Do not eat carp from the Mohawk River or the Erie Canal due to high levels of PCBs, according to the New York State Department of Health.

The DOH issued an updated listing for edible fish in the Mohawk Valley recently, and they have declared that carp are no longer safe to eat for men or women from certain regions of the Mohawk River and Erie Canal. The carp have been found to have high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), officials said.

Polychlorinated biphenyls are listed as highly carcinogenic chemical compounds by the federal government — and production of PCBs, which were formerly used in industrial and consumer products, has been prohibited in the U.S. since 1978.

Do not eat the carp from:

• Feeder Dam 1 on the Mohawk River and Lock E21 at New London and Lock E20 at Whitesboro in Oneida County.

• Between Lock E20 at Whitesboro and Lock E18 at Jacksonburg in Oneida and Herkimer counties.

• Between Lock E18 at Jacksonburg and Fivemile Dam below Little Falls in Herkimer County. Men over 15 and women over 50 can eat one carp meal a month from this location, but boys under 15 and women under 50 should not.

• Between Fivemile Dam, downstream of Little Falls, and Cohoes Falls, in Herkimer, Schenectady, Montgomery, Albany and Saratoga counties.

A complete guide to which fish are safe to eat and which are not from the waters in the Mohawk Valley is available at the website www.Health.ny.gov.