I guess you want to show and tell. Yeah, absolutely. What do we what do we have in here? Right?
We have years worth of fish samples in here
that we've gotten from Glyphwick and
you can see
We have some from 2013
2011 we have a variety of both this one is white fish lake trout with a lot of
spring walleye samples by far the most what we do is spring walleye, so we get
between
350 and 450 spring walleye samples annually from Glyphwick
And we've been analyzing those for mercury and every year when we are done analyzing them
We store them in these freezers
So we archive the samples in case anyone would like to analyze them for something later on
Or in case we have to go back and answer other questions about mercury, so we've we have
Four freezers that are full this full of mercury samples dating back to 1996, so it's been a really good
Archive so that people can go back and look at
Potential metals that become other metals or other chemicals that become of interest
That we didn't know we're a problem and now we're learning our more problematic such as potentially PFAS
It seems to be the most obvious one right you I mean it does seem like that's an open
An invitation to finger out okay when did it first start appearing in fish it is
One thing we have to be a little bit careful about with the with the archive samples is is the processing that we used
You know from the full lane to the grinding
To the sample containers themselves is it compatible with PFAS analysis?
Because we don't want to be content we don't want to be a part of the problem in the the analysis of that so but it is a
potential source we've had people go back and look at PCBs
And other different things that are in those samples, so so
Problem this out for me. Obviously your research is to what is it that it does?
I mean you're part of this relationship with with but you've given me the broader picture in the context of walleye
What we're interested in but a lot of the research that goes into it right so
The Lake Superior Research Institute has been here. We do grant funded research and we've had a relationship with Glyphwix since
middle of the 1990s
So we receive samples from them
We do the mercury analysis on them and then we give the analysis the concentrated
concentrations of mercury back to Glyphwix and then they use those that information to
Make maps where they do consumption advisories of lakes that are in the seated territories
and they do it on a basis of a couple of different things they do the
women of childbearing age and young children and then they have the
adults that are beyond childbearing age and males because
Mercury is a neurotoxin and so it's more of a concern in
Younger children and women of childbearing age than it is in adult males or women beyond childbearing age
So you're one of the first ones to see the info come out. Have there been times where you're like whoa
There are sometimes I see a fish that I go
Oh, well, I would not want to eat the fish from that lake and there are certain lakes that are certainly
higher in concentration in mercury than other lakes it has a lot to do with the ecology of the
Just what's around certain lakes what kind of if they have a lot of swampy areas around them or if they have a lot of
rock
more like granite or
Basalt around them that's going to have an impact on how much mercury is present in the fish
So you said that one was kind of a baseline for when you start to worry is there what a I guess walk me through
Because those were like the point three five right the fish that we looked at today. They were in about the point three
milligrams per
kilogram of fish that we were looking at those I would say are not a high concern again, it depends on your age and
Those the frequency that you're eating the fish certainly
Yeah, my general rule after having done this for many years is that I
Try not to eat any walleye that are over 20 inches. That seems to be kind of a good cutoff
It's not safe in every lake to eat fish that are in that size range, but
That's generally I would say a pretty safe area. Okay, so what do you so what is the one?
Break threshold or where's where's the point where you said? Oh, that is a that's a lake that no one should be in this
Yeah
The I'm not exactly sure right now what the concentration is where we're calling you know things have changed over the years
So one used to be kind of the mark that we would use as like people probably shouldn't be eating any of any fish that are in that
Concentration, so I would say that that certainly
Would not be eating it, but because most people don't know
Just what they take a fish out of a lake. They're not going to know what concentration that is. So like