[cosmicrowbar]

The lakes are much, much cleaner than they were 20 years ago, and a world away from the pollution of the earlier 1900s. We also can test for things nobody knew about 20 or more years ago. Remember lead paint?? Paint chips are now hazardous waste, as they should be.
Coal burning power plants are the villain in mercury pollution, agricultural runoff the culprit for pesticides....the stuff is all around us.
I eat Great Lakes fish, happily. But I don't eat it every day, I trim every little bit of fat off the fillets, and always skin the fish as well. This doesn't remove pollutants, but it does reduce them.
My chances of dying in a car accident are far higher that succumbing to poisoning from fish, but there's no reason not to be careful as one can be.
All bordering states have some lakes jurisdiction, as does the federal govt and Canada. Nothing is easy or simple with things as big as our Great Lakes. And midwestern states can't do much about pollution from coal fired generating plants in the west, or, worse yet, in China. They're burning coal as fast as they can dig it in China to power all those factories making stuff for export to the USA.

[Coldjensens]

Who eats catfish? You may as well hunt rats or winged rats (pigeons) for food. Ick