INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Catch-22

Thanks in part to coal-burning power plants, eating fish from Hoosier waterways is more of a health risk than a healthy alternative. Mercury was the toxin of concern for state environmentalists at a recent press conference. The metal has been shown to be prevalent in fish and dangerous to children and women of child-bearing age.

 Associates from the Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) and the Indiana Public Interest Research Group (INPIRG) gathered in the Statehouse lobby to call on legislators to adopt a plan to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2008. The current EPA proposal is for a 70 percent reduction by 2018.

“There is widespread support for cutting mercury emissions right away,” said Liese Jones, Midwest field director for the National Association of State PIRGs. The majority of people, she believes, are concerned about their health and their children’s health. The public comment period for the federal rule-making ends next month.

Mercury is bio-accumulative. It accumulates in the fat, muscle and connective tissue of fish. Dangerous levels of the toxin can build up over time in humans who eat contaminated fish. Mercury has been proven to interfere with brain activity and brain development, especially during early childhood and during the fetal stage. “The safe limits that the EPA puts out are based on risk assessment and a whole set of calculations,” Jones said.

Women of child-bearing age, unborn children and young children are the most affected, she said, but consuming mercury is not safe for anyone. Risk to adult males is reported to be minimal but has not been fully studied.

Environmentalists say that state officials have not been doing as much as they could be. Last June, the pollution control board had agreed to hold public regional hearings on a rule-making proposal, said Brian Wright, HEC coal policy associate, but rescinded the decision in July, instead recommending an Indiana Department of Environmental Management study.

“It’s pretty much hanging in limbo right now,” Wright said. IDEM could do a lot more, he said, but because the electrical utilities wield so much political power in the state, little is done to clean up coal-fired plants even though there is no shortage of profit being made by the utilities.

Public awareness is another problem. There are 12 Indiana waterways classified as Group Five by the State Board of Health’s Fish Consumption Advisory Report. The fish in Group Five waterways should not be eaten. According to Wright, a number of these areas are not posted with warning signs.

Distribution of the Fish Consumption Advisory Report is another point of contention for environmentalists. The advisory booklet is supposed to be distributed when people purchase their fishing licenses, said Rae Schnapp, the HEC Wabash river keeper, but many people fish unaware of the risks. “Getting the word out to people is an important part of the problem,” Schnapp said. Unlike PCBs, the contamination risk is not lowered by cleaning the fat from fish, she said, because mercury poisoning is throughout the tissue.

A joint announcement in March by the EPA and the FDA brought mercury concerns to national attention. It dealt primarily with ocean fish, finding that 55 percent are unsafe for women of average weight who eat fish twice a week and 76 percent are dangerous for children under the age of 3 who eat fish twice a week. Studies of state waterways found that 25 percent of the fish are unsafe to eat due to mercury contamination, but, according to the advisory, the majority of fish should be eaten with caution, mostly because of PCB contamination.

The dangers of contaminated fish traveling through connected waterways and the fact that not all the fish have been tested are other concerns. Parts of only six waterways in the state contain fish that are safe to consume without restriction. The vast majority contain enough contaminants — either mercury or PCBs — that they should only be consumed, at most, once a week. A meal is considered 8 ounces (uncooked weight) of fish for a 150 pound person.

The consumption advisory emphasizes the health benefits of fish, saying that residents should not stop eating fish, but instead should use the advisory as a guide to selecting and preparing them. Ironically, the data in the report makes fisherman’s choices seem like a catch-22.