DHEC posts updated fish advisories

There’s something in the water, and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control wants you to know about it.

A recently updated fish advisory released by the agency lists species that are testing positive for dangerous concentrations of mercury.

To help inform the public, DHEC has made available detailed information, including color picture charts, on its Web site (http://www.scdhec.gov/fish), and signs have been posted on affected waterways. These include our own Black Creek, Black River, Forest Lake and Little Pee Dee River.

According to DHEC, mercury is a “naturally occurring metal” that is released into the air from “coal-burning facilities and incinerators.” Once in the water, it converts into organic matter that is then consumed by fish and stored within their tissue.

When humans consume the contaminated fish in large enough quantity, it can cause damage to the nervous system. At highest risk are infants, whose nervous systems still are in delicate stages of development.

Therefore, DHEC, along with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is strongly cautioning pregnant women, nursing mothers, young children and women who might become pregnant to avoid types of fish with the highest mercury concentrations.

While the issuance of such advisories is nothing new, posting warning signs near bodies of water where affected fish are found is a change. It’s a common sight around the Pee Dee to see people casting lines into local creeks, ponds and rivers in hopes of snagging dinner for themselves and their families. It just makes sense to stake the cautions near the places where those they are intended for are most likely to see them. The Internet might be the great information highway, but the reality is the road to the Web still is closed to plenty of people.

Providing easy access to mercury testing for people who eat from local waters — a move supported by local physician, Dr. Timothy Dancy — also seems to be a justifiable course of action. Prevention efforts are commendable, certainly, but you can’t ignore the fact that people have been fishing these local waters and eating their catch. Closing our eyes to a real and present health problem only invites more risk and suffering.

Of course, mercury contamination is a growing concern and one that certainly will be revisited here in the weeks to come as the Pee Dee faces the possibility of a proposed coal-burning plant.

But, for now, it’s our hope that increased efforts to warn citizens will reduce the likelihood that the catch of the day will cause harm to the most vulnerable among us.