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Originally Posted by FishermanTim
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought acid rain is more of a contributor of carcinogenics than of mercury.
Isn't mercury pollution more the result of our own logging industry and CURRENT polluting of our own rivers and streams?
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I forget the exact mechanism (been a while since environmental chem), but combustion releases mercury into the atmosphere, it gets precipitated then becomes methyl mercury, which is absorbed by plankton/inverts... those are eaten in turn by smaller critters, then fish, etc... which leads to the bio-accumulation RIR spoke of.
Power plant emissions have historically accounted for about a third of the mercury pollution present in the US each year- a pretty significant amount. Thankfully the EPA finally put restrictions on power plants to curb mercury emissions last year, so hopefully we'll be seeing less of it in gamefish going forward. When I was in college I helped with a project done by one of the professors (Mercury contaminants in commercial and recreational finfish of Narragansett Bay, RI)- some interesting findings. Bluefish had the least amount of mercury (due to no minimum size and a fast growth rate) followed by striped bass. Tautog however were by far the worst- they grow so slowly that by the time they're of legal size they're pretty old, and are completely loaded with mercury. Food for thought.