EPA to test fish for contaminants

Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

The Environmental Protection Agency will test fish from Lake Mead to see if they've been contaminated by chemicals.

Bill Burke, a National Park Service biologist in charge of air and water quality, said Tuesday the EPA's laboratory in Richmond, Calif., plans testing on stripers.

In November, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report saying chemicals, pesticides, insecticides and compounds called endocrine disrupters had been found in the carp, sediments and waters of the Las Vegas Bay and Las Vegas Wash. Sources of the pollutants are unknown.

The Park Service, USGS and the Nevada Division of Wildlife have worked together to catch stripers and channel catfish for further study, Burke said.

The carp tested from the bay and the wash showed higher levels of DDT, TCDD (tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin), PCBs (polychlorintated biphenyls) and furans. Fish caught in Callville Bay, 10 miles upstream, did not show the elevated levels of chemicals or pesticides.

In addition, estrogen compounds -- the endocrine disrupters -- were found in Lake Mead fish at the highest levels of 25 sites in the nationwide water quality study by the USGS.

British scientists have been leading research into the estrogen compounds that disrupt normal sexual organ development, although the problem had not emerged in the United States until about 10 years ago.

The USGS study does not indicate the sources of the pollution, but the scientists noted that the compounds known as organochlorines form during chemical manufacturing and sewage treatment processing.

During World War II, the Basic Management Industrial complex near Henderson produced DDT, pesticides and other chemicals for military use. The plant site is about five miles upstream from the lake.

Part of the plan to extend studies of the lake water includes hunting for the sources of the chemicals, Burke said.

Whether old residues or higher volume of treated sewage or a combination is causing the lake's problems is unknown at this time.