A new study from North Carolina researchers shows some fish in Jordan Lake and the Haw River contain different levels of toxic chemicals known as PFAS. Humans are exposed to PFAS in many different ways, including eating fish.
“We were really hoping that we wouldn’t find any PFAS in these fish, but … all the fish that we tested had unsafe PFAS levels,” said Anna Boatman, the lead study author and a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Researchers are still studying the full impact of PFAS exposure on human health, but available research shows PFAS can cause kidney cancer, birth defects and increased cholesterol.
The study, published in July, sampled almost 50 fish collected between May and August 2020. Fish were taken from three sites along the Haw River and two sites within Jordan Lake. Fish species included sunfish, yellow perch and channel catfish.
Researchers focused on testing fish fillets because that's the part people eat, explained Erin Baker, the study's co-author and associate professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill.
"The fillets collect a lot of these chemicals," Baker said. "We know there's a lot of fishermen out there catching fish from Jordan Lake ... and we wanted to know what they were being exposed to if they actually take those fish home and eat them."
A total of 36 PFAS were detected in the fillets of these fish, with a minimum of 6 PFAS and a maximum of 22 PFAS found in individual samples.
"We didn't find a single fish that was PFAS free. People can get quite a bit of exposure from eating these fish," said Baker.
One type of PFAS called PFOS was found in every fish sample.
In July 2023, state health officials recommended limiting consumption of certain freshwater fish from the middle and lower Cape Fear River because of PFOS found in fish sampled from that area.
"The PFOS concentrations we measured in Jordan Lake fillets were comparable to the advisory triggering levels in the Cape Fear, and levels in the Haw River fillets were more than twice that high," stated the study.
International health experts classify PFOS as possibly carcinogenic to humans, meaning it has the potential to cause cancer.
In April 2024, the EPA established the first ever national drinking water standards for six types of PFAS, including PFOS.
According to Boatman, the last time fish in the Haw River or in Jordan Lake were tested for PFAS was more than 10 years ago. She said most studies in North Carolina that look at PFAS levels in fish focus on fish in the Cape Fear River.
"It seems to me like a pretty important gap that there's so much attention on the Cape Fear River, which is appropriate," said Boatman. "But we're (also) seeing really high levels of PFAS in our water up here, like in the Haw River."
Jordan Lake and the Haw River provide drinking water for almost a million residents in the Triangle.
