# State agency says walleye are good to eat



## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

State agency says walleye are good to eat

http://www.ourmidland.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15136850&BRD=2289&PAG=461&dept_id=472542&rfi=6

Kathie Marchlewski, Midland Daily News, 09/01/2005

The state Department of Community Health has lifted its fish-eating advisories for walleye taken from the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers.

It's not that the rivers are any less contaminated than when advisories were issued in the past, explained MDCH toxicologist Kory J. Groetsch, but that additional sampling on larger sizes of the species shows that their dioxin concentration does not increase with age and size. 

In species that don't travel far, such as bass, such increases in concentration are the norm, Groetsch said. But because walleye don't live exclusively in one place -- such as the dioxin-contaminated Tittabawassee -- they are not feeding exclusively on contaminated food. 

"A lot of them are migratory and don't spend much time in the Tittabawassee," he said. "They live in the Saginaw Bay. Dioxin concentrations decline as you head out that way." 

Prior to the most recent studies, MDCH had only a few samples on which to base its recommendations, and those samples were from fish measuring 16 inches or less. The legal limit for keeping walleye is 15 inches. They assumed that the levels increased at the same rates as other fish as they aged and grew. 

When they examined larger walleye collected by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality this year, they found that the larger ones did not have levels of dioxin high enough to trigger an advisory. 

Fish smaller than 22 inches contained no more than 6 parts per trillion, while the state's threshold for issuing warnings is 10 parts per trillion. 

Under the guidelines expected to be released this week, people from the general population, excluding women of child-bearing age and children under 15, can eat an unlimited number of walleye smaller than 22 inches. For years, the recommended limit was no more than one meal per week. 

Women and children still are advised to eat no more than one meal a month of walleye under 22 inches, and no more than six meals a year over 22 inches, but that warning is a result not of dioxin, but of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that still exist in the watershed.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

State warns of high dioxin levels in some Tittabawassee River Fish

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Carp, catfish and white bass in the Tittabawassee River contain high levels of dioxin and should not be eaten, the Michigan Department of Community Health said Thursday.

http://www.freep.com/news/statewire/sw121008_20050908.htm


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

DEQ: More dioxins moving toward Bay City

http://www.mlive.com/news/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-6/113958817273600.xml&coll=4

Friday, February 10, 2006 By JEFF KART TIMES WRITER 
894-9639 [email protected].

More dioxins are on their way to Bay City.

State officials say the pollutants, left behind by past processes of the Dow Chemical Co. plant on the Tittabawassee River in Midland, are on the move. 

Test results presented at a meeting in Saginaw Township on Thursday show that dioxins similar to those found downstream of Dow's plant have been found in the top 3-5 inches of Saginaw River sediments.

Concentrations as high as 16,000 parts per trillion were found at the Sixth Street turning basin in downtown Saginaw in sediment samples taken in 2004, said Al Taylor, a state Department of Environmental Quality geologist. 

Exposure to soil with concentrations above 90 parts per trillion is a problem, the DEQ says. By Federal standards, anything above 1,000 ppt also is bad, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Taylor said levels on the surface are of high concern because fish are more likely to be exposed. He said it's critical that people pay close attention to state fish consumption advisories. 

Results of the latest tests on the Saginaw River - from the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Shiawassee Rivers up through Bay City and out to the Saginaw Bay - were presented at a town hall meeting hosted by DEQ and Dow officials at the Horizons Conference Center. The tests were done by the state with a federal grant, focusing on areas outside the navigational channel. 

Taylor didn't have a list of sampling sites available. But he presented a graphical map showing 20-some yellow spots in the Bay City area where dioxins were found in sediments in concentrations above 90 ppt and below 1,000. A few red spots - at the river mouth and in the bay - were shown where sediment levels were above 1,000 ppt. 

The tests show a drop in concentrations between spikes in downtown Saginaw and others at the river mouth and in the bay. 

Taylor said he believes that's due to navigational dredging done in the past which removed dioxins from the Bay City area. But he suspects more dioxins will wash into Bay City in time; concentrations up to 2,500 ppt were found in previous testing. 

That worries Michelle Hurd Riddick, a member of the Lone Tree Council, a Bay City area environmental group. 

Dioxins have been linked to skin disease, cancer and a host of other health problems. 

''There isn't a wall between the Tittabawassee River and the Saginaw River,'' Riddick said.

She said it's the responsibility of the DEQ and Dow to ensure that the dioxin doesn't keep on moving out to Lake Huron. 

''It is moving,'' Riddick said. ''How are they going to stop it? They are going to study this to death. They know where those high concentrations are. They need to pull them out now.'' 

Bob McCann, a DEQ spokesman, said it's not that easy. 

''There are clear signs the dioxin is mobile,'' McCann said. ''But if we start digging and stirring things up it might make it worse.'' 

McCann said more studies still need to be done to determine the full concentration of the dioxins. He said the DEQ and Dow don't intend to keep studying the dioxins until they've all washed into the bay. 

He said cleanup work in high priority areas could be as close as a year away. 

Dow is to set to present a remedial investigation plan for the Saginaw area by March 1. Dow also has an obligation under its operating license to take corrective action on the Saginaw River and Bay beginning in 2007, Taylor said. 

Taylor said the DEQ is still studying the fingerprint of the dioxins found in the Saginaw River, to see how similar they are to those found downstream of Dow. 

The DEQ believes there were likely other sources of dioxins to the Saginaw River, including the Bay City Wastewater Treatment and General Motors Powertrain plants. So far, most of the dioxins look the same, but researchers have found ''a little bit of a difference'' in dioxins found near the bay, suggesting another source, Taylor said.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Eating fish from river not healthy, DEQ says 

http://www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1142000532175010.xml&coll=9

Friday, March 10, 2006 JEREMIAH STETTLER THE SAGINAW NEWS 
State health officials say living and dining along the Tittabawassee River may increase a person's dioxin exposure up to 3,900 percent, a brochure mailed to about 500 riverside resident suggests. 

The Department of Environmental Quality brochure, sent to property owners eligible for landscaping and house cleaning because of dioxin, paints a startling picture of what contamination a riverside resident might consume by eating sport fish and wild game from the floodplain. 

By eating walleye for dinner one night and deer the next one time a month, a riverside resident would increase dioxin exposure 320 percent over what the average adult experiences, even if the person abided by every state precaution for avoiding contact with the soil, the brochure says.

Change that diet to one meal of catfish and another of deer, deer liver or wild turkey and the exposure rises 1,000 percent higher than that of the average adult, the document says. 

The worse-case scenario is a person who eats seven meals of sport fish from the Tittabawassee River a month -- a diet that also would include bottom-feeders such catfish and carp -- and ignores all recommendations for avoiding dioxin. That person would increase exposure to the contaminant 3,900 percent. 

State officials say they are trying to spread facts, not fear, about a persistent pollutant that Dow Chemical Co. historically released. 

"This isn't a scare tactic," said Robert McCann, spokesman for the DEQ. "What this is doing is presenting some scientific data in a real-world scenario so people can understand it." 

Dow officials call the advisory a distortion of the facts -- an objection they raised before state regulators approved the document. 

"We don't agree with everything in that brochure, least of all that graph as being a true depiction of the risks of living on the floodplain," said Dow spokesman John C. Musser. 

Nevertheless, the chemical giant's operating license requires the company to distribute the brochure to properties with elevated dioxin levels.

Dow officials contend that riverside residents face no "imminent health threat." They argue further that the state's assumptions in developing its advisory -- such as the amount of dioxin absorbed into the blood when a person swallows soil -- are extreme. 

State officials stand behind the data. Toxicologists such as Linda Dykema, manager of the Toxicology and Response Section of the state Department of Community Health, say the numbers are based on hard science. While the brochure does not speak to health effects, Dykema said it is reasonable to assume that people with higher exposure have a greater likelihood of developing health problems. 

Studies have linked dioxin to reproduction problems, birth defects, diabetes and some forms of cancer in laboratory animals.

"We're trying to drive home the point that people should adhere to the fish advisory," Dykema said. "We hope to reach those people who are taking their catch home for dinner." 

The state has advised anglers not to eat carp or catfish out of the Tittabawassee River and to limit their consumption of smallmouth bass, white bass and several other species because of dioxin contamination. 

The brochure also encourages residents to abide by the state's recommendations for reducing dioxin exposure at home -- such as removing shoes before coming indoors, vacuuming frequently and washing hands and clothes after working outside. 

Copies of document are available online at www.michigan.gov/deqdioxin. v 

Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.


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## Hamilton Reef (Jan 20, 2000)

Fish-eating advisories need better means of reaching the public

http://www.mlive.com/columns/bctimes/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1143216972319100.xml&coll=4

Friday, March 24, 2006 
Michigan has turned its back on the safety of its anglers for far too long. 

At first blush, a plan in 2003 to stop printing pamphlets outlining fish-consumption guidelines but still put the information on the Internet seemed like a reasonable budget-cutting compromise. 

But, while the Michigan Departments of Environmental Quality and Natural Resources continue to update reports on toxic substances in fish, the Department of Community Health hasn't updated its advisories to the public since 2004.

State Sen. James A. Barcia, D-Bay City, said he's raising this issue with fellow sportsmen in the state Legislature. 

We hope he's successful in finding a way to get the information out to the fishing public. 

The health department used to spend about $300,000 a year to publish the fish advisory brochures that were available wherever fishing licenses were sold. 

Now, that budget is gone, and the state relies on health department employees to pitch in when they can to make updates on the Internet. 

Obviously, that hasn't worked. 

Instead, maybe the cash-strapped state can scrape together enough seed money to print an updated brochure. 

Then sell it for a dollar or two at bait shop counters. The money collected could be used for next year's update. 

We'd bet there are enough fishermen interested in the health of their families to spend a little extra for this valuable information. 

To jig up a little interest, consider this bit of tasty bait: 

In its most recent findings, the DEQ says that smaller walleyes are safer to eat now than in years past. 

Nibble on that.


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