Mutant fish found in Colorado rivers

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Mutant fish found in Colorado rivers

Cliff Thompson

November 11, 2004

 

EAGLE - When veteran fish biologist John Woodling decided to examine

fish inhabiting waters below Front Range sewage plant outlets, what he

found shook him and attracted national media attention.

 

There were very few males and the reproductive organs of both male and

female fish had hermaphrodite tendencies: They contained both male and

female tissues. It's a scenario he fears may have long-term

implications for humans, including people in Eagle County.

 

Woodling, 58, believes the changes in these inter-sex fish were caused

by a cocktail of pharmaceutical substances - antibiotics, hormones,

steroids - that humans use and pass along to the environment.

 

Those substances could lead to extinction of some species because they

may interfere with reproduction, he said.

 

" This is the first thing that ever freaked me out, " Woodling said

Wednesday during Waterwise Wednesday, a monthly presentation of the

Eagle River Watershed Council, an environmental group. " The ratio of

males to females is so totally skewed, it's not funny. "

 

Woodling's research was conducted on white suckers, a fish common to

the rivers in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.

 

We are what we drink

 

Because Colorado is a water-poor and people-rich state, what's

happening to the fish could happen to humans, he said.

 

It works like this. As the state's demand for water increases, it will

require humans to recycle the water they use, exposing humans to

hundreds of recycled pharmaceuticals.

 

And that's not a future-based scenario. Many Front Range cities have

water systems that depend on reused water.

 

Woodling suspects the substance behind the sexual mutations in the

fish was nonylphenyls, a common substance found in many plastic

containers that can transfer to the food and beverages they hold.

 

" Nonylphenyls are bad, " he said, noting that some European countries

have banned their use. " They've been found in everything we eat. "

 

Those, and other substances called endocrine disrupter chemicals, are

in broad use by humans. When ingested or when organisms are exposed to

them, they can cause harm. That exposure in concentrations as minute

as a just a few parts per-billion can be harmful over the long term,

Woodling said.

 

Wastewater treatment plants, at present, do not remove many of the

endocrine interrupters that can cause changes in living organisms,

said Bob Trueblood of the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District,

which operates local wastewater treatment plants.

 

Endocrines are glands that secrete hormones in living organisms that

stimulate development or regulate bodily processes. But local water

systems do not rely solely on recycled water, so sources of raw water

are less contaminated than recycled water is, he said.

 

The Vail sewer plant does release treated water into Gore Creek, which

flows into the Eagle River, which is used as a raw water source for

the Avon water treatment plant. The Avon plant is also downstream from

Red Cliff's sewer plant. But the percentage of treated to untreated

water in the river here is far less than it is in Front Range rivers

wheretreated water can comprise up to 98 percent of the flow.

 

" Dilution is the critical factor, " Trueblood said.

 

Trueblood said the district regularly tests water by watching the

survivability of fathead minnows and water fleas. Woodling has not

conducted any tests on fish populations below local wastewater

treatment plants.

 

 

 

Canaries

 

" Fish are the lab rats of the water treatment business, " Trueblood

said. " Fish bioaccumulate stuff. "

 

The use of recycled - or " conjunctive use " water - has worried Dr. Tom

Steinberg for a long time, he said. Steinberg has been a physician for

50 years, most of them in Vail, and also served on Colorado's Water

Quality Control Commission, which sets water quality standards.

 

It's long-term exposure to the substances that concerns Steinberg, he

said.

 

" I do worry about it, " he said, adding that when he expressed his

concerns to the water commission they fell largely on deaf ears.

" We're way behind on what our science says we should be doing. "

 

But modern sanitation systems have been an improvement over what was

here previously, Steinberg said.

 

" When I came here the outhouses were built out over the river in

Minturn, " he said.

 

Just as birth control pills helped women avoid unwanted pregnancies,

they had the added effect of putting excess estrogen into the

environment after they're excreted by the body, he said.

 

He likened the emergence of endocrine disrupters in water supply to a

de facto human population control.

 

 

 

What's good for business...

 

But regulating what substances that will be allowed to enter the

environment isn't easy, Woodling said.

 

" You're looking at a culture that has changed, " he said. " We're for

business, not environmental or human health problems. "

 

And instead of attempting to tighten water quality standards, Woodling

said just the opposite is occurring.

 

When Woodling looked for a reference stretch of uncontaminated water

during his experiment to use a a scientific control, he was not able

to find one. Above the wastewater plants in rural areas the water was

contaminated with antibiotics from livestock, he said.

 

But as a point of perspective, Woodling said he believes that zinc, a

metal that once dissolved is toxic to fish, may be a more urgent

problem than the endocrine interrupter substances. Zinc is one of the

substances emitted by the waste from the defunct Eagle Mine at Gilman.

 

Woodling is familiar with the Eagle River. Each year he and his teams

conduct a fish and bug census to judge the effectiveness of the Eagle

Mine cleanup.

 

Sewer plants can remove substances that can harm living organisms,

though that can be costly, Trueblood said.

 

" It's just an expense, " he said, adding that those levels of treatment

would boost sewer bills by up to 70 percent. " It's all delivered to

our front door. "

 

In many instances it's easier to ban the use of the substances instead

of trying to remove them from wastewater, Trueblood said.

 

People concerned about the quality of their drinking water can use a

reverse osmosis water filtration system that will remove virtually

everything from drinking water, he said.

 

Woodling said the mutations in fish he and his team observed along the

Front Range diminished significantly just a few miles downstream from

the discharge point of the sewer plants. He did not sample trout

populations, but said in future experiments he may include them - if

enough funding is available

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Staff Writer Cliff Thompson can be reached at (970) 949-0555, ext.

450, or cthompson

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