Contamination concerns linger after a North Carolina study in 2020 found concerning levels of toxic PFAS – per and polyfluoroalkyl substances – also known as “forever chemicals,” in some of the fish in the Jordan Lake State Recreation Area and the Haw River State Park.
“What we observed is in these sunfish, there’s very high levels of PFAS in many of them,” co-author of the study Erin Baker said. “So you could get almost a year’s worth of bad water consumption in one fish.”
They tend to stick in your body for some of them days, but some of them up to years.
It’s unclear how widespread the contamination is among other fish species. Richard Chavis, who caught a catfish and bream at Jordan Lake on Tuesday, left the bream out after the warning. Bream is a species of freshwater fish that usually includes sunfish and bluegill.
“I don’t want to catch them no more,” Chavis said.
The study was a collaboration between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and NC State University and had enough information at the time to know there was a reason for concern, according to the first author of the study, Anna K. Boatman.