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Stakeholders, Risk from Mercury, and the Savannah River Site: Iterative and Inclusive Solutions to Deal with Risk from Fish Consumption

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Abstract

Many states issue consumption advisories to provide information, mainly to anglers, on the risk from eating fish from contaminated water bodies. The Savannah River passes between South Carolina and Georgia, yet, in 1999, the state-issued consumption advisories for self-caught fish were not in agreement. This chapter examines a stakeholder-driven process that involved state and federal regulators, wildlife biologists, Center for Disease Control, Department of Energy (DOE), fishers themselves, and others to reduce risk for people eating self-caught fish from the river adjacent to the Savannah River Site (a DOE facility). The process included problem formulation, stakeholder identification, identification of the scientific data needed to answer the key questions, development of studies to address these questions, refinement based on stakeholder collaboration, and then development of a mechanism to advise potentially affected persons of the risk. In sum, data on fishing behavior, consumption patterns and mercury levels in fish indicated that people who ate fish frequently were at risk from excess mercury exposure from eating some fish, and an information brochure embraced by the several regulatory agencies and jurisdictions was developed that specifically addressed these issues for people fishing in the Savannah River. This solution sidestepped competing jurisdictional issues between the two states and allowed all parties to create a Fish Fact Sheet brochure that could be distributed annually to those fishing along the Savannah River.

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Acknowledgments

I particularly thank Michael Gochfeld, Charles W. Powers, David S. Kosson, Bernard D. Goldstein, Lynne Waishwell, and Camilla Warren for valuable discussions about SRS, science, stakeholders, and fish consumption; Shane Boring, I.Lehr Brisbin Jr., Patricia A. Cunningham, Karen F. Gaines, J.Whitfield Gibbons, and Joel Snodgrass for advice and logistical help while on SRS; Caron Chess, James Clarke, MichaelGreenberg, and Lisa Bliss for helpful discussions about science over the years; Tracey Shelly and Robert Marino (SCDHEC), Randy Manning (GDNR), John Stockwell (USEPA), Thomas Johnson and Wade Whittaker (USDOE), Christian Jeitner, Taryn Pittfield, and Mark Donio (Rutgers University) for technical help. This research was funded mainly by the Consortium for Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) through a contract from the Department of Energy (AI # DE-FFG-26-00NT 40938 and DE-FC01-06EW07053) to Vanderbilt University and Rutgers University, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC 38-07-502M02), NIEHS (P30ES005022), and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The conclusions and interpretations reported herein are the sole responsibility of the author, and should not in any way be interpreted as representing the views of the funding agencies.

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  1. Division of Life Sciences, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI), Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), and Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA

    Joanna Burger

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Correspondence to Joanna Burger .

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  1. Division of Life Sciences, Nelson Biological Laboratories, Rutgers University, Allison St. 604, Piscataway, 08854-8082, New Jersey, USA

    Joanna Burger

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Burger, J. (2011). Stakeholders, Risk from Mercury, and the Savannah River Site: Iterative and Inclusive Solutions to Deal with Risk from Fish Consumption. In: Burger, J. (eds) Stakeholders and Scientists. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8813-3_5

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