ASHLAND — After a decade of promoting Emigrant Lake as a destination to catch and eat "trophy" crappie, state fish biologists are about to learn whether their pitch is a safe one.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife this summer will answer the $800 question of whether Emigrant's crappie have high enough levels of mercury to warrant a public-health advisory against eating them.

Tests in December revealed that smallmouth bass contain mercury levels that health officials deem too high for consumption by children, pregnant women and people with other health issues.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday authorized $800 from the state Restoration and Enhancement Program to pay for mercury testing eight Emigrant crappie — the minimum health officials say is needed for accurate testing.

This marks the first time in Oregon history that Restoration and Enhancement Program money — funded by a $2 surcharge on state fishing licenses — will go toward mercury testing, says Laura Tesler, who coordinates the Restoration and Enhancement Program for the ODFW.

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"It's definitely an angler-health issue," Tesler says. "When you promote that lake and that fishery as a trophy fishery, it makes sense to test it."

That sense also resonates at the lake, where anglers are hungry for information about the fish they consume.

"Definitely glad to see it," says Tim McCartney, a 66-year-old Ashland man and regular Emigrant angler. "We don't want to put our families at risk."

A retired banker, McCartney fishes Emigrant about every other week. While fiddling with a new 6-horsepower mower for his small lakeboat docked at Emigrant Lake County Park, McCartney ticks off the litany of fish he can catch there.

Bass, crappie, bluegill, perch and trout. McCartney has eaten gobs of Emigrant crappie over the years, often breaded and fried. Lately, though, it's been rainbow trout, which tests reveal have relatively low levels of mercury in them.

McCartney isn't too concerned that he's put himself at risk.

"I imagine it's been a pretty normal amount for those fish," McCartney says.

It's not hard to imagine at least some local lakes could be home to unsafe levels of mercury, which has become a world-wide health issue.

Mercury is so prevalent in the aquatic food chain that it's present in virtually all fish, including those caught in the ocean. Because the element builds up over time in a fish's flesh, older and larger fish tend to have higher concentrations of mercury.

Since mercury chemically bonds with muscle tissue, it cannot be removed or significantly reduced by fish-cleaning methods, cooking, brining or smoking them.

Armed with a federal grant, the state Department of Human Services tested four Jackson County reservoirs last fall and discovered high mercury levels in Emigrant Lake smallmouth bass.

The .82 parts per million level in bass is more than twice the .35 parts per million threshold that triggers a health advisory. Rainbow trout came in at .18 parts per million, well beneath the threshold.

But that's all the fish tested in Emigrant, leaving fish biologists and anglers wondering about the crappie.

Emigrant Lake is the region's featured warmwater fishing lake, and will be featured in the ODFW's upcoming warmwater angling guide, says Dan VanDyke, the ODFW's Rogue District fish biologist. So learning the status of the lake's crappie is highly relevant, he says.

The lake currently has an 8-inch minimum size for crappie, a restriction that is designed to help grow more larger, so-called "trophy" crappie, VanDyke says. That could change based, in part, on the results of the mercury tests, he says.

"If they do not exceed the limit, we'll probably keep things as-is," VanDyke says. "If they do test hot, then we may want to remove that requirement."

David Stone, the state Department of Human Services toxicologist who works on mercury issues here, believes the crappie likely will test just over, or just under, the .35 parts per million threshold.

"If I was a betting man, I'd think the crappie would be somewhere between the smallmouth bass and the trout, but closer to the trout," Stone says.

That would fit the profile of many western lakes where mercury health-advisories exist, Stone says. Pikeminnow (formerly called squawfish) tend to test out at the top, followed by bass and then other panfish. And like the case in Emigrant, trout generally test at lower levels than warmwater species, Stone says.

The source of the mercury is unknown. Mercury, however, is known to be in the lava rocks of the region, but whether a lake is hot for mercury or not typically depends on how the chemical gets from the rocks to the food chain.

"I think it's the water chemistry," Stone says.

Water with higher levels of sulfides tend to promote the bacteria that helps break mercury down to methylmercury, the compound absorbed by fish, Stone says.

The sulfide levels in East Lake, for example, trigger high levels of methylmercury in that lake's bass, while nearby Paulina Lake has low sulfides and no mercury problems, Stone says.

That is the most likely reasoning that Emigrant's bass tested far higher than fish from Howard Prairie, which feeds Emigrant's water supply.

VanDyke says he hopes to have the $800 question about these crappie answered by the end of summer.

"By the end of August, we should have some samples to the lab," he says. "I want more information about these fish."