Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, radiosonde, we’re glad to have you with us.
When you start a new thread, it’s helpful to others if you provide a link to the Column or Staff Report. Saves search time and keeps us all on the same page. Mathochist’s complaint is that he couldn’t figure out what you were talking about, because he couldn’t find the Staff Report.
A few years ago, when awareness of this problem was first rising, I noticed that several outfitters were selling tin sinkers. That seemed crazy to me. You see, boat bottom paints containing tin were outlawed because of some environmental nastiness. (Boat bottom paints contain metals, now copper, to discourage plant and animal life from clinging to the boat.)
In Una’s list of subsitutes, there’s bismuth. That should ward off upset stomachs in waterfowl, I guess. Maybe we’ll even see wild ducks and geese doing the Pepto-Bismol dance.