After 50 years, fish consumption warnings continue!

Here is a news story from Morning Sun about updated health guidelines related to consuming fish from regional rivers and lakes. While it is important to remind the public of the risks, the broader lesson from this is that careless dumping of contaminants in the 1930s-1970s has resulted in near endless restrictions on use of a once pristine resource. We must learn from these mistakes!

Eric Baerren, “Health agency advises limiting fish meals from Michigan waters, “ The Morning Sun,  January 20, 2023,

If you go bass fishing in Isabella County’s largest lakes and plan to eat what you catch, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services recommends that you take extra care in how much you eat.

The agency’s 2023 fish consumption guidelines recommend that meals from both largemouth and smallmouth bass in Stevenson and Littlefield lakes be limited to once a month for fish smaller than 18 inches, and just six times a year for bigger fish.

MDHHS recommends limiting the consumption of northern pike of less than 30 inches to once a month, or six times a year for fish larger than 30 inches. Two servings is the recommended limit of bullhead from the lake. Littlefield Lake has no other specific limits.

That’s a bit more restrictive than the generalized limits of two per month for the smaller fish (<18″) and one per month for larger fish (18″+), which apply to fish caught in the Chippewa River and other bodies of water not explicitly mentioned in the guidelines.

The Chippewa River has its own limit recommendations for rock bass and suckers throughout the entire river system, and carp downstream from the Lake Isabella dam.

The 2023 guidelines are the same as they were for 2022, said Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman for the agency.

While the waters of Isabella County are considered relatively clean in terms of pollution, mercury accumulates in the fish. The smaller the fish, the less the mercury. The further up the food chain you go, the higher the concentrations your find.

Clare and Gratiot counties also have their own fish consumption advisories. Clare has more restrictive guidelines on Budd, Cranberry, Crooked and Lily lakes, and the Five Lakes. None of the county’s rivers are listed.

Gratiot has explicit do not eat any species for much of the Pine River between the Alma dam and its confluence with the Chippewa River in Midland County. That’s because of DDT and PCBs, not mercury.

The county has multiple other kinds of recommendations, including for two popular types of panfish — bluegills and sunfish — in Rainbow Lake. In addition to mercury, those fish are believed contaminated with PFOS.