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Researchers Fish For Clues About Water Quality

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Researchers here in Pittsburgh have spent a lot of time on a fishing expedition.

What they've caught in our rivers offers food for thought for all of us.

On a hot, hazy day on the Allegheny River...a boat load of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh was fishing for clues about the health of our rivers.

"Fish essentially are the canary in the coal mine for water quality," explains Dr. Conrad Volz, from Pitt's Center for Healthy Environments.

Dr. Volz's team takes samples from the bottom of the river bed, and they analyze fish caught in these waters.

They've found a virtual stew of contaminants left behind by years of pollution from coal-burning plants.

"The problem is, not only one of CO2, which you hear about all the time and greenhouse gases, but they give off heavy metals, such as mercury. They give off arsenic which is a metalloid and they give off a toxic element called selenium," continues Dr. Volz.

Between those pollutants and the estrogens found in the rivers from sewage, it makes the fish so sick that research suggests people should avoid eating the fatty layers.

"Unfortunately, these are the fish that we like to eat," says Dr. Volz.

Dr. Volz doesn't think we need to stop eating fish entirely… but wants us to ask the right questions about the fish we pick.

"I ask at the fish market all the time, where the fish comes from that I'm buying," he says.

You can also trim away the trouble spots. "You can rid yourselves of those contaminants in the fish that are fat-loving by removing this portion of the fish that's essentially the fat."

Dr. Volz would like to see the government force fish sellers to label it, to let us know where it comes from.

Until then he says -- always ask, and make educated choices.

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