Middle Harbour water cleanliness

[rjc123]

Hey raiders,

just a quick question. Is it safe to eat a fish caught in upper middle harbour around Roseville? Mainly for Bream, Flathead, Jewfish and mullet.

[mullowhat]

Curly question because it is hard for everyday anglers to judge the potential risks from eating particular fish caught in certain areas that haven't been caught yet. You will have to rely on your own judgement - taking into account the health of the fish as you see it, how it behaved, the water quality that exited at the time as well as the health of the environment it came from.

[windredj]

What he said .. I think middle harbour is fine it's just when you go west past the harbour bridge you wanna start to rethink taking fish. And I correct in saying this?

[snag]

They say not to eat from the harbour bridge and west of it, and the harbour...ie middle manly and the what not's is 150grams per week.

How the goverment came to this amount i dont know, but like most goverments they are full of bee's wax.

[rjc123]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll have to go with my own judgement i guess. Might pay to play it safe.

[gummybusta]

They say not to eat from the harbour bridge and west of it, and the harbour...ie middle manly and the what not's is 150grams per week.

How the goverment came to this amount i dont know, but like most goverments they are full of bee's wax.

love things like this

mainly because fish know not to either be west or east of the bridge nor can they swim each side

no dout some over paided desk jockey got paid alot of money from the goverment to tell them this also

almost all fish move up and down the rivers streams harbours and coast lines so who is able to tell if a fish caught at the habour mouth is any better than one west of the bridge

sorry can't help you with your question but i guess the best thing to do is what geekstyle wrote and if it looks ok smells ok and came from a clean enoght place maybe give it a go as along as we are not talking eating them each and every day

[rjc123]

love things like this

mainly because fish know not to either be west or east of the bridge nor can they swim each side

no dout some over paided desk jockey got paid alot of money from the goverment to tell them this also

almost all fish move up and down the rivers streams harbours and coast lines so who is able to tell if a fish caught at the habour mouth is any better than one west of the bridge

sorry can't help you with your question but i guess the best thing to do is what geekstyle wrote and if it looks ok smells ok and came from a clean enoght place maybe give it a go as along as we are not talking eating them each and every day

yeh mate, if i kept what i catch here i would only be eating monthly/fortnight so definitely in moderation. Thanks for the help!

[sharknett]

Seem to remember seeing something recently that said bream were known to accumulate high dioxin levels, but flathead and whiting generally showed pretty low levels in the same areas. Still not sure I would eat any of them from the harbour or its tributaries tho.

[musty]

Hey raiders,

just a quick question. Is it safe to eat a fish caught in upper middle harbour around Roseville? Mainly for Bream, Flathead, Jewfish and mullet.

Alot of people wouldnt know this but under the harbour bridge, in that exact line north to south there are stop signs under the water, These were put in place so the fish would see them, stop and turn back, thereby fish with high dioxins stay west and the clean stuff stays east. So we are told to restrict what we eat from the west.

Arnt we lucky to have intelligent people in government looking after us...

EAT THE FISH MATE, EAST AND WEST! u will be fine, still healthier than fast food chains.

What WILL make you sick however is driving down parramatta road or any of the sydney roads for that matter with your windows down, especially on a day with little or no wind and during peak hour!

Musty

[sifisho]

Too true! I've had no problems eating my catch, and my fish are caught near a storm water pipe! I can already tell i'll live a short life... kidding! Who cares! go for it

Pretty ridiculous to tell someone something like that. Sure the advice might seem like overkill and possibly is but you might well find you have a problem in 30 years time with that attitude.

Better to be safe than sorry - its not that hard to get a feed from the safer species out closer to the heads.

[dabble]

Those "overpaid desk jockeys and sinister government types" that everyone loves to ear bash in this case are scientists that have done tests on quite a few species throughout the harbour. The results are:

Bream, mullet, whiting, squid and prawns are the worst to eat. Those found west of the harbour bridge DO on average have substantially higher levels of dioxins in them. This ONLY relates to dioxins because that is what they tested for. If your concerned dont eat the species with high counts and certainly dont eat any caught west of the harbour bridge.

Whether you believe it or not is your choice, yes fish move, yes it might be more dangerous to sit in traffic with your window open but having fished the upper parra and places like north harbour i think the results certainly make sense. I wouldn't eat bream living in the upper Parra for quids!

[zen801]

Hi,

I fish MH a lot for the last 15 years. Never got sick from eating a fish and in terms of dioxins etc i dont worry. West of Harbour Bridge you have a good reason to be careful but MH has not had the industrial issue that west of bridge has and still does.

But having said that MH does get storm water runoff. After big rains when the water goes brown i dont take fish until it starts to clear up. At my fav spot which is very near a storm water drain after big rains i have found syringes, condoms and even money floating by. Makes you want to grab the money, throw fish overboard and go home.

I smoke cigarettes so dying of dioxin poisoning just doesnt seem likely.

Mike

[daniel944]

Being a scientest myself, I feel the need to be a nerd and stick up fro the desk jockey. Most likley the results of fish tested got worse and worse the further you travel down the river. The line needs to be drawn somewere and most likley the decision was made based on a low likleyhood of the very bad fish making it as far up the river as the bridge. I would not have a problem taking a fish from cockatoo island out, provided that the fish fought well and looked healthy when I cleaned him. I think water quality at that point is not so important because as others say fish move around a lot.

Further more, I use the silverwater rd boat ramp and I can guarentee you that the river there is pure filth. I even clean fish on my boat in the harbour before returning to the ramp.

Cheers

Daniel

[ghost88]

It's all risk vs reward. Do you think getting yourself sick is worth it?

[rjc123]

It's all risk vs reward. Do you think getting yourself sick is worth it?

Of course not mate. I just started this thread to find out if there was a risk in eating something from here. It seems clear that the risk outweighs the gain by far!

[Robinsoi]

I'm certainly no expert in this matter and am not pretending to be but I'm just applying a bit of common sense here.

Yes fish move around so a fish caught east of the bridge may have spent most of its life west of the bridge so if you are going to apply the government's rule of not eating fish west of the bridge you might as well not eat them at all from the Harbour or Parra as you can't guarantee where they have been unless of course the fish have abided by the Stop signs under the water as mentioned Musty above!!

So probably common sense prevails and as mentioned above if the fish, the water and environment look healthy then eating fish in moderation caught in these locations would be ok.

Also, a lot of the tinned fish in our supermarkets that many of us eat comes from overseas places like Thailand, Malaysia etc and our water ways would have to be cleaner than theirs.

Besides, we are probably doing more damage to ourselves breathing in traffic exhaust fumes, eating junk & fast foods and the associated chemicals and preservatives and sitting in front of a computer screen and I would say we do this far more regularly than eating fish.

All the best

Ian

[tuffy]

That's it !!!! I've just discovered a way to retire early.

I'm going to spend my next weekend off inventing a battery operated portable " Dioxin Meter ".

I reckon at around $19.95 each I'll sell one to every fisho in Sydney, so that will nett me, say, $19.95 x 50,000, just under $1m, then I start work on instilling fear into places like Broome, Tweed Heads, Cape York etc. Yep, that's it, start work this weekend and in 2 years I'll be sending postcards from the Maldives or St Kits.

This could go global, people. Better start emailing me before I become too famous.

Tuffy.