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The National Listing of Fish Advisories (NLFA)
Getting Started
Welcome to the on-line version of the National Listing of Fish Advisories (NLFA). This web site allows you to select an advisory (or set of advisories) of interest to you and then obtain detailed textual information about these advisories as well as map these advisories.
If you receive a "Server Busy" message hit the back button on your browser
and try again. If you continue to get the "Server
Busy" it is an indication that the site may be busy generating complex
maps for other users and you may want to access the site again at a later
time.
Getting Help:
Every web page that makes up the NLFA web site has help information that
gives a short overview of that page and describes all of the options available
on that page. Simple click on the "Help" button on the main advisory
information page to get to this help information.
Defining an Advisory:
Fish consumption advisories warn the public that high concentrations of
chemical contaminants have been found or are suspected in fish from local
waters and that consumption of these fish may pose health risks.
The advisories may recommend to limit or avoid consumption of specific
fish species or to limit or avoid consumption of fish from specific waterbodies.
It is important to understand that while a single advisory has one geographic location (e.g. a piece of a river or lake) it can contain information about several fish species (e.g. carp and largemouth bass), several pollutants (e.g. mercury and PCB's), and several "populations" (e.g. no consumption for at risk subpopulations such as pregnant women and restricted consumption for general populations).
Selecting an advisory or multiple advisories to look at:
Generally, advisories can be selected in the following 3 ways:
1. Zoom in to a specific advisory using the map and then identify it.
2. Choose an advisory by name (typically a waterbody name) from the drop-down
list provided.
3. Set up your own selection criteria (e.g. "show me all active advisories
for chlordane in WI") and run a database "query"
Click on "Help" from the main Advisory Information page to get more detailed
help on how to select advisories.
Other Functions:
The on-line version of the NLFA also allows you to:
1. Count all advisories meeting your selection criteria by state
2. See detailed fish tissue data (often used to determine when an advisory
is or isn't necessary) that meets your selection critieria.
