The Blog

The sun shines, a light breeze blows off the fast moving waters of the Niagara River, the waters edge is lined with a diversity of anglers and a faint smell of sewage spoils the air.  Where am I?  I am at the historic Broderick Park, more commonly known in Buffalo’s fishing culture as the Foot of Ferry, near the corner of West Ferry and Niagara Street in Buffalo.

As an employee at Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, I am about to interview my fifth angler of the day for our Human Exposure Assessment. There is a tug on his line, and the angler rises slowly, his movements showing the stiffness of old age, a hint of a smile on his weathered face.

Welcome to this first article in our new series Something's Fishy.  In this series, the Grow Team will explore the issue of subsistence fishing, a multifaceted issue that is pertinent in Western New York.  A special thanks goes to our intern Corinn Perry and Katy Brown from Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper for their work on this article!

Outside of New York City, Erie County welcomes the largest number of refugees to New York State.  In 2009, Erie County received over 1,400 refugees, the vast majority of whom resettled on Buffalo’s West side.  Refugees to Buffalo are most often from Myanmar (Burma), Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burundi, Nepal, Kenya and Somalia.  Among the many challenges faced by refugees arriving here, many may be unknowingly poisoning themselves and their families by eating fish caught in local waterways, a practice known as “subsistence fishing.”

In Western New York, we are not at a loss for bodies of water in which to fish.  In fact, over 14% of Erie County’s geographic footprint is water.  However, eating the fish from our water poses a public health risk due to a legacy of industrial contamination.  With a lengthy history of pollution from local industries, municipalities, and agriculture, Western New York’s streams, rivers, and surrounding lakes have been contaminated with harmful chemicals making the fish that live in these waters dangerous to eat.  Chemicals such as PCB’s (polychlorinated biphenyl), dioxin, mirex and mercury are found in our waterways and in some fish.