Fish near treatment plants found with male-female tissue

Fish near treatment plants found with male-female tissue

Sunday October 03, 2004


DENVER (AP) Fish with both male and female sex tissue have been discovered near wastewater treatment plants on the South Platte River and Boulder Creek.

Scientist are trying to determine if chemicals that distrupt hormones, such as estrogen, are responsible for the gender-bending fish phenomenon.

Colorado biologist John Woodling discovered the deformed fish, white suckers, about two years ago near two wastewater discharge pipes. Female fish far outnumber the male fish in the wastewater soup near the plants.

``This is the first thing that I've seen as a scientist that really scared me,'' said Woodling, 58, a retired fisheries biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife now working with the University of Colorado.

Woodling and his team are studying the phenomenon with a $100,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Scientist haven't pinpointed which chemicals being emitted from the plant might be causing the deformities. However, chemicals known as endocrine disrupters which, mimic or disrupt hormones, especially estrogen, are a leading suspect.

Such chemicals are believed to come from excreted birth-control hormones, natural female hormones, and commonly used detergents that are flushed down toilets and drains.

``We're all concerned about it,'' said Barbara Biggs, Metro Wastewater Reclamation District's governmental officer, who added that the agency supports Woodling's research and other studies into the chemicals. ``We don't want to leap to any conclusions yet. There are a lot of estrogen sources in the environment, and this is going to take time.''

CU professor David Norris, the research project leader, agrees. ``We don't know the dose that produces effects in this species.''

In addition to Denver, the towns of Brighton, Gilcrest, Platteville, the Morgan County Water Quality District and a host of small communities pump their drinking water from shallow aquifers connected to the South Platte. But it is not known whether the chemicals are present in their supplies.

Norris said that over the last 10 years, scientists have documented the impact of endocrine disrupters on everything from British trout to Florida alligators and Arctic polar bears.

Little research has been done on the effects of chronic low-dose estrogen exposure to humans.



Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com


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