Overview
- The state health department updated its advice to allow limited eating of fish from the Lower Hudson for the first time in about 50 years.
- The guidance lets the general population eat up to four meals a month, with people who are pregnant or children limited to smaller amounts such as one 8-ounce striped bass meal a month, and it still tells everyone to avoid carp and smallmouth bass.
- The change applies to the stretch from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge to Battery Park, while stricter rules, including do-not-eat advisories between Hudson Falls and Troy, remain in place upstream.
- To cut exposure to lingering PCBs, officials advise removing skin and fat and cooking so the fat drips off, which can reduce contaminants by about half, and crab eaters should discard the tomalley and cooking liquid.
- Environmental groups and many residents urge caution because contamination varies by species and location and the Hudson River remains a federal Superfund site.