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State bioaccumulation program shifts from monitoring funds to data-sharing; tribe-centered fish-consumption app planned
Summary
The state’s bioaccumulation monitoring program reported budget cuts for monitoring but said it has processed a backlog of tissue data, is prioritizing tribal engagement and training, and is developing a tribe-centered fish-consumption application with SFEI and OEHHA support.
State Water Board staff told the Monitoring Council that although monitoring funds for the statewide bioaccumulation program were cut, the program has pushed a backlog of tissue data into public databases and is pivoting to data accessibility, tribal capacity building and a tribally centered fish-consumption application.
"We no longer have monitoring funds, but we do have data and we still have a responsibility to communicate to the public about what we do know," Anna Holder, co-chair of the Safe to Eat work group, said. Holder described a long-term monitoring priorities assessment and a training series that engaged more than 75 tribal representatives from across California.
Devon Burke, the program’s bioaccumulation coordinator, said the team completed data backlog processing and is prioritizing regional tissue data from the nine regions so that data are QA/QC’d and available in SEDIN before the integrated-report deadlines. "The next time regions begin the assessment process it's going to be regions 2, 4, 8 and the Sacramento River basin," Burke said, noting an August 10 data deadline for some cycles.
Holder and Burke also described an application being built with funding from the Division of Water Quality and contractor San Francisco Estuary Institute to adapt a Great Lakes tribal-centered fish-consumption tool for California. The project, funded April 2025–March 2027, has a tribal advisory committee guiding development and plans for a public draft in July followed by a fuller public release in 2027.
The team said phase-one will prioritize fish tissue data for mercury and PCBs (the analytes with the strongest statewide coverage), then expand to shellfish and other analytes as funding allows. Holder emphasized tribal training to increase tribal governments’ ability to collect and interpret fish-tissue data and said recorded trainings and templates are available to reduce duplicative effort.
What happens next: staff will continue making processed tissue data accessible through the SWAMP data dashboard and SEDIN, solicit tribal advisory feedback on the draft application in July, and seek additional funding to expand analytes and coverage.
