Rising Mercury levels mean fishing comes with a catch

In the next two months, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control will post signs at 25 Beaufort County boat landings cautioning fisherman about mercury contamination.

The signs will say DHEC has found fish at those sites that contain high levels of mercury. They advise pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants and children under 14 not to eat fish caught from these waterways.

Most of the signs at Beaufort County landings pertain to large saltwater fish.

Russell Berry, DHEC's regional director of Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties, said these predators will have higher mercury concentrations than smaller fish because they have been in the water longer.

The latest advisories for fish caught offshore warn pregnant women and children from eating shark, tilefish or king mackerel over 39 inches long.

For everyone else, the state recommends only one meal of swordfish per month and one meal of king mackerel between 33 and 39 inches per week.

Since 1992, DHEC has issued fish advisories by mailing booklets to doctors' offices, public health clinics and fishing supply stores.

Spokesman Adam Myrick said the agency will still send out the booklets, but the signs, printed in English and Spanish, are another way to notify the public. It will cost $50,000 to provide the signs across the state.

Every year, the types of contaminated fish change, depending on test results. If testing shows new locations are contaminated, signs will be posted at those sites, Myrick said.

Butch Younginer, DHEC's fish advisory program coordinator, said the agency collects fish every month from each waterway across the state and tests them for mercury. He said data must be collected over a two-year period before an advisory is issued. In the past few years, some waterways have come off the contaminated list, he said.

"The science says that the majority of mercury in the environment comes from the burning of fossil fuels, mostly coal," Younginer said. "There are other smaller contributors, everything from fluorescent lights to burning trash to volcanoes."

Once released into the air, mercury returns to waterways through precipitation.

Changes in mercury levels usually result from natural conditions, Younginer said.