MDH bans Vermillion River fish for sensitive groups over PFAS

The Minnesota Department of Health has updated statewide fish consumption guidelines after detecting PFAS in fish from the Vermillion River, which runs through Dakota County to Hastings and into the Mississippi. For the first time, MDH is telling sensitive populations — children under 15 and people who are pregnant, may become pregnant, or are breastfeeding — not to eat any fish species from the Vermillion, while limiting the general population there to one serving per week. The update also tightens or reiterates mercury‑driven limits for northeast Minnesota and lays out detailed statewide serving recommendations by species, size and who is eating the fish, with large walleye and northern pike, and muskies, at the strictest end. PFAS, widely used by industry including 3M, is now classified as a human carcinogen, and advocates have long warned that these 'forever chemicals' would eventually show up in metro‑area fish. For Twin Cities anglers who rely on local rivers for food, this is a concrete signal that contamination has moved from abstract maps and lawsuits into the fish on their stringers, with the state advising caution long before anyone tastes a symptom.