Toxic Fish and Poor Communities
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Most of anglers were men, and the men were not aware how the fish meals are prepared. Another piece of our research will next focus primarily on the women who are responsible for preparing the meals and finding out the nutritional habits of the family, which the anglers couldn’t provide.
MJ: Is it difficult for the students to engage with these issues?
SF: This work is very easy because it’s just an extension of folks’ lives. We do work that is directly related to the students’ lives, the families’ lives, the community’s lives. We help provide are skills for critical analysis of their surroundings. This study to reduce women and children’s contaminants from fish consumption was originated by students, not program coordinators. They wanted to do it because lot of their families fish in the Delta and the bay. They thought this was a great lesson to take home, and many of them did. We got lots of calls from parents who want to learn more because they weren’t aware of the advisories, even though they’ve been in place since 1994. But, the advisories are page 58 of a 60-page document, and not a lot of people get to page 58 of the Fish and Game Regulation Guide.
MJ: What skills are students taught?
SF: In terms of monitoring skills, we’re getting them to acknowledge that they actually have some expertise in that area. We’re teaching them the concept of environmental indicators -- if they are playing in a creek, and they notice a frog that has an extra foot or a tadpole that has two tails, they are noticing a mutation that is abnormal. That is telling them something about the environment. We’re getting them to recognize that they are the ones who are observing conditions in the environment. They are being made aware of how to link it to the quality of their community, contrasting it with more pristine areas like the Marin Headlands that is teeming with biodiversity versus an area that is inundated with various contaminants that can only sustain species that are pollution-tolerant.
What we really emphasize is environment goes beyond what is most traditionally known as wildlife and wilderness areas. Your environment is wherever you are. A lot of urban and low-income communities could be completely asphalted over, which doesn’t allow for the percolation of rain and storm water to be naturally filtered before it goes out to the bay. The students are working on how to increase vegetative surfaces to act as natural filters that pull out the contaminants and metals before it actually reaches the creeks and the bay. Students have transformed barren hillsides into an oak grove does just that. It’s not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also improves the watershed.
MJ: You have said that most environmental education programs focus on wildlife and wilderness areas, even though 50 percent of the world population and 70 percent of the US population live in cities. Why do you think urban areas are overlooked in these programs?
SF: Traditional environmental agencies don’t even acknowledge the issues of environmental groups that are primarily folks of color. What the environmental justice groups are looking at is not what’s on the radar of traditional environmental groups. What our organization is looking at is nothing new; we’re not reinventing the wheel. It’s just that the areas we’re concerned about are not being covered. Even these issues aren’t being covered in the main article in Mother Jones. It’s looking at the big picture, aquatic species, and not looking at the subsistence fishing folks who are doing recreational fishing on a daily basis and how that could be impacting their lives. These areas can be completely ignored because they’re not picked up by media. Contaminants in fish or communities have been a long-term problem, but they’re not within the definition of what traditional environmental concerns are for larger environmental groups. Our messages are there, but it’s whether people want to hear them.
Lisa Wong Macabasco is an editorial fellow at Mother Jones.
