Sludge Watch ==> Chemicals - changes in fish - concerns for humans

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Fish becoming girly fish?
Men becoming girly men?

We gotta fix this!

..........................................................................


http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2006/oct/20/566640420.html

Las Vegas Sun
10-20-06
Chemicals cause changes in fish and raise concerns for humans
By Launce Rake <lrake at lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun


There's something wrong with the fish.

It's been confounding scientists for years: Male fish are developing female 
sexual characteristics in Lake Mead and other freshwater sources around the 
country.

On Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey released a four-page summary of more 
than a decade of studies linking wastewater chemicals to those changes.

But a scientist who has studied the issue for years complains that the 
report understates the danger of those toxins at Lake Mead and elsewhere. 
The researcher had aired his concerns seven months ago - shortly after he 
was fired by the USGS.

The federal agency says the researcher was fired for failing to publish his 
data. The researcher says the federal agency wouldn't allow him to publish.

Both sides, however, agree on the basic issue: In Lake Mead and in other 
freshwater sites, scientists have found traces of pharmaceuticals, 
pesticides, chemicals used in plastic manufacturing, artificial fragrances 
and other substances linked to changes in fish and animals. Thursday's 
report noted that the primary source for the chemicals in Lake Mead was the 
Las Vegas Wash, a man-made river made up almost entirely of treated 
wastewater from cities in the Las Vegas Valley.

Lake Mead is the source of 90 percent of Las Vegas' drinking water and 
provides water for millions more people in California and much of the winter 
vegetables produced in the United States. The lake and contamination have 
been the subject of intense scrutiny from federal and local scientists.

One of those scientists studying Lake Mead was Tim Gross, who was the 
federal lead researcher on the lake's issue of emerging contaminants until 
he was fired earlier this year by the USGS. Gross, a researcher and teacher 
at the University of Florida , said he was terminated because the government 
didn't like his research conclusions - namely, that hormone-disrupting 
chemicals are prevalent in Lake Mead and affecting the environment to a 
greater degree than once suspected. Federal officials in April said Gross 
was fired for failure to publish research results and a new team of 
scientists would evaluate Lake Mead data and publish the results.

The Thursday report, which suggests more research is still needed, was the 
product of the new team, a summary of research by a number of scientists. It 
did not include Gross' results.

Gross, meanwhile, is still battling the federal government.

"They (federal officials) refuse to let me be involved in the research. They 
still haven't published the data. They don't want us to publish."

Kimball Goddard, state director of the Nevada-U.S. Geological Survey water 
science center, rejected the allegation that data had been suppressed.

He said research data from Gross was not included in the fact sheet released 
Thursday because the Florida scientist's results were not published.

Gross said the problem is acute in Lake Mead and in other freshwater sites. 
One element left out of the Thursday report is evidence of sperm failure in 
fish, he said.

"On a national scale we see alterations in fish," said the scientist, who 
continues to research hormone-disrupting chemicals in Florida and other 
states. "Endocrine (a hormone) disruption is widespread across the United 
States and is widespread in Lake Mead."

Gross said his conclusions, shared by other researchers, are not popular: 
"The (Southern Nevada) Water Authority doesn't want to hear it. My agency 
doesn't want to hear it ¦ The Department of Interior does not want to deal 
with it. They want to make the argument that there is nothing to worry 
about, but common sense just suggests it is not that simple."

Gross, echoing comments he made in the spring, said he is concerned that 
there could be effects to human health from hormone-disrupting chemicals in 
Lake Mead.

"There are huge implications, and they're treating it like there's a little 
preliminary work and the significance of these effects are unknown," Gross 
said Thursday. "I would disagree with that. They don't discuss the 
possibility of human exposure. The potential for that is real, and they 
don't discuss that."

Goddard said the implications for human health are outside the realm of the 
Geological Survey's work.

"The studies that we have been involved in at the USGS are not designed to 
answer those kinds of questions," he said.

Gross and the federal researchers have found sexual abnormalities in carp, 
bass and the endangered razorback sucker. The problems are higher in Las 
Vegas Bay, at the confluence with the wash, than in other reference points 
in Lake Mead.

Studies documenting sexual abnormalities in fish in the Potomac River - 
source of drinking water for millions in the Washington, D.C., area - raised 
similar concerns in September. Water officials there said the studies showed 
no evidence that drinking water was unsafe, but the studies did not answer 
the question on potential impacts to human health.

Water Authority officials maintain that while chemicals from the waste 
stream flowing through the sewers and Las Vegas Wash to the lake could 
affect fish and the environment, drinking water drawn from the lake is 
sufficiently treated to eliminate any significant threat to human health.

Shane Snyder, the Water Authority's principal researcher on the issue, said 
Thursday at a conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 
that people are exposed to far higher levels of most hormone-disrupting 
chemicals in the environment than they would receive from treated drinking 
water.

He asked rhetorically whether it was good policy to spend "trillions of 
dollars" removing hormone-disrupting chemicals from water when such 
chemicals are present in far larger amounts in the environment.

Snyder said the central question of the "toxicological relevance" of 
chemicals in tiny quantities - amounts that were undetectable just a few 
years ago - has yet to be answered.

J.C. Davis, Water Authority spokesman, noted that even in Lake Mead itself, 
the quantities are minuscule - in the parts per trillion, a grain of salt in 
a swimming pool. Treatment processes further degrade, destroy and dilute 
these chemical compounds in drinking water.

"Eventually the analytical ability outpaces the health effects," Davis said. 
"The question is, at what concentration are these relevant and you have to 
do something about them?"

He said Snyder will join federal and local researchers in trying to find 
those answers.

"People in the water industry want to know the answers to the questions we 
are asking."

Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at lrake at lasvegassun.com.


http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1574&from=rss
USGS Monitors Endocrine Disrupting Compounds in Lake Mead
Released: 10/20/2006 6:21:13 AM