Testing Finds Mercury At Three Times The Federal Limit In Some Fish

GOOD:

San Francisco-based public awareness campaign Got Mercury? released the results from its most recent undercover fish testing operation earlier today. The data are pretty scary, and they're making news. But it's a little unclear whether the alarm is totally warranted, and--more importantly--what we should be doing about it.

Read the whole story

Comments

[BlackYowe]

04:01 PM on 01/22/2011

I don't eat much fish because of all the heavy metals in them and farm raised fish are full of antibiotics.

[Issaquah79]

05:23 PM on 01/21/2011

Thriiiicce! Thanks Conan!

[OkieMon]

03:04 PM on 01/21/2011

all do to unmitigated fossil fuel combustion.....the fossil fuel fas*cists (FFF) have monopolized energy in this country for over 120 years......only legislation will slow down their toxic ways....

[Mike Aponte]

11:16 PM on 01/20/2011

Thrice!!!!! LMAO!!

[tyrannikal]

10:09 PM on 01/20/2011

Thrice!

[EcoCatLady]

06:21 PM on 01/20/2011

Thrice? Since when do Americans use the word thrice?

[shilow]

03:30 AM on 01/20/2011

1200 lbs of octopus wash ashore dead in portugal on saterday , all ages and sizes, more washed up Sunday .That suggests the entire local population was wiped out says head of Gaia biological park.

[dadw5boys]

01:28 AM on 01/20/2011

We are also forgetting the Toxic Waste that has been dumped by the millions of tins in the Oceans.
Look at Somalia where they dumped so much offshore they destroyed the fishing industry there and the men turned to Pirating to make a living.
There is no court for them to go to for relief.

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

12:51 AM on 01/20/2011

I find it rather unforgivable that a rigorous testing protocol is not in place to monitor all pollutants in our food supply. Could it be that industry knows it would have to start cleaning up its act that it lobbies against any such testing? How resistant has the livestock industry been to testing for mad cow disease or pollutants? How about real testing of Gulf seafood? These are symbolic of primary level failures in capitalism under the "greed is good" doctrine. Those who protect the existent paradigm responsible for such harm are certifiable.

[dadw5boys]

12:43 AM on 01/20/2011

There are a lot of Ocean based Fish Farms now I suggest some of the toxins are coming from the fertilizers used in growing the feed for the farms.

[worker beenumbed]

08:38 PM on 01/19/2011

Mercury converts to a gas in a coal fired plant.That gas is almost impossible to capture.!]Use the expensive coal with the least mercury and sulfer..2]Build wind turbines.3]Use natural gas.4]Build Energy Star houses.5]Fund the program with a huge port fee on merchant ships which have reached "annual emissions....of 1.2 billion tonnes of co2 or 4.5% of all global emissions."The shippers are getting a free ride .That free ride distorts the allocation of the scarce resource known as AIR.

[dadw5boys]

12:40 AM on 01/20/2011

Every home could have a Vertical Wind Generator I am installing 4 on my roof and with solar I can get off the grid at least 9 months a year.
Look at the what is available on Alibaba.com

[2garen]

08:28 PM on 01/19/2011

Now, now, all those regulations are only hurting businesses..... sarcasm

[Max Shelby]

03:00 PM on 01/19/2011

In the 1970s during an effort to comply with the CAA, smokestack heights were raised on coal fired power plants. The end result was cleaner air in the local area, and much worse pollution farther away, especially from mercury. They, in essence, did not see the unintended consequence.
http://www.pollutionissues.com/A-Bo/Acid-Rain.html

A study came out in October of the increased mercury toxicity in fish farther from the power plants, but some chemicals went up in water close to the plants.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/ncsu-sfn100510.php

Coal mercury pollution is the cohesive thread in this.

Clean coal is a dirty lie.

[dadw5boys]

12:41 AM on 01/20/2011

For local areas but people 300 miles away got the most of it.

[janie@atthelake]

04:43 PM on 01/20/2011

sigh. got the message.

[redsquirell]

01:11 AM on 01/20/2011

More BS!!! I was raised near a coal fired electric plant and I am ... something... well I can't remember right now...

[janie@atthelake]

04:44 PM on 01/20/2011

trying to giggle here.

[Pandoras Folly]

01:52 PM on 01/19/2011

i remember about 15 years ago scientist were looking at ice core samples from greenland. They found a bloom of mercury in the samples about 2000 years ago. Finally a historian filled them in on what it was, the concentrations coincided exactly with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Their metal forges produced mercury vapor as a by product.

[Meesterclean]

01:11 PM on 01/19/2011

If we ate the younger fish, there would be less mercury and the adults would be able to repopulate the oceans better. We are catching the wrong fish. The older the fish, the more viable their offspring by many factors.

We also have to question where the mercury is coming from. Things are getting worse. Soon even the young fish will have far too much mercury.

[jsarets]

03:05 PM on 01/19/2011

The large majority of methylmercury emissions comes from coal-fired power plants.