisory Updated - The State of Pennsylvania today issued the updated list of river specific fish consumption advisories. Changes to this year's advisories include the lifting of a "Do not eat" or no consumption advisory on fish from Spring Creek in Centre County, and issuance of two new advisories for white suckers from the Shenango River in Lawrence and Mercer counties. The no consumption advisory on fish from Spring Creek and its tributary was lifted after two years of sampling confirmed declines in pesticide residues below federal regulatory standards. In April 2001, state officials issued a one-meal-per-week consumption advisory for all recreationally caught sport fish from the state's waterways. Pennsylvania will continue to issue fish consumption advisories that are more protective than one meal per week when necessary to protect public health. More information is available at http://www.dep.state.pa.us.

  Source: PR Newswire, Feb 11, 2002. Pennsylvania Fish Consumption Advisory Updated.

Current Events, News and Journal Articles

• Independent Review of FDA Advice To Be Conducted - The FDA announced that a panel of independent scientists would review its advice to pregnant women about which fish to avoid because of levels of methylmercury in the fish tissues. The FDA currently advises pregnant women or women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish, and to eat no more than 12 ounces a week of other cooked fish, including canned tuna. Some consumer advocates, however, say the limits set for tuna should be much lower, and yesterday the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group accused the FDA of diluting its warning because of pressure from the seafood industry. The agency denied that, but announced its independent food-safety advisory board would review the debate at an upcoming meeting.

  Source: The New York Times and Associated Press. March 1, 2002. Review on Fish-Eating Advice for Women.

• New Jersey Task Force Requests Stronger Mercury Controls - A New Jersey state task force reports that high mercury levels are increasing the risk of brain and nerve damage in some children, and they blame much of the contamination on metal recyclers and coal-fired power plants both in and out of the state. The task force study, which was ordered by state officials four years ago, found that one in seven pregnant women in New Jersey have higher-than-recommended mercury concentrations in their bodies. The task force called upon the federal government to tighten air quality standards nationwide and to improve monitoring of mercury concentrations in commercially sold swordfish, shark, and tuna. The FDA is responsible for banning the sale of fish that contains more than 1 part per million of mercury; however, researchers have found packages of fish in New Jersey supermarkets with levels higher than 1 ppm.

  The state announced one program that would start immediately: a state partnership with recycling companies to study methods for removing mercury from scrap metal before it is crushed and melted. Smelting of old cars and appliances to make steel for construction was found to be a major source of mercury air emissions in the state. Out-of-state factories and power plants account for about half the mercury in New Jersey.

  Source: Alex Nussbaum. January 4, 2002. New Jersey Task Force Requests Stronger Mercury Controls. The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

• Concentrations and Spatial Variations of PBDEs in Fish - Fish from two small lakes in the northeastern United States and two of the Great Lakes were analyzed to determine tissue concentrations and spatial variations of PBDEs in this region. Three study lakes were considered to have background levels of PBDEs; one lake was close to a suspected PBDE source. PBDE concentrations were compared to PCB and organochlorine pesticide concentrations. The authors found that fish age and their trophic status did not influence the organohalogen concentrations in the fish collected from the four different lakes. At the three background locations, the SIGMAPBDE concentrations ranged from 6.9 to 18 ng/g wet weight. These values were similar to those of some of the organochlorine pesticides, such as total chlordane, but were lower than SIGMAPCB concentrations. The SIGMAPBDE tissue concentration at the lake near the suspected PBDE source was 65 ng/g wet weight, and it exceeded the SIGMAPCB concentration. About 43% of the total mass of PBDEs at this lake consisted of hexabrominated congeners, compared to 7% at the background lake locations. The authors found that the fish to sediment concentration ratios indicated all the tetra- through hexa-substituted congeners had a similar bioavailability, while the deca-substituted congener did not seem to be bioavailable.

  Source: Dodder, N.G., B. Strandberg , and R.A. Hites. 2002. Concentrations and spatial variations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and several organochlorine compounds in fishes from the northeastern United States. Environmental Science & Technology Vol. 36 (2): 146- 151.

• Fish Contamination Study in the Columbia River Basin - A recent study by the U.S. EPA has confirmed what Native Americans in the Columbia River Basin have long suspected - The fish they depend upon for food is contaminated with pesticides and other industrial chemicals. The study, which was commissioned by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, concluded that Native Americans, who consume the fish they catch in the Columbia River basin at a rate of 48 meals per month, are 50 times more likely to have cancer after 70 years than members of the general public who typically consume those fish at a rate of one meal per month.

  Source: Source: Los Angeles Times, 02/15/2002. Columbia Basin Fish Still Tainted, EPA Says.

• Cord Blood Lymphocyte Functions in Newborns Exposed to Contaminants - Consumption of fish and sea mammals can be an important source of exposure to organochlorine compounds (OCs) and heavy metals in populations relying on seafood for subsistence. Exposure to OCs and heavy metals, especially during the prenatal period, has been found to induce immunotoxic effects in mammals. In this study, immunological status was assessed in 48 newborns from a remote maritime population living on the Lower and Mid North Shore of the St. Lawrence River(subsistence fishing group) and in 60 newborns from the coastal urban center of Sept-Iles (reference group). Pregnant women were recruited for the study upon arrival at Sept-Iles regional hospital to give birth. Cord blood samples were analyzed for OC and heavy metals and to isolate lymphocytes for immunological assays. PCB and mercury concentrations were significantly greater in the subsistence fishing group than in the reference group. Compared to the reference group, subsistence fishers showed significant decreases in the proportion of the naive helper T-cell subset CD4+CD45RA+, T-cell proliferation following an in vitro mitogenic stimulation, and plasma immunoglobulin M (IgM) level, while plasma IgG level was increased. The proportion of CD4+CD45RA+ cells was inversely correlated to PCBs and mercury, while T-cell clonal expansion was negatively associated with PCBs and p,p'-DDE. There was an inverse correlation between mercury and plasma IgM. The authors concluded that subtle functional alterations of the developing human immune system may result from in utero exposure to OCs and mercury. Further epidemiological studies in the developing child are needed to determine relevance of these alterations in predicting detrimental health effects.

  Source: Belles-Isles, M., P Ayotte, E Dewailly, J P Weber, and R Raynald. 2002. Cord blood lymphocyte functions in newborns from a remote maritime population exposed to organochlorines and methylmercury. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Part A. Vol. 65 (2): 165-182

• Risk-based Management of Contaminated Sediments - The authors evaluated the interactions among foraging behavior, habitat preferences, site characteristics, and spatial distribution of contaminants in developing exposure estimates for PCBs in winter flounder at a hypothetical open water dredged material disposal site in the coastal waters of New York and New Jersey. The authors describe the implications of these interactions for human health risk estimates for local recreational anglers who fish for and eat flounder. Models implemented in this study include a spatial submodel to account for spatial and temporal characteristics of fish exposures and a probabilistic adaptation of the Gobas bioaccumulation model that accounts for temporal variation in residues of hydrophobic contaminants in water and sediment. Flounder PCB tissue concentrations, the output of this modeling effort, provided exposure point concentrations for an estimate of human health risk through ingestion of locally caught flounder. Risks obtained for the spatially nonexplicit case were as much as 1 order of magnitude higher than those for the explicit consideration of spatial and temporal characteristics of winter flounder foraging and seasonal migration. The authors found that the practice of defaulting to extremely conservative estimates for exposure parameters in the face of uncertainty does not serve the decision-making process for management of contaminated sediments in general and specifically for disposal of dredged materials. The authors believe that consideration of realistic spatial and temporal scales in food chain models can help support sediment management decisions by providing a quantitative expression of the confidence in risk estimates

  Source: Linkov I, D Burmistrov; J Cura , and T S Bridges. 2002. Risk-based management of contaminated sediments: Consideration of spatial and temporal patterns in exposure modeling. Environmental Science & Technology Vol. 36 (2): 238-246.

• Contaminant Loadings in Farmed Salmon vs. Wild Salmon - This study chemically analyzed five commercial salmon chows, four farmed salmon (one Atlantic, three chinooks) and four wild salmon (one chinook, one chum, two sockeyes) from the Pacific Coast. The fish and fish chow were analyzed for PCBs (112 congeners), polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs 41 congeners), 25 organochlorine pesticides (OPs), 20 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and inorganic and methyl mercury. The authors found that farmed salmon showed consistently higher levels of PCBs, PBDEs, OPs (except toxaphene) than the wild salmon. Mean concentrations were 51.2 vs 5.3 ppb for total PCBs; 2.7 vs 0.18 ppb for total PBDEs; 41.8 vs 12.2 ppb for total OPs (except toxaphene). Concentrations of contaminants in farmed salmon are likely to have resulted from elevated levels of contamination in the commercial salmon chow (mean concentrations in 65.5 ppb for total PCBs; 1.9 ppb for total BPDEs; 48.1 ppb for total OPs except toxaphene). In general, PAHs were highest in the fish chow samples followed by the farmed fish and the three other wild fish. The hatchery produced feed, Bio-Oregon-1996, showed levels of PAHs 10 times higher than any other fish chow tested. Methylmercury and toxaphene concentrations were not significantly different between the wild and farmed salmon. Of the 5 commercial salmon chows tested, there was no clear low contaminant brand. The authors consider the human health implications of consuming farmed salmon from the perspective of the current WHO and Health Canada (2000) tolerable daily intake (TDI) values for PCBs. Based on a TDI of 1 pg TEQ/kg bw/day, their analysis indicated a safety concern for fish consuming individuals who consume farmed salmon raised on contaminated fish chow on a regular weekly basis.

  Source: Easton, M.D.L., D. Luszniak and E. Von der Geest. 2002. Preliminary examination of contaminant loadings in farmed salmon, wild salmon and commercial salmon feed. Chemosphere Volume 46, Issue 7 Pages 1053-1074.

Meetings and Conferences

For More Information

For more information on EPA's Fish and Wildlife Contamination Program, contact: Jeffrey Bigler at US EPA, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW (4305), Washington, DC 20460; email: bigler.jeff@epa.gov.

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Revised March, 2002