Safe to eat?
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health recently updated their
Freshwater Fish Consumption Advisory List (2013).
| Sudbury, Assabet and Concord (SuAsCo) Fish Consumption Advisory List | |||
| excerpted from the Mass DPH Advisory List (2007) | |||
| Water Body | Town | Advisory Code* | Hazard** |
| A1 Impoundment | Westborough | P1 (all species), P2 (largemouth bass) | Mercury |
| Lake Boon | Hudson, Stow | P1 & P3 (largemouth bass and black crappie) | Mercury |
| Lake Cochituate | Framingham, Natick, Wayland | P1 (all species), P2 (American eel) | PCBs |
| Concord River | Concord - Billerica | P1 (all species), P2 (largemouth bass), P4 | Mercury |
| Forge Pond | Littleton, Westford | P1 & P3 (largemouth bass) | Mercury |
| Fort Meadow Reservoir | Hudson, Marlborough | P1 & P3 (white suckers) | Chlordane |
| Hocomonco Pond | Westborough | P6 | PAHs |
| Nutting Lake | Billerica | P1 (all species), P5 | Mercury |
| Puffer Pond | Maynard | P6 | Mercury |
| Sudbury Reservoir | Marlboro, Southboro | P1 (all species), P2 (bass) | Mercury |
| Sudbury River | Ashland to Concord | P6 | Mercury |
| Walden Pond | Concord | P1 & P3 (largmouth bass and smallmouth bass) | Mercury |
| Warners Pond | Concord | P1 & P3 (largemouth bass) | Mercury |
*Advisory Code:
P1 (species): Children younger than 12 years or age, pregnant women, women of childbearing age who may become pregnant, and nursing mothers should not eat any of the affected fish species (in parenthesis) from this water body.
P2 (species): The general public should not consume any of the affected fish species (in parenthesis) from this water body.
P3 (species): The general public should limit consumption of affected fish species (in parenthesis) to two meals per month.
P4: The general public should limit consumption of non-affected fish from this water body to two meals per month.
P5: The general public should limit consumption of all fish from this water body to two meals per month.
P6: The general public should not consume any fish from this water body.
**Hazard Code:
PCB= polychlorinated biphenyls
PAHs=polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
1996 Assabet River Fish Toxics Survey
In September 1996, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MA DEP) collected fish from the Assabet River in Hudson, Maynard, and Concord and analyzed them for toxic contaminants; specifically, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead, selenium, PCBs and pesticides. While metals were detected in all of the fish sampled and PCBs (PCB Arochlor 1254) was detected in a few, only one fish, a single yellow bullhead, exceeded the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's "trigger level" for a toxic contaminant, in this case for mercury. (The "trigger level" for mercury is 0.5 mg/Kg and the yellow bullhead contained 0.64 mg/Kg mercury.) The Department did not issue a fish consumption advisory because the fish represented one data point from an individual fish sample. The full report titled, Fish Toxics Monitoring Public Request Surveys, 1997 is available below.
Due to a particularly high level of mercury contamination in the Sudbury River, the general public should not consume any fish from this water body at all.
For more information on mercury in fish:
US EPA & FDA's "Revised Consumer Advisory on Methylmercury in Fish"
