Read the full article by Audrey Mei Yi Brown (San Francisco Public Press)
“Mackentral ‘Mack’ Williams crossed the dock at Mission Rock and tossed a handful of breadcrumbs into the water ahead of Natalie Wu’s next cast. Wu, wielding a circular net, hoped to trap bait fish in the San Francisco Bay water below, but her first casts had come up empty. Most of the seven people on the pier, including Williams, had fished in the bay their whole lives. They didn’t hang out beyond fishing together, but the atmosphere that morning was easy and quiet, like a family at home. The fishers often helped each other and Williams’ gesture with the breadcrumbs was typical of the community, Wu said.
The morning sunlight was bright and the sky clear and the anglers sat patiently by their poles. The bay lapped gently at the pier below. Steps away, a sign tacked to the dock recommended limiting consumption of various fish and shellfish species to avoid built-up toxins.
It’s long been risky to eat fish from San Francisco Bay because pollutants like mercury build up in their bodies, and new research shows they are also contaminated with harmful ‘forever chemicals,’ including one never before detected in marine fish. High levels of these chemicals are found in 10 species of fish frequently caught in San Francisco Bay, according to a study that the San Francisco Estuary Institute published in May. The newly detected contamination threatens anglers’ health and what many of them consider a way of life.” …