Sierra Club Trivializes Mercury Risks

From David Appell (Quark Soup) today, a quote from the Sierra Club:

"Today the Environmental Protection Agency announced in its 2003 National Listing of Fish and Wildlife Advisories that 766,872 miles of America's rivers and 13,068,990 lake acres are contaminated with so much poisonous mercury that the fish aren't safe to eat -- that is a more than 60 percent increase for river miles and an eight percent increase for lake acres since the 2002 report."

David asks the question about whether or not the increased surface mean there is more mercury pollution, or if more monitoring is going on.

It’s more monitoring. According to EPA’s fact sheet:

“In 2003, the geographic extent of the states under advisory for mercury was 13,068,990 lake acres and 766,872 river miles. The increase in acres and river miles under advisory is a result of the issuance of statewide mercury advisories by Montana and Washington in 2003 and the addition of rivers to Wisconsin’s statewide advisory.”

I wish I knew what was on the Sierra Club’s mind in publishing this factoid. Are they implying that there is more health risk from consuming mercury-contaminated fish than last year? Putting aside the fact that the increase is due to some regulatory agencies getting caught up on their paperwork, exposure to toxic substances just doesn’t work that way. The Sierra Club should be ashamed for such sloppy reasoning and for trivializing mercury risks in this manner. Their assigned remedial reading for this evening can be downloaded from here.