Before you plate up that striped bass, freshly caught from your favorite fishing hole, you’d better check the Alabama Department of Public Health’s recently released 2019 Fish Consumption Advisory to make sure it’s safe to eat.
The annual report tells the public which fish taken from state waters are safe to eat, and which might contain toxins, such as PCBs, mercury or perfluoralkyl sulfonate. The list lets the public know which species of fish are safe to eat, which should be eaten in smaller amounts and which shouldn’t be eaten at all.
Read the full report here.
Each fall the Alabama Department of Environmental Management removes fish from state waterways for testing. The ADPH uses those test results to draft the department’s fish advisory, which breaks the state up into six areas, each of which lists the areas waterways and fish advisories.
For example, there are no restrictions in this year’s advisory on eating fish taken from the Tennessee River, but the department recommends not eating any striped bass from Logan Martin Lake due to PCB contaminants.
Some populations are at higher risk of suffering dangerous health outcomes from eating fish with toxins, such as infants, children under 14, pregnant and nursing women and women who plan to become pregnant, according to the ADPH.
