State health officials are reaching out to people who fish for food in Middle Georgia. It’s all in advance of a possible naming of a new Environmental Protection Agency superfund site.

The EPA is gathering soil and water samples from the site of an old landfill owned by Armstrong World Industries. Cancer-causing PCB’s contaminating the water are finding their way into fish.

Now the Georgia Department of Public Health wants nearby fisherman to take a survey asking how often they fish and if they know about PCB’s. But, the department’s Jane Perry says sometime’s these people can be tough to locate.

“They are people that tend to live outside the mainstream often if they’re fishing in these types of rural and hard to access areas. So, we do the best we can with the resources we have, which are these days quite limited.”

The site could be formally added to the Superfund’s National Priorities list in September, making it eligible for federal clean-up funds.

Tags: Macon, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Superfund List, Georgia Department of Public Health