ADEM Issues Lay Lake Fish Advisory

The Alabama Department of Public Health issued a fish consumption advisory for Lay Lake.

No one should eat more than two meals per month of spotted bass taken from portions of Lay Lake. ADEM defines a meal portion as 6 ounces of cooked fish or 8 ounces of raw fish. The department said mercury was the contaminant identified.

ADEM also noted that several advisories issued in previous years remain valid which include:

• The Coosa River between Neely Henry Dam and Riverside. Limited consumption of catfish weighing more than 1 pound because of PCBs.
• The Coosa River between Riverside and Logan Martin Dam. Ban on consumption off striped bass taken from the river because of PCBs.
• The Coosa River between Logan Martin Dam and Lay Dam. Consumption ban on striped bass remains in effect because of PCBs.

According to the ADEM report, several species of fish were analyzed for 25 different elements including contaminants in the water (PCBs, including dioxins), pesticides (endosulfan, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, lindane, dieldrin, endrin, DDT and its breakdown products and congeners, heptachlors, Mirex, chlorpyriphos and toxaphene), and heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, mercury and selenium) to which the fish may have been exposed.

In addition, fish were examined for body appearance, lipid content, age and weight. Fish are good indicators of the health of a water body, ADEM researchers said. Some contaminants accumulate in fish and enter the food supply through either crustaceans or other bottom-feeding fish in a given area. These species would be eaten by larger or more aggressive species, thereby transferring the contaminant from the species consumed to the larger species.

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