ADEQ lifts fish consumption ban from Gila River, tributaries

After a 24-year ban due to unsafe levels of banned pesticides, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality announced this week that it has lifted the consumption ban against fish from the Gila River and its tributaries, an area encompassing 100 stream miles and 286 lake acres.

The advisory was enacted due to dangerous levels of pesticides like DDT, chlordane and tosaphene found in fish tissues, which have been phased out of use throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. While fish tissue from the 1990s tested 160 times higher than the designated safe levels for human consumption, testing done in 2011 and 2012 showed levels 16 times lower.

“This is the first time ADEQ has lifted a fish consumption advisory,” ADEQ Water Quality Division Director Trevor Baggiore said. “Fish tested by ADEQ and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that banned pesticides no longer pose a health risk in the Gila River and its tributaries.”

ADEQ’s lifting of the ban comes after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) removed the same bodies of water from the state’s Impaired Waters List this August.