A century of industrial use has polluted Seattle’s Duwamish Canal, making much of its fish unsafe to eat.
Photo by David_Johnson, courtesy of iStockphoto
Edwin Cáceres knows there are plenty of fish to catch in Seattle’s Duwamish River. He also knows that it is so contaminated that only salmon is safe to eat.
Now, thanks to the Seattle and King County Department of Public Health, Cáceres, 18, is sharing that knowledge with young local fishermen as part of an ongoing campaign that’s also a reminder: Fun to fish, toxic to eat.
“It’s helpful to the community and it’s something I enjoy doing,” Cáceres said. The health of the nation. “It gets you out. You talk to new people.”
Launched in 2017, the campaign trains community health advocates to reach the diverse population of people who fish in the area. The primary goal is to educate them about the dangers of the Lower Duwamish Waterway, a five-mile segment of the Duwamish River that flows through Seattle’s industrial core.
After a century of industrial pollution, more than 40 hazardous substances have been detected in waterway sediments, including polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated the Lower Duwamish Waterway as a Superfund site in 2001. On March 4, the EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Washington announced a 10-year, $668 million agreement to clean up the waterway.
Community health advocates spread the message that while salmon migrating through the waters are safe to eat, bottom-dwelling fish like perch and flounder that live there permanently are contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.
“We will visit locations along the river, talk about why it is important to only consume salmon, the health risks of consuming residential fish, then we will visit an alternative location,” said Emma Maceda-Maria, a prominent community health advocate. The health of the nation.
The community health advocacy model began in 2014 under a community group called Just Health Action and its partnerships with groups like the Duwamish River Community Coalition. Advocates are trained to educate residents about their health risks, develop outreach activities tailored to residents’ needs, and advocate for their concerns outside their communities. Residents worked with advocates to identify issues such as fishing danger signs that were not in their native languages, such as Spanish or Vietnamese.
Supporters also formed community health advocacy teams that worked with local fishermen to improve signage, create easy-to-follow fishing maps, and find the best ways to spread health promotion information in their communities.
“Literally, before this program, the only thing that was posted around Superfund sites were signs,” said Linn Gould, MPH, MS, executive director of Just Health Action. The health of the nation. “Very little education was given and it was all in English.”
In 2017, EPA awarded Public Health-Seattle & King County funding to continue community work led by the name Fun to Catch, Toxic to Eat. Since then, the health department has been a resource for advocates to build capacity, educate anglers, and work with them on how to respectfully spread health messages to their friends and family.
Currently, there are four community health advocacy teams serving the Hispanic, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and multi-ethnic Lao and Lao communities. The program is also initiating community partnerships with Black and Eastern European fishing communities, as well as faith communities.
Community health advocates also facilitate workshops and cooking demonstrations for mothers and pregnant women that educate them about the risks of developmental delays in children due to contaminated fish. The fishermen’s workshops also end with a contest to catch the first salmon and the largest salmon.
Members of a community health advocacy team share information with residents of Seatac, Washington, in 2024.
Photo courtesy of Public Health-Seattle and King County
Meeting residents where they are maximizes the impact of your message, whether it’s over coffee, at a backyard barbecue or in someone’s living room, Maceda-Maria said.
“Being able to have those strategies of making them culturally appropriate has been a way for the community to make educated changes in their own home to protect their health, to protect their loved ones, their children who are the most affected,” he said.
Maceda-Maria, who heads the Hispanic community advocacy group known as Grupo Latino Asesor, said he has seen fishermen and fishermen’s wives train to become advocates themselves. In 2025, the program reached about 3,000 people, including fishermen, caregivers and people who consume locally caught fish.
The program’s success is because advocates can build relationships over time, said Ruben Chi Bertoni, coordinator of the Fun to Catch, Toxic to Eat program at Public Health-Seattle & King County.
“It takes a long time to achieve behavioral change,” Bertoni said. The health of the nation.
“Meeting people multiple times and getting them to build that relationship and trust is really hard to quantify. But (it’s) essential to be able to reach people and get them to trust our message.”
Last year marked the first full year for the Duwamish Youth Advisors, who task Caceres with attending community events, high schools and piers frequented by youth to teach them about safer fishing. Cáceres said his parents’ participation in the Latino Advisory Group inspired him to get involved. In his outreach activities, he still encounters people who are not aware of the pollution.
Community health advocates from the Fun to Fish, Toxic to Eat program demonstrate salmon fishing techniques for Duwamish Fishing Club participants in Seattle in 2022. The program educates about safe fish consumption.
Photo courtesy of Public Health-Seattle and King County
“Either they never found out or they are people who have recently moved here, and when it comes to those people I feel like they are much more interested than anyone else,” Cáceres said. “They ask questions, which is really good.”
For more information, visit www.kingcounty.gov/duwamish-fishing.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
