NYT editorial: Tuna Troubles; "The food you eat is only as safe as the environment it comes from."

Tuna Troubles
Published: January 24, 2008

Here is a simple rule for life: the food you eat is only as safe as the environment it comes from. This is narrowly true, in that food from a dirty kitchen is likely to be unsafe. But it’s also true in the broadest sense. A good example is the tuna in sushi. Many New Yorkers have come to love the convenience, taste and aesthetic appeal of sushi. But as The Times reported Wednesday after testing tuna from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants, sushi made from bluefin tuna may contain unacceptable levels of mercury, which acts as a neurotoxin. Every piece of that tuna, glistening on its bed of rice, is a report on the worrisome state of the oceans.

Bluefin tuna contain higher levels of mercury than other species of tuna because they live longer and, like humans, accumulate more mercury in their body tissues. The trouble for sushi-lovers is that it is very hard to tell what kind of tuna you’re getting, whether you’re dining at an exclusive restaurant or picking up some sushi at the market on the way home from work.

The owners of the establishments whose tuna was tested, including some very familiar names, said they would talk to their suppliers, and the suppliers will no doubt talk to their fishermen. For all this talk, no one is going to be able to find a mature bluefin tuna that is mercury-free, at least not until the oceans are mercury-free....

Though some mercury in the atmosphere occurs naturally, roughly two-thirds is produced by industrial sources — especially coal-burning power plants. It settles into the water in a form called methylmercury, is absorbed by bacteria and then makes its way up to the very top of the food chain — to humans. It is a reminder of how interconnected all life on earth really is. The mercury that worries us in the tuna we eat is the very residue of the way we live. The only way to reduce the one is to improve the other.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24thu3.html

Those are fun!

put into their bodies. And if tuna has mercury it stands to reason that other fish/seafood must also have unacceptable levels as well. Anyway...
I know here where I live on a lake all of the pesticides, etc. that folks put on their lawns, the sprays that termite companies spray on the houses and on and on goes into the water. But folks eat the fish out of the lake and if you mention that the water treatment plants all dump into the lake with no one monitoring that they are working properly, folks look at you like you are from another planet. Go figure.

or even get news and info on TV or radio.

a campaign issue?

the environment -- and, of course, as in this thread, they are related. But, I agree, food safety seems easier for more folks to understand, and hits everyone VERY close to home!

Not that bluefin tuna are not important--like many top predators, problems with them are an important indicator that something is seriously wrong with the food chain. What's galling is that, for around the last 20 years, all up and down the east coast, including in New York, we have not been able to eat our freshwater fish. When I was a kid, we all caught and ate fish. This part of our folkways is dying. A map of the EPA fish advisory areas includes pretty much the whole country:

snip

The 2004 NLFA database lists 3,221 advisories in 48 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Territory of American Samoa, and 3 indian tribes. The number of waterbodies under advisory represents:
35% of the Nation's total lake acres (excluding the Great Lakes), or approximately 14,285,062 lake acres
24% of the Nation's total river miles, or approximately 839,441 river miles
65% of the Nation's contiguous coastal waters (excluding Alaska) including 92% of the Atlantic coast and 100% of the Gulf coast
100% of the Great Lakes and their connecting waters.
There were 31 states with statewide advisories in effect in 2004. Indiana reported one new statewide advisory in 2004.
In addition, 2.4% of the Nation's river miles and 18% of the Nation's lake acres had safe eating guidelines in effect in 2004.

unsnip

The problem's a lot bigger than mercury polluted tuna in some swanky New York sushi places. I suppose that reporters for the New York Times are more likely to eat bluefin than bluegill. All of a sudden, some rich folks in Manhattan are not able to eat sushi, and it's news. Everything's more important if it happens in New York, media hub of the Northeast! Hello, Manhattan, welcome to the world the rest of us have been living in for 20 years.