This is regarding “Eat fish, but be choosy, studies say; Conclusion: For most, pluses outweigh risks” (News, Oct. 18), by Tribune staff reporter Michael Hawthorne.
The two studies highlighted in Hawthorne’s article provided a valuable service in weighing the health benefits and dangers of fish consumption–but in the end, the studies mostly confirmed what we already know.
The studies found, generally, that the protein and omega-3 fatty acids in fish are good for your health, that mercury and other toxic contaminants in fish can harm you and that, on balance, twice-a-week fish consumption is healthy for most people–but may be dangerous if it’s certain fish, such as shark and albacore, or certain people, namely children and pregnant women. One of the studies, by the National Academy of Sciences, also recommended that the federal government more systematically monitor fish contamination levels and revise and clarify its advisories for how much of which fish is safe to eat.
Why not eliminate the danger?
Toxic mercury contamination is the most significant threat to the safety of eating fish, and most mercury pollution is manmade and preventable. Cutting mercury pollution can quickly reduce mercury contamination in fish. To solve fish-borne mercury exposure, we must clean up the largest source of mercury pollution: coal-fired power plants. In Illinois, where the state’s mercury advisory applies to fish in all waters in the state, our 21 coal-fired power plants emit 71 percent of in-state mercury pollution. But available and affordable technologies can capture 90 percent of that pollution before it leaves the smokestack. Eighteen states have proposed or enacted requirements for power plants to install this technology.
In Illinois the requirement has been proposed, but not adopted. The legislature’s 12-member Joint Committee on Administrative Rules will likely vote this November on the Illinois Mercury Rule, which would reduce power plant mercury emissions by nearly 90 percent by 2009.
We urge JCAR legislators to pass the rule.
