IN TOUGH TIMES NEW YORKERS TRY TO PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE BUT THE CITY SAYS OUR FISH ARE TOXIC!

This fresh fish is foul - and yet it's ending up on dinner tables across the city.
Cash-strapped New Yorkers are ignoring health warnings not to fish for their meals in polluted local waters, where the catch of the day comes laced with cancer-causing PCBs and mercury.

"It's food for my family," explained Gabriel Gomez, 50, a struggling day laborer from Mexico found fishing recently off the 69th St. Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Many desperate fellow fishermen are serving the toxin-laden fish up to five times a week, far more than state officials say is safe - especially for kids and women of child-bearing age.

Despite the dangers, there are no posted signs at most city piers or other popular fishing spots warning about the possible hazards. And state officials haven't performed comprehensive testing on the fish in 10 years.

The Daily News tested fish caught in three locations and found high levels of cancer-causing PCBs and mercury.

Gomez, a married father of sons aged 12 and 15, was typical of the fishermen forced to choose sustenance over safety.

He stood in a driving rain, using a garbage bag as a poncho and a discarded water bottle attached to a string as a makeshift rod.

"This week, I only work one day," he said. "Yesterday, fish. Today, fish. Not working too much, you see."

Fishermen at Brooklyn's Canarsie Pier said the number of anglers fishing for dinner has nearly doubled in the last year.

At Gantry Plaza State Park in Queens, recreational anglers said hungry beggars ask for spare fish instead of spare change.

"They come here with a plastic bag and hope that people put a fish in it," said Leo Sanchez, 49, a retired janitor from Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The News found the highest levels of mercury and PCBs in a striped bass caught off Gantry Plaza. The fish are highly prized among local fishermen for their size and flavor.

Bluefish samples from the Gowanus Harbor off Red Hook, Brooklyn, also had unsafe levels, tests conducted by Long Island Analytical Laboratories in Suffolk County showed.

A winter flounder caught off Hunts Point in the Bronx was slightly cleaner, with elevated levels of mercury but lower amounts of PCBs.

"These are clearly not fish you should be eating regularly," said Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, after reviewing the News' findings. "I would not want to see kids or pregnant women eating these fish, especially the bass, on a regular basis."

State health advisories warn that women of child-bearing age and children under 15 shouldn't eat any fish from local waters.