In the venue of environmental concerns, there used to be a joke that said if you picked up a conch shell on a New Jersey beach and held it to your ear, you could hear the emergency room.

Medical waste showing up in our nation’s waters has obviously become a problem in recent years, and the aforementioned joke was a comic’s way of illustrating a public concern.

Well, it may be more than a one-liner these days. Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them. These chemicals included medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression. More studies have now been ordered.

But a report on this study showed that a person would have to eat hundreds of thousands of fish dinners to get even a single therapeutic dose. So if you think you can now have a fish fry with built-in cholesterol control, it ain’t gonna happen.

However, these findings might indicate that a large bass won’t die of a high- blood-pressure-induced heart attack before you get it to the boat. I doubt however, that a fish is going to be any less depressed, given that it is bound for the skillet.

Now I realize that having to eat hundreds of thousands of fish to get a single dosage of any of these medications sort of puts the issue into perspective. But there is an ambiance factor here.

It’s kind of like when singer/comedian Jim Stafford said, “I don’t even use Listerine because the label said that it kills germs on contact, and I don’t like the idea of anything dying in my mouth.”

So who wants to eat a fish with even a tiny trace of anti-depressant in the tissue? That’s not to say that a non-bipolar fish will taste any different than one with a split personality. And I don’t know how you would tell that anyway, given that fish don’t frown or laugh.

When I was a kid, I’ve knelt down many times and drank water from a stream. I wouldn’t do that anymore. I’m not saying that most streams have enough mercury in them to underwrite a thermometer factory. I’m just saying it’s there, and I can’t get past it.

And had you told me back then that companies would be selling us water in bottles for more than a buck each, I would have said you were crazy.

Yes, indeed, we will offer some jokes about these things, but we had better give ample time to the fact that our environmental stewardship has suffered greatly through the years. So let’s be careful when we toss about in negative connotations the term “tree hugger.” I’m not suggesting that one day someone will be selling us shade, but I must consider the past and present.

Back to Jim Stafford for a moment. He asked the question, “Where is Kingdom Come and how hard would my mama have to hit me to knock me there?”

I realize that has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals in fish, but I do think it’s a valid question.

Another question: Does this recent study indicate that we will have to buy a fishing license and prescription?

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)