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Experts warn not to eat Hudson River fish

May 24, 2019 12:34 am
Gwendolyn Craig reports in the Post Star that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation does not recommend eating fish from the Hudson River. “For virtually every fish and virtually every location in the Hudson River, the advice is, nobody eat any of it, OK?” said Kevin Farrar, with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “Eat none, for virtually every species at every location in the upper Hudson.” Farrar said that at the Hudson River PCBs Superfund site community advisory group meeting last week in Saratoga Springs. The General Electric Co. dumped PCBs -- polychlorinated biphenyls -- into the river for decades and then spent a few years dredging out some of the pollutants. "PCBs are hazardous to human health, potentially causing some cancers, and negatively impacting people’s immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems," the story says. Currently it is striped bass season, but Regina Keenan, with the fish advisories office of the state Health Department, said those are off-limits for eating north of Catskill. South of Catskill men and older women can eat striped bass and most other fish up to once a month. Read more about this story in the Post Star.