03-07-2013, 06:57 PM
[quote isda]I dont want to hijack your thread but i have a question about the fish in Utah Lake. Are they safe to eat? I read somewhere where provo city dumped raw sewage into the lake up until 1964. I like to fish the lake but am hesistant on bringing home any fish to eat. I have a catfish recipe that is amazing and where UL is close i would like to utilize the recipe more.
Thanks[/quote]
[cool][#0000FF]No hijack at all. A big part of the image problem suffered by UL is the concern over potential contamination. Unfortunately, just because the lake is shallow it is prone to muddying up whenever the wind blows and the lake is at a low enough level to stir up the sediments. And the carp don't help much.
There was a lot of abuse heaped on Utah Lake in years past. Raw sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial waste were all dumped into the lake with no envirocops to monitor it or shut it down. The biggest polluter of all time was Geneva Steel...but it was permanently shut down in 2002.
The good news is that Utah Lake has several fresh water inlets that pour in huge amounts of cleansing water every year...and a lot of what was in the lake flushes downstream in the Jordan River. The lake does not have a hundred feet of accumulated sediment on the bottom...but only a few feet at most that gets regularly stirred and flushed...as new sediments come in from the streams. The bottom is actually hard volcanic rock and is seldom covered by more than a few feet of water above the rock and sediment.
Some folks have the opinion that there are tons of carcinogenic pollutants bubbling up from the ancient sediments. Not so. Utah Lake water and fish are tested regularly and its waters are safer to drink...and the fish safer to eat...than many of our "pristine" mountain lakes and streams. If you want to review the reports on Utah waters [url "http://www.fishadvisories.utah.gov/"]GO HERE[/url]
There IS NO MERCURY problem in Utah Lake. That is the uninformed fear of many folks who shun eating fish from the lake. The cautionary report issued a few years ago was on the presence of PCBs in carp and larger catfish in the lake. All other species were found to be essentially pollution free. And if you only keep smaller cats the PCB levels are far below any condidered danger level. Also, as it mentions in the advisory..."No known PCB related illnesses have been associated with eating fish from Utah Lake."
I have harvested and eaten catfish from Utah Lake since the early 1960s. And I have also caught and eaten cats from many other states in the USA. I am a published author on fish preparation and cooking and might be considered to have a discriminating taste. I will unequivocally state that Utah Lake catfish are some of the best tasting in the country, and that they are much safer to eat than even some of the "farm raised" fish from other parts of the country.
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Thanks[/quote]
[cool][#0000FF]No hijack at all. A big part of the image problem suffered by UL is the concern over potential contamination. Unfortunately, just because the lake is shallow it is prone to muddying up whenever the wind blows and the lake is at a low enough level to stir up the sediments. And the carp don't help much.
There was a lot of abuse heaped on Utah Lake in years past. Raw sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial waste were all dumped into the lake with no envirocops to monitor it or shut it down. The biggest polluter of all time was Geneva Steel...but it was permanently shut down in 2002.
The good news is that Utah Lake has several fresh water inlets that pour in huge amounts of cleansing water every year...and a lot of what was in the lake flushes downstream in the Jordan River. The lake does not have a hundred feet of accumulated sediment on the bottom...but only a few feet at most that gets regularly stirred and flushed...as new sediments come in from the streams. The bottom is actually hard volcanic rock and is seldom covered by more than a few feet of water above the rock and sediment.
Some folks have the opinion that there are tons of carcinogenic pollutants bubbling up from the ancient sediments. Not so. Utah Lake water and fish are tested regularly and its waters are safer to drink...and the fish safer to eat...than many of our "pristine" mountain lakes and streams. If you want to review the reports on Utah waters [url "http://www.fishadvisories.utah.gov/"]GO HERE[/url]
There IS NO MERCURY problem in Utah Lake. That is the uninformed fear of many folks who shun eating fish from the lake. The cautionary report issued a few years ago was on the presence of PCBs in carp and larger catfish in the lake. All other species were found to be essentially pollution free. And if you only keep smaller cats the PCB levels are far below any condidered danger level. Also, as it mentions in the advisory..."No known PCB related illnesses have been associated with eating fish from Utah Lake."
I have harvested and eaten catfish from Utah Lake since the early 1960s. And I have also caught and eaten cats from many other states in the USA. I am a published author on fish preparation and cooking and might be considered to have a discriminating taste. I will unequivocally state that Utah Lake catfish are some of the best tasting in the country, and that they are much safer to eat than even some of the "farm raised" fish from other parts of the country.
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