State lacks funds to check if fish are safe to eat

New Mexico's 314,000 anglers each spend an average of 11 days a year in pursuit of trout, bass, catfish and other species in lakes and rivers around the state. But are the fish they catch safe to eat?

The New Mexico Environment Department cannot answer that question with any certainty for most waters in the state.

New Mexico does not allocate any funding to the Environment Department for the agency to check sportfish for contaminants such as industrial chemicals and pesticides. However, the agency's lone fisheries biologist, Gary Schiffmiller, has been able to scrape together some grant money from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other sources over the past few years to begin testing fish from a handful of the state's waters.

Schiffmiller's most recent work has been funded by a $150,000 federal grant, which was enough to collect and test about 50 composite samples of fish at $3,000 per study. As the results have come in from each study, it's been more and more bad news almost everywhere he's looked.

This year, channel catfish in Abiquiú Lake, carp in Cochiti Lake and catfish and carp in stretches of the Rio Grande near Los Alamos, were found to be unsafe to eat because they are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a group of industrial chemicals suspected of causing cancer and other serious health problems. The state released a fish-consumption advisory for those waters in January.

In Southern New Mexico, samples of channel catfish, walleye, largemouth bass and white bass collected from Brantley Reservoir near Carlsbad in 2001 and 2005 have showed levels of the banned pesticide DDT that in some instances are three times higher than the EPA's do-not-eat guidelines. This year the state issued a fish-consumption advisory for Brantley and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish made catch-and-release mandatory at the lake.

Right now the Environment Department is waiting on lab results from fish samples collected earlier this year from Ute, Conchas, Elephant Butte and Navajo reservoirs. There is not enough grant money left to check many of the state's other popular recreational fisheries such as El Vado, Heron, Santa Rosa and Sumner lakes, Schiffmiller said.

"We just haven't had the budget to deal with it, but I think that's going to change," he said. "What I would like to see is the Legislature allocate some money for this. I hope that would happen."

Schiffmiller said there is enough money left from the grant to conduct follow-up studies this year in the Rio Grande around Los Alamos, Abiquiú Lake and Cochiti Lake. He also hopes to sample the Pecos River both upstream and downstream of Brantley Reservoir, and other lakes in the Carlsbad area to determine the extent and magnitude of the DDT contamination there, but there might not be enough money to get to it.

"Right now I don't want to tell people that the fish (around Carlsbad) are safe to eat," he said.

The pesticide DDT was banned in the United States in the early 1970s.

The DDT in Brantley, which has mostly broken down into DDD and DDE, probably comes from very old sediments that were churned up after the McMillan Dam was breached when the Brantley Dam was completed on the Pecos River in 1991, Schiffmiller said.

"I think the level you're seeing of DDT in Brantley is essentially there forever," he said. "For anyone who's alive today, it's going to be there for the rest of our lives."

Widespread contamination

In 1995-96, the state checked more than 2,000 miles of New Mexico's waterways for mercury, but only recently has anyone begun testing fish for other contaminants.

Reservoirs at lower elevations, such as Brantley, tend to be more at risk than other waters because they accumulate so much sediment. PCBs and DDT tend to settle in the muck at the bottom of lakes and slow-moving rivers and build up in the fat tissues of fish and animals that eat fish.

Bottom-feeders, typically have the highest concentrations of contaminants.

PCBs are a family of more than 200 chemicals that were once used in plastics, capacitors, solvents and other industrial applications. They were banned from production in 1977 because they are probable carcinogens.

Biologists first detected PCBs in New Mexico in storm runoff following the Cerro Grande Fire that burned in and around Los Alamos in 2000. PCBs also unexpectedly turned up that year in studies of storm runoff in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

"Now, we think we're going to find (PCBs) in varying concentrations just about everywhere," Schiffmiller said.

DDT contamination tends to be concentrated in smaller areas than PCBs. DDT also is present in the Rito de los Frijoles at Bandelier National Monument, a small stream where fishing has been banned. Decades ago, the forests of that area were sprayed with DDT and crews used to clean their pesticide equipment near the stream, Schiffmiller said.

"If you eat a fish that's really hot with DDT, you're not going to feel sick," he said. "But if you're eating them over the long term, that can raise your risk of cancer. It's a lot like smoking."

According to the Environment Department, no fish from Brantley Reservoir should be eaten. Also, do not eat catfish from Abiquiú Reservoir, carp from Cochiti Reservoir, carp in the Rio Grande from Frijoles Canyon to Pojoaque Creek, and catfish from the Rio Grande from Otowi Bridge to Pojoaque Creek.

For anglers wanting to eat their catches from other waters, the EPA recommends avoiding carp, catfish and older, bigger fish of most species. Younger trout, salmon, walleye, bass and sunfish should be OK.

Exposure to PCBs and DDT can be reduced by filleting the fish, removing organs and cutting off as much fat as possible. Fish should be baked or grilled and fat poured off before eating.

"This is not true for mercury," Schiffmiller said. "Mercury is all through the fish, and there's no way to cook it out."

New Mexico has fish-consumption advisories in 26 lakes and reservoirs and five river segments because of mercury. A list of guidelines for each body of water and species of fish is on the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Web site at www.wildlife.state.nm.us.

Mercury occurs naturally in soils or can be deposited into the water from the atmosphere from the burning of coal in power plants.

"You'll find mercury virtually everywhere," Schiffmiller said. "New Mexico has the highest mercury emissions of 11 western states from its power plants."

Most mercury found in fish has combined with methane to form methylmercury, a highly toxic organic compound. It accumulates in the muscle tissues of fish throughout their lifetimes so older fish tend to have more of it in their bodies.

Low-level exposure to mercury is not considered hazardous for most, but it is dangerous for children and pregnant women.

New Mexico is not alone in having dangerous levels of toxins in some of its wild fish.

The EPA has released fish-consumption advisories on 25 percent of river miles and 35 percent of lake acres in the United States, not including the Great Lakes. A fish-consumption advisory is in effect on 100 percent of the Great Lakes. About 65 percent of U.S. coastal waters are under fish-consumption advisories, including 92 percent of the Atlantic Coast and 100 percent of the Gulf Coast.

Find out more

To read New Mexico's fish-consumption advisories, or to look up mercury guidelines for a specific body of water in the state, visit the Web site of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and click on "Fishing."