Available via license: CC BY 2.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
RES E A R C H Open Access
Cultural and health implications of fish advisories
in a Native American community
Elizabeth Hoover
Abstract
Introduction: Fish advisories are issued in an effort to protect human health from exposure to contaminants, but
Native American communities may suffer unintended health, social, and cultural consequences as a result of
warnings against eating local fish. This paper focuses on the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, which lies
downstream from a Superfund site, and explores how fish advisories have impacted fish consumption and heal th.
Methods: 65 Akwesasne community members were interviewed between March 2008 and April 2009. Interviews
were semi-structured, lasted from 30–90 minutes and consisted of open-ended questions about the impacts of
environmental contamination on the community. Detailed field notes were also maintained during extensive visits
between 2007–2011. Interviews were transcribed, and these transcripts as well as the field notes were analyzed in
NVivo 8.0. This research received approval from the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment Research Advisory
Committee, as well as the Brown University Institutional Review Board.
Results: Three-quarters of the 50 Akwesasne Mohawks interviewed have ceased or significantly curtailed their local
fish co nsumption due to the issuance of fish advisories or witnessing or hearing about deformities on fish. Many of
these respondents have turned to outside sources of fish, from other communities or from grocery stores. This
change in fish consumption concerns many residents because cultural and social connections developed around
fishing are being lost and because fish has been replaced with high-fat high-carb processed foods, which has led to
other health complications. One-quarter of the 50 interviewees still eat local fish, but these are generally middle-aged
or older residents; fish consumption no longer occurs in the multi-generational social context it once did.
Conclusions: Human health in Native American communities such as Akwesasne is intimately tied to the health of
the environment. Fish advisories should not be used as an institutional control to protect humans from exposure to
contaminants; if Akwesasne are to achieve optimal health, the contaminated environment has to be remediated to
a level that supports clean, edible fish.
Keywords: Fish advisories, Native American, Mohawk, Haudenosaunee, PCBs, Superfund, St. Lawrence River,
Health risk assessment
Introduction
We turn our minds to all the Fish life in the water. They
were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They
also give themselves to us a s food. We are grateful that
we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish
and send our greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
–Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address (Patterson 1999)
For traditional Haudenosaunee (also known as Iroquois)
people, the Ohenton Kariwatehkwen or “Thanksgiving
Address” is recited at the opening and closing of import-
ant events, as a reminder of essential elements to be
collectively thankful for. The translated excerpt above
highlights the importance of fish, which historically were
an important source of food for many Haudenosaunee na-
tions, including the Mohawk.
a
In communities such as
Akwesasne, the relationship between fish—whose duty it
is to cleanse the water and offer themselves as food—and
humans—whose role it is to respectfully harvest these fish
—has been interrupted by environmental contamination.
Correspondence: Elizabeth_M_Hoover@brown.edu
American Studies and Ethnic Studies, Brown University, Box 1886, Providence
RI 02860, USA
© 2013 Hoover; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
Because concepts of health for Mohawk people extend be-
yond the individual to the community and the environ-
ment (Arquette et al. 2002), this interrupted relationship
with the fish has resulted in altered diets with resulting
health impacts, and the fear that language and culture re-
latedtofishwillbelost.
Much of the literature on fish advisories has focused
on concerns about whether these advisories properly
inform minority subsistence fishermen and their fami-
lies about the risks of consuming contaminated fish
(Chess et al. 2005; Beehler et al. 2003; Tan et al. 2011;
Imm et al. 2005). Following a conventional human
health risk model in whic h prevention of exposure pro-
tects health, the goal of much of this scholarship is
ensuring that the fish avoidance message reaches all
audiences. Less focus has been given to the impact on
communities who follow these advisories, and the feasi-
bility of ever reversing the impact of these advisories
even after site cleanup.
Through interviews with Akwesasne Mohawk commu-
nity members and environmental officials, I explore the
impact fish advisories have had on this community, the
extent to which the community decreased or ceased
their fish consumption, and the unintended health and
cultural consequences of fish advisories. I also explore
the motivations of people who have decided to continue
to eat fish despite the advisories, and conclude with a
discussion of future research and outreach needed in the
community. The overarching message conveyed by com-
munity members and scholars who are pushing for more
holistic forms of risk assessment (Arq uette et al. 2002;
Ranco et al. 2011; Harper et al. 2012; Donatuto and
Harper 2008) is that optimum human health cannot be
achieved in Native American communities such as
Akwesasne until ecological health is achieved as well.
Background
Akwesasne is a Mohawk community of about 13–15,000
people
b
that shares borders with New York, Ontario,
and Quebec. Located at the confluence of four rivers—
the St. Regis Rive r, the Raquette River, the Grasse River,
and the St. Lawrence River—the community relied for
generations on the abundance of fish and wildlife, as
well as the rich alluvial soils for farms (see Figure 1).
The St. Lawrence Seaway project, begun in 1954, wid-
ened and deepened the river, and created a series of
canals and locks that opened the region to ocean-going
vessels. In 1957 the Moses-Saunders Power Dam was
constructed on the St. Lawrence River and attracted in-
dustry with its low-cost hydroelectricity. The Aluminum
Company of America (ALCOA) had already established
a factory a few miles west of Akwesasne in 1903 on the
Grasse River an d was joined by the General Motors
(GM) aluminum plant in 1958 and Reynolds Metals in
1959, both just west of the reservation, upstream and
upwind. On the Canadian side of the river, a paper mill
was built in 1881, which was acquired by Dominion Tar
& Chemical in 1961 and rebranded as Domtar in 1965.
In 1976 Health and Welfare Canada approached the
Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (MCA), the tribal gov-
ernment for the northern half of the community, to de-
termine if there were elevated mercury levels in the
people of Akwesasne, since mercury had been identified
as a problem in Native communities across Canada. The
presence of paper companies such as Domtar adjacent
to, and upstream from, Akwesasne led to the concern
that mercury could be a threat to this community as
well. In 1978 MCA took samples of fish and found
PCBs, mercury, and Mirex, which led them to recom-
mend that women of childbearing age, children under
15, and pregnant women cease consumption of fish from
the St. Lawrence (Hauptmann 1988:64).
In 1981, two dormant sludge pits filled with poly-
chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were discovered behind
GM, adjacent to the Raquette Point region of the reser-
vation, and by 1984 the entire 27 0 acre Gener al Motor s
site was declared a Superfund site. Following tests done
by a NY State wildlife epidemiologist that found high
levels of PCBs in fish and aquatic wildlife, an official
three-part health risk assessment was developed that ex-
amined contaminant levels in fish (Sloan and Jock 1990),
wildlife (Skinner 1992) and breast milk (Fitzgerald et al.
1992). Sloan and Jock (1990:26) found that “PCB, dioxin,
and mercury throughout the study area exceeded criteria
for the protection of piscivorous wildlife.” Tests done on
343 fish collected from 12 locations on the St. Lawrence
RiverneartheGMsiteshowedtotalPCBlevelsranging
between 3 ppm and 8,000 ppm (lipid basis), which
exceeded the tolerance limits established by the federal gov-
ernment of 2 ppm (wet weight) (Kinney et al. 1997:314).
Following tests do ne arou nd the GM Su perfund site,
the Health Service for the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe
(SRMT), the tribal government for the southern half of
the community, issued an advisory in July of 1986
recommending that women of childbearing age, preg-
nant and nursing women, and children under 15 should
entirely avoid the consumption of contaminated fish.
They also gave a list of species for everyone to avoid,
and a separate list from which residents should only eat
one half pound per week.
c
This news furthe r destroyed
the local fishing economy, which had previou sly sup-
ported a number of Mohawk families and had already
begun to diminish after the MCA fish advisory.
The results of the breast milk section of the health
risk assessment (Fitzgerald et al. 1992), as well as contin-
ued studies that resulted from a partnership between
the Akwesasne community and the State University of
New York (SUNY) at Albany, demonstrated that fish
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 2 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
consumption led to higher levels of PCBs in Akwesasne
residents. Fingerprinting analyses established that fish
caught in the St. Lawrence River offshore from the GM
site were contaminated with the same lightly chlorinated
PCB congeners as the sediment collected offshore from
the GM plant. This contamination was primarily Aroclor
1248, the PCB mixture used in GM’s die casting machin-
ery (Hwang et al. 1993; Fitzgerald et al. 1995). This con-
tamination was then traced from fish to humans: breast
milk samples from women who ate local fish had a con-
gener pattern that was much closer to perch, the pre-
ferred species of fish, than that found in women who ate
little or no fish (Fitzgerald et al. 1998; Hwang et al.
2001). Similarly, Mohawk men who ate the most fish
had a congener pattern similar to the fish studied
(although their serum was more likely to contain more
chlorinated PCB mixtures such as Aroclor 1254 and
1260, which have been traced to the Great Lakes, than
the local mixture, Aroclor 1248) (Fitzgerald et al. 2007).
This series of studies was significant because it demon-
strated how PCBs could be fingerprinted as they
migrated offsite from an industrial source, and traced
into fish and then humans. Many Mohawks I spoke with
referred to the St. Lawrence as the “ lifeblood” of the
community. By the contamination of the river, and
hence the fish, Mohawk bodies were subsequently con-
taminated as well. Therefore cessation of fish consump-
tion, which distanced Mohawks from this river, was
lauded by the public health community as a means for
preventing further exposure to contamination.
Environmental health studies conducted by the SUNY
Albany research team and the Akwesasne community
extended into a second Superfund Basic Research Pro-
ject grant from 1995–2000. Papers published based on
this project demonstrated that higher PCB levels in Mo-
hawk participants were potential ly connected to abnor-
mal thyroid functioning in adolescents (Schell et al.
2004, 2008, 2009; Schell and Gallo 2010); diabetes
(Codru et al. 2007 ); higher levels of total serum lipids
that contribute to heart disease (Goncharov et al. 2008);
altered cognitive function in adolescents (Newman et al.
2006, 2009) as well as altered cognitive function in older
Figure 1 Map of Akwesasne. Map available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253751/figure/f1-ehp0113-000272/.
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 3 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
adults (Haase et al. 2009); earlier onset of menarche in
girls (Denham et al. 2005); and reduced testosterone
levels in men (Goncharov et al. 2009).
The General Motors Superfund site has been undergo-
ing remediation for decades but may finally be nearing
completion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
issued a Record of Decision in 1990 for GM’swastewater
lagoons and the contaminated adjacent river sediment and
in 1992 for GM’s industrial landfill. The dredging of the
St. Lawrence River sediments, along with a cap in areas
where the cleanup goals were not met, was completed in
1995. From 2000–2004, GM remediated the inactive
lagoons at the facility, excavating contaminated sludge and
soils, stabilizing them and shipping to an offsite facility.
The Raquette River bank soils and sediments were also
remediated, and contaminated soils were removed at the
toe of the slope of the Industrial Landfill, which reached
out to the Raquette Point portion of the reservation. In
2004–2005 GM remediated Turtle Cove, which had been
renamed “Contaminant Cove” by NY State Department of
Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) workers. The
GM plant closed in May 2009, was bulldozed, and the re-
mains shipped to an offsite landfill in 2011 (USEPA 2011).
In 2013–2015 another four lagoons and two sludge pits
will be cleaned up, and the edge of the landfill will be
pulled back 150 ft from the shore of the St. Lawrence
River and reservation boundary. The last of the general
site cleanup and restoration activities will occur in 2016
(Arquette 2012). According to the EPA website, current
human exposures at this site are under control but con-
taminated groundwater migration is not (USEPA 2012).
Methods
In order to explore how a Native American community
located downstream from a Superfund site has been
impacted by contamination and the ensuing environ-
mental health studies, from March 2008 through April
2009 I interviewed 65 Akwe sasne Mohawk community
members, ranging in age from 25 to 90, with a majority
(n = 41, 63%) in their 40s and 50s.
d
Eight participants
were in their 20s to 30s, and 16 participants were older
than 60. Those in their 40s and 50s were targeted, a s
theywerethemostlikelytohavetakenpartinthe
environmental health studies during the 1980s–1990s.
Slightly over half of the interviewees (57%, n = 37) were
women.
All interviews were semi-structured, lasted from
30–90 min and consisted of open-ended questions about
the impacts of the environmental contamination on the
community, fish consumption, and current health con-
cerns. During these interviews, I asked 50 interviewees
(18 men and 32 women, 68% in their 40s and 50s) dir-
ectly about their fish consumption, as well as that of
their families, and how this may have changed as a result
of the fish advisories. It is from this sub-sample that the
data for this paper are drawn. Questions included: Do
you still eat fish? As much as you used to? If you
stopped, or reduced your fish eating, at what point did
you do so, and why? Were your changes due to advi-
sories or because you noticed changes in the fish? Do
members of your family all eat the same amount of fish?
I made contact with most interviewees through snow-
ball sampling, and in addition approached two members
of the SRMT Environment Division, two members of
the MC A Department of Environment, and six individ-
uals who were at some time affiliated with the grassroots
organization Akwesasne Task For ce on the Environment
(ATFE). All interviews were recorded and transcribed
with all identifying information removed to protect con-
fidentiality if the interviewee chose this option. For those
who did not choose to remain confidential, I received
permission to use their names. In addition to interviews,
detailed field notes were maintained during extensive
visits to Akwesasne from 2007 to 2011. Transcripts and
notes were then analyzed in NVivo 8.0, a program for
qualitative data entry, coding , sorting, and retrieval. Data
coding was done in an iterative fashion, with additional
readings of the transcripts leading to additional codes as
more was learned from the materials. Prior to
conducting this researc h, I received approval from the
Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment Research
Advisory Committee, as well as the Brown University In-
stitutional Review Board.
Results and discussion
Fishing tradition
Prior to the fish advisories issued in the 1980s, fishing
had been a central part of the diet, economy, and social
culture of Akwesasne for centuries. More than just a
means of acquiring a dietary mainstay, fishing was de-
scribed by community members as a livelihood, a life-
style, and a culture. Almost everyone I spoke to in the
community had a connection in some way to fish or
fishing. The process of ca tching and cooking fish out of
the river was at the root of many of the interviewees’
childhoods and something that connected them to their
ancestors. People in their 50s on up through their 90s
recalled with youthful excitement their childhood expe-
riences of going to the fish boxes that each family kept
on the shore of the river to pull out the evening’s supper.
People fondly reminisced about fishing with their fathers
on the river, helping their fathers prepare fishing equip-
ment, or helping their mothers clean and cook the fish.
Species such as sturgeon, perch, and bullhead were men-
tioned most frequently, and they were eaten smoked or
fried. Fish was eaten several times a week for an ordinary
dinner, and in large quantities at “fish fries” to celebrate
special occasions and family gatherings.
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 4 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
When fish advisor ies were issued that called for people
to diminish or eliminate fish from their diet, many resi-
dents felt that they had lost more than just omega-3
fatty acids from their diet; another part of their culture
was being eroded by outside influences. A cessation in
fishing gradually diminished Mohawk culture in several
ways. As Henry Lickers describes, the language and cul-
ture around tying knots in nets as well as the social
interactions that occurred around the pro cess of creating
these nets are lost when there is no longer a use for
those nets:
People forget, in thei r own culture, what you call the
knot that you tie in a net. And so, a whole section of
your language and culture is lost because no one is
tying those nets anymore. The interrelation between
men and women, when they tied nets, the relationship
between adults or elders and young people, as they
tied nets together, the stories.. . that whole social
infrastructure that was around the fabrication of that
net disappeared (interview 10).
Similarly, the language around the names and descrip-
tions of certain fish is lost. As one older man described
to me, “A lot of that has been forgotten, the fish names
in our language. Because a lot of the fishermen when
they go fishing they talk about their Indian names to
them, there is no English part of it, but that has been
sort of forgotten now” (interview 39). One young
mother, Randi, described how even though the youth
were learning the Mohawk language, words related to
activities no longer widely practiced, like fishing, “are
never going to be spoke again because those things are
now in the past.. . so only very elderly people are going
to know those words, so that’s a loss” (interview 54).
Changes in community fish consumption
Data gathered during the health studies demonstrated a
decrease in fish consumption among pregnant women
(Fitzgerald et al. 1995, 2004) and Mohawk men (Fitzgerald
et al. 1999). These papers cite fish advisories as the
reason for the decline in fish consumption. Many of the
Akwesasne community members I interviewed also de-
scribed a decline in fish consumption, attributed to the
fish advisories, but also to visual changes in the fish and a
diminished fish population. On the other hand, some
have maintained fish consumption based on a cultural
connection that ties them to fish or because they felt their
age precluded them from the more pressing reproductive
and developmental concerns associated with the main
target demographic of the fish advisories.
When asked whether they still ate local fish, three-
quarters of the interviewees I spoke with (37 out of 50)
replied that they had either dramatically decreased or
entirely ceased their local fish consumption, even though
for most of them it was previously an important part of
their diet. Of those who had decreased fish consump-
tion, eight interviewees described fish meals as a rare,
special occasion treat. As Howard, an elder in his 80s
explained, “I eat fish once or twice a year, not like every-
day” (interview 13). Another woman remarked that
when she does have a little bit of fish on these occasions,
she worries, “You know in the back of your mind that
you’re going to be glowing (laughs). You know what I
mean? You know it is there, the fear is still there” (inter-
view 27). Others have sworn off fish entirely and express
aversion even to the idea. As Gina described, the only
circumstance under which she would eat local fish
would be, “Maybe if somebody raised them and then
threw them in the river and you caught them that same
day” (interview 4). Even though the fish advisories
targeted mainly women of childbearing age and children,
three of the men I spoke with shared what they saw as a
common sentiment among men: if it was bad for the
women, they should not eat it either. Nineteen (19) of
the interviewees specified that not only had they given
up eating fish, but so had the rest of their families.
Even prior to the announcement of fish advisories,
which 29 interviewees indicated to me was what drove
them from eating fish, some residents began noticing or
hearing about visual clues that fish were not safe. One
Raquette Point resident, Mark, described to me catching
“fish with humongous tumors on them,” or “funny color
eyes” (interview 34). Others (n = 6) recalled how the fish-
ermen were catching fish with black spots on them, with
bugs inside, or with sores. Another man, Robert (inter-
view 32), remembered cutting open fish with black
spines , which he described a s resulting from heavy
metals contamination. Gina recollected, “We’d see like a
big black spot on them or a glob of green and they
would tell us that’s what the PCBs are doing” (interview
4). Whether or not all of these physical changes
witnessed in the fish can be attributed to PCBs is debat-
able, but more importantly, seeing or hearin g about
these physical deformities discouraged Mohawk s from
eating local fish.
Problematically, not all contaminated fish showed such
visual cues. In 19 85, NY State wildlife epidemiologist
Ward Stone took samples of a sturgeon caught by
Mohawk fishermen in order to test it for PCBs. When
he came back with his results, which showed the fish to
contain levels of PCBs above what the USDA considered
safe for consumption, he was aghast to learn that the
fishermen had already eaten the sturgeon.
The fact that fish could be contaminated without
showing visible evidence led many community members
for whom it was financially feasible (including 11 of these
interviewees) to rely solely on outside sources of fish. For
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 5 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
three related interviewees, this fish was coming from as
far away as British Columbia. For three others it was from
other communities nearby, such as Tyendinaga.
e
Robert
explained how he gets his perch “out of upper Canada
where they’re not polluted yet” (interview 32). Some real-
ized the irony in that they were probably still consuming
contamination, just from another place they were less
familiar with. Chris, an iron worker who had spent most
of his life in Akwesasne but had also traveled extensively,
exclaimed how “people think that if the fish comes from
someplace else rather than right here, then it is ok. They
don’t realize every Great Lake dumps into the next Great
Lake, which dumps into the St. L awrence River. It is one
big sewer” (interview 29). To avoid even the concern, four
interviewees reported that they would only eat fish from
the supermarket. As Alice, a lab technician for the health
clinic described, “So we end up being supermarket
Indians, buying tilapia from Hannaford’s, not so much
perch or walleye” (interview 62). For those who can afford
to buy fish from outside the community this helped to sat-
isfy the nutritional void created by the fish advisories, but
not some of the social and cultural roles described earlier.
Henry Lickers, who works for the MCA Department
of Environment, described the rapid decline in fish con-
sumption since moving to the community 30 years ago.
When he first arrived in the community, he reports that
90% of the people he visited were eating fish. Then as
the fish advisories became more prominent, people
began changing their behavior. When he would stop by
their house at dinnertime:
Suddenly, the old man or whoever it is was cooking
the fish would put it in the cupboard and shut the
door. And then they would be cooking something
else, you know. “Well, you know, Henry has been
talking about this. And you don’t want to show him
that you don’t believe what he’s talking about, because
I really like fish, you know. And besides, I’m over 60,
and it’s not going to hurt me. And I don’t want to
have any more kids, so I’ m okay.” But you got funny
things like that occurring (interview 10).
Henry no longer eats fish because he feels that he has
a responsibility to set an example: “I don’t eat fish from
the St. Lawrence. I believe the same way, if people saw
me eating, then they would say ‘oh, the n we can go
back.’ And I don’t think that that’s responsible. If I’m
going to tell them not to, well then I better not as well.”
At the same time, he recognized that some people do
still eat fish, even if they do not openly admit it. It is
possible that for the earlier cited studies in which
Fitzgerald wa s documenting a decline in fish consump-
tion, as well as in the interviews I was conducting, that
people under-reported their fish consumption because
they recognize that according to the fish advisories they
are not supposed to be eating fish, and they do not want
to be judged for their choices.
One-quarter of the interviewees (13 out of 50) I asked
about fish consumption expressed that they continued
to eat local fish because they felt a cultural obligation to
do so (n = 4), were not concerned about the warnings
based on personal experiences (
n = 4), or have decided
to resume fish consumption now that they are no longer
in their child-bearing years (n = 5). Richard described to
me the traditional connection and responsibility that
Mohawks and the fish have to each other, and for this
reason, he continu es to eat the fish. As he described, the
Creator put the food in the water:
We give thanks for that food and we have to use it...
I mean it doesn’t make sense scientifically, but it
makes sense spiritually and mentally that you should
eat that, you know. You can’t just put it aside and say,
“well your work is not good enough,” or something,
you know? They’re still given out what their original
instructions were, and it’s us that are at fault, it’s our
fault that they’re like that, you know (interview 20).
Even though as a Mohawk he is not responsible for
the contamination that has affe cted the fish, as a human
being he is implicated in the problem, and therefore it is
even more important that he works to maintain this re-
lationship with the fish. Because the job given by the
Creator to fish is to offer themselves as food, and the job
given to humans is to respectfully harvest these fish,
people like Richard who are working to maintain trad-
ition feel obligated to maintain these roles. I heard sim i-
lar narratives around the preservation of heritage seed
varieties: the duty of these seeds is to sprout every
spring, and the duty of humans is to plant them. If
Mohawks fail to plant these seeds, “the plants will go
back to the Sky World because they volunteered to
come to the earth to help man to survive” (Brenda,
interview 21). The concerns around the disuse of fish
and heritage seed varieties stem back to cultural stories
about ungrateful humans who have their food sources
taken from them and who only regain them after learn-
ing lessons about maintaining ceremonies and traditio-
nal roles .
For some community members, an impression that
the site remediation has led to lower levels of contamin-
ation in the fish or a nuanced understanding of more
and less contaminated species and methods of prepar-
ation has contributed to their choice to eat local fish.
One woman, who worked on the environmental health
studies as a field assistant and was part of ATFE, de-
scribed how her family continued to eat fish, and her
kids “love it. They eat it whenever they can get it. I know
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 6 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
that the area has been remediated and the fish isn’t that
bad anymore. So I hadn’t told them not to eat it. So we
just continue” (interview 26). Another ATFE member,
Joyce, described how “the levels with the fish going
down, the PCB levels going down...I feel more comfort-
able eating fish now. So I don’t think I’m going to pick
up that much contamination with PCBs anymore” (inter-
view 16). Another woman, Randi, who had relatives who
worked on the health studies and with ATFE, noted that
many people in the community have vilified the con-
sumption of all fish. She noted that if caught eating local
fish, pregnant women could expect a similar reaction a s
though they were smoking or drinking. She expressed
disappointment that the only lesson that people seemed
to take away from the health studies is not to eat fish:
I feel like sometimes I could try to educate people
about what fish is good for you and what is bad for
you, but sometimes it is just, why bother? You know
my 30-second conversation is not going to undo 12
years of ingrained messages—“don’t eat any more
fish”... So I don’t fight it too much, I just eat my fish
in private (interview 54).
She laughed that people could eat fa st food and then
criticize her for eating fish. Similarly, an individual
employed by the Environment Division stated that he
felt the nutritional benefit s of fish outweighed the poten-
tial contamination in fish since the beginning of the
remediation of the industrial sites.
For other community members, personal and family
experience with fish that have not led to ill health has
encouraged them to continue to eat local fish. Agnes,
who also worked on the environmental health studies,
described how “we were brought up by the river and on
the river. We were brought up to fish, we were brought
up to swim in the river, and we were brought up on a
boat. I don’t have no fear of contamination. It was just a
part of my life” (interview 59). She still eats fish as well.
Nelson, a farmer and construction worker from the Snye
region of the reservation, expressed skepticism towards all
of the fish advisories because “we’ve been fishing all of our
lives and we’re still here. And my aunt, we just buried her
last week. My great aunt was 102” (interview 40).
To a great extent, fish consumption in the community
is divided along generational lines. In several families,
members described to me that younger women who
were planning to have children would not eat fish, but
older women would go back to eating fish. For example,
as Brenda, who is in her 50s, expressed, “I’m not young
anymore so it doesn’t matter. I eat the fish” (interview
21). Elizabeth, who is also in her 50s, also described how
she went ten years without eating fish and would not let
her kids have any. But she has gone back to it recently:
“Let’s just say I’
m getting older now. I don’t care, I love
fish”
(interview 22). However, even though this more ad-
vanced generation has returned to fish consumption,
many interviewees were not convinced that the younger
generation, even if given the chance, would eat fish.
Middle-aged and older community members who had
gone back to eating fish noted that they had not raised
their kids to do so because of the warnings, and now they
“didn’t develop a taste for it” as Joyce describes. Seven in-
terviewees described how their children and grandchildren
currently had no desire to eat fish and are unlikely to show
an interest in it even if it were determined to be clean at
some point. As Agnes described, “They weren’t brought
up with the fish so they’re not going to turn around and
change their ways” (interview 59).
Even aside from the issue of contamination, ten of the
community members I spok e with expressed the opinion
that the fish population is too low to suppo rt the com-
munity. As Joyce, whose father was a fisherman, noted,
“There isn’t enough of a fish population to mak e a living
off of anymore.” She and others referred to the cormor-
ant, a voracious bird that is new to the area and has
been decimating fish stocks, especially the perch popula-
tions. Others pointed to the dams and locks now in
place on the St. Lawrence River that prevent the fish
from getting upstream and spawning as they once did.
Ernie, a 90-year-old elder who witnessed the transform-
ation of the St. Lawrence from a river to a seaway, de-
scribed how, in the process of dredging channels and
blasting through rock ledges in the river, the fish
spawning grounds were destroyed.
[The blasting of rocks] affected the spawning grounds
of fish, not only by the blasting but also because of
when the blasting was done, they had to clean out all
the broken bottom soil and then deposit it
somewhere. And of course the easiest place to do it
were the inlet s and the bays where there were
spawning areas and so for a long time fish couldn’t
make a living out there and so a lot of their work was
not done. The fish as you know, have sort of a
cleaning action there in swimming – absorbing the
water and taking in contaminants, deposit it down in
the bottom of the river, so getting it out of the way.
And so now we had to do without the fish for years.
As mentioned in the Thanksgiving Address, part of
the instruction given to fish is to cleanse and purify the
water. As Ernie has noted, this job has been hampered
by changes made to the river. As Richard remarked
above, the other instruction given to the fish is to offer
themselves as food. Contamination released into the
river and some residents’ concerns about taking this
contamination into their own bodies have dramatically
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 7 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
altered the feasibility for this job to be carried out as
well.
Costs and benefits of fish consumption
For some, current rates of diabetes, heart disease, and
obesity among Mohawks have led them to wonder if
trading local fish for inexpensive processed foods was
the healthiest decision. Currently about 25% of the com-
munity suffers from diabetes (Rourke 2009, director of
“Let’s Get Healthy” program, personal communication).
Of the 38 interviewees who expressed opinions about
the causes of diabetes in the community, half of them
(n = 19) pointed to a change in diet brought about as a
result of the contamination of the environment. One
man, Richard D., who works for the MCA Department
of Environment, wants someone to do a study to see
who currently has better health: the individuals who
ignored the fish warnings and continued to eat a trad-
itional diet or those who heeded the warnings to avoid
fish and instead substituted a high carbohydrate, high fat
diet, “like me, and developed obesity and blood pressure
and diabetes and stuff like that. Like who’s better off? I’d
like to see a study of that” (interview 45). He attributes
the high rates of diabetes to the community’s collectively
changed diet. “There’s a lack of healthy food here. I
mean, used to be we’d get bullheads out of here for con -
sumption. I wouldn’t touch them now.” So while the fish
advisories were intended to protect Mohawk health, the
shift in diet away from fish to other affordable sources of
nutrition also caused health problems.
Jim, who worked for the SR MT Environment Division
at the time the contamination was discovered, expressed
mixed feelings for the fish advisories that strongly en-
couraged people to change their diets: “The problem we
didn’t anticipate thoug h was the change in the diet and
the change in lifestyle we feel has contributed to the dia-
betes in the community and to the other illnesses in the
community that has occurred since then. So that con-
cerns me” (interview 36). In criticizing the conventional
risk assessment model, Akwesasne community members
Tarbell and Arquette (2000) noted that sometimes the
greatest health effects are seen outside of chemical expo-
sures and are thus not included in risk assessments. At
Akwesasne, health was impacted by the environmental
contamination even without the ingestion of fish: fear of
exposure led to the replacement of this low-fat source of
protein and other important nutrients with high-fat and
high-carbohydrate sources of food. Tarbell and Arqu ette
(2000:102) posit, “Diabetes is on the rise because more
people no longer eat traditional foods and no longer par-
ticipate in cultural activities that once provided healthy
forms of exercise.” SUNY Albany researchers conducting
environmental health studies with Mohawk adolescents
also noted that while the community might have
decreased their exposure to fish-borne contamination,
they have lost a primary source of protein and other
important nutrients such as calcium, iron, zinc, and
omega-3 fatty acids (Fitzgerald et al. 2004). The replace-
ment of fish with cheap foods has had the effect of “ fur-
ther exacerbating chronic, diet-related health problems
in the community, such as diabetes and cardiovascular
disease” (Schell et al. 2003:961).
Despite these concerns, these researchers have ex-
pressed that reducing fish consumption has been more
beneficial to health than continued fish consumption be-
cause of the risks of contaminant exposure. In a recent
paper, Schell et al. (2012) assessed the benefits of con-
suming less local fish (lower PCB levels in the youth
they tested) versus the costs (cultural loss and higher
rates of diabetes and obesity). They concluded that the
more holistic risk-based environmental decision-making
proposed by ATFE members Arquette et al. (2002)
should be better considered by regulatory agencies, and
human biologists should give more focus to the non-
nutritional components of many foods, such as persistent
organic pollutants (POPs). David Carpenter (personal
communication, 2008) has argued that, especially since
some studies done at Akwesasne have connected PCB
levels with potential health effects, the cessation of fish
consumption was the best option for Mohawks, although
more should have been done to help people find healthier
food substitutes. Carpenter also questioned whether
the touted ben efits of fis h consumption are enough to
counterbalance the potential impact s of the contami-
nants (Bushkin-Bedient and Carpenter 2010). Tu ryk
et a l. (2012) argued that most of our knowledge about
the nutritional benefits of fish consumption is based
on marine fish, which generally have higher concentra-
tions of omega-3 fatty acids than freshwater fish. They
pointed to studies by Philibert et al. (2006) and Godin
et al. (2003) that found no association between local fish
intake and serum omega-3 fatty acids in Great L akes
fishermen. Since omega-3 fatty acids are one of the most
highly cited health-promoting compounds in fish, this has
led Turyk et al. (2012) to conclude that we do not have
enough data to quantitatively analyze the costs and bene-
fits of the consumption of fish from the Great Lakes and
the St. Lawrence River.
At a recent community meeting (1/11/12) questions
arose around whether the fish advisory had been the
best course of action, considering the unintended health
consequences such as obesity and diabetes that have
been linked to a more modern diet. The researchers
hosting the meeting acknowledged that their data dem-
onstrated that youth born before the fish advisory (1985)
had higher PCB levels than those born after, demonstrat-
ing the effectiveness of the advisory in lowering PCB
body burdens (see Schell et al. 2003, 2012; Gallo et al.
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 8 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
2011). One participant pushed further—what about now,
after the remediation work that has been done? In the
discussion that followed, the general consensus was that
more testing needed to be done on local fish populations
to determine current contaminant levels. An Environ-
ment Division employee present at the meeting an-
nounced that there were plans in the coming year to
collaborate with the NYSDEC to repeat a fish study done
in 1988, and efforts were being made to convince EPA to
do fish monitoring at the remedial sites. When I
interviewed an Environment Division employee and asked
if the fish will ever be considered safe to eat again, he re-
plied, “I think so. I think that’ll be as clean as the fish up-
stream.” He remarked that the farther you go from GM,
the cleaner the river gets, and the cleaner the fish get.
So, when you go down into Snye (a region of
Akwesasne east of GM), we’ve taken the samples of
fish and the fish are pretty clean. I think they are – we
are still being cautious; we still don’t want to say yes,
you can eat the fish , because we are still not sure
what the proper level is that ’s safe. Is it going to be
0.05 parts per million, is it going to be 0.5 parts per
million you know, 0.005... you know there is still
science that’s going on. So, we want to be very sure of
what we’re doing before we say it’s okay. I think it’s
going to happen eventually you know” (interview 15).
In order for the tribal government to be able to prop-
erly advise residents about the risks and benefits of eat-
ing local fish , more testing needs to be done, and the
results conveyed in a manner that the community can
understand and apply.
Risk avoidance and reduction
The case of Akwesasne is illustrative of unintended
health and cultural consequences of relying on risk
avoidance rather than risk reduct ion methods of
preventing human exposure to contamination (O’Neill
2003NEJAC 2002). Risk reduction strategies look to risk-
producers to prevent or eliminate environmental con-
tamination in order to avoid human exposure. In the
case of Akwesasne, risk reduction strategies would have
entailed greater monitoring of General Motor’s opera-
tions to prevent decades’ worth of PCB contamination
to the surrounding area. A greater enforcement of risk
reduction would also have led to the immediate and
complete removal of PCB-contaminated waste from the
GM site, rather than a decades-long cleanup that
resulted in a 12 acre landfill, and a reliance on continued
fish advisories to prevent Mohawks from being exposed
to contamination. Risk avoidance strateg ies call upon the
risk-bearers to alter their practices so as to avoid the
harms of exposure to contamination. Fish advisories are
an example of this strategy: the onus is on the risk-
bearers, in this case the fish con sumers, rather than
those who caused the risk.
O’Neill (2003 ) points out that reducing human health
risks by targeting the first link in the chain that connects
environmental contamination to human health—in this
case removing the source of the PCB contamination—
means that ecological health benefits as well. Intervening
late in the chain and breaking the link at the point of
human exposure, in this case by preventing fish con-
sumption, leaves a greater amount of contamination
unabated, has greater negative environmental effects,
and is a form of cultural discrimination.
Risk-avoidance strategies also rely implicitly on the as-
sumption that there are readily available substitutes for
local fish and the customs that accompany their gather-
ing (NEJAC 2002). As we have seen from the case in
Akwesasne, these substitutes were not available to all
residents, and there are no substitutes for the cultural
activities and knowledge exchange that once happened
around fishing. Fish was not just a source of protein for
Mohawks, but a cultural object of importance that could
not easily be factored into the assessment of mortality
and morbidity risks that currently comprise health risk
assessments (Donatuto et al. 2011). In order to properly
calculate whether risk-reduction strategies are an accept-
able solution to environmental contamination, it is ne-
cessary to look beyond the risk to a population of cancer
deaths, and consider the threats to a healthy, culturally
specific lifestyle as defined by the Mohawks themselves.
This more com plete assessment would inc lude cultural
indicators such as access to a traditional diet and the
passing down of traditional knowledge (Johnson and
Ranco 2011).
While fish advisories were necessary in the 1980s to
protect Mohawk health when GM’s contamination was
first discovered, EPA has not made any concerted at-
tempts to ensure that advisories will only be necessary
in the short term (O’Neill 2003). While fish advisories
are often necessary to protect human health in the short
term, there is a need to emphasize more permanent and
judicious fixes to problems of contamination. The EPA’s
most recent Five Year Report about the GM site sta tes
that “remedial actions have been completed in the St.
Lawrence River, Raquette River, and Turtle Cove, and,
when combined with the existing fish advisories, these
measures address unacceptable exposure pathways in
these areas” (USEPA 2010: ES1; italics mine). This re-
port takes for granted that fish advisor ies are an accept-
able tool for preventing human exposure to
contaminants, similar to a cap on the river bottom that
isolates contaminated sediment. Acceptance of the on-
going fish advisories allows GM and the EPA to avoid a
more thorough and permanent cleanup.
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 9 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
Conclusion
Human health in Native American communities is intim-
ately tied to the health of the environment. Akwesasne
Mohawks (Arquette et al. 2002:262) have defined health as
“based on peaceful, sustainable relationships with other
peoples including family, community, Nation, the natural
world, and spiritual beings. Health is supported by the
solid foundation of a healthy natural world.” Human
health in a community such as Akwesasne cannot be
understood independent of the health of the natural envir-
onment, and especially in this case, the health of the fish.
When Mohawk mothers who participated in the breast
milk study demonstrated that removing local fish from
their diets de creased the PCB contamination in their
breast milk, they showed that exposure to PCBs wa s
avoidable, and thus according to conventional risk as-
sessment the problem was eliminated. What was not
predicted, and the reason why indigenous scho lars such
as Arquette et al. (2002) and Ranco et al. (2011) are call-
ing for more holistic risk assessment, was that avoiding
fish consumption had other health implications, both
physical and cultural. For community members who
continue to consume fish, this consumption is often so-
cially fractured rather than part of a broader social
context. As describe d above, fish is consumed along gen-
erational divides by Mohawks who see themselves as
beyond their childbearing years, or “in private” as one
woman described, in order to avoid judgment.
If the Akwesasne community is going to achieve opti-
mal health, the contaminated environment has to be
remediated to a level that supports clean, edible fish.
This will not happen as long as fish advisories are con-
sidered an acceptable institutional control to protect
humans from exposure to contaminants. The accepted
culture around environmental cleanup must shift away
from one of risk avoidance, a distributive justice situ-
ation where those who did not benefit from industry are
forced to pay the price in order to protect their health.
At the General Motors Superfund site in Massena, eco-
nomic considerations were given priority over the health
and culture of Mohawk people, in an attempt to secure
a source of employment for the residents of Massena.
Despite these efforts, and $49.5 billion in bailout money,
General Motors filed for bankruptcy in June 2009 and
spun off a holding company to handle its idle properties,
Motors Liquidation Corp. When it emerged from bank-
ruptcy, GM was freed of responsibility for rehabilitating
dozens of toxic waste sites in 13 states where it had
manufacturing plants. Revitalizing Auto Communities
Environmental Response, or the RACER Trust, is an en-
vironmental trust that assumed ownership of 89 former
General Motors properties and is tasked with complet-
ing remediation and selling off dozens of former GM
properties, including the one adjacent to Akwesasne.
The new General Motors, freed of its old liabilities, is
struggling bac k towards success in the auto market,
while the Massena town residents who fought to shelter
the company from high cleanup expenses are left with-
out jobs, and the Mohawk are left living adjacent to an
industrial landfill that they suspect will continue to pol-
lute their environment.
Researchers and environmental officials working in
Akwesasne have stated that a new round of studies deter-
mining current contamination levels in the fish is neces-
sary to determine the safety of local fish consumption.
Researchers have additionally called for studies of the
nutritional content of the fish in order to properly conduct
a cost-benefit analysis as to whether the nutritional bene-
fits of the fish outweigh the risks posed by contamination.
Once information about local fish is obtained, it could
be disseminated via a model illustrated by DeWeese et al.
(2009), who produced advisory maps for Anishnaabe com-
munities that provided lake-specific, risk-based, culturally
sensitive consumption advice on color-coded maps for
two groups: children under age 15 years and females of
childbearing age, and males 15 years and older and
females beyond childbearing age. Because the maps were
easy to read and developed in conjunction with commu-
nity members, DeWeese et al. (2009) found they signifi-
cantly increased the percentage of survey participants who
indicated awareness of advisory information and increased
preference for smaller walleye, which contain lower levels
of contamination than larger fish. After future testing
of Akwesasne’s local fish population, similar maps could
be produced and distributed as a way of making this
information accessible to the community. At Brown
University,
f
we are currently developing a project with the
Narragansett Tribe in which local fish will be tested, and
based on the results, cards will be developed and distrib-
uted to fishermen to keep in their tackle boxes to help
them determine which species of fish to keep and which
to toss back based on contaminant levels. We are also
developing fish puzzles for families that help illustrate
which parts of the fish are more or less contaminated in
order to facilitate the consumption of the less contami-
nated portions. Each of these small projects described
above can help a community to maintain some level of
fish consumption rather than cutting it entirely from their
diet, as most people at Akwesasne have even though en-
vironmental specialists in the community point to some
alternatives. What should be highlighted though is that
these alternate species and methods of preparation should
not be considered as a solution, but rather a step along
the process towards remediating environmental contamin-
ation to a level in which culturally preferred fish species
and methods of preparation can be safely utilized again.
Akwesasne is a case where measures taken to protect
community health—adherence to fish advisories to prevent
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 10 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
exposure to contamination—have inadvertently led to diet-
related health consequences as well as concerns around
the loss of language, culture, and social connections at -
tached to fishing. While Akwesasne community members,
environmental specialists, and their allies in the scientific
community are continuing to push for additional cleanup
and fish sampling, this case should also serve as an
example of why risk avoidance methods such as fish advi-
sories should not be considered a viable long-term solution
to preventing human exposure to contamination.
Endnotes
a
The Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois or
Six Nations, are a confederacy of nations traditionally
from the region that is now New York State, but now
spread across New York, eastern Canada, Wisconsin,
and Oklahoma. The six nations of the confederacy
include the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga ,
Tuscarora, and Seneca. Akwesasne is one of five Mohawk
reser vations , which also includes Kahnawake and
Kanesatake in Quebec and W ahta and Tyendinaga in
Ontario. The Six Nations reser vation in Ontario is
home to Mohawk people as well as Haudenosaunee
people of the other five nations as well.
b
An estimate of Akwesasne’s population is given be-
cause residents in this community are notoriously diffi-
cult to enumerate. Akwesasro:non have been suspicious
of, and resistant to, national censuses, and some resi-
dents are enrolled with both the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe
and the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. This estimate
was used in establishing the demographics of the com-
munity for the extensive health studies conducted by
SUNY Albany (see for example Fitzgerald et al. 1998 and
Schell et al. 2009).
c
Lactating women and women of childbearing age are to
avoid all contaminated fish (carp, catfish and suckers).
Adults should only eat one half pound per week of yellow
perch, pumpkinseed, rock bass, whitefish, bowfin. Every-
one should avoid carp, channel catfish, walleye, pike, red
horse suckers, white suckers, and brown bullhead.
d
Participants were not asked their exact age. Some
participants offered their precise age, others indicated a
general age range (e.g., 50s) during the interview.
e
A Mohawk community about 150 miles west of
Akwesasne in Deseronto, Ontario.
f
The Community Engagement Core of the Brown
Superfund Research Project, consisting of the author,
Marcella Thompson, and Robert Vanderslice, working in
conjunction with Dinalyn Spears, head of the Natural
Resources Department of the Narragansett Indian Tribe.
Competing interests
The author declares that she has no competing interests.
Acknowledgements
The author woul d like to acknowledge the Akwesasne Task Force on the
Environment (ATFE) and members of the Akwesasne community who
offered their time for these interviews. I would also like to acknowledge
members of Brown University’s Contested Illness Research Group for
providing feedback on an earlier draft, and Dr. Nicholas Reo for guest editing
this special issue. This research was funded by a National Science
Foundation Cultural Anthropology Dissertation Improvement Grant, a Switzer
Environmental Fellowship, a Lynn Reyer Tribal Community Development
Grant and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship.
Received: 13 December 2012 Accepted: 12 February 2013
Published: 12 March 2013
References
Arquette C (2012) GM remediation update. http://www.srmtenv.org/index.php?
spec=sf_generalmotors_ru. Accessed 4 Dec 2012
Arquette M, Cole M, Cook K, LaFrance B, Peters M, Ransom J, Sargent E, Smoke V,
Stairs A (2002) Holistic risk-based environmental decision making: a native
perspective. Environ Health Perspect 110(supplement 2):259–264
Beehler GP, Vena JE, McGuiness BM (2003) Characterizing Latino anglers’
environmental risk perceptions, sport fish consumption, and advisory
awareness. Med Anthropol Q 17:99–116
Bushkin-Bedient S, Carpenter DO (2010) Benefits versus risks associated with
consumption of fish and other seafood. Rev Environ Health 25:161–191
Chess C, Burger J, McDermott MH (2005) Speaking like a state: environmental
justice and fish consumption advisories. Soc Nat Resou 18:267–278.
doi:10.1080/08941920590908132
Codru N, Schymura M, Negoita S, Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment,
Rej R, Carpenter DO (2007) Diabetes in relation to serum levels of
polychlorinated biphenyls and chlorinated pesticides in adult native
Americans. Environ Health Perspect 115:1442–1447. doi:10.1289/ehp.10315
Denham M, Schell L, Deane G, Gallo MV, Ravenscroft J, DeCaprio A, Akwesasne
Task Force on the Environment (2005) Relationship of lead, mercury, mirex,
dichlorodphenyldichloroethylene, hexachlorobenzene and polychlorinated
biphenyls to timing of menarche among Akwesasne Mohawk girls. Pediatrics
115:e127–e134
DeWeese AD, Emiecik NE, Chiriboga ED, Foran JA (2009) Efficacy of risk-based,
culturally sensitive Ogaa (Walleye) consumption advice for Anishnaabe tribal
members in the Great Lakes region. Risk Anal 29:729–742. doi:10.1111/
j.1539-6924.2008.01198.x
Donatuto J, Harper BL (2008) Issues in evaluating fish consumption rates for
native American tribes. Risk Anal 28:1497–1506. doi:10.1111/j.1539-
6924.2008.01113.x
Donatuto J, Satterfield TA, Gregory R (2011) Poisoning the body to nourish the
soul: prioritizing health risks and impacts in a Native American community.
Health Risk Soc 13:103–127. doi:10.1080/13698575.2011.556186
Fitzgerald EF, Hwang S, Brix KA, Bush B, Quinn J, Cook K (1992) Chemical
contaminants in the milk of Mohawk women from Akwesasne. Report for
the Health Risk Assessment of the General Motors Central Foundry Division
Superfund Waste. New York State Department of Health, Albany
Fitzgerald E, Hwang S, Brix K, Cook K, Worsick P (1995) Fish PCB concentrations
and consumption patterns among Mohawk women at Akwesasne. J Expo
Anal Env Epid 5:1–19
Fitzgerald E, Hwang S, Bush B, CookK WP (1998) Fish consumption and breast
milk PCB concentrations among Mohawk women at Akwesasne. Am J
Epidemiol 148:164–172
Fitzgerald E, Deres D, Hwang S, Bush B, Yang B, Tarbell A, Jacobs A (1999) Local
fish consumption and serume PCB concentrations among Mohawk men at
Akwesasne. Environ Res 80:S97–S103, 0013-9351/99
Fitzgerald E, Hwang S, Langguth K, Cayo M, Yang B, Bush B, Worswick P, Lauzon
T (2004) Fish consumption and other environmental exposures and their
associations with serum PCB concentrations among Mohawk women at
Akwesasne. Environ Res 94:160–170. doi:10.1016/S0013-9351(03)00133-6
Fitzgerald E, Hwang S, Gomez M, Bush B, Yang B, Tarbell A (2007) Environmental
and occupational exposures and serum PCB concentrations and patterns
among Mohawk men at Akwesasne. J Expo Sci Env Epid 17:269–278
Gallo MV, Schell LM, DeCaprio AP, Jacobs A (2011) Levels of persistent organic
pollutant and their predictors among young adults. Chemosphere
83:1374–1382. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2011.02.071
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 11 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
Godin C, Shatenstein B, Paradis G, Kosatsky T (2003) Absence of cardiovascular
benefits and sportfish consumption among St. Lawrence river anglers.
Environ Res 93:241–247. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2003.07.006
Goncharov A, Haase R, Santiago-Rivera A, Morse G, Akwesasne Task Force on the
Environment, McCaffrey RJ, Rej R, Carpenter DO (2008) High serum PCBs are
associates with elevation of serum lipids and cardiovascular disease in a
Native American population. Environ Res 106:226–239. doi:10.1016/j.
envres.2007.10.006
Goncharov A, Rej R, Negoita S, Schymura M, Santiago-Rivera A, Morse G,
Carpenter DO (2009) Lower serum testosterone associated with elevated
polychlorinated biphenyl concentrations in Native American men. Environ
Health Perspect 117:1454–1460. doi:10.1289/ehp.0800134
Haase R, McCaffrey RJ, Santiago-Rivera AL, Morse GS, Tarbell A (2009) Evidence of
an age-related threshold effect of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on
neuropsychological functioning in a Native American population. Environ
Res 109:73–85. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.10.003
Harper B, Harding A, Harris S, Berger P (2012) Subsistence exposure scenarios for
tribal application. Hum Ecol Risk Assess 18:810–831. doi:10.1080/
10807039.2012.688706
Hauptmann L (1988) Formulating American indian policy in New York state,
1970–1986. State University of New York. Press, Albany
Hwang S, Gensburg L, Fitzgerald E, Herzfeld P, Bush B (1993) Fingerprinting
sources of contamination: statistical techniques for identifying point sources
of PCBs. J Occup Med Toxicol 4:365–382
Hwang S, Yang B, Fitzgerald E, Bush B, Cook K (2001) Fingerprinting PCB patterns
among Mohawk women. J Expo Anal Env Epid 11:184–192
Imm P, Knobeloch L, Anderson HA, Great Lakes Sport Fish Consortium (2005)
Fish consumption and advisory awareness in the great lakes Basin. Environ
Health Perspect 113:1325–1329. doi:10.1289/ehp.7980
Johnson J, Ranco DJ (2011) Risk assessment and Native Americans at the cultural
crossroads: making better science or redefining health? In: Ottinger G, Cohen
B (eds) Technoscience and environmental justice: transforming expert
cultures through grassroots engagement. MIT Press, Cambridge
Kinney A, Fitzgerald E, Hwang S, Bush B, Tarbell A (1997) Human exposure to
PCBs: modeling and assessment of environmental concentrations on the
Akwesasne reservation. Drug Chem Toxicol 20:313–328
NEJAC (National Environmental Justice Advisory Council) (2002) Fish
consumption and environmental justice. US Environmental Protection
Agency., Washington DC, www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources/
publications/nejac/fish-consump-report_1102.pdf. Accessed 1 February 2013
Newman J, Aucompaugh A, Schell L, Denham M, DeCaprio AP, Gallo MV,
Ravenscroft J, Kao C, Hanover MR, David D, Jacobs A, Tarbell A, Worswick P,
Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (2006) PCBs and cognitive
functioning of Mohawk adolescents. Neurotoxicol Teratol 28:429–445.
doi:10.1016/j.ntt.2006.03.001
Newman J, Gallo MV, Schell LM, DeCaprio AP, Denham M, Deane GD, Akwesasne
Task Force on the Environment (2009) Analysis of PCB congeners related to
cognitive functioning in adolescents. Neurotoxicology 30:686–696.
doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2009.05.006
O’Neill CA (2003) Risk avoidance, cultural discrimination, and environmental
justice for indigenous peoples. Ecol Law Quart 30:1–57
Patterson N (1999) The fish. In: Force HET (ed) The words that come before all
else. Native North American Traveling College, Akwesasne
Philibert A, Vanier C, Abdelouahab N, Chan HM, Mergler D (2006) Fish intake and
serum fatty acid profiles from freshwater fish. Am J Clin Nutr 84:1299–1307
Ranco DK, O’Neill CA, Donatuto J, Harper BL (2011) Environmental justice,
American Indians and the cultural dilemma: developing environmental
management for tribal health and well-being. Environ Just 4:221–230.
doi:10.1089/env.2010.0036
Schell LM, Gallo MV (2010) Relationships of putative endocrine disruptors to
human sexual maturation and thyroid activity in youth. Physiol Behav
99:246–253. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.09.015
Schell LM, Hubicki LA, DeCaprio AP, Gallo MV, Ravenscroft J, Tarbell A, Jacobs A,
David D, Worswick P (2003) Organochlorines, lead, and mercury in
Akwesasne Mohawk youth. Environ Health Perspect 111:954–961.
doi:10.1289lehp.5990
Schell L, Gallo MV, DeCaprio AP, Hubicki LA, Denham M, Ravenscroft J, The
Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (2004) Thyroid function in
relation to burden of PCBs, p,p’-DDE, HCB, mirex and lead among Akwesasne
Mohawk youth: a preliminary study. Environ Toxicol Pharm 18:91–
99.
doi:10.1016/j.etap.2004.01.010
Schell LM, Gallo MV, Denham M, Ravenscroft J, DeCaprio AP, Carpenter DO
(2008) Relationship of thyroid hormone levels to levels of polychlorinated
biphenyls, lead, p, p0- DDE, and other toxicants in Akwesasne Mohawk
youth. Environ Health Perspect 116:806–813. doi:10.1289/ehp.10490
Schell LM, Gallo MV, Ravenscroft J, DeCaprio AP (2009) Persistent organic
pollutants and anti-thyroid peroxidase levels in Akwesasne Mohawk young
adults. Environ Res 109:86–92. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.08.015
Schell L, Gallo MV, Cook K (2012) What’s NOT to eat—food adulteration in the
context of human biology. Am J Hum Bio 24:139–148. doi:10.1002/
ajhb.22202
Skinner L (1992) Chemical contaminants in wildlife from the Mohawk Nation at
Akwesasne and the vicinity of the General Motors Corporation/Central
Foundry Division, Massena, NY Plant. New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY
Sloan R, Jock K (1990) Chemical contaminants in the fish from the Mohawk
Nation at Akwesasne and the vicinity of the General Motors Corporation/
Central Foundry Division. Massena NY Plant. New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY
Tan M, Ujihara A, Kent L, Hendrickson I (2011) Communicating fish consumption
advisories in California: what works, what doesn’t. Risk Anal 31:1095–1105
Tarbell A, Arquette M (2000) Akwesasne: a Native American community’s
resistance to cultural and environmental damage. In: Hofrichter R (ed)
Reclaiming the environmental debate: the politics of health in a toxic
culture. MIT Press, Cambridge
Turyk M, Bhavasar S, Bowerman W, Boysen E, Clark M, Diamond M, Mergler D,
Pantazopoulos P, Schantz S, Carpenter DO (2012) Risks and benefits of
consumption of Great Lakes fish. Environ Health Perspect 120:11–18,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1003396
USEPA (2010) Second five-year review report General Motors (Central Foundry
Division) Superfund site., St Lawrence County, Town of Massena, New York,
http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.
additional&id=0201644. Accessed 4 Dec 2012
USEPA (2011) General Motors (Central Foundry Division). More in-depth site
details., http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0201644.
Accessed 4 Dec 2012
USEPA (2012) Superfund information systems. Superfund site progress profile
General Motors (Central Foundry Division) EPA ID: NYD091972554. http://
cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0201644.
Accessed 4 Dec 2012
doi:10.1186/2192-1709-2-4
Cite this article as: Hoover: Cultural and health impl ications of fish
advisories in a Native American community. Ecological Processes 2013 2:4.
Submit your manuscript to a
journal and benefi t from:
7 Convenient online submission
7 Rigorous peer review
7 Immediate publication on acceptance
7 Open access: articles freely available online
7 High visibility within the fi eld
7 Retaining the copyright to your article
Submit your next manuscript at 7 springeropen.com
Hoover Ecological Processes 2013, 2:4 Page 12 of 12
http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4
