Mercury risks versus nutritional benefits of tribal commercial fish harvests in the Upper Laurentian Great Lakes

ABSTRACT

The Inter-Tribal Fisheries and Assessment Program (ITFAP) of the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority (CORA) in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, has been monitoring contaminant concentrations in the fillet portions of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from the waters of lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan since 1991. The primary purpose of this article is to present a risk quantification of methylmercury (MeHg) that is adjusted for nutritional benefit, originally presented by Ginsberg and Toal (2009, 2015) on trends in contaminant concentrations in fillet portions of these commercial fish that we recently reported in Dellinger et al. (2014). Both species of fish caught by tribal fishermen showed clear benefits to cardiovascular health and infant neurodevelopment if consumed at a rate of six ounces per week. However, other popularly consumed fish such as cod, tuna, and tilapia are estimated to have only marginal benefit or net negative effects on cardiovascular health and infant neurodevelopment. This dynamic assessment of benefits and risks further demonstrates the importance of traditionally caught fish in tribal health.

KEYWORDS:

• contaminants
• Great Lakes
• risk assessment
• tribal fishery
• Native American health

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the tribal fishing families, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, and the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority who have dedicated two decades of work to collecting these data. Tribal resources provided most of the analytical support in addition to partial support from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's Great Lakes Human Health Effects program with Dr. J. Dellinger as the principal investigator, and the Indian Health Service's Native American Research Centers for Health program. Dr. J. Dellinger's work for over 20 years with the Anishinaabe set the foundation for the current analysis.