Executive Summary: Collaborative research with refugee and immigrant community fishers

What’s an executive summary?

An executive summary provides a preview of a longer report. You can read an executive summary to learn a little bit about what questions the researchers asked, the steps they followed, and what they learned. Then if you want more details such as background, research methods, results, discussion, and references, you can read the full report.

In 2021, Science Section toxicologists seeking to bridge gaps in local fishing data began a collaboration with the Refugee Federation Service Center (RFSC), an organization that supports immigrants and refugees as they transition to life in the United States. Many people in the RFSC community fish for pleasure, culture, and food, but safe consumption is not guaranteed across different fish and locations. Faced with fish advisories that primarily warn of danger, the fishers wanted recommendations instead and the toxicologists were ready to help. Together, these partners began a collaborative research project to learn: “Where is it safer to fish and which fish are safer to eat?”

A group of 11 collaborative research partners stand side by side smiling. One of them holds a fish on fishing pole used for training the group. Above them, a sign reads: Refugee Federation Service Center — Members of the Refugee Federation Service Center and the Science Section’s toxicology team

The executive summary below comes from the final report for this collaborative research project, prepared by Science Section ecotoxicologists. As you read it, look for why this study was important, who was involved, and what was learned.

Or skip to the end for a great video about the project!

Executive Summary: Closing Data Gaps in Monitoring of Toxics in Partnership with Refugee and Immigrant Community Fishers

There are toxic chemicals in fish of King County lakes, rivers and Puget Sound that can be harmful to people who eat them. King County and Washington State monitor toxics in fish and shellfish to enable the state to issue fish consumption advisories that guide residents on how to eat fish safely. But there is a lack of information from underserved communities to adequately inform these monitoring programs about where people fish, what they fish for and how they eat their catch.

From 2021 to 2024, the Refugee Federation Service Center (RFSC) partnered with King County Water and Land Resources Division’s Toxicology and Contaminant Assessment (TCA) unit and Public Health-Seattle King County (PHSKC) on the ‘Refugee-Immigrant Communities Water Quality Education and Fish Sampling Project’. This project, funded in part by a grant from the King County Wastewater Treatment Division, was pursued to gather information on where people fish, what they fish for, and how they eat their catch. We first designed a fisher survey, with feedback from PHSCK and RFSC, to explore the fishing habits of south King County immigrant and refugee communities with which RFSC has established relationships. These are primarily Latino and southeast Asian refugees and immigrants.

We then used the survey results (e.g., where people fish and what they catch and eat) to design a pilot project intended to measure toxics in fish from lakes and shorelines absent from our long-term fish tissue contaminant monitoring program. The information we gathered from that pilot fishing project helped us to recommend safer fishing choices back to the RFSC communities. The RFSC and fishers within their communities helped us with the sampling to address this second objective.

Key Findings

The fisher survey showed that Green Lake, Lake Meridian, Angle Lake, and Lake Desire were important freshwater fishing areas, and that people are catching and eating marine perch. These are locations and species which we are not currently tracking for contaminants.
The fisher survey also revealed that a large proportion of the fishers typically consume the entire fish they catch and that they commonly share their catch with their friends, parents and elders, and children.
PCB concentrations were always higher than other measured toxic chemicals across all the fish collected. At two lakes, PCBs, PBDEs, DDTs, chlordanes, and PFAS, were higher in fish carcasses compared to their fillets. This information is particularly relevant because the fisher survey revealed almost two thirds of fishers eat the whole body of their catch.
Comparison of fish contaminant concentrations with Washington State Department of Health (DOH) fish consumption advisory screening levels revealed that fish from several of the water bodies sampled are of potential concern to human health. We highlight the fish from those locations that are likely the safer choices for consumption.
We worked with DOH and PHSKC to develop fish consumption recommendations based on data from this project. We then worked with DOH, PHSKC, and the RFSC on how best to communicate those recommendations to the communities. As a result, King County produced a flyer called Healthy Fish-Eating Recommendations from King County that educates fishers about key contaminants in fish and guides them towards fishing choices that will reduce their overall exposure to contaminants in King County. The flyer was translated into nine languages and distributed to the communities.
Based on the information from this study TCA plans to revise the locations and target fish in our long-term tissue monitoring program to make our program more equitable and provide contaminant information useful to more fishing communities in King County.

What do you think?

Why was this study important, who was involved, and what did we learn? If you’d like to learn more you can read the rest of the report, email us with questions, or check out the video below that features some of the fishers and scientists who participated in the project.