Here’s a great column from Billy Frank Jr. on the fish consumption rate issue from just over a year ago:

For more than 20 years the state of Washington has based its water quality standards on the idea that we eat one small bite a day, or 6.5 grams. About the size of a sugar cube.

That number is very important to everyone who lives here because it is used to set state standards for how much pollution can legally be put into our waters. The number the state’s using right now isn’t even close to what most of us eat.

We’ve been working hard for the past two decades to encourage the state to adopt a more realistic rate that will better protect those waters, the food that comes out of them, and the health of everyone who lives here. Now it finally looks like the state department of Ecology is taking steps to revise the old standards, and that’s encouraging.