Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
I am the fomer Air Pollution Control Manager for the City of Evansville, IN. I worked at the City EPA office for 7 years and have worked as an environmental consultant for the better part of my 30 year career. I'm retired now. I've been fishing and swimming since I was 2 years old. I was a lifeguard and water safety instructor for years and am an EMT and Certified Firefigher and Scuba Diver on the Thunder on the Ohio Rescue Team. I've been around the water all my life. My father was a lifeguard and taught me to swim at an early age. He also taught me to fish.
I studied preveternary medicine to become a doctor for animals. I switched majors after two years in prevet and got my degree in Environmental Sciences. I've taken all the introductory classes for veternary medicine and have a very good background in the sciences. Chemistry, physics, Genetics, Pathology etc.
I'm responding to this post to help you all learn how air pollution travels though the air from the smoke stack to the ground.
I've taken a class in Dispersion Modeling where we use data about the smoke stack and it's gases to determine where the smoke will fall out of the sky. We use things like the gas temperature, stack height above the ground, velocity of the gas coming out of the smoke stack and other factors such as wind direction, frequency of wind from all directions and wind speeds to determine where the pollutants will go. These calculations can be done by hand or via computers. With computer modeling we can predict the concentrations of the pollutants such as SO2 or Particulates all around the smoke stack for miles. With computers we can determine where the smoke from many factories will go and drop out of the air. The models are checked for accuracy by doing actually continuous monitoring at ground level for the pollutants of interest.
Now all lakes and rivers are as contaminated as others. Those that are directly near the smoke stack and directly downwind will have the higher concentrations.
Particle size and density have a lot to do with how far they travel once they leave the smoke stack. Heavier particles will fall out of the air first. Lighter particles can travel hundrends of miles on the air currents. Smoke from the midwest can travel to the Easter Parts of the USA. See studies conducted by USEPA on Sulfates that travel from the Midwest power plants to the smoke Mountains.
Some power plants these days have better air pollution controls on their stacks than they had back 40 years ago.
So to actually know how much mercury is in the fish it's best to read the Advisories which are based on actually sampling the fish and testing them for mercury in their bodies.
Back when I took BioChemistry at Purdue University our class did a study or helped the Professor with his study. We just did the leg work. We collected mice from around the campus and dissected them up. We collected the hearts and tested them for organic pollutants. DDT was or pollutant of interest. We tested and found DDT in all the mice. Some had more than others. We checked all the different organs to determine which one's had the most DDT in them. I don't remember all the details of those test results but it was interesting to do the research. This is going on at all the major universities in the US and there is a lot of chemcial knowledge about how chemcials are transported thoughout the ecosystem.
Just know that there are a lot of things going on in the environment that you may not be aware of. We banned the use of DDT many years ago but it's still persisting in the environment today. It can be found in fatty tissue of animals that live in the Northern Parts of our Planet where DDT was never used. It's been dispersed thoughout the globe.
Some chemcials will break down and become harmless to humans and other life but some persist for years.
We can't control everything but we sure can try to control the most harmful chemicals and keep them under control. That's all we can try to do. Like some said, we are not going to live forever and we can't protect ourselves from all the chemicals in the enviroment. But we can try to control the chemcials we make and release to some degree.
I personally will still eat fish but I won't eat fish that I know were caught in the Ohio River. All I have to do is think about my field trip down to the local Sewage Treatment plant and think about how many of those plants there are up and down the Ohio River between Evansville and Pittsburgh PA. I'm just glad that I don't live in Lousiana! They get the crap from everyone upriver. And that's a whole lot of crap and toxic chemicals thats in the Mississippi River down there. There is a reason why there is a area of the gulf of mexico that's all void of life. That's where all the toxins end up being dumped into the Gulf from the Rivers.
[QUOTE=jcclark;487754]Last time I checked the Ohio Fish Advisory's the crappie
was the only one not having limits on how many you can eat.
As far as mercury, ALL LAKES have it too, it comes from the rain.
Most fish in the lakes have the same levels as the river ones.:eek:
Taylorsville lake is much more polluted than the Ohio, it's
a major problem with that lake and yet you never hear about that.
Sauger need clean water to live, most lakes can't support them and
yet they thrive in the river, Hmmmmm.[/QUOTE]
Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
What I find funny is that everyone gets tore up about mercury content...but we eat all kinds of other stuff that we know is bad for us with out a thought about it. Yes mercury is bad for us...but so is a bunch of fried food! A heart attack will probably get you well before mercury poisoning.
Anyway...I'd eat em and I'd eat em fried!
Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
[QUOTE=Moveon;487817]Tell me that when you are dying from Cancer in a few years. I'll be that when the cancer is eating at your body and you are in such pain that you want to kill yourself you will regret saying this.
Sure it's easy to say that right now. It's not just about living a couple more years it's living a life that's without pain and anguish.
I would rather get hit by a buss and go quick than to linger around in a hosptial for a month or more.
I use to smoke and back in those days didn't care about lung cancer or any other thing like having a heart attack. But then after I had a heart attack I wished that I had never smoked at all. I'm still alive thanks to some surgeron who gave me new heart arteries but I can't do half the things I used to do. My physical activity is very limited nowdays.
So please don't discount your health. You will live to regret it someday unless you get hit by a buss and go quickly. And we all are not so lucky.[/QUOTE]
Mercury has never been shown to cause cancer as far as I could see from a few minutes of searching the internet.
Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
I have fished my whole life on KY lakes. Last year I went fishing down at the Falls for the first time. I enjoyed myself wading around and catching some nice fish. Problem was I had a couple of cuts on my leg from wading the previous week in Otter Creek on post. Those cuts/sores became infected after I waded in the Ohio and I had to go to the doctor. I have no doubt it was from the Ohio River water. I have been fishing since, but no way I'm eating anything out of there and I'm hesitant to even wade when I fish now.
Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
As long as it sits in the fryer long enough to kill any thing in it. Not much can live through 350' oil for 5-6 minutes. i say eat em
Re: How many would eat Ohio River crappie?
According to the info at the below link 25 million people live in the Ohio River watershed.
That got me thinking.
[url]http://www.orsanco.org/river-factsconditions[/url]
If you have ever seen the videos on YouTube about Asian raised fish you might opt for Ohio river crappie though...
