Anglers warned about eating fish from some waterways

Montgomery Advertiser
Cosby Woodruff, July 6, 2007
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070706/NEWS02/707060309/1009

Anglers who fish in Claiborne Lake in Monroe County and Lay Lake in Chilton County should restrict their consumption of fish, especially bass, from those bodies of water, according to a recent study conducted by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

No one should eat more than two meals per month of largemouth bass taken from some areas of Claiborne Lake. The same restrictions apply to spotted bass caught in portions of Lay Lake.

The Alabama Department of Public Health, which issued the consumption advisory, defines a meal portion as 6 ounces of cooked fish or 8 ounces of raw fish. The department said mercury was the contaminant identified in both lakes.

ADEM officials said the portion of Claiborne with higher-than-normal amounts of mercury is in the dam forebay area at about mile 73 on the Alabama River. In Lay Lake, the area of concern is about 2 miles downstream of Logan Martin Dam near the confluence of the Coosa River and Kelly Creek as well as the area around Ratcliff/Elliot Island.

State health officials also released warnings for Big Creek Reservoir and the Mobile River in Mobile County, the Tombigbee River in Clarke County and the Upper Bear Creek Reservoir in Marion county.

ADEM also noted that several advisories issued in previous years near the tri-county area remain valid.

Those advisories include:

• The Coosa River between Neely Henry Dam and Riverside. Limited consumption of catfish weighing more than 1 pound because of PCBs.
• The Coosa River between Riverside and Logan Martin Dam. Ban on consumption off striped bass taken from the river because of PCBs.
• The Coosa River between Logan Martin Dam and Lay Dam. Consumption ban on striped bass remains in effect because of PCBs.

According to the ADEM report, several species of fish were analyzed for up to 25 different materials including contaminants in the water (PCBs, including dioxins), pesticides (endosulfan, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, lindane, dieldrin, endrin, DDT and its breakdown products and congeners, heptachlors, Mirex, chlorpyriphos and toxaphene), and heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, mercury and selenium) to which the fish may have been exposed.

In addition, fish were examined for body appearance, lipid content, age and weight. Fish are good indicators of the health of a water body, ADEM researchers said. Some contaminants accumulate in fish and enter the food supply through either crustaceans or other bottom-feeding fish in a given area. These species would be eaten by larger or more aggressive species, thereby transferring the contaminant from the species consumed to the larger species.