BOSTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a multi-state plan to lower mercury levels in fish throughout New England and New York. The plan calls for a 98-percent reduction in atmospheric emissions of the toxic metal.

The goal is to reduce mercury levels in fish enough that the states can lift their fish-consumption advisories, such as those urging Rhode Islanders not to eat any fish caught in Yawgoog, Windcheck and Meadowbrook ponds, the Quidnick Reservoir and the lower Woonasquatucket River.

Thousands of such advisories have been issued for lakes and rivers across the Northeast in recent years, spurred by the detection of elevated levels of mercury in certain fish species, especially bass, pike and pickerel. Black crappie and eel pose a lesser contamination risk, while trout are considered relatively safe, EPA publications indicate. Smallmouth bass were chosen as the states’ benchmark species.

The EPA’s announcement credits “the high level of collaboration with the Northeast states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, and the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission,” with providing “a scientific basis for taking specific actions to ratchet down the release of mercury.”

A draft of the plan was submitted to the EPA this spring. (READ MORE)

The version approved yesterday by the agency’s regional offices in Boston and New York addresses a federal Clean Water Act requirement that states develop pollution budgets – called Total Maximum Daily Loads or TDLs – for polluted waters. It builds on a number of ongoing mercury-reduction levels throughout the region.

“Given the consistency of mercury levels in fish throughout the region, and the regional consistency of mercury inputs from the atmosphere … the collaborative approach among the states is a logical and effective way to address the problem,” the EPA said.

The New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) is a nonprofit agency founded in 1947 to facilitate regional clean-water efforts. To learn more, visit is available at www.neiwpcc.org.

Additional information is available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s District 1 (New England) office in Boston at epa.gov/region1. For information about fish advisories in various states nationwide, visit epa.gov/waterscience/fish/states.htm.