Document g2mdZ1rkzEo7bXLe5O79m84wa

THE NEW YORK TIMES,. 7' h:ftSDAY, AUGV& I'. Canadian Fishing Is Hard Hit by luiiom By mm&m c o w an $3W$Bl t Tb* K*vr ?<W% ^tsfet WHITE DOG, Ontario, Aug. 20--Herbert Michaud, a large, pan, sat in his kitchen mi made small talk with two women and a child. Os the book of the Winnipeg River, about 50 yards from his back door, bis 14-foot boat was tied up, its outboard motor cold and quiet. In the back yard, his nets lay t neat piles. Last year, Mr. Michaud said, be caught aboust $4,630 worth of . mainly pike, pickerel and Whitepisb. this summer, he is drawing-$16& a rSonth'fcs wel fare. He is em of bua#d& of Ca nadian fishermen, guidfes mid tourist-camp proprietors who* livelihood had-.feed damaged this yesat by merevxysm&xMf, ation of. fish and Ocwttrement bans oa commercial SiMig. Like ' the United States, <C#aadSf is experiencing its first mercury alert. Prohibitions on Lake. Erie commercial fishing teve been imposed. A Utmg Sfwtsit m Canada, the alert agpMffl to waters' 'stretching* limn.j,SGO miles -- from t&ifcst, LawSWS&ce River, which part of New York era boundary, Sattedchewan the iclx is the Si atadmfttemtiy w**3 ;tains fed tut Itt Sfloowed eastasfiBd past industrial plant id awpafioon, S&skkiohewan. en route to Hod-] sen $m, ' . lim mercury itself, febsvier than water, does not travefiar. Rut fb do. The poisonous metal is transmitted front the fish that first Ingest it to jagd*- tory spades and ultimately tap the food chain to whales and humans. - Whatein Hudson Bay, which is several rivers and nearly 1,000 miles from one suspected mercury, source, at Dryden, Ontario, have been found con taminated. The sweury scare began last autumn, when the Province of Alberta "prohibited partridge and pheasant hunting. Some birds had been eating seed grain treated with a mercury fungicide. i Otme !* < ij This -V Provinces of! Ontario ad Manitoba have' banned commercial fishing in; all or part of tbeir principal; rivers aad lakes. la some cases; ailftshiwa included in others; some species.. Tie fbitwsry is believed to| have ocas chiefly frrnn indus-i trial gsutrees. Murray CheethamJ a spokesman for the Ontario; Water tewouroes Commission, said . il*ptets have complied: vrirelasS' spring's provincial or* 3to sum sismg mercury. ; Iliaarfftsteif, it is uncertain! that comssfereiftl fishing can ns-; swse. hi. 1971. Because the' marcury is heavier than water,. it tends to on the bottom. T the threat, it must be removed. How to remove it is merely i* of the questions connected With this jwiy recognized i-y?* of IU0MMWS poBsrtion. Dredg- digging trBeh$s or drop- *' covwteg Of material -as gratae, are all under ia Ontario as possible one. it health officials, who have only the experiences of Sweden ami Japan, with the problem to rely on. matt weigh indeterminate health risks to the North American Upfe-eating public, against economic loss. Large amounts of mertjtary can ThsNoVoritT(k<t&f<n>nl C,w> Norbqrt MBcusad shows the nets he eariaot i this yaasr cause brain damage, manta! retardation and bUndatots. The impact may be greatest N36936 among the fisherman of the mainly upon its abundant fresh Wabigoon, English and Winni water and fisheries. peg river systems of western Roy McDonald, 3I-year-old Ontario, a semi-wilderness chief of the 540 Islington In whose economic life depends dians, estimated that 25 families The New York Times Aus. 27,1970 ' Alert applies to waters from Saskatchewan River (1) to St. Lawrence (2). Ban by Manitoba and Ontario on most commercial fishing hits river area (3) especially hard. normally depended on commer cial fishing for their livihood. Last month, 64 Islington fami lies drew welfare payments as compared with 33 in July, 1989. He has organized potato-growl ing and wood-cutting projects to - occupy the fishermen and the 60 guides who have littie work. David M. Brooks, the On tario fish and wlidlife super visor in the town of Kenora, noted that the United States, Canada and the provinces had agreed that a presence of more than 0.5 parts of mercury in a million parts of a fish was dangerous. . `Magic Number' Questioned , *Why 0.5?" asked Mr. Brooks. "What makes that the magic -number?" He noted that the standard was . 10 times greater than the 0.05 limit proposed several years ago by the World Health Organization. The dif ference causes -him to wonder how much is really known about mercury, . In Toronto, Dr:. R. Bruce Sutherland of the Ontario De partment of Health said the standard had been set low de liberately because mercury could injure an unborn child. What counts, he said, is the total intake of mercury. For feeample, Dr. Sutherland said, urine or hair samples were taken last spring near Clay Lake, where a `high mercury content in fish--up to 16.65 parts per million--`had first been found. The highest count in a human --95 parts per million--was found in a man who had been eating fish several times a week, and the second highest was 78, Dr. Sutherland said. "These levels were well be low--one-half or one-quarter-- the levels associated with symptoms of itl health in Japan " he said. People there have died as a result of eating mercury-contaminated fish. Ontario has invited fisher men to submit claims for com pensation, but it has not moved to prosecute factory owners re sponsible for mercury pollu tion. Mr. Cheetham, the spokes man for the Ontario Water Re sources Commission, explained that under provincial law "a mercury deposit doesn't impair the quality of the water," and there is thus no basis for im posing a penalty.