MERCURY CONNECTION: State tests water and fish but not people who eat the catch

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Jan/Feb 2008 by Bartelme, Tony, Pardue, Doug

Mercury in rivers, in lakes, in fish. We've been writing about these issues at the Post and Courier for decades, but isn't something missing in these stories?

This was the question that nagged at us for years as we wrote time after time about mercury-related issues.

Then in late autumn of 2006, representatives from two environmental groups invited us to their offices. They wanted us to take a hard look at recent federal proposals to set up a cap-and-trade plan for mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Sure, it's an important story, we said, our eyes glazing over a bit as they went through the numbers. But where's the drama? Mercury is a deadly poison, but it's not like the lead story, with the images of toddlers at risk for brain damage from flaking lead paint in rundown homes.

"Where are the victims?" we asked, half-joking. "What we need is 'Catfish Boy.'"

The environmental groups' representatives said that, as far as they knew, no public agency in South Carolina had ever bothered to measure mercury levels in people. So we decided to look for ourselves.

Our first stop was the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, which measures mercury levels in locally caught fish. Despite limited resources, biologists catch as many as 1,800 fish a year at certain locations and then test them for mercury-resulting in a gold mine of data showing types of fish, locations and mercury levels.

We submitted several Freedom of Information Act requests for three years of sampling data and eventually received Excel spreadsheets documenting the capture and measurement of 4,783 fish. Fortunately for us, state officials go to the same 150 fishing holes every year. With this raw data, we were quickly able to calculate average mercury levels in fish at each spot and then sort them. This revealed several hotspots where average mercury levels in the fish would trigger a national recall if it were sold in stores.

With this information, we decided to test people who eat fish from two of the worst locations. Either way, we thought we had a good story. If mercury levels were low in these frequent fish-eaters, then we could show our readers that fears about mercury contamination may be overblown. If levels were high, then we could show that mercury is a serious public health threat.

Hair-raising hot spots

But there was one problem. To test people, we would need a sample of their hair, and a fair-sized clump at that. (Hair tests are considered one of the best ways to determine chronic exposure to mercury.)

Before we tested anyone, we talked to nationally recognized doctors and toxicologists who said that researchers routinely use blood and hair samples to measure mercury. Since neither one of us had any experience drawing blood, we knew we had to go with hair. That was fine because mercury tends to build up in hair over time, making it a better test for long-term exposure to mercury.

Asking people to let us cut their hair made for some interesting conversations.

"I thought you were bringing some pizza, and now you want some hair," joked one man along the Edisto River, drinking beers with his buddies.

Others half-joked that they thought we were police looking to do some drug testing.

One young man on the Little Pee Dee River warned others not to give us hair samples because we were trying to get their DNA for some nefarious reason.

Most politely declined or said they didn't eat much fish. But a surprising number agreed. Most were simply curious about their mercury levels. Many were skeptical about the state's fish advisories. Some said that even if the samples came back high, they would keep eating fish.

With scissors in hand, we gave people some bad haircuts. A few strands wouldn't do. The lab required enough hair to tip a small paper scale they had sent us. Getting enough hair from some men was particularly challenging. One of our volunteers used clippings from his daily shaves to get enough.

In addition to collecting hair, we also asked people how much fish they eat and what kinds, and whether they had any health problems.

The results gave us several "catfish boys," or more accurately, catfish men and women. Of the 41 people we tested, 17 had mercury levels higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe. And six had mercury levels that would have placed them in the top one percent of those measured in a recent nationwide study.

A report that hits home

We presented our findings in a three-day series called "The Mercury Connection." Using downloadable data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (www.epa.gov/ tri), we looked for the top mercury emitters. We also obtained emissions data from the state, which keeps its own inventory. The state's data was similar to the EPA's TRI, with an important exception: The EPA's roster didn't include numbers on a municipal incinerator in Charleston, one of the worst mercury polluters in the state. (For more information on using TRI data, see p. 16)