EPA began a cooperative effort in 1995 to assemble a nationwide data base on total mercury concentrations in fish tissue. The first objective of this project was to assemble and review data on the mercury contamination in fish tissue. This step included identifying appropriate state and federal agencies and other groups with relevant data on mercury concentrations in fish. The second step in this project involved the development of a fish tissue data base, organizing relevant data to be used for future analyses. EPA focused data compilation efforts on obtaining results of state monitoring efforts during 1990-1995. These data can be used to derive estimates of tissue concentrations, determine the number and frequency of samples taken and analyzed by state, and calculate descriptive statistics on mercury concentrations in fish tissue. The current data base will facilitate EPA’s ability to determine additional and future data needs. In the future, the data base may be used to identify and evaluate factors affecting mercury contamination in fish.

• Download the summary report The National Survey of Mercury Concentrations in Fish Database Summary, 1990-1995 (PDF) (210 pp, 3 MB, About PDF) that describes the data and includes the database field descriptors.
• Download the mercury database in d-Base(1 pg, 2 MB) - This zipped file contains four files in d-Base format that should be extracted using WinZip or another compression software.  The unzipped files will require approximately 63.5M of hard disk space.