The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) announced today that it has lifted the consumption advisory for fish caught in the Gila River and its tributaries within and downstream of the Phoenix metropolitan area – this includes 100 miles of streams and 286 acres of lakes. Fish caught from these waters are no longer unsafe to eat due to banned pesticides (DDT, chlordane or toxaphene).
“This is the first time ADEQ has lifted a fish consumption advisory,” said ADEQ Water Quality Division Director Trevor Baggiore. “Fish tested by ADEQ and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that banned pesticides no longer pose a health risk in the Gila River and its tributaries.”
Lifting this advisory, which has been in place for 24 years, is credited to the cessation of the use of the pesticides in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
ADEQ and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tested 67 fish tissue samples from eight different fish species in the Gila River and several of its tributaries west of Phoenix during 2011 and 2012. Fish tissue data demonstrated banned pesticide levels (DDT, toxaphene and chlordane) dropped from more than 160 times higher than threshold levels designed to protect human health in the 1990’s, to 16 times lower than these thresholds in 2011 and 2012.
On March 10, 2015, ADEQ requested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) remove the Gila River and its tributaries from Arizona’s Impaired Waters List, which EPA approved August 7, 2015. Each water body removed from the list also had a fish consumption advisory in effect. ADEQ has lifted the fish consumption advisory for the following waterbodies:
| Reach Description Miles/Acres | |
| Salt River – 23rd Ave WWTP to Gila River | 14.1 miles |
| Gila River – Salt River to Agua Fria River | 3.7 miles |
| Gila River – Agua Fria River to Waterman Wash | 11.9 miles |
| Gila River – Waterman Wash to Hassayampa River | 13.9 miles |
| Gila River – Hassayampa to Centennial Wash | 7 miles |
| Gila River – Centennial Wash to Gillespie Dam | 5.3 miles |
| Gila River – Gillespie Dam to Rainbow Wash | 5.1 miles |
| Gila River – Rainbow Wash to Sand Tank | 16.9 miles |
| Gila River – Sand Tank to Painted Rock Reservoir | 19.7 miles |
| Hassayampa River – Buckeye Canal to Gila River | 2.3 miles |
| Painted Rock Reservoir | 100 acres |
| Painted Rock Borrow Pit Lake | 186 acres |