The map shows 58 lakes, bayous and other waterways where contaminated fish have been caught, the bottom is too polluted for safe swimming, or both. Those areas also are clickable, but are approximations — adjacent areas of dark and light blue aren't boundaries, Department of Environmental Quality scientist Al Hindrichs said in an email Friday. For instance, the state says nobody should eat any fish from Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge, while in the Upper Calcasieu Estuary, only crab fat is on the do-not-eat list. For 83 miles along the Tensas River, the advisory states only, "Long-term fish consumption may cause health risk." Most people are advised against eating more than a total of four 8-ounce servings a month of fish caught in state waters, except for king mackerel. At Capitol Lake, it's the manmade chemicals called PCBs . +2 Those are actually exceptions of a sort: nine advisories are for organic compounds of one type or another, while the other 49, including the Gulf waters, are for mercury, Hindrichs said. The Gulf advisory is most likely because the fish are "highly predatory," not because there's more mercury in the ocean, Hindrichs said in an email. Two others — one for Devil's Swamp, Devil's Swamp Lake and Bayou Baton Rouge, and one for Bayou d'Inde and parts of the Calcasieu Ship Channel — advise against both eating fish and swimming or touching sediments. "Do not eat fish or crawfish from this area," reads the advisory for Devil's Swamp and related areas.
Aerial of the State Capitol, Capitol Park and Pentagon Barracks in Baton Rouge on Sept. 1, 2015.