
Which California waters are listed as impaired for fish consumption? - HillaryBriss
https://mywaterquality.ca.gov/safe_to_eat/impaired_waters/index.html
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pwarner
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_contamination_in_Calif...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_contamination_in_California_waterways)

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steve_adams_86
> Historically, 10-30% of mercury was lost in the mining process, resulting in
> widespread contamination of river and lake sediments

That is a LOT! That explains the frequency of red areas on the map. What a
shame.

Here in BC it's a similar story with the ocean and dioxins from industrial
effluents. You can't harvest shellfish around most of southern Vancouver
Island. It seems like everyone has a story of poisoning their own food and
water.

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kbenson
> That is a LOT! That explains the frequency of red areas on the map.

It seems like most the ones I clicked on weren't polluted by mercury (even if
my local sources were). Looking closer, the north seems to be mostly mercury
pollution (at least inland), and the south seems to be varying sources
(chlordane, dieldrin, PCB, DDT).

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steve_adams_86
Ah, okay then. Coincidentally I clicked around and mostly saw mercury and a
couple seleniums, so it seemed like mercury was the biggest issue. I wonder
what the others are caused by... I'm guessing industrial effluents.

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kbenson
That's distressing. My own city's creek system is shown to have Mercury.

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pwarner
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_contamination_in_Calif...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_contamination_in_California_waterways)

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smhinsey
For what it's worth, not all of these areas are totally unsafe. I am familiar
with some of the central valley lakes that are highlighted and I grabbed the
current consumption flyer for one:
[https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/advisories/millertonlak...](https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/advisories/millertonlakeposter.pdf)

The situation is not great but it's not quite so bad as it might seem if you
look at that map and think it indicates only areas where fish are completely
unsafe to eat.

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jihadjihad
This is neat (and disturbing), but I don't live in California. Does anyone
happen to know of similar sources for other states/regions?

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saagarjha
It looks like much of the water in the Bay Area is listed as impaired, sadly…

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burtonator
So the lake next to my house is NOT 'impaired' in that you can catch and eat
fish from it but because of algae they have certain times that are impaired.

They actively stock it and encourage fishing. Not sure why it's listed here
but makes me skeptical about the rest of the data as I've only looked at one
data point and it was wrong.

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Cerium
That map is also 20 years old.

Edit: I looked at the wrong map.

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kbenson
Which map? The one the link points to, which notes clearly "( Updated 1/4/19
)"?

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Cerium
Oh, good point. I looked at the wrong map. I was looking at the mercury
contamination map on the Wiki page; which is based on 1999 data.

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TomMckenny
Scenic LA River isn't listed! Woot! /s

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darksaints
WARNING: The State of California contains chemicals known to the State of
California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

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squirrelicus
I'm not sure this map is trustworthy given CA's propensity to label everything
under the sun as unsafe. I bought a turning signal to fix my grandpa's boat
trailer and it had the famous CA cancer advisory. Crying wolf, man.

How about this: is the turning signal more likely to give you cancer than
living with an indoor smoker? Unlikely. And yet living with secondhand smoke
is associated with a ~20% increase in risk, i.e. from ~6% lifetime risk to
~7.2% lifetime risk

