Fishing Gear and Health Risks

[Gfish]

I still worry about cancer whenever I get close to or cross the CA border.

HA! California is an infectious "state of mind", Lee. My guess would be a 3yr. incubation period if you moved down there.

[Maxed Out]

 Last summer the city of Seattle issued a "don't touch the water" alert for their saltwater parks. Really ?? They didn't even mention all the boats fishing that same water. Where I was fishing was only a few miles from Seattle. It's just a fact of life around here. The Puget sound is the toilet for every municipality west of the cascade mountains. 80 sewage treatment plants pump over 400 million gallons of sewage per day into Puget sound, and they do it on flood tides so it stays around till next ebb, and its barely treated sewage because population keeps exploding and sewage plants are outdated and way over capacity. I try not to think about it when I'm fishing locally

[Rocket Dog]

Last summer the city of Seattle issued a "don't touch the water" alert for their saltwater parks. Really ?? They didn't even mention all the boats fishing that same water. Where I was fishing was only a few miles from Seattle. It's just a fact of life around here. The Puget sound is the toilet for every municipality west of the cascade mountains. 80 sewage treatment plants pump over 400 million gallons of sewage per day into Puget sound, and they do it on flood tides so it stays around till next ebb, and its barely treated sewage because population keeps exploding and sewage plants are outdated and way over capacity. I try not to think about it when I'm fishing locally

ugh.... that must stink to high heaven in the summer days.

[Gfish]

Wonder what the Puget Sound salinity is like. Saltwater + sunlight is pretty good about breaking down organic waste and killing microbes. Prolly short on sunlight oftentimes...
I own't know, but from what I've seen and heard about, the fishing outside of Honolulu on Oahu, seems to be much better than here. I've  always thought it might have to do with the water being more "wastewater" fertilized from that giant concentrated people population over there.

[thorhammer]

Poured a lot of lead back in the day not worrying about fumes and dust, and should have. These days I'm a lot better (tho not perfect) about wearing PPE like gloves, etc. when handling things. Agree with above, not sure where you are but you are more likely to be killed by a vehicle or drown while fishing than using that DAM. Replace the drags using gloves if you wish, just don't put them on a grinder and inhale until all gone. The same to be said of grinding carbon fiber washers to fit tho- outside with a mask. Alan has his grinder on casters for this. Part of what I do professionally is laboratory chemical hygiene plan evaluation.

[Crab Pot]

Lived in Kalifornia the majority of my life.

The Kalifornia State Rock is Asbestos in it's natural form.

So far so good. 

[Cor]

They let you play with mercury back in the day? How did you get it? I don't reckon the toy store would just have a couple of vials lying around.

don't know what others did, but I "accidently" broke thermometers...  hours of cheap entertainment
("toy source" discovered by pouring boiling water on it to "raise my temperature for school") 

I remember buying the stuff from a pharmacy when I was around 8 Y old and rubbing it on a brass or copper coin which would then turn silver.   It took some rubbing and lasted a week or so before it would become it's proper colour again.
Maybe Jurometer can tell me why/how this works.  If I had lived in CA I would probably have been dead by now from all the dangerous substances I touched and inhaled

[jurelometer]

Maybe Jurometer can tell me why/how this works.

I have been staying out of this thread because all of the California bashing is wandering toward the border of the no-politics rule.

If y'all want to attract a wider set of members, the wink-wink, nudge-nudge stuff from one side of the political spectrum isn't helping the cause, or promoting ohana for that matter. 

-J

[Lunker Larry]

I think it's just poking fun at the fact the state had cancer warnings on just about anything. Nothing serious or political.
As we used to say in the military: If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined 😄

[jurelometer]

If you jump on one of our weekly Zooms (I think you have already?), you will see plenty of ribbing going on.

I do think there is a bit dog-whistle style politics going on here. "California dysfunction" has been a nonstop subject lately on the angertainment/"news" media for a certain political demographic.

I agree that it is not worth getting bent out of shape over a stray statement or two, even if it is an obvious signal to like minded folk.  But too much of this stuff hastens the departure of all but the intolerant like minded, and we end up with just another hostile fishing website full of angry political trolls. Plenty of those out there.

We have a good thing going here. Think of it as being invited to the internet equivalent of a fishermen's party at Alan's garage. All sorts of interesting people from all over the world are there. 

Who wants to be _that_ guy? The one who starts dropping hints about "those people". 

-J

[Barishi]

I just think that the "everything causes cancer in California" thing is pretty funny that even stuff made abroad for Asian markets has their warning labels on them. I'm not familiar with US politics, but the way I see it is like having a family member with a funny quirk.

[jurelometer]

I just think that the "everything causes cancer in California" thing is pretty funny that even stuff made abroad for Asian markets has their warning labels on them. I'm not familiar with US politics, but the way I see it is like having a family member with a funny quirk.

Here is the non-angertainment history:

The  CA warning label came about from a state law that required manufacturers to put a warning label on any product that contained a known toxic substance at levels where health risk was an issue.  The idea was to give consumers better information when choosing products, and to incentivize manufacturers to look for less toxic alternatives.  So far, so good, and not too heavy handed for a government action. 

But then it kind of went sideways:  Manufacturers often went with the strategy of "when it doubt, stick a warning label on it" in order to minimize legal liability.  The more products that came out with warning labels, the less the stigma for having one on your product, and with so many products labeled, I think you can argue that consumers probably take ALL safety warning labels less seriously, which might put them more at risk from the products that contain the really nasty stuff that needs to be treated with respect.

Since manufacturers don't always know where the product is going to end up,  they can decide to label all of it rather than to try to track it, and deal with returns or maybe even lawsuits for unlabeled product that ends up in California.

I don't know the situation well enough to understand if it is just a matter of modifying the law, going back to square one, or that we are better off with it or without the law as is.  But I kinda doubt that that we would be better off by not regulating toxic substances at all, and letting the manufacturers decide what is safe enough.  An example from this  year: they nailed some artificial turf manufacturers for having a high  lead content in their product,  something you might care about if your kids run around on the stuff.

California has always led the way in combating air/water pollution and toxic substance exposure.  They don't always get it right on the first (or second  ) legislative attempt, in part by virtue of being the trailblazer.   

There is a useful debate to be had on the subject of these warning labels, but that requires a combination of education, intelligence, and open-mindedness.  Good luck finding even one of those  from the folks trying to make a buck off of riling people up on one side or the other of the political spectrum.

It just takes a bit of time to read up on if folks are interested in learning, and not just looking for something to get angry about.

https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/

-J

[Barishi]

Thanks for the information. I just find it hilarious when I see the label on local goods. As long as you are safe and feel safe then its good.

[Cor]

If you jump on one of our weekly Zooms (I think you have already?), you will see plenty of ribbing going on.

........"

-J

....I saw the inside of Alans garage, got cut off and could not connect again.

I gave that one up as I was too stupid to understand or convert the times quoted to SSA time, Gobi tried to explain and when someone in the US did not understand either I decided it was not for me.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Fishing itself is preet evenly distributed politically speaking.

But people tend to become more conservative as they age, and collecting vintage tackle is on average more likely to be done by a retiree than a kid. So forum participation seems to skew to the right, likely for that reason.

The path of the moderate is the state of constant frustration.