Pesticide concentrations in Great Lakes fish

During the past 4 years the Ann Arbor Great Lakes Fishery Laboratory of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries has been monitoring insecticide levels in fish from the Great Lakes. The two insecticides found in all Great Lakes fish have been DDT (DDT, DDD, DDE) and dieldrin. Fish from Lake Michigan contain from 2 to 7 times as much of these insecticides as those from the other Great Lakes. Insecticide levels calculated on a whole-fish basis show a marked difference from species to species. Within a species there is also an increase in DDT and dieldrin levels with an increase in size. If these insecticide levels are, however, calculated as ppm of insecticide in the extractable fish oil, the differences in concentration between species and the differences between size groups becomes considerably less. Laboratory experiments indicate that fish can build up concentrations of DDT and dieldrin at the parts-per-million level from parts-per-trillion concentrations in the water.