Mercury (Hg) is a toxic metal found at elevated concentrations throughout the world. Humans are exposed by consuming contaminated fish. State agencies warn the public to limit fish consumption from specific waterbodies when elevated Hg is detected (site-specific advisory). Some states issue warnings, advising limited consumption from any state waters since fish may contain high Hg (statewide advisory). I evaluated the accuracy of these advisory systems using estimated Hg concentrations in intermediate sizes of four freshwater gamefish at 866 waterbodies. Waterbodies where Hg concentrations exceeded 300 ng/g, the Environmental Protection Agency's screening value for hazardous fish, were assumed to need advisories. Comparing predicted advisories to state-issued advisories revealed most waterbodies expected to have site-specific advisories lack them. Applying statewide advisories results in warnings on waterbodies with fish below EPA advisory levels. I conclude the advisory systems fail to accurately reflect risk from fish with potentially hazardous levels of Hg.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-05132014-114523 |
| Date | 13 May 2014 |
| Creators | Adams, Kimberly Joan |
| Contributors | Ray Drenner, Matthew Chumchal, Tamie Morgan |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/octet-stream |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-05132014-114523/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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