Bill Eisenman has always fished.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing up, we ate whatever we caught \u2014 catfish, carp, freshwater drum,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the only real source of fish in our diet as a family, and we ate a lot of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, a branch of the Rouge River runs through Eisenman\u2019s property in a suburb north of Detroit. But in recent years, he has been wary about a group of chemicals known as PFAS, also referred to as \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d which don\u2019t break down quickly in the environment and accumulate in soil, water, fish, and our bodies.<\/p>\n
The chemicals have spewed from manufacturing plants and landfills into local ecosystems, polluting surface water and groundwater, and the wildlife living there. And hundreds of military bases have been pinpointed as sources of PFAS chemicals leaching into nearby communities.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
With no federal guidance, what is considered safe to eat varies significantly among states, most of which provide no regulation.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0from the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization that tracks PFAS. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \u201cPFAS 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,\u201d said David Andrews, a co-author of the study and researcher at EWG. \u201cWe\u2019re talking thousands of times higher than what\u2019s typically seen in drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 an estimate of how much a person can eat, drink, or breathe daily without \u201cdetectable risk\u201d to health \u2014 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\u00a0Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry<\/a>. But she emphasized, \u201cThey\u2019re both really nasty.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Ecology Center, an environmental group in Michigan, educates anglers about consumption advisories and related health impacts. But Erica Bloom, its toxics campaign director, noted that for many people out on the river, \u201cfishing is a way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Eisenman participated in an Ecology Center\u00a0community-based study<\/a>\u00a0published this year, which tested fish from Michigan\u2019s Huron and Rouge rivers for PFAS that poured out from auto and other industry contamination. Across 15 sites, anglers caught 100 fish samples from a dozen species, and what they found scared him.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were no sites that registered zero,\u201d said Eisenman, noting that some had significantly higher levels of chemicals than others. \u201cYou need to make a value judgment. I\u2019m going to still eat fish, but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a sweeping\u00a0federally funded report<\/a>\u00a0that associated PFAS exposure with health effects like decreased response to vaccines, cancer, and low birth weight.<\/p>\n There are thousands of PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, many of them used to make both household and industrial products stain-resistant or nonstick. They\u2019re in fire-retardant foam used for decades by fire departments and the military, as well as in cookware, water-repellent clothing, carpets, food wrappers, and other consumer goods.<\/p>\n In late October, the EPA\u00a0added hundreds of PFAS compounds<\/a>\u00a0to its list of \u201cchemicals of special concern.\u201d This will require manufacturers to report the presence of those PFAS chemicals in their products \u2014 even in small amounts or in mixtures \u2014 starting Jan. 1.<\/p>\n About 200 miles north of Detroit, in rural Oscoda, Michigan, state officials\u00a0have warned<\/a>\u00a0against eating fish or deer caught or killed near the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base because of PFAS contamination.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a 9-mile stretch of river system in which the state determined way back in 2012 that it wasn\u2019t safe to even eat a single fish,\u201d said Tony Spaniola, an advocate for communities affected by PFAS. He owns a home across a lake from the shuttered military site.<\/p>\n In Alaska, several lakes are designated catch and release only because of\u00a0PFAS contamination from firefighting foam<\/a>. A study by the U.S. Geological Survey and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection\u00a0released in August<\/a>\u00a0led to a warning to avoid eating fish from the Neshaminy Creek watershed.<\/p>\n Nationwide, use of firefighting foam and other PFAS-loaded products by the Department of Defense alone has led to the contamination of at least 359 military bases and communities that need to be cleaned up, with an additional 248 still under investigation as of June.<\/p>\n But many lakes and streams haven\u2019t been tested for PFAS contamination, and researchers worry far more sites hold fish laced with high levels of PFAS.<\/p>\n Federal efforts to curb PFAS exposure have focused mostly on drinking water. Earlier this year, the EPA proposed the nation\u2019s first PFAS drinking water standards, which would limit contamination from six types of chemicals, with levels for the two most common compounds, PFOA and PFOS, set at 4 parts per trillion.<\/p>\n But the EWG researchers found that one serving of fish can be equivalent to a month’s worth of drinking water contaminated with 48 parts per trillion of PFOS.<\/p>\n Store-bought fish caught in the ocean, like imported Atlantic salmon and canned chunk tuna, appear to have lower PFAS levels, according to\u00a0FDA research<\/a>.<\/p>\n A\u00a0biomonitoring project<\/a>\u00a0focused on the San Francisco Bay Area\u2019s Asian and Pacific Islander community measured PFAS levels in the blood and found higher amounts of the compounds compared with national levels. The researchers also\u00a0surveyed participants<\/a>\u00a0about their fish consumption and found that 56% of those who ate locally caught fish did so at least once a month.<\/p>\n Eating a fish\u2019s fillet is often recommended, as it\u00a0accumulates fewer chemicals<\/a>\u00a0than organs or eggs, but many participants reported eating other parts of the fish, too.<\/p>\n California is one of many states with no fish consumption advisories in place for PFAS. Jay Davis, senior scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, said that\u2019s in part because of \u201climited monitoring dollars\u201d and a priority on legacy chemicals like PCBs as well as mercury left over in particularly high concentrations from gold and mercury mining.<\/p>\n Wesley Smith, a senior toxicologist with California\u2019s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said the state is reviewing the latest scientific literature but needs more data to develop an advisory that is \u201cneither too restrictive nor too permissive.\u201d<\/p>\n States like New Hampshire, Washington, Maine, and New Jersey have some of the most protective guidance, while other states, such as Maryland and Michigan, lag when it comes to designating fish unsafe to eat.<\/p>\n Advisory levels for at-risk groups \u2014 such as children and women of childbearing age \u2014 are usually lower, while \u201cdo not eat\u201d thresholds for the general population range from 25.7 parts per billion in New Hampshire to 300 ppb in Michigan, 408 ppb in Maryland, and\u00a0800 ppb in Alabama<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s wicked outdated to have levels that high and consider that safe for folks to eat,\u201d said Kopec, the University of Maine researcher.<\/p>\n Though it is no longer made in the U.S., PFOS remains the most commonly found \u2014 and tested for \u2014 PFAS chemical in fish today.<\/p>\n The primary maker of PFOS, 3M, announced it would begin phasing the chemical out in 2000. This year, the company said it would pay at least $10.3 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by public water system operators. But in July, attorneys general from 22 states asked the court to reject the settlement, saying it was insufficient to cover the damages.<\/p>\n The military first documented health concerns surrounding PFAS chemicals in the 1970s yet continued to use firefighting foam made with them. Mandated by Congress, the Defense Department was required to stop buying retardant containing PFAS by Oct. 1 and phase it out altogether by 2024. A\u00a0recently published study<\/a>\u00a0linked testicular cancer among military personnel to PFOS.<\/p>\n Pat Elder, an activist and director of the environmental advocacy group\u00a0Military Poisons<\/a>, has tested water for PFAS up and down the East Coast, including in Piscataway Creek, which drains from Joint Base Andrews, the home of Air Force One.<\/p>\n In 2021, after testing fish from Piscataway Creek, Maryland officials released the state\u2019s sole PFAS fish consumption advisory to date. But Elder worries Maryland has not gone far enough to protect its residents.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople eat the fish from this creek, and it creates an acute health hazard that no one seems to be paying attention to,\u201d Elder said.<\/p>\n Since then, Maryland\u2019s Department of the Environment has conducted more fish monitoring in water bodies near potential PFAS sources, as well as at spots regularly used by subsistence anglers, said spokesperson Jay Apperson. He added that the state plans to put out more advisories based on the results, though declined to give a timeline or share the locations.<\/p>\n Part of the challenge of getting the word out and setting location-specific consumption advisories is that contamination levels vary significantly from lake to lake, as well as species to species, said Brandon Reid, a toxicologist and the manager of Michigan\u2019s Eat Safe Fish program.<\/p>\n Michigan set its screening values for fish consumption advisories in 2014, and the state is in the process of updating them within the next year, Reid said.<\/p>\n But to see the chemicals dip to healthier levels, the pollution needs to stop, too. There is hope: Andrews, the EWG researcher, compared EPA fish sample data from five years apart and found about a 30% drop on average in PFAS contamination.<\/p>\n Bloom has watched this cycle happen in the Huron River in southeastern Michigan, where PFAS chemicals upstream seeped into the water from a chrome plating facility. While the levels of PFAS in the water have slowly gone down, the chemicals remain, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s very, very hard to completely clean up the entire river,\u201d Bloom said. \u201cIf we don’t tackle it at the source, we’re going to just keep having to spend taxpayer money to clean it up and deal with fish advisories.\u201d<\/p>\n KHN<\/a> (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF<\/a> (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Fishing Is a Way of Life\u2019<\/h2>\n
Sparse Testing Leaves Blind Spots<\/h2>\n
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<\/picture><\/a><\/div>Tackling Pollution at the Source<\/h2>\n