Fishing in the ruins: Interpreting the Lake Michigan Mass Balance Study

The Environmental Protection agency released its Lake Michigan Mass Balance Study in 1997 in which the exact quantity of contaminants such as PCB's, Mercury, Non achlors, Atrazine, and others are determined, by watershed, throughout the air, and in the lake waters, in the fish, and in the waterfowl. http://www.epa.gov/grtlakes/lmmb/index.htmlThe results of this document, properly understood, basically put the kaibosh on any serious use of Lake Michigan fish as a source of food. This spells the death knell for any commercial fishing industry and casts an eery pall of death over the entire food aquatic world. Rates of bioaccumulation of PCB's--especially the select group of congenors known by the WHO to have dioxin-like toxicities--in the flesh of salmonids and trout are such that no rational person would be willing to risk consuming even the minimum amount recommended. For adult males thats no lake trout, and 6 servings (a deck of card size) of salmon (coho or chinook) in a calendar year. Thats insane. For women, especially women nursing, there is to be no consumption period. Thats a shame.

I remember seeing these old guys with a stringer of cohos and chinooks last fall on the Milwaukee River. I asked them if they knew what they had there, if they knew about the levels of pcb's in those fish. They brushed it off saying they've been eating these fish for years. Poor old guys, long may you run. Its a shame we can't follow you.