Human Health

Fish Tissue Analysis

Certain fish in Michigan waters contain chemical contaminants in their tissues at levels of public health concern.Following are some facts:

Chemical analyses on fish  from Red Cedar  river have been limited to one sampling of northern pike and carp at locations upstream of campus near Webberville.

In collaboration with Dan Hayes,Department  of Fisheries and Wildlife,ten individual fish of four species (all of legal size) will be collected from the Red Cedar  River on the MSU campus during first year of the project.Standard edible-portion fillets will be analysed for mercury and 23 chlorinated organic chemicals routinely monitored by the State of Michigan in fish tissue. Table 1 lists the target chemicals and their individual levels of quantification.