Two years ago, I had the honor of meeting Dr. John Bowden, who was collecting samples in the area for a study of PFAS (forever chemicals) in local waters. Bowden is an associate professor at the University of Florida who works on measuring emerging pollutants in a wide variety of matrices. He was a guest speaker at a Suncoast Waterkeeper fundraising banquet and I volunteered to help him leading up to the event.
Recently, the report, PFAS in Florida Surface Waters, was peer-reviewed and published in Environmental Science and Technology: Water. Bowden also published a paper looking at PFAS in Florida springs.
While Bowden was in the area, he was commissioned to conduct a study of drinking water on Anna Maria Island by Holmes Beach Mayor Judy Titsworth and the Holmes Beach Clean Water Committee.
According to Titsworth, “Growing up and living on the water my entire life, I have witnessed a decline in water quality. It is more important than ever for everyone to decrease their impacts on the water.”
To learn more and be part of the solution, go to islanders4cleanwater.com.
Now there’s an opportunity to help Bowden with a new study that should be of importance to all Island residents. Currently, he has a Ph.D. graduate student working on a project to measure emerging pollutants in fish muscle. To date, they have an extensive set of fish samples but are looking to expand the study. They are hoping to connect with anglers and fishing guides to see if they can obtain a small piece of fish muscle harvested when fish are cleaned for their study. They only need about 1-2 grams from each fish.
If you can help, all data will be shared with participants, and you will be anonymous in any publication. If interested, please share an address and they will send tubes that the small muscle plugs can be put into to send back to them. They have a FedEx account for the shipment of the samples.
Their goal is to generate data that will allow them to help determine the safest fish to consume and better fish consumption advisories.
While they are open to receiving samples from all types of fish, these are the fish species they are most keen on getting samples from (species in bold represent ones they have no samples for yet): Mahi, sailfish, snapper, grouper, tuna, amberjack, wahoo, monkfish, tilefish, swordfish, hogfish, flounder, striped mullet, American red snapper, triggerfish, sheepshead, tripletail, barrelfish, kingfish, cobia, grunts and drum, as well as any others that are available. They are interested in some freshwater fish as well, including catfish, bass, etc.
This is a great opportunity for local guides and anglers to help identify the safest species for consumption. For more information and to participate, contact Dr. John Bowden at john.bowden@ufl.edu.
