Overview
A school research team measured mercury, lead and nickel in the flesh of wild marsh clams from two mangrove sites near the mouth of the Agusan River, with intake and hazard estimates for local fishing households. Mercury and lead were below detection at both sites; nickel was quantified.
Key numbers
- Mercury below 0.01 mg/kg and lead below 0.25 mg/kg at Pagatpatan and Masao (Table 1, p. 20).
- Nickel 2.38 ± 0.83 mg/kg (Pagatpatan) and 1.73 ± 0.66 mg/kg (Masao) (Table 1).
Methods (brief)
Clams kept alive and allowed to purge sediment, flesh digested with nitric and sulfuric acids (AOAC 2012), mercury by cold vapor AAS and lead and nickel by AAS at a commercial laboratory. No reference material, recovery or sample count is reported; risk formulas imply wet weight.
Evidence Fitness
Non-detects are real measurements, but the lead detection limit (0.25 mg/kg) is above the 0.2 mg/kg standard the paper cites, so lead compliance cannot be shown. Small, poorly described sample. Raw clam flesh is a proxy for clam-chowder; that thin page is not linked.
Related evidence
Update history
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