this proposal is supported by many fishing associations and clubs, i think it is a good start to cleaning our waters in many levels. weather it be our lakes rivers or streams, but also our drinking water that our children and we drink.
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Lead is responsible for many adverse health affects. It has recently been found that even very low levels of lead in the body can cause health problems to both children and adults [1]. Many of the adverse health affects of lead in our bodies will be outlined later in this proposal. The health hazards of lead have been recognized by legislators of the past. Laws have been passed to stop the use of lead in paint and plumbing applications due to its toxicity to humans. Lead is also a hazard to our natural wildlife. Laws have been passed to stop the use of lead shot for water foul hunting. We have enacted legislation to stop lead from being shot into our waters while legally hunting. Unfortunately it is still completely legal to cast or throw the toxic substance directly into our waters when attempting to catch fish.

The goal of this proposal is to create legislation that will stop the use of lead accessories in sport fishing and commercial fishing. Some of the most popular places to fish are the pristine trout streams in rural areas. When fishing, many times the line snags and breaks in the water. The lead sinkers and lures are lost in the water. This produces the same effect in the water as the lead in the plumbing pipes did. The lead levels of the water in our streams and rivers are increased. Many of these streams of fresh clean water flow directly into our drinking water reservoirs. This water comes out of the tap in our homes.

If legislation were passed to prevent lead from being used in fishing accessories it would not raise taxes in any way. It will not create any cost at all to people that do not participate in fishing. Fishermen may have to pay a few cents more for their equipment if lead was no longer permitted. It does not seem that there would be much objection by the relatively small percentage of our population to ever so slightly increase the cost of their sport. Most sport fishermen only fish a few times a year. It seems that there may be hardly an objection at all by the fishermen if they knew that they were protecting the health of themselves and their families. There are materials that could be used instead of lead for this purpose which are nontoxic, biodegradable and inexpensive.

The legal practice of casting lead into our waters seems to be an oversight of previous laws that have already been enacted. The harmful affects of lead are no different to humans if they are caused by lead in paint, lead in water pipes, lead from hunting or lead introduced into our water supply due to fishing. Politicians must acknowledge the hazards of toxic lead in our waters that is caused by fishing. Adding new or modified legislation will reduce and eventually eliminate casting lead directly into our waters.

Im not going to stop using lead anytime soon.  :lol:

Gimmie a break!.....These same people who are starting this trash are the same ones wearing the gold and silver jewelry.   the mining of which put poisons into our streams....And printing it on paper made in paper mills which put mercury into our streams.....They wanna' clean up the world,....They can start by cleaning up their own house first!.... :roll:

Where does lead come from that it is not a hazard until it is made into shot or sinkers. Is the most important polutant that it gets high priority over the others.

Mike ,,thanks for bringing this to everyones attention..Its just another way for the gov to take our rights away.

I think its BS that lead pollutes the waters. The only reason that duck and geese hunters were forced to use steel shot instead of lead is because the lead shot was being ingested by the water foul and causing lead poisoning. The only use for lead pipes that I've found or the use of lead around pipes is for sewage not drinking water and for the lead in paint, the paint was being ingested by children is the reason for banning that. I can't find any documentation from any university or any study that sinkers or shot actually pollute the water to the point of poisoning a person, only propaganda put out by our goverment by some beauocrat sitting behind a desk trying to justify his job and in this day and age you can't hardly believe anything they have to say after all the lies they've told on almost any subject.

I have enough lead to last a life time, and thats what I plan on doing with it...........

LMAO @  Fishhook.....maybe everybody knows ya---sorry I couldnt resist......Members are only allowed to edit their own posts,,,,mods and staffs can edit everyone elses post,,,but its done very rarely as we love to watch everyone elses spelling mistakes....Now back to the lead,,,,ever wonder about the lead in soldier on your copper pipes....for about the first 30 or so days that lead can be absorbed into your body and do bad things, after that it developes an oxide coating and the levels of lead in your drinking water drop dramatically almost to the point of non exsisting amounts.   Same think for sinkers, shot, and any other items we sportsmen "pollute" the streams with....back to the lead poisoned water fowl,,,,after studying thousands of waterfowl the did come up with 1 that maybe died from lead poisioning---the still weren't sure, but that was enough for the tree huggers and anti hunters to run to their protective politicians with.  Now with the advent of new technologies with replacements for lead sinkers---a nice little niche market for those that feel guilty using lead sinkers---the processes and methods to obtain these materials are just as bad if not worse than the lead itself.  We need to just monitor ourselves with a healthy dose of common sense and all will be well.