Deep
Trouble
by Ben Raines
From Spring
2003 On Earth-NRDC
IN
THE GULF OF MEXICO, IT'S BEST TO LET THE BIG ONES GETAWAY.
On
July 22, 2001, Alabama's Mobile Register (circulation 100,000)
published its first article on methylmercury contamination
in Gulf seafood. The investigative series that ensued, with
more than forty articles to date, has shown not only that
methylmercury has entered the human population by way of
Gulf fish, but also that federal agencies charged with protecting
people from such contamination have failed to do so. For
the series, Ben Raines was awarded the 2002 John B. Oakes
Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism. The stories
that follow are compiled from a few of his original reports.
Friends
and family of John B. Oakes (1919-2001) established the
Oakes Award in 1994. Oakes, who was the New York Times editorial
page editor and a founding trustee of NRDC, was a champion
of environmental journalism. The annual award is judged
by an independent panel of leading) ournalists and environmental
experts and is administered by the staff of OnEarth. For
more information on the award, visit www oakesaward. org.
On
A FINE SPRING DAY, AS HE OFTEN DID, BEN RAINES took his
18-foot ski ff into the Gulf of Mexico and went fishing.
As usual, he returned with something for the family's frying
pan: a 31pound cobia, a slender and delicious game fish
related to the cod. He told his wife, Shannon, that he'd
also reeled in a king mackerel, but since the Food and Drug
Administration had issued a methylmercury consumption advisory
for the fish, he had tossed it back. Shannon asked how he
knew that the cohia, which swam in the same waters as mackerel,
was really safe to eat, especially for their four-year-old
son, Jasper. The fact was, Raiues didn't know and as it
turned out, no one did. Even though methylmercury levels
were sky high in mackerel and swordfish, neither FDA nor
any other agency had tested cobia adequately to declare
it safe to eat.
Backed
by the Mobile Register, Raines bought more than a thousand
dollars' worth offish from local anglers and seafood shops
and sent samples out for testing. The results come back
a week later. "We were stunned," recalls Raiues. After one
more batch of tests, again funded by the paper, Raines turned
in his report.
July
22, 2001 Several popular commercial and recreational fish
species caught in the Gulf of Mexico including the restaurant
delicacies amberjack, hug, and redfish-may contain so much
methylmercury that they should not be sold to the public,
according to standards set by FDA.
Samples
of these and other commonly eaten fish collected by the
Mobile Register and sent to the Mississippi Department of
Environmental Quality for testing were found to have mercury
levels significantly higher than 0.5 parts per million (ppm),
the threshold for government consumption advisories.
The
tests commissioned by the Register indicated that a 4-ounce
serving of a 0- to 20-pound redfish caught at the mouth
of Mobile Bay would contain all the mercury a 158-pound
adult male could safely handle in a month, under standards
set by the Environmental Protection Agency. Gulf-caught
amberjack purchased at local markets were equally high in
the toxic metal, which can cause severe neurological problems
and birth defects.
At
present, no consumption warnings exist for any of the species
tested by the Register. In March, FDA advised women of childbearing
age and children under age twelve to avoid king mackerel,
swordfish, shark, and tilefish.
The
results highlight what a number of scientists say is a gaping
hole in the government's fish-food safety net: Many fish
preferred by U.S. consumers likely are contaminated with
dangerous levels of mercury, but federal and state authorities
haven't tested them enough to know whether they are safe
to eat.
Since
the 1970s, government scientists have known that methylmercury
contamination in fish poses a serious threat to health.
When mercury is released from the smokestacks of coalburning
power plants and other sources, it falls onto the land and
water. In the water, it is absorbed by microorganisms and
transformed into an even more dangerous compound called
methylmercury. The methylmercury becomes more concentrated
as it works its way up the food chain in snails, crabs,
then larger and larger fish, and ultimately in people who
consume those fish.
In
salt water, the most voracious predatory fish seem to have
the worst mercury levels, scientists agree. Those include
the fish sent for testing by the Register, and dozens of
other species such as king and Spanish mackerel, sharks,
swordfish, and speckled trout. The mercury problem in salt
water received publicity in 1996, when Florida issued a
consumption advisory for king mackerel. Other Gulf states
followed suit in 1997. Neither federal nor state authorities
have initiated a more comprehensive testing program for
other offshore species.
The
Register also found extensive mercury testing results compiled
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that
indicate about 40 percent of Gulf redfish between 16 inches
and 26 inches have mercury levels above 1.5 ppm-which puts
them in Florida's "should not be consumed" category.
But
even though this research is readily available-it is found
in a federal report on toxics in Gulf seafood cited by FDA
as a source for mercury information-no warnings for redfish
have been issued.
RAINES
DECIDED TO FIND OUT IF methylmercury was also building up
in people. Again, he headed for the boat ramps and the bait
shops in search of those who said that seafood was a staple
in their diets. But this time, instead of searching out
samples offish, he was after clippings of human hair-one
place in the human body where toxic substances readily collect.
Raines, who gathered all seventy-odd hair samples, said
the experience was strange, to say the least: "People don't
want some guy coming up to them with scissors asking, 'May
I cut your hair?" Raines and his editor, Bill Finch, were
again surprised by the results. After the paper funded another,
larger round of tests, they published a longer version of
this story.
Nov.
18, 2001 Hair tests indicate that people on the Gulf Coast
who regularly eat predatory fish, such as grouper, amberjack,
tuna, Spanish mackerel, and redflsh, can build up methylmercury
levels approaching those seen in some of the most mercury-contaminated
populations on earth. Federal officials and scientists say
the new testing by the Mobile Register indicates that mercury
contamination in the region is much more severe than they
expected. Most disturbing, they said, is that most of the
people tested developed high levels of methylmercury even
though their fish consumption habits were well within guidelines
issued by FDA for avoiding the toxic compound.
Two
men from Alabama and Mississippi had methylmercury levels
equal to levels that a just-released Japanese study linked
to diminished sense of touch in adults. The Alabama man
had a level of 10.26 ppm, while the Mississippi man was
at 11.1 ppm. The accepted safe level endorsed by EPA and
the National Academy of Sciences is 1 ppm in the human body.
Seven of sixteen women tested by the Register had methylmercury
levels higher than the level that a new study from the Philippines
suggests can cause learning disabilities in babies.
Because
the Register tested only people who reported eating fish
at least once a week, the results do not suggest an average
methyl niercury level for the entire Gulf Coast population.
Nor do the results clearly indicate which fish are safe
to eat, because high mercury levels were found in people
who reported consuming a wide variety of seafood.
But
some patterns did seem to emerge in the data. Those people
with the highest levels of methylmercury said they ate predatory
fish, such as grouper, redfish, trout, tuna, Spanish mackerel,
or cobia, once a week or more.
Gerry
Phillips is a Mobile cardiologist. As a Register reporter
cut a lock of his hair at a boat shop, the doctor said he
recommended that all of his cardiac patients switch to a
fish-heavy diet like his. He said he ate large predatory
fish, such as tuna, three times a week. FDA lists fresh
tuna on its chart of "Fish and Shellfish with Much Lower
Mercury Levels;' stating that it averages t).32 ppm, well
under the level that would prevent its sale to the public. "I
love fish;' he said. "Fish is great for you. You can't eat
enough:' When Phillips learned that his methylmercury level
of 7.26 ppm was in the range that a Finnish study links
to a doubling of one's heart attack risk, he said heart
doctors all over the country may have to rethink the advice
they give to their patients.
Scientists
say that the most effective treatment for mercury contamination
is to remove the sources of contamination. If that's done,
some studies indicate that mercury levels in human tissue
may decrease by as much as half in six weeks.
AFTER
THAT STORY RAN, THE seafood industry, which risked losing
busi- ness, "went crazy," according to Raines. But the Mobile
Register stood behind him. "The paper said, 'We're publishing
the truth.' The editors never backed down," he says. If
sheer tenacity could be credited for those first reports,
a stroke of luck with an internet search led to the news
that angered another powerful force: the oil and gas industry.
Raines had decided to look into mercury emissions from the
flares that shot up from rigs all over the Gulf "Finally
I punched in 'oil rig' and 'mercury' instead of 'flare'
and 'mercury,"' he says. In publicly available data, Raines
discovered that the government knew about mercury contamination
around rigs. But Raines and Finch questioned the report's
conclusionthat the rigs weren't responsible for many species'
high mercury content. Follow-up stories revealed that the
government had even documented extreme mercury levels in
shrimp and other small creatures living near the rig, while
maintaining the oil and gas industries' innocence.
Dec.
30, 2001 Oil and gas rigs, which use mercury-laden materials
when drilling, appear to be an unusually dangerous source
of mercury pollution in the Gulf of Mexico-and one largely
overlooked by regulators.
The
Mobile Register has found evidence of mercury contamination
in a series of studies of pollution around Gulf oil and
gas platforms. The studies were commissioned over the past
two decades by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the
federal agency that oversees nil and gas production activities.
Data from those studies strongly suggest that oil and gas
rigs in the Gulf amount to islands of intense mercury contamination
that could readily spread to fish and marine creatures.
A study of one rig off the Texas coast indicated that mercury
levels in the sediments beneath the platform were twelve
times higher than the safe level for mercury in marine environments
as set by EPA.
In
recent years, the rigs-about 4,000 of them are now operating
in the Gulf-have become widely favored by commercial and
recreational fishermen. For that reason, consumption of
fish associated with the rigs may present a unique and potent
pathway for mercury contamination in humans.
Scientists
and marine biologists said they were stunned by the findings.
Bob Shipp, a marine biologist at the University of South
Alabama, said the contamination could well base an impact
on some of the Gulf's best-known game and commercial fish.
He
said, for example, that red snapper feed primarily on invertebrates
that live in the sand. And they feed in a halo around the
rigs. They may stay around one rig most of their lives;'
Shipp said. "If the mercury is in the sediments and the
invertebrates around the rigs, I'm sure it has worked its
way up the food chain:'
The
mercury is present in artificial drilling compounds-called "muds" because
of their appearance--that cool and lubricate drill bits
as they bore thousands of feet under the ocean floor. Once
used, the muds are pumped back to the rig platform and in
most of the Gulf oil fields are simply dumped over the side.
These muds are made up almost entirely of a heavy metal
called barite. Unfortunately, barite deposits are often
high in mercury, a fact acknowledged by EPA and the oil
industry.
Oil
industry records and calculations indicate that more than
a billion pounds of these muds end up in the Gulf every
year. Recent federal guidelines mandate that all barite
used in drilling muds in U.S. waters must contain less than
1 ppm of mercury.
But
even under the new barite guidelines, more than 1,000 pounds
of mercury could still be legally dumped from the 1,200
new wells drilled each year, according to Register calculations.
Regulators initially considered "zero discharge" regulations
for some of the drilling fluids before encountering stiff
resistance and a lawsuit from the oil industry, which argued
that it could not afford to haul all used muds to shore,
and that extra miles put on their tending boats would result
in increased air pollution.
In
the end, EPA didn't enact the zero discharge policy; instead,
it reduced the allowable mercury content in the drilling
muds and ruled that no dumping be allowed on the fraction
of oil and gas wells within 3 miles of shore.
RAINES'S
REPORTS BEGAN TO HAVE REAL IMPACT. senators started writing
letters to FDA questioning whether the agency charged with
protecting the nation's food supply was doing enough to
protect people, especially pregnant women and children,
from methylmercury exposure. Tis'o federal agencies announced
they would test 2,500 samples of Gulf fish for the toxic
compound. And Alabama senator Jeff Sessions announced the
formation of a White House task Jiree on the issue. In the
meantime, evidence began to surface that methylmercurv contamination
in people was by no means limited to fishermen in the South.
Aug.
25, 2002 Doctors and scientists say mercury exposure appears
to afflict two groups in America: well-educated people who
can afford to buy the most expensive fish, and recreational
anglers and poor "meat" fishermen who eat large marine fish
regularly.
Strong
patterns appear to he emerging from new data gathered by
sources including the New Jersey Department of Health, a
clinic affiliated with Harvard University', and doctors
in San Francisco, Wisconsin, and Canada. The evidence suggests
that high mercury levels in people may be much more common
than doctors, scientists, and government health experts
have believed.
"1'his
is a disease of the wealthy. It's affecting the fine-wine
and fine-fish crowd," said Dr. Jane Hightower, who has tested
more than a hundred patients at her San Francisco practice. "It's
hitting the people who are following the prevailing health
advice to eat a lot of fish and can afford to buy the good
stuff"
Hightower
started testing patients for mercury while searching for
an explanation for symptoms such as fatigue, hair loss,
memory loss, muscle aches and difficulty concentrating.
In a paper posted last year on the San Francisco Medical
Society website, she reported that 62 of 123 patients, all
of whom ate a lot of fish, had mercury levels higher than
EPA's safe level for mercury in the body. Twenty of the
people Hightower tested had mercury levels at least four
times higher than the EPA safe level. A handful of her patients
tested at more than ten times the safe level.
Similarly
high mercury levels in affluent Americans have recently
been documented around the country: A pair of lawyers in
Wisconsin tested by that state's health department, and
a number of Bostonians tested at a clinic affiliated with
Harvard, had mercury levels ten or more times the safe level.
RAINES
CONTINUES TO FOLLOW THE MERCURY STORY, and recently went
out on a NOAA research boat to collect samples of fish and
sediments around rigs. The federal government has begun
several studies investigating whether mercury is building
up in Gulf creatures, while California's attorney general's
office has filed suit against Albertsonis, Safeway, and
other grocery chains for selling mercurycontaminated swordfish
and tuna. Raines, who at thirty-two years old is still early
in his career; has learned how the truth can be hidden under
the guise of science. "In all these scientific reports,
you can't trust the conclusions," he says. "We showed that
Gulf rigs could actually qualif' as Superfiind sites using
the same data the government used to claim mercury at the
rigs was not o threat. You have to read the data."
IN
THE NET The Mercury Policy Project website is a must-visit
for people concerned about mercury. Read its report critiquing
FDA's failure to protect people from methylmercury contamination,
and sign up for its email updates to stay on top of the
issue. www.mercurypolicy.org 802-223-9000
EPA
Information on Contaminants in Fish http://www.epa.gov/ost/fish/
FDA's
Advisory on Methylmercury in Fish
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/hgpdftoc.html
888-723-3366
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