Fish study yielding data on Lake Mead

Monday, May 18, 1998 | 11:47 a.m.

Allen Biaggi, deputy administrator for the state Environmental Protection Division, said a committee will meet May 19 to discuss selected pages from the first box of data received from a federal laboratory in California.

The Environmental Protection Agency laboratory in Richmond, Calif., analyzed tissue samples from 30 striped bass and 30 catfish netted from Lake Mead.

The EPA lab, he said, "ran into some problems in the analytical procedure. It took 14 months for them to get this to us and there is still more coming."

Biaggi said the committee will determine whether a public advisory should be issued about eating Lake Mead fish. "We won't have any definitive answers on the 19th," he said.

Biaggi said a preliminary review of 50 selected pages indicates there are minor amounts of contamination from pesticides "in a few fish."

"It was not as much as I would have expected," he said.

The committee, led by National Park Service biologist Bill Burke, will report to the Lake Mead Water Quality Forum when it meets June 4 at the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

The forum is a consortium of agencies and consultants concerned about pollution affecting Lake Mead, a drinking supply for millions in the Las Vegas Valley and the Southwest.

Burke said the committee of biologists and toxicologists will discuss their findings with health officials before making recommendations.