[Pharmwaste] Intersex sunfish found for first time in Potomac basin

[DeBiasi,Deborah]

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-md--chesapeakefishkil01
23jan23,0,6912599.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia 

Intersex sunfish found for first time in Potomac basin
 
By DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press Writer

January 23 2007

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. -- Scientists studying intersex fish in the Potomac
River basin have found the abnormality for the first time in redbreast
sunfish, the third species affected by the mysterious phenomenon, a
federal fish pathologist said Tuesday. 

Intersex fish possess both male and female characteristics. For example,
some male fish have been found with immature eggs in their testes. 

The phenomenon was previously documented in smallmouth and largemouth
bass in the Potomac River and some of its tributaries in Maryland,
Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. 

Vicki Blazer of the U.S. Geological Survey said she verified the
abnormality in sunfish last week while preparing for her talk Tuesday at
the start of a three-day conference on fish kills in the six-state
Chesapeake Bay watershed. The conference was sponsored by the
Annapolis-based Chesapeake Bay Foundation. 

"We do see it in some of the redbreast sunfish, although I have no idea
what the incidence will be," Blazer said. 

The incidence of intersex in male smallmouth bass has been as high as
100 percent in some sample areas studied by Blazer and her colleagues.
Largemouth bass have had a lesser incidence of intersex, Blazer said. 

Blazer said that whatever is causing the abnormality, which was first
detected in the watershed in 2003, may also be behind a number of
large-scale fish kills across the region since 2002. In one such event
in 2005, 80 percent of the smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish in the
South Fork of the Shenandoah River developed lesions and died. A similar
kill occurred in 2004 on the river's North Fork. The state of Virginia
has formed a Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force to investigate the
kills. 

Blazer said intersex and fish kills may be related because many of the
killed fish appear to have had suppressed immune systems. There is
increasing evidence that immune cells and disease resistance are
affected by contaminants including chemical compounds that stimulate
estrogen production, Blazer said. 

Another factor in intersex development could be increased aquatic levels
of natural and synthetic hormones, such as those in birth-control pills,
which often aren't removed by wastewater treatment plants, Blazer said.
Poultry manure, which is used as fertilizer in agricultural fields, is
also high in steroids identical to human female and male hormones,
although no cause-and-effect evidence linking poultry manure to intersex
fish exists, researchers said. 

"My guess is, is it's a mixture of things, but that's still what we have
to figure out," Blazer said. 

Charles Pouksih, environmental program manager for the Maryland
Department of the Environment, said excessive nutrients from human waste
and fertilizers are largely to blame for fish kills in the Chesapeake
Bay watershed. 

"We're operating in the dark, but maybe not as much in the dark as we
were 10 years ago," he said. 

The Chesapeake Bay watershed spans nearly 65,000 square miles in
Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and
the District of Columbia. 


P> 

On the Net: 

U.S. Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov 

Chesapeake By Foundation: http://www.cbf.org 

Copyright (c) 2007, Daily Press 

 

Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permit Programs
Industrial Pretreatment/Toxics Management Program
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 (NEW!)
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028
FAX:      804-698-4032