Read the full article by Paula Gardner
“Michigan officials now say PFAS tests show that all fish in a five-county span of the Huron River contain too much contamination for people to eat them.
An updated warning from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) expanded two ‘do not eat’ warnings from earlier in August, now saying all fish in the waterway from Oakland County to Lake Erie should not be consumed.
The advisory affects the river and tributaries in the Southeast Michigan counties of Livingston, Washtenaw, Wayne and Monroe. They are in addition to Oakland County, where ‘high PFOS surface water levels were found upstream of Kent Lake’ in Kensington Metropark.
The extent of the warning is unusual, state officials said.
‘This is not common to issue a Do Not Eat advisory for this large of a waterbody,’ said Angela Minicuci, spokesperson for the MDHHS…
‘It’s just so disappointing and frustrating,’ said Laura Rubin, executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, as she considered the expanded warning.
‘We’ve done so much work on the Huron and hold it up to be a high-quality resource,’ she said of the 136-mile river. ‘… Now we’re facing extensive cleanup.
‘We could face decades before we can eat fish from the Huron.’
State officials said after the first warning that both black crappie and largemouth bass collected in 2017 in Kent Lake were used for the fish sampling. Ten fish of each type were tested, with black crappie PFOS averaging 1,029 parts per billion (ppb) and the largemouth bass averaging 1,481 ppb.
The state moves fish into the ‘do not eat’ category when it tests at a level of 300 ppb of PFOS or higher. In comparison, fish at 9 ppb are considered safe to eat for 16 meals per month, the lowest advisory level in state guidelines for PFOS.”