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Message: <blockquote data-quote="YukonGlocker" data-source="post: 3006259" data-attributes="member: 425"><p>I spent some time since this thread was posted researching this issue because it's important to me as a life-long fisherman.  If we're going to do anything about harmful levels of mercury in fish, we have to know where its coming from.  There is a great deal of agreement in the scientific studies on this issue that some of the mercury is naturally coming from the earth's crust and released into the atmosphere during events like volcanos (in both cases, the mercury ends up in the water).  There is also a great deal of agreement in the scientific studies on the issue that this naturally produced mercury accounts for less than one-third of the mercury ending up in fish, and by itself would not be harmful in the vast majorities of waters; an example exception might be a temporary increase in a lake where massive amounts of volcano lava ran into, although that would dissipate over time to normal levels; in the ocean, it dissipates quickly enough to have no meaningful effect.  The remaining (and majority) of mercury in fish indeed comes from man-produced sources such as coal burning, gold mining, and chloralkali manufacturing...both in runoff from the handling of the products involved, and in their release to the atmosphere (both end up in the water, then in the fish).</p></blockquote><p></p>