State to study mercury in people

State health officials plan to begin a comprehensive review of mercury and its effect on people contaminated with the poisonous metal from eating fish taken from South Carolina’s rivers and coastal estuaries.

The Department of Health and Environmental Control made that decision today in the wake of stories by The Post and Courier revealing that almost half of the people tested by the newspaper who eat fish from the state rivers have elevated levels of mercury. Some had levels eight times the amount considered safe by federal authorities.

DHEC said it also plans to do studies of people contaminated with mercury and studies into the source of the mercury contamination.

The Post and Courier's series reported that one of the largest man-made sources of mercury pollution is coal-fired industry, which releases mercury into the air during the coal-burning process. That mercury settles to the ground and in rivers lakes and oceans where it ends up in fish. For years the state has tested fish taken from hundreds of miles of the state's waters and has issued numerous warnings about limiting fish eating or not eating certain fish at all. However, the state has never checked to see what's happening to people who eat the fish.

Read the newspaper's series