Consumption

[crappie66]

Moose I know you are quite the environmental scientist, and you may have even done research on this question while you were at Purdue. Do you know anything about the lake/pond behind the Purdue Powerplant. I know the powerplant burns coal since there are huge mountains of it back there. So do you think that lake has a high mercury level. We used to eat several meals of bluegill from there. We caught an 11 lb channel out of there that was badly hooked down the throat, so we tried to eat that, I think 3 bites were consumed and the rest unfortunately had to be thrown away. Oh how I miss fishing that lake, right across the street from one of my apartments, we would go back there just about everyday. Nothing to catch a bucket full of handsize and bigger bluegills, and 50 or 60 bass on any given trip, however only 1 in 10 bass would be decent 3 lbs or more.

Go PURDUE

[Moose1am]

I am guessing here but I would think that the vast majority of the mercury found in the fly ash would settle close to the smoke stack that it came out of. The larger the particle size the less distance it will drift or blow away from the source. Now the very find particulate matter will actually float in the air for long periods of time. Those fine particles may travel thousands of miles away from the point source. This will help dispurse the initial pollutants. But when you have a smoke stack that is continusouly streaming out pollants such as fly ash containing mercury in trace amounts it will eventually build up in the downwind environemnt.

I know that the levels in the fish are measured in PPM. I suspect that is parts per million parts on a weight/weight basis. In air pollution we measure PPM on a vol/vol basis by converting the molecular weight of the gas into a gas volume. One mole of a gas at STP will occupy a certain volume of space.

Anyway bottom line is that I would think that there is more mercury closer to the smoke stack in most cases.

I would have to know the particle size distribution of the gases and how the trace mercury was distributed in each particle size category. That would be a job to figure out. Maybe someone has already figure that out.

I do know that coal is a trickly devil to test. The coal seam can contain coal of different chemical composition.

Normally they will take a shovel of coal from a pile and store it in a burlap sack. They will take so many shovels of coal from the pile and then try to mix the samples up and then crush it. The crushed coal is then homogonized and divide up over and over again until they get a small plastic jar that is represenative of the entire coal pile out in the field. They will take samples from the coal pile as the loader takes a scoop out of the coal pile and loads that into a coal car that is waiting at the site. As the coal car is loaded by a front end loader a sampler will continue to take samples of the coal pile after each scoop from the front end loader. I know that at the end of the day the guy sampling the coal is tired, dirty as hell and ready for a hot shower and a good meal. I only did that job for a couple of days and believe me it will take a toll on your body. Just breathing in the coal dust on a hot summer day will about kill a man. LOL. I did this a few days to see what the coal sampling guys had to put up with. To test the coal we took small samples of the sample jar and tested them for sulfur content, BTU heat content, Ash content and melting point. Some of our clients wanted special analysis of the coal and we performed other tests on those samples.

I do remember one of the labs chemist testing water samples for mercury and that test was a hard test to conduct. It took more time to conduct than the other tests. It's was not easy testing for trace amounts of mercury. We also tested water samples for cynaide and other contaminates. We did PCB test also. Most all we did was test the water and soils for inorganic pollutants. All the organic tests other than some generic test were sent to California for testing out there at our Organic Testing laboratory. We had labortories located all around the world. Today the lab I worked for is owned by Haliburton. Our lab started out as a geological testing lab and tested mainly core samples from the earth. Then it grew into testing the coal for the local coal companies and the power plants that were purchasing the coal. We tested their coal to document the amount of sulfur in the coal to meet their environemental permit conditions.



Regards,

Moose1am

[idbefishing]

Here is an easy rule to remember: DON'T EAT WILD FISH PERIOD!
Spend a few bucks and go to the grocery store and buy them, farm raised if you want to eat fish bad enough. To me, game fish are my toys so there is no way I'm gonna eat my toys or I won't have any to play with soon. I'm no PETA tree hugger or anything but eat chicken or beef or pork, fish taste awefull anyway.

[Moose1am]

Yea you are right we all should just stop eating and drinking food that can be contaminated so that some people can get a bigger bonus.

NO THANKS!

The air and water belongs TO ALL OF US. I am not about to sit still and let the pollution continue unabated to the point that fish are no longer safe to eat.

And did you ever think that the fish food that is fed to those farm raised catfish comes from? If you think that eating fish from a farm pond is any safer than fresh caught fish out of the wild lakes then you might want to do some more research on this subject. There are many pollutants relesaed into our environment these days and in days past. Some of those chemicals are not longer being produce but those that were produced years ago still persist in our environment. PCB is one good example. This chemical can cause cancer and it' readily absorbed into the fish we eat. Both farm raised catfish and wild fish can contain pcb's. Each and every human in the USA probably has a few PCB stored in the fatty tissue. The pcb contamination comes from the food that is used to feed those farm raised catfish. Now I am not saying that all farn raised catfish are contaminated. What I am saying is that I know of one report that found PCB's in the food and in the farm raised catfish. So with that knowlege it's buyer beware. It's unfortunate that there is not a cheap quck and easy test method that the home owner can use to find out what's in our food and drink. Testing for PCB's requires extraction using Hexane Solvent and a gas chrotomograph along with a skilled Chemist to run the machine and interupt the result. Also blanks samples are used to establish a baseline. And known samples (spikes) are required to be tested with each batch of samples along with some replicates that test the analysists precision. The same sample run two different times should produce the same result. If there is a discrepancy in the test results of a duplicate sample then the test results are suspect. The test procedure should have certain limits that are produced by keeping control charts. These charts are stastical test result that tell the analyst when the test results are out of bounds or not. Also proficency samples should be analyzed from time to time. These are USEPA samples that are of known concentrations to USEPA but not to the labs conducting the performance testing. The same sample is spit up and sent to many different labs thoughout the usa. Each lab is to test the sample they receive and report the results back to USEPA in a certain time frame. The USEPA office then runs a stastical analysis on the reported samples results and this shows the analysist at each lab how they compared to the other testing labs. If your sample results are different from the know concentration then you must figure out why the results were off and fix the problem within a certain time frame. If you fail too many test your lab will not be certified to test for this particular pollutant. The FBI crime Lab has to follow similar procedures of Quallity Assurance to stay certified.

I have three huge 3 ring notebooks full of USEPA QA informaiton if you would like more details.

Stop eating fish? Never. Reduce my consumption of certain fish for the time being ..yes. But I will fight to my dying days to get something done to reduce the amount of pollution that is being spewed into the air we breath and the water we have to drink. On that you can be sure.
Regards,

Moose1am

[Moose1am]

That's total BS. We should be able to catch and consume wild fish without the fear of someone else mercury contaminating our natural resource that belongs to everyone. Why should someone be allowed to dump their toxin into the environement and not have to pay to control those same toxins. If the pollution sources were controlled and not allowed to dump their waste products into the air or water then we would not have to have consumption warnings and stop eating the fish.

I totally disagree with your statement. It may be that it comes to that someday. Maybe that someday is already here. Maybe it's too lake to clean up the earth and maybe we have gone too far already. I hope that is not the case. I personally think we can clean this earth up and not have to worry about eating fresh fish that we catch.

The pollution sources should be the ones that have to pay to clean up the mercury before they dump it out in to the air for everyone else to contend with. The price of manufacturing a product or producing power from coal should not be subsidices by not controlling the waste produced by those proceess.

And beside where on this earth can you find farm raised fish that are not exposed to air pollution emissions? Where can one go in IN that does not have a power plant buring coal nearby?
Not anywhere in Southern IN that is for sure.

Some of the more responsible companies are already starting to better control their air emission. Vectren & and the ALCOA power plant are spending 40 million dollars to add new scrubbers to their smoke stacks to help clean up the dirty air before it's released into the environment. We need more companies to do that. They give jobs to the construction guys for the next 5 to 8 years and then give permanant jobs to the 25 people that they will have to hire to run the new scrubber system. That is a good thing IMHO.



Regards,

Moose1am

[idbefishing]

"And beside where on this earth can you find farm raised fish that are not exposed to air pollution emissions? Where can one go in IN that does not have a power plant buring coal nearby?
Not anywhere in Southern IN that is for sure."

Yeah but at least fish farm pond not connects to rivers and creeks that take all the water runoff and pollution from the surrounding land and they don't eat other bait fish which already being contaminated. Whatever pollution fall directly onto the pond is probably so minutes that it have no harm.

[Moose1am]

Well some lakes are surrounded by farmland that has had human waste residue applied to the land. Some farmer once got some sludge from some city waste treatment plants and they applied that to the land surrounding this huge private lake.

I was working for an Environmental Analytical Laboratory and we were hired to take lake bottom sediment samples and to test them for nitrates and other elements. Not sure what all the parameters they wanted our lab to test for. Heavy metals surely was on the list.

We went out to this lake and dove down to the lake bottom and took some core samples from the muck. Those samples were taken back to the lab and stored and then analyzed.

The guy that hired our lab was pretty high up in the State IDEM Solid Waste or Hazardous Waste Dept. Never did get to see the study results

But I have heard that some farm raised catfish had PCB contamination. Seems that the fish food that they used to feed teh catfish had been contaminated with PCB's.

Fly ash know's no political boundaries. It goes where ever the wind takes it. Fly ash coming out of a 1000ft tall smoke stack at a high velocity and at very high temperature can rise up more than a few thousand feet above the top of the smoke stack and be carried long distances away. But if there is little wind and it's a hot summer day with a temperature inversion in progress those gases won't travel very far before even the ligth weight particle settle out of the air. This is dry depositon. These smoke particles can carry trace amounts of heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. Over 40 years these trace metals can build up in the soil, lakes and or river surrounding the power plant's smoke stacks.

And then you have the bio accumulation up the food chain effect that can concentrate those heavy metals and pesticide up the food chain.

While the small pond or lake may not be connected to the river system and thus not subjected to the pollutants that are in the river water the fish in a small pond can still contain heavy metals in varying amounts.

Regards,

Moose1am

[idbefishing]

So what is your point Moose? or are you just confirmed what I tried to say. It's safer to consumes farm raised fish.!!!!!!

[WMAMOS]

I'd recommend using Google as a source of information.....not MOOSE.

http://www.wistrout.com/fishsafe.htm

[idbefishing]

quote:
WMAMOS (132 posts)
Sep-06-05, 12:45 PM (EST)
16. "RE: Consumption"
I'd recommend using Google as a source of information.....not MOOSE.
http://www.wistrout.com/fishsafe.htm


Ha ha ha ha....good one Amos.

[Moose1am]

Santerre warns, however, that while data supports the safety and benefits of aquaculture products, consumers should still use caution when eating fish they catch.




Regards,

Moose1am

[Moose1am]

My point is this: It depends on a lot of factores. What feed was used and if that feed was contaminated or not. Where the farm pond is located. Is that pond downwind of a large coal fired power plant or not.

You may be correct that in General the farm raised fish may be safer to eat... meaning that they have LESS pollutants in their flesh.

In fact it's hard to find any thing these days that does not have some contamination in it... including humans. Every one of us has traces of a lot of chemicals in our bodies.

I guess my point is that it's not so clear and it's more complicated that most people think it is.

Here is what I would love to see happen. I would love to see the toxins prevented from getting into the environment in the first place. If not completely stopped then eliminated to a high degree.

I am tired of having to limit my fishing due to the fish being contaminated with mercury and PCB and any other toxin. I wish that we would not have to worry about these toxin in our food. But we can't get that done right now. So I guess we are all forced to reduce our consumption of wild fish that come from polluted waters or switch to a vegetable diet.

I guess my point is that we have too many people getting cancer and dying on us at an early age and I wish that could be prevented.

Regards,

Moose1am