STATE’S HIGHEST PCB LEVELS HELP WHITE CROAKER LIVE UP TO ITS NAME
By LBReport.com
White croaker has always seemed like a funny name for a fish, and after the release of the State Water Resources Control Board’s largest-ever statewide survey on sportfish from California coastal waters, it seems even funnier … in a very-last-laugh kind of way.
White croaker in the Long Beach area have the highest concentrations of PCBs of any of the sampled locations statewide, according to the board’s Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program.
And what’s so bad about PCBs? An agency release accompanying its report says PCBs “may cause cancer, damage the liver, digestive tract, and nerves; and affect development, reproduction, and the immune system. PCBs are persistent chemicals that are now banned, but were commonly used in electrical, industrial and other applications.”
But the report is a summertime heads-up for people who catch all kinds of fish in the Greater Long Beach area. It indicates an elevated presence of methylmercury and a high level polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) among a variety of fish species along the Long Beach coast.
FOR A FULL REPORT ON TOXIC LEVELS IN A VARIETY OF LOCAL FISH, GO TO LBREPORT.COM
2 Comments
I wonder if the title PCB and Mercury capital of California will tarnish in any way Long Beach’s self proclaimed title as “AQUATIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.” Especially coming on the heals of Heal the Bay’s rating of Long Beach beachs being the worst on the west coast?
This reminds me of Long Beach’s self proclimation as the “BICYCLE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD,” followed shortly afterwards by the California Department of Traffic Safety report showing Long Beach at the top of the per capita list of car/bicycle injuries and fatalities for children under 14 years of age.
This should be a wake-up call to those who oppose doing something to the breakwater. Long Beach water is terribly polluted and we need waves to clean it out. How can LB be the Aquatic capital when most Long Beach residents will not go in the water at our beaches?