Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: DREDIOCK on August 23, 2009, 07:52:17 AM
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Sports fishermen take heed: A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury.
The U.S. Geological Survey's research marks its most comprehensive examination of mercury contamination in stream fish. The study found that 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the average fish eater, those who eat fish twice a week.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-08-19-fish-mercury_N.htm
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USA Today? Hmmmm? I wonder which rivers, and which species of fish... Not that it matters, just curious... Information can be skewed any way a publisher wants, and USA Today is well known for doing so... It is a well known fact that fish contain mercury, but "government tests" these days, say whatever they want them to say, whether its true or not, LOL!!! And a headline is always good for a few sales... So??
Hot smoked 2 big King Salmon on thursday, 4 fillets, about 40lbs worth... Munchin on some right now... I suppose that there might be some mercury in it... But hell, ya die a little every day anyway...
I'll die with a smile on my face!!! :D
RC
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USA Today? Hmmmm? I wonder which rivers, and which species of fish... Not that it matters, just curious... Information can be skewed any way a publisher wants, and USA Today is well known for doing so... It is a well known fact that fish contain mercury, but "government tests" these days, say whatever they want them to say, whether its true or not, LOL!!! And a headline is always good for a few sales... So??
RC
I guess actually reading the article is completely out of the question
"Forty-eight states have fish consumption advisories in place for certain species. A full list of such warnings is available at" www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advisories.
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Well Dred, its USA today, what do ya expect? ;)
RC
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You will find this just about everywhere in the world where there has been some serious forest industry. It was used as a preservative for wood as far as 100+ years ago.
Takes time to get into the system and sadly will carry on for quite a while.
Same goes with DDT. Every human on the planet (just about) has DDT in the system.
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Sports fishermen take heed: A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury.
The U.S. Geological Survey's research marks its most comprehensive examination of mercury contamination in stream fish. The study found that 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the average fish eater, those who eat fish twice a week.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-08-19-fish-mercury_N.htm
And this is a new problems we have now? Freaking morons, not you guys the reporters, this has been a issue for decades.
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I stopped eating fish here after someone pointed out the lead in their bellies when I first moved out here. Was pretty disgusting, but with all the mine seepage, hardly surprising.
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Bah! It's all boolshiite. They just want to sell papers and the peeps in da
"gubbamend" only wants to create job security for themselves and the
newsies by pumping out imaginary test reports.
So go light up a cigarette, give the pregnant wife a few martini's, let your
toddlers lick the lead paint from thier fingertips, snort some angel dust
as a pre-dinner libation and then enjoy some of that primo madcow beef!
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And this is a new problems we have now? Freaking morons, not you guys the reporters, this has been a issue for decades.
Yup...but they just suddenly decided that environmental news from the 70s was more interesting than new information.
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There has always been 'some' level of mercury in nature and the 'booby-trap' would be setting a lower limit of tolerance than occurs in nature.
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Sports fishermen take heed: A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury.
The U.S. Geological Survey's research marks its most comprehensive examination of mercury contamination in stream fish. The study found that 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the average fish eater, those who eat fish twice a week.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-08-19-fish-mercury_N.htm
i'd want to see results from independent testers before believing govt. scientists.
i read another article about this the other night. they went right for the coal fired powerplants.....which would back the current administrations desire to stop using coal.....or severely limit it.
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"Most mercury in water comes from particles from the atmosphere, the EPA says, fed largely by coal-fired power plants, trash burning and concrete plants nationally and internationally, the EPA says.
The USGS study examined mercury in 291 U.S. streams from 1998 to 2005."
This excerpt tells me that this study was neither "comprehensive" nor "scientific". Anyone know what the naturally occuring level of mercury in stream water is? Anyone know how many streams there are in the U.S.? I bet its a lot higher than 291.
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Though I agree we need to clean up the water systems this article is more worthless cliche bs that only scares people away from one of the healthiest food sources they can eat. We need to support our wild fisheries by giving them value, not by funneling people towards things like net pen farmed salmon (which is ten times worse) or away from seafood completely.
Some day I would like to see them print the actual documented cases of mercury poisoning in world history (edit:)caused by seafood. Which is almost non-existent.
The effects of the element Selenium (contained in most fish) on Mercury molecules.
The amount of mercury contained in the nations supply of Poultry and Beef.
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i'd want to see results from independent testers before believing govt. scientists.
Consumer reports has been reporting on mercury and other toxin levels in fish for many years. They have had articles comparing various types of fish (freshwater, ocean, etc), species within each type, as well as discussion comparing and contrasting what you get with farm grown vs. wild fish.
In a nutshell, all types of fish that you can buy in a supermarket are "safe", as long as you don't eat too much. They have recommendations for the number of servings of each type per week, for various types of people. For example, children and pregnant women can eat 2-3 servings of tuna per week, but only one serving of albacore, due to different concentrations of mercury and other toxins.
The caveat to this of course is that some locations really do have nasty fish due to sewage runoff. For example, fish in several areas downstream of large populations will test positive for a hideous coctail of prescription medication because people flush unused drugs down the toilet so they end up in the water and concentrate in fish. For that matter, you can probably avoid ever going to the doc just by eating fish in those areas because they have medically significant amounts of certain drugs (seems like anti-depressants and painkillers get flushed a lot) if you eat a lot of those fish.
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"The USGS study examined mercury in 291 U.S. streams from 1998 to 2005."
That is a pretty wide ranging time frame on such a small amount of streams...besides what really is a stream? Some streams here in the Southeastern US would be considered rivers in other parts of the country/world.
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That is a pretty wide ranging time frame on such a small amount of streams...besides what really is a stream? Some streams here in the Southeastern US would be considered rivers in other parts of the country/world.
I typically don't get too fired up about things anymore, but this sort of pseudo-science perpetrated on the tax-payer dime is an exception. Having been part of some GAO "findings", I'm extremely suspicious of any type of "research" done by governmental agencies. At its inception, this project was probably some sort of earmark funded by an appropriations bill that was, in essence, a means to create and sustain a half-dozen government jobs at some USGS office close to the "streams" studied. The truly frustrating thing to me is that some reporter for USA Today just basically repeats the findings verbatim, without actually doing a story on how the data was collected, where it was collected, etc. The title alone is extremely poor from a journalistic perspective, unless you simply want to catch someone's eye with a shocking headline.
EDIT: Here's an interesting quote from the Briefing Summary of that document the news article cites: "A trend analysis of data for 90 streams in a national fish mercury database (http://emmma.usgs.gov/) showed that mercury in fish generally decreased from 1969 to 1987."
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Funny thing is,
I sincerely doubt most of you could find mercury on this periodic table without help from google......
(http://www.corrosionsource.com/handbook/periodic/periodic_table.gif)
...nor tell anyone why it is so deadly. But yet, you can spout off some BS why not to take this seriously, because those "crazy scientists" are at it again.
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Funny thing is,
I sincerely doubt most of you could find mercury on this periodic table without help from google......
(http://www.corrosionsource.com/handbook/periodic/periodic_table.gif)
...nor tell anyone why it is so deadly. But yet, you can spout off some BS why not to take this seriously, because those "crazy scientists" are at it again.
Hg on the table, and its a neuro-toxin when sufficient quantities build up in your body. Anything else smart-guy?
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Mercury also has a fairly low boiling point.
Cook your fish well and just don't breathe the vapors.
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EDIT: Here's an interesting quote from the Briefing Summary of that document the news article cites: "A trend analysis of data for 90 streams in a national fish mercury database (http://emmma.usgs.gov/) showed that mercury in fish generally decreased from 1969 to 1987."
Yes, that dose bring up a crap load of quesions.
90 streams where tested. How?
Where are these streams?
How much runoffs from indutral, roads, towns do these 90 stream recived?
How long did they collect data from each stream?
Did they just did one sample from each stream, or a serious of sample along the stream.
If one sample was collected, when and where?
Was the sample done when stream was at high levals from rain, melting snow caps, or was it done at low leveals.
At sampling point(s), was there any construction, accendent done up stream in the pass that leads to contanumation?
At any of these streams, if these a wast water treatment up stream that may contaminate the stream?
Thats just scraping the surface of the questions. The general public wont even think most, if any at all, of these question but just take the facts as to what they read. Good find on the site stoney. :aok Like you, i don't get to crazy about government reports too. I used to work for the USDA and if anything i don know about how they work, i do know that half of the studies are a wast of tax payers money. They get way to technical from start to end and accomplished vary little out of it.
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yea i live less then 15mins away from teh Shenedoah river in Northern Virginia and the river is polluted with mercury
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There is mercury in my Johnson and that hasnt stopped any of the ladies from.......oh, nevermind.
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There is mercury in my Johnson and that hasnt stopped any of the ladies from.......oh, nevermind.
Mercury injections for the clap huh? Should watch where ya dip your wick....