As Toledo activist Mike Ferner poured a pitcher of algae-infused water and two dead fish into the fountain at One Government Center a week ago, cameras were rolling, protesters were well-positioned as background extras to display their posters and signs, and the message was delivered in a succinct and well-orchestrated fashion.
Ferner, a fearless serial disobeyer of the civil stripe, knows how to stage a protest. He and the members of his group were once again advocating for a clean Lake Erie and poking a sharp stick in the eyes of the government officials for, in his mind, doing little more on the algae issue than treading icky green water. With or without Ferner’s mini movie, those drone images of that chartreuse ribbon slicing through downtown tell the story in very shocking and graphic fashion.
The algal bloom is our Cuyahoga River fire.
The algae problem is real, it is awful on multiple levels, and it is a threat to our drinking water and the long-term health of the greater community along western Lake Erie. And Ferner wanted to illustrate that in dramatic detail. What better props than a jug of green goo and a couple of pale, lifeless fish. He knows the components of a good publicity stunt, and the optics were outstanding. Ferner made his point, and he sent it reverberating up 22 floors in that bastion of bureaucracy with a shamrock tsunami that might have helped the lake get the impaired designation he had long sought.
But ... part of the show was more theater than reality.
While the algae is a guacamole-colored demon that carries an especially nasty set of toxins, the biologists who make a study of the big lake their life’s work say the dead fish might have been inappropriate set dressing for the fountain dramaturgy.
The algae did not kill the Ferner fish — they came from a fish cleaning operation, where they were DOA. By having the perch pair take their final swim in that carafe of green bile, Ferner likely implied that the demise of the fish was related to the algae. Some in the public audience did then infer that the algal bloom is killing our most-prized fish, and they therefore must be unsafe to eat.
“We have no indication from any source that fish in the lake are dying from exposure to mycrocystis,” said Eric Weimer, Lake Erie Unit fishery supervisor for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Microcystis is a toxin-producing cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as blue-green algae, and the most prevalent algae in the lake’s blooms over the past two decades. It produces the toxin microcystin.
“Anecdotally, we have even seen that we seem to have more fish in areas of algae, possibly due to the shading it provides,” Weimer added. “Ohio State University did a study looking at fish concentrations, and we had higher concentrations of fish in the bloom areas than out of it. They certainly are not attracted to it, and nobody wants to fish around that stuff, but there seem to be more fish in the shaded areas versus the clear water in Lake Erie.”
Justin Chaffin, the PhD who serves as the research coordinator and senior researcher at OSU’s Stone Laboratory on Lake Erie, said the lake’s walleye and yellow perch “are fine for consumption” as long as the existing fish consumption advisories are followed. Those directives, set by the Ohio Department of Health in cooperation with the ODNR and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, are focused on mercury and PCBs that could be present in edible fish tissue.
“There is minimal evidence in scientific literature suggesting the accumulation of microcystin toxins in fish fillets with transmission to people who eat them. Fish appear to metabolize microcystin toxins relatively quickly, although evidence suggests that the toxins may concentrate in fish livers,” the official directive states. The guidelines stress that fish fillets should be rinsed with clean water before consumption — a standard sanitary practice — and that the internal organs should not be eaten since toxins and contaminants concentrate in those areas.
“What we know from a bunch of work done at Ohio State, and we send them fish tissue samples every year so they can look at any accumulations of toxins in the flesh, is that in the vast majority of the fish they sample, there is no detectable microcystin toxin in the fish,” Weimer said. He added that the bulk of the testing is done on yellow perch and walleye, far and away the top table fare from the lake, but that white bass and white perch are also tested.
“Clearly the liver and other organs of the fish are in most cases able to process the toxins and excrete them, so it’s not in the meat of the fish,” Weimer added. “We certainly would not recommend consuming fish livers or other organs, and I don’t know of anyone who does.”
Chaffin said his unit conducted a study to measure the microcystin content in fish tissue in 2013, when a large algal bloom took place, looking at walleye, yellow perch, and white perch. He said the study, which was published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, found that yellow perch had the lowest levels of microcystin, and that microcystin levels in the average western basin walleye were so low that a 150-pound person could eat eight ounces of walleye from the lake every day and remain below the World Health Organization guidelines.
Chaffin added that eating Lake Erie walleye at that rate is well above the recommended one meal per week guideline from the EPA. “That person should worry more about PCB and mercury than microcystins,” Chaffin said. In addition, he said that on-going research coming out of Ohio State has suggested that Stone Lab’s method of measuring microcystin in fish tissue is giving higher values, and that new technologies suggest microcystin content (in fish tissue) could be lower.
Dina Pierce from the Ohio EPA said that there are no current fish consumption advisories related to the algal blooms on Lake Erie or the Maumee River. As is the case with the lake, the strictest specific advisories for the river are associated with rough fish, catfish, and smallmouth bass, and linked to PCBs and mercury.
“The general one meal per week for walleye and two meals per week for yellow perch guidelines should be followed, and those are based on the PCB and mercury content in the fish,” she said. “If people are following those advisories, they should also be well within any concerns that could be related to the algae.”
On the fishing side of the issue, Bob Barnhart, owner of fishing tackle supplier Netcraft and an avid Lake Erie angler, said the algae has had little bearing on the robust fall perch fishery.
“Certain species seem to have adapted to the presence of the algae better than others, and with yellow perch there doesn’t seem to be much of an impact at all,” he said.
Barnhart recommended that all anglers carry some fresh water on board, along with wet wipes and hand sanitizer to use after handling fish, just to be certain they remove any water that might be tainted by the algae.
“There are certainly some discretionary measures to implement when the algae is present in the lake,” he said. “From everything I’ve read, the fish are safe to eat, and I understand the psychological aspect of this — the algae just looks bad — but there are plenty of areas out there where the algae bloom is not a major issue. This shouldn’t stop anyone from going fishing on the lake.”
Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at: mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.
First Published September 28, 2017, 8:00 p.m.
