The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already has warnings, with less restrictive standards than the six states, on eating swordfish and shark. The Human Services Department first issued statewide fish consumption advisories related to mercury in 1994 and revised those in 1997. Maine is now among 40 states with such advisories, officials said, and one of six states to extend mercury-related warnings to commercially sold fish. Mills said Thursday the state will undertake a public awareness drive to alert people to the new guidelines. Brochures will be mailed to about 20,000 households identified by matches between fishing license and birth certificate registries.
Plans also call for the distribution of information through various health networks.
Additionally, the new advisories will be printed in 2001 fishing rule books. Smith said monitoring individual bodies of water was beyond the state's capacity. We'll never test all of them. State officials say mercury in Maine results from releases into the atmosphere from local, national and global sources. Deposited into bodies of water, mercury builds up in fish.