TITLE: ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Freshwater Fish, Yet Most States Don’t Warn Residents
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/pfas-forever-chemicals-freshwater-fish-regulatory-gap/
EXCERPT: Researchers, anglers, and environmental activists nationwide worry about the staggering amount of PFAS found in freshwater fish. At least 17 states have issued PFAS-related fish consumption advisories, KFF Health News found, with some warning residents not to eat any fish caught in particular lakes or rivers because of dangerous levels of forever chemicals.
With no federal guidance, what is considered safe to eat varies significantly among states, most of which provide no regulation.
Eating a single serving of freshwater fish can be the equivalent of drinking water contaminated with high levels of PFAS for a month, according to a recent study from the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization that tracks PFAS. It’s an unsettling revelation, especially for rural, Indigenous, and low-income communities that depend on subsistence fishing. Fish remain a large part of cultural dishes, as well as an otherwise healthy source of protein and omega-3s.
“PFAS in freshwater fish is at such a concentration that for anyone consuming, even infrequently, it would likely be their major source of exposure over the course of the year,” said David Andrews, a co-author of the study and researcher at EWG. “We’re talking thousands of times higher than what’s typically seen in drinking water.”
Dianne Kopec, a researcher and faculty fellow at the University of Maine who studies PFAS and mercury in wildlife, warned that eating fish with high concentrations of PFAS may be more harmful than mercury, which long ago was found to be a neurotoxin most damaging to a developing fetus. The minimal risk level — an estimate of how much a person can eat, drink, or breathe daily without “detectable risk” to health — for PFOS, a common PFAS chemical, is 50 times as low as for methylmercury, the form of mercury that accumulates in fish, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. But she emphasized, “They’re both really nasty.”
Just like mercury, PFAS bioaccumulate up the food chain, so bigger fish, like largemouth bass, generally contain more chemicals than smaller fish. Mercury is more widespread in Maine, but Kopec said PFAS levels near contamination sources are concerningly high.
TITLE: California Commercial Fishing Groups Sue Tire Makers Over Rubber Preservative
https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/mag-features/2023/12/04/750171.htm
EXCERPT: The 13 largest U.S. tire manufacturers are facing a lawsuit from a pair of California commercial fishing organizations that could force the companies to stop using a chemical added to almost every tire because it kills migrating salmon.
Also found in footwear, synthetic turf and playground equipment, the rubber preservative 6PPD has been used in tires for 60 years. As tires wear, tiny particles of rubber are left behind on roads and parking lots, breaking down into a byproduct, 6PPD-quinone, that is deadly to salmon, steelhead trout and other aquatic wildlife when rains wash it into rivers.
“This is the biggest environmental disaster that the world doesn’t quite know about yet,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, an attorney with the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which is representing the fishing groups. “It’s causing devastating impacts to threatened and endangered species.”
The Institute for Fisheries Resources and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday against Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental and others.
In an emailed statement, Bridgestone spokesman Steve Kinkade said the company would not comment on the lawsuit, but that it “remains committed to safety, quality and the environment and continues to invest in researching alternative and sustainably sourced materials in our products.”
Several of the other tire makers did not immediately return emails seeking comment. The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, which is not named as a defendant, said in a statement last week that work is already underway to identify a chemical to replace 6PPD while still meeting federal safety standards. Forcing the companies to change too quickly would be bad for public safety and the economy, it said.
“Our members continue to research and develop alternative tire materials that ensure tire performance and do not compromise safety, consistent with our industry’s commitment to sustainability and respect for the environment,” the association said in another statement.
The fishing organizations filed the lawsuit a week after U.S. regulators said they would review the use of 6PPD in tires in response to a petition from three West Coast Native American tribes. Coho salmon appear to be especially sensitive to the preservative; it can kill them within hours, the tribes argued.
The tribes, the Yurok in California and the Port Gamble S’Klallam and Puyallup tribes in Washington, asked the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit 6PPD earlier this year.
The agency’s decision to grant the petition is the start of a long regulatory process that could see it banned, one of several effort on different fronts to recover salmon populations as well as the endangered killer whales in the Pacific Northwest that depend on them.
TITLE: There’s a crisis in the Yukon River
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/03/yukon-river-salmon-climate-change/
EXCERPT: Researchers attribute the decline in salmon to a constellation of factors. “Like a lot of 21st century environmental problems, it doesn’t have a singular cause,” said Bathsheba Demuth, an environmental historian at Brown University who is writing a book about the Yukon.
One contributing factor for the decline is happening hundreds of miles away at sea. Commercial fishing boats in the Bering Sea and elsewhere off Alaska that use huge nets to trawl for more than 2 billion pounds of pollock a year — a fish used in fish sticks and McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches — are accidentally scooping up salmon born in the Yukon and destined to return to the river.
Tim Bristol, executive director of the advocacy group SalmonState, wants to see regulators limit bycatch, or the number of chum salmon ocean fishers take accidentally, by shutting down fishing that harvests too many chum.
The National Marine Fisheries Service and the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which oversee Alaskan fisheries, have limits on bycatch for king salmon. Bristol said that is “an improvement,” but may have come too late.
He added that other parts of the world have moved away from trawling. Earlier this year, trawling vessels killed several orcas off Alaska. Whether the practice should continue is “a question for Alaska, and I think it’s a question for the United States,” Bristol said.
But the pollock fishing companies said existing bycatch limits are working well to curb the Chinook taken. The chum salmon the fleet accidentally catches, it adds, is mostly from Asian hatcheries, not Alaskan rivers.
“Although the Alaska pollock fishery is not the cause of this crisis, we are redoubling our focus on technology, management and science innovations to minimize the incidental catch,” said Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association, a pollock industry group.
Michael Kampnich, a commercial fisher and a former logger, used to dismiss environmentalists’ concerns. But he said it is impossible for him to ignore the impact of trawling.
“The scale of this bycatch is unimaginable,” he said. “And I just understand, this is not sustainable.”
But a bigger threat to salmon, scientists say, is climate change. In the ocean, higher temperatures, including a massive marine heat wave known as the “Blob,” made it hard for some younger salmon to feed and thrive.
And when adult salmon return to the Yukon to spawn, they get no reprieve as warming river waters stress the cold-loving fish as it makes its epic journey. The trip up the Yukon into Canada, the longest for any salmon on Earth, is stressful enough even for healthy fish.
“It’s the equivalent of doing an ultramarathon every day for a month,” said Katie Howard, a fisheries scientist who leads the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s salmon ocean ecology program. “That’s what they’re swimming.”
Also contributing to the declines is a vitamin deficiency in some fish, as well as a disease called ichthyophonus that may be spreading more readily among the stressed fish.
“There’s many things that are affecting the decline in salmon, from warming waters to disease, but I think the one thing that we can fix is the commercial fishing and the bycatch,” said Ulvi, who also chairs the Yukon Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which formed in response to low salmon numbers.
[Jody] Potts-Joseph hopes Indigenous knowledge about how to fish sustainably and catch only what is needed can help restore salmon. “It comes from thousands of years of living and observing and being a part of this landscape.”