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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Environment - "13 million pounds of Ohio River fish eaten annually"

"Who knew?" begins this story by James Bruggers of the Louisville Courier Journal, in a story dated March 15, 2010. The story begins:

People are eating an estimated 13 million pounds of fish per year from the Ohio River — and that doesn’t count fish caught by commercial fishers.

Yes, there’s a commercial fishery, too, along the 981-mile Ohio River.

“There’s a stigma that only when you are desperately starving would you go eat fish from the Ohio River,” said Jason Flicker, the water resources program director for the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, a statewide environmental advocacy organization.

A new recreation survey of more than 5,000 people who live in communities in the river’s eight-state watershed, however, challenges that notion.

Not only does the survey by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission indicate widespread fishing and fish consumption — despite various health warnings from mercury and other pollutants — it suggests more than 1.2 million people each year are using the river for recreational activities such as boating, waterskiing, swimming, hunting and fishing.

Among the most heavily used stretches of the river is its middle section, which runs roughly from the West Virginia border to just below the Louisville area.

“This perception of it being a dirty river and that it shouldn’t be touched is diminishing,” Flickner said. “This shows we need to continue to improve the river’s water quality for public health.”

ORSANCO commissioned the study after it abandoned a controversial effort in 2006 to allow higher bacteria levels in the river in periods of wet weather during the recreation season — May through October. Rains cause sewer systems to overflow and flush pollutants into the river from urban and rural landscapes, including roads, parking lots and farms.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 16, 2010 10:28 AM
Posted to Environment