Toxicity In Fish From Dirty Rivers Etc

[roosterman]

Hi Guys,

After reading Stewy and Dan's fish-a-thon in the cooks it got me remembering something i was contemplating over the years..

now the cooks as all know is a bit of a toxic waste dump from all the factories emptying all sorts of nasties over the decades gone by....

the cooks has always been well populated with fish and these fish would migrate in and out of the river etc and into the bay and beyond so now my question is this......

are the fish from the bay affected with toxins and can anyone share theories and or tests/reports carried out in regards to this...

im not planning on eating anything from there but just something we used to mull over many years ago when the river was really bad......

cheers....steve.......

[donjuarez]

I don't/haven't fished the bay, and have been wondering the same for a while now...

I've worked off my assumption that if the Pro-Fisho's aren't in there, that it would be for similar reasons why they're not in the harbour?

Haven't found anything documented that supports this though...

[Kit]

I guess the problem is, fish travel really far distances... the bream you catch in the hawkesbury, could have been in homebush bay last week.

And a 30+cm bream would be 20+ years old.. thats a lot of travelling!

I am very interested in your question too, but i think the toxicology reports can't be accurate as you don't know where a fish has been.

Chris

Edited May 8, 2008 by Kit

[jewgaffer]

I guess the problem is, fish travel really far distances... the bream you catch in the hawkesbury, could have been in homebush bay last week.

Chris

That's a spot on answer Chris. I reckon they are sitting pretty and doing the job they are hired for

Cheers

jewgaffer

[gretsch]

I don't/haven't fished the bay, and have been wondering the same for a while now...

I've worked off my assumption that if the Pro-Fisho's aren't in there, that it would be for similar reasons why they're not in the harbour?

Haven't found anything documented that supports this though...

The trawlers are not in the Harbour because they are banned, not because of the toxin issue.. and what a bloody good ban it is!!

[tumra]

Actually i have been interested in this topic also and have been doing a bit of a search on the web a while ago about toxin levels in fish caught in georges river / botany bay. I found a report done in early 2000 which noted that fish caught in the upper reaches of the georges, in particular chipping norton lake and little salt pan creek had high toxicity levels. I believe it was that report that they based those warning signs you find in the upper reaches saying not to eat the fish. I am looking for the report again and will post a link to it.

A belive that the fish from the bay were ok to eat according to the report.

[Rexxy]

without asking for actual levels or locations, i can honestly tell you that my sister in law works for the NSW fisheries and her main role is testing the toxin levels in all corners of our state. Basically she will not eat any Saltwater Fish full stop, she will on the other hand each fresh water fish.

edit: they test the waterway toxidicy levels by the levels found in the Fish.

but this still never phases me, if they were at levels that could cause major sicknesses and ling term illness, not only would she constantly be lecturing me on my avid fishing, but its her department that is responsible for alerting and placing public bans etc......

you would know....

Edited May 9, 2008 by Rexxy

[spirit_fall88]

yeh i used to fish upper region of the cooks river. Lemme tell you it is very very dirty when it is a run out tide. You would see all the rubbish from up stream come, its like a dump.

Also the upper region of cooks river is like a water storm drain kinda thing. They used the cooks river as that. Thats probably why theres so much fish there cuz they find food there. However when its low tide the river is dried up so therefore all the fish has to move back out into BOTANY BAY!!!!

I've caught mullet, breams, blackfish, tailor and trevallies there before. Saw a big flattie too but yeh DONT eat from cooks river.

Even at the mouth of cooks river near the airport isnt good either. Thats where all the fish from upstream escapes from and if you catch it there u're basically eating the stuff from upstream when its a run out tide.

[pelican]

The industrial area around Alexandria had a canal that drained into the entrance of the cooks river. It was known as the toxic mile and is more polluted than the hombush site according to the test they did 15 years ago. When concrete lning part of it workmen were sick, concrete was erroding and they could see leachate in layers in the soil profile. That are had everything from tanneries , smelting chemical manufacture , paint manufacture to heavy industrial and in those days it all went own the drain into the open canal I have seen minor disturbance to the silt in that are cause minor fish kills so I won't eat fish from round there. The old time councils guys wn't touch it and contract out any work required. Hope the blokes horizontal boring parts for the new waterpipe from Kurnell know what they are doing and use a plastic pipe as I've seen engineered metal supports on one half of a building corrode in under 10 years and concrete turn to dust. That soil ain't natural and it all drains and leaches to the Cooks and the bay.

They have also stopped the private bores around the bay as the chemical from a chemical plant had leached into the water table. They have been monitoring it for several years and watching it creep further.

Hot water , chemicals, sewerage foreign fish we sure do know how to look after our waterways.

[roosterman]

The industrial area around Alexandria had a canal that drained into the entrance of the cooks river. It was known as the toxic mile and is more polluted than the hombush site according to the test they did 15 years ago. When concrete lning part of it workmen were sick, concrete was erroding and they could see leachate in layers in the soil profile. That are had everything from tanneries , smelting chemical manufacture , paint manufacture to heavy industrial and in those days it all went own the drain into the open canal I have seen minor disturbance to the silt in that are cause minor fish kills so I won't eat fish from round there. The old time councils guys wn't touch it and contract out any work required. Hope the blokes horizontal boring parts for the new waterpipe from Kurnell know what they are doing and use a plastic pipe as I've seen engineered metal supports on one half of a building corrode in under 10 years and concrete turn to dust. That soil ain't natural and it all drains and leaches to the Cooks and the bay.

They have also stopped the private bores around the bay as the chemical from a chemical plant had leached into the water table. They have been monitoring it for several years and watching it creep further.

Hot water , chemicals, sewerage foreign fish we sure do know how to look after our waterways.

i remember having some debates over those tests years ago and we were concerned as to what the let out and even more so on what they didnt ... it comes up about the contaminates every so often but very quickly the diversions begin and other things take the spotlight... we have unfortunately done alot of damage in quite a few locations and we can only hope weve learned from these issues and can salvage things over time... but my fear is that cover ups and time will have people forget things.... you only have to see the sites at newington as an example......

i hope we can keep this as a healthy discussion on this topic....

thanks for your replies...

cheers...steve......

[luderick -angler]

okay, between Dad and i we have lived on theCooks for over 70 years and he can remeber prawns at Canterbury! Also seeing bull sharks at Marrickville Golf Course #0lb Jews reguarly at kygeemah in the 1960's, now its the sediment that is a concern and theory tellsyou most fish are bottom dwellers, in the cooks they tell you do not eat crustaceans or fin fish.

The river is healthier i have seen blackies bream jew trevs etc come from as far up as the golf course andthisis from personal catches. i have eaten fish from the cooks but not in great quantities, the river is actually a spawning ground in recent years for blackies i have the proof to tell you this as i have caught 10 cm juvenilles in summer on bread baits. We were even seeing a type of tuna chasing bait fish up near the airport hilton and my fav jewie hole is the princess highway at tempe

The real question is flesh toxicity and i remember the waterboard tests at Yella and they said you would have to eat 10 ton a fish a year for 10 years to get sick.

rule is if your ot sure don't eat the fish and use them as a sporting fishery C&R.

Thing is most fish travel and who knows if a jew hasgone up thecooks chasing mullet only to come out a week later and go into the nice clean waters of Port stephens! same for the blackies or the bream!

it really is a matter of ones own opion and judgement.

All ican say i have not see nthe bay and its tributries healthier

Cheers

Royce.

[roosterman]

hi royce,

yep sure is a breading ground for blackfish etc...

we used to brain them whenever we fished there in early 80's even up the end of muddy creek but mainly from the wall..

the sizes were usually smaller than those we got in the harbour and other than windang down sth we sometimes got the tiniest ones.... it certainly has cleaned up alot as we used to get great bloodworms from them smelly mudflats and i checked it out in curiousity a few years ago(didnt go in just looked) and it was alot sandier and cleaner... even the upper parra has cleaned up alot and it shows with the weed not as plentiful i believe.. we still have along way to go and not disturbing the sediment is one to watch out for i think...

we ate the blackfish from there years ago also but not on a regular basis... and the breamboes my ol man used to get from the pylons when i was very young ....

theres an even better jew hole than that one but im sure you would know it an def kept on the Q .

the mullet we used to see was amazing and you could nearly walk across the other side on there backs there was so many......

cheers...steve.....

[luderick -angler]

there was a couple of seasons in muddy creek around june we weregetting blackfish that averaged 2 to 3 pounds in the mid 90's winter always saw big fish in the cooks and on average bigger fish than the georges last year i got a few to 3 pound at Dulwich Hill. Aso some thumper bream came outta marrickville on bread.

That river is a surprise pack i can tell you great C&R fishery.

I will take you to a few spots next season Roosterman!

[Welster]

On 5/8/2008 at 12:27 PM, donjuarez said:

I don't/haven't fished the bay, and have been wondering the same for a while now...

I've worked off my assumption that if the Pro-Fisho's aren't in there, that it would be for similar reasons why they're not in the harbour?

Haven't found anything documented that supports this though...

My understanding is the pros aren’t in Sydney harbour due to the dolioxins.    They reason they stopped fishing the bay was a buyout when the fishing licence came out.  

I would be curious to know if sampling and testing and the information it provides would be different if it was a commercial fishery. 

[kingie chaser]

9 hours ago, Mmg said:

10 years later than the last post.

i wonder if the water quality has improved or declined?

i think i still wouldnt even want to get the water from the cooks on my hands 😜

There are published recommendations(pretty sure its from DPI?) where fish shouldn't be consumed on our Sydney waterways & also when they can the amounts you should consume.

 

If you do some googling you will find those recommendations.

[dirvin21]

Not sure how relevant but in a previous life working in aquaculture fish harvested from dams were "purged" in clean water to remove the blue green algae toxin which causes a weedy or "off" flavour on the same principle I've always assumed if the fish come from decent water they'll be safe to eat regardless of where they've been as most of the toxins will have been shed

[JonD]

We looked into the toxicity levels in fish a few years ago when we first caught broadbill. Our findings were quite surprising for this country compared with other country's considered safe levels.  Something else which many people I've spoken with who fish seem to disagree with is they believe Aussie fish are better than other world standards. 

Not just happy with what we found in Australian health food standards online we actually contacted the places who do the testing. We were assured that if we sent a sample of broadbill or tuna in for testing that the heavy metals and toxins would be almost identical from any of that same species world wide. So many people I know believe the fish we catch in our clean looking waters are free from contaminates, which is simply not true. 

The standards of what's considered safe in this country is far different from world standards. Where here it's considered safe to eat quite larger quantities of fish like tuna per week, while other country's its only recommend a fraction of this.

[davostephens82]

i used to fish cooks river as a kid in the 90s off brighton amatuer fishing club wharf. Most weekends.

Man i used to get some big bream up to a kg, blackfish up to 1.5 kg, flatties up to 3 kg, few tailor, big eels and plenty of mudcrabs. I used to let em all go. One day i saw all these fish coming up gulping for air, all sorts as mentioned above. the pelicans would swoop on them and then spit them out. Saw something similar at lane cove in 2002, all these fish beached themselves and were gulping for air.. hundreds of estuary fish all sizes. was incredibaly sad both times.