CA Agency - Don't Eat Donner Lake Trout More Than 1X/ Week - But Hey, The Lake's Actually Not Bad

TRUCKEE — Recent analysis by the Calfornia health department concludes various species of fish in Donner Lake are not safe for humans to eat regularly due to increased levels of Mercury and other compounds. Sam Delson, deputy director at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said the warning was released after tests for Mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were conducted on edible fish species in the Truckee lake.

While the advisory is cause for an adjustment in diet, Delson said residents shouldn't be alarmed, as Donner Lake is still far better off from impaired water bodies around the region.

“It's OK to eat any of them as long as you limit your consumption,” Delson said. The report said kokanee shouldn't be eaten more than twice weekly, and rainbow trout should be eaten in limited quantities by children under 18 and women of childbearing age. Anglers, the report added, shouldn't eat more than one serving of Donner Lake brown trout per week.

“Our main message that may be getting lost is that actually Donner Lake is pretty clean compared to other lakes in the area,” he said. Exposure to high amounts of mercury can effect the nervous system in children and harm learning ability, language skills and memory, the report said.

EDIT

http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20110204/NEWS/110209943/1066&ParentProfile=1051

Maybe the trout ate too much Soylent Green...

When you have a party SO EPIC they teach about it in 4th grade throughout the state 150 years after the fact, THAT'S a party. :party:

And a buffet to die for.

the mercury falls into the lakes as snow and runoff and rain... so all fish and such are contaminated to some degree. I guess it would kill you if you had to survive off of it, or be bad if you ate fish from the Lakes once a week...

but for the weekend fisherman who bags a couple and eats them over time, maybe not so bad.

Still, it isn't very comforting, as a Local...I swim in those lakes too... :scared:

Even the ones with fairly pristine head waters like Green River. Burning all that dirty coal is the cause. I caught a lot of fish in younger days but not now. What a shame.

I return everyone of them. The fish-able waters in my area have warning signs about the fish containing PCB's. Then you hear stories about the harmone levels in them being out of whack and the fish having dual sex organs or having had changed sex.

I loved eating a good home caught fish fry. Everything has its consequences. Cheap energy is not so cheap.

And in ten years they'll say once a month, and in twenty years, they'll just say don't eat any at all.

... they'll sell it as a "conservation win" as it's a "well-controlled fishery" ...
:crazy:

And how there's really no need for trade-offs between the environment and economic growth - it's a win-win!!

:puke:

The miners were everywhere. They're busy wrecking Alaska now.