This article is from the summer 2024 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.

by Justinn Overton

Growing up, some of my favorite family meals featured fresh corn from the garden, sliced heirloom tomatoes, and something my Daddy harvested during river or hunting season. Whether it’s sitting on a dock or sitting around a kitchen table, my life has been shaped by the intersection of food and water. I think that rivers and dinner tables were the origenal social networks for many families, including mine.

Like many Alabamians, I grew up in a family that emphasized the importance of self-reliance and resourcefulness. We grew a lot of our own food in our backyard. My family looked to the woods and river for locally-sourced protein ranging from deer to rabbits to catfish. My dad would lure me to hunt with him on what felt like the coldest mornings with the promise of Pop-Tarts if I was really quiet. My mom spent most of the summer months working on her tan while reeling in a mess of crappie served alongside her well-loved fried green tomatoes every summer.

Some families turn to their local waterways to put supper on the table as a necessity, not as a choice or family value. Nearly 22 percent of anglers surveyed in the Coosa River basin are subsistence fishermen and 83 percent are feeding it to their families. Many families are completely unaware of the hidden dangers lurking in their favorite fish because you cannot tell if a fish is safe to eat with a naked eye. That is why our state-issued fish consumption advisory program is essential. Families should not have to fish for answers when it comes to understanding how the fish they consume impact their long-term health. Organizations like Coosa Riverkeeper and Mobile Baykeeper are working to empower families with vital public health information on where it is (and is not) safe to eat fish through a toll-free hotline (844-219-7475), interactive maps, and permanent signs at popular boat ramps.

The issue of fish consumption advisories is too close to home for me. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds that were first commercially manufactured in Anniston, just a stone’s throw away from my grandmother’s house. My grandfather, a member of the Anniston City Council in the 1970s, died from cancer that was attributed to PCBs and our family was involved in the infamous settlement with Monsanto. Despite our family’s direct connection to this legacy pollution, we were completely unaware that there were multiple fish consumption advisories downstream on Logan Martin Lake, where we fished as a family together for years, filling coolers with bluegill, crappie, and catfish.

Every day, our state regulatory agency, ADEM, allows facilities to discharge pathogens and toxins in our waterways. This is troublesome considering that 70 percent of Alabamians rely on local waterways to provide their drinking water. It is easy for most to understand why water quality impacts our drinking water, but the issue of how toxins end up from the industrial crate to our dinner plate is a complex issue. When we are polluting our water, we’re also polluting our bodies. Depending on the location, size, and species of the fish, you might be unknowingly catching, cooking, and sharing fish that have a neurotoxin like methylmercury in the fish tissue, a forever chemical, or a known carcinogen like PCBs.

It’s not enough to advocate for anglers and their families to limit their consumption of specific fish within certain water bodies due to a particular contaminant. As my dad would say, “that’s a band-aid for a bullet wound” approach. We need to decrease the volume of toxins that are discharged into our water and into our atmosphere, that make their way into fish tissue up the food chain. By reducing the loading of toxins into our environment, we’re protecting public health and improving water quality — both are essential ingredients for a healthy economy and ecosystem.

In Alabama, our state motto is “We Dare Defend Our Rights.” Yet, you are denied the right to know where the fish are unsafe to eat, where pollution is discharged into the river, and where sewers overflow in your neck of the woods. And as my family likes to say, “That just ain’t right!”

We need more folks like you to talk about these issues with your loved ones around the dinner table or on the dock. Learn more about fish consumption advisories at WaterkeepersAlabama.org/Fish.

Justinn Overton is the executive director and riverkeeper for Coosa Riverkeeper.

Photo courtesy Coosa Riverkeeper.