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In other news related to the environment, Government officials are reporting that the results are in for tests on the levels of mercury in the fishes of the Macal River. That’s an important public health issue because mercury is toxic to humans, and the chemical could be passed on to us via the food we eat. 

When the topic came up today, John Bodden, the lead Public Health Inspector, told us that there are elevated levels of methyl mercury in only 2 out of the several species of fishes they had under surveillance.

He gave us a brief overview on those test results:

John Bodden - Principal Public Health Inspector
"What we’re talking about methyl mercury. That is in fish tissue. That is not the regular mercury that you’d find distributed in the water column. We will be distributing a press release shortly in that regards, but what I can tell you from the preliminary assessment is that the results are relatively good because, of the 18 different fish species that we sampled, only 2 of them are at an elevated stage."

Reporter
"Which 2?"

John Bodden
"We have the base snook."

Reporter
"The usual one."

John Bodden
"Yes, well that is mandatory by the court, and we have about 5 different other species that we’re monitoring. But, of the other 5, one - I think it’s the chulin that’s the other fish that has elevated levels of mercury. But pretty much, most of the others have gone down tremendously."