Fish Consumption Bans and Advisories. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is the state agency responsible for testing fish tissue across the state and issuing fish consumption bans and advisories11 when 10 Due to the risks of chlorine gas storage, WWTPs limit how much is stored onsite at one time.
Fish Consumption Bans and Advisories. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is the state agency responsible for testing fish tissue across the state and issuing fish consumption bans and advisories13 when appropriate to protect human health. The entire length of the Trinity River in the Covered Area 12 Due to the risks of chlorine gas storage, WWTPs limit how much is stored onsite at one time. 13 A fish consumption advisory limits the recommended amount of a selected fish species a person should consume (e.g., one meal per month) while a fish consumption ban recommends that a person does not eat any of that species from that designated part of a waterbody. is covered under either a fish consumption advisory or a fish consumption ban due to elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins in fish tissue. PCBs are a class of 209 manmade chemicals that were manufactured from about 1929 to 1979 when they were banned. Because they were very stable, they were considered to be ideal for use in many products ranging from heat transfer fluids to carbonless copy paper. However, due to the same properties that made them stable, they are persistent in the environment and do not easily degrade. They can break down from more heavily chlorinated chemical compounds to less chlorinated chemical compounds over time. They are also fat soluble, which leads to bioaccumulation in animal tissues. Dioxins are somewhat similar classes of chemicals. There are several hundred types of dioxins as well, but there are 17 dioxins that are considered the most toxic. Unlike PCBs, dioxins and furans are not intentionally produced, they are produced as byproduct contaminants of processes ranging from simple wood burning to production of various chemicals. Legacy sources of PCBs in the Trinity River Basin are hard to pinpoint because PCBs are ubiquitous in the environment due to historical widespread use and accumulate in the sediment. While the tolerances of the Covered Species to PCBs and dioxins is unknown, it is important to recognize that these sediments provide the habitat that freshwater mussels inhabit. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, TCEQ and other entities performed research and attempted to identify remediation options for PCBs and dioxins but were unable to identify any workable solutions other than the passage of time and entrainment by clean sediment. 5 Covered Area and Conservation Zone Descriptions Because of its geographical, climatological, and political variability14, the Tri...
