The Illinois Department has released adjustments to its Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, providing updates on how safe it is to eat fish caught in the state's waters, including lifting the "do not eat" guideline for the Illinois River.
The announcement was released on Wednesday, August 18, and covers bodies of water from all across the state, including even Lake Michigan.
The guidelines form around the presence of certain substances in wild fish: chlordane, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and methylmercury, which can be hazardous to health if taken in certain amounts, especially in people who are pregnant or of childbearing age, nursing mothers, and children younger than 15 years old.
Are continued sampling by the Fish Contaminant Monitoring Program (FCMP), IDPH lessened restrictions on 13 bodies of water and outright removed restrictions on 4 others. Most notably, fish from the Illinois River have been cleared for consumption for the first time since the 1970s due to falling levels of PCBs.
Although many warning advisories have been lessened or removed, IDPH still maintains guidelines for certain areas and, statewide, especially notes continued high presence of methylmercury, particularly in predatory fish.
"While there is no known immediate health hazard from eating contaminated fish from any Illinois water body, there are concerns about the effects of long-term, low-level exposure to chlordane, polychlorinated biphenyls, and methylmercury in fish," says IDPH.
The statewide methylmercury advisory states that you should only eat one meal of certain types of predatory fish per week due to their specific increased methylmercury levels, originating from the fact they they eat other fish, accumulating the chemical in the process. This includes all species of black bass and gar, as well as striped bass, white bass, hybrid striped bass, walleye, sauger, saugeye, flathead catfish, muskellunge, and northern pike.
For more information and to find out where advisories are issued in your local area, you can visit the interactive fish advisory map on the IDPH website.
