Another Scientist's Take on Hermaphrodite Fish

I think we're all on the same page about the hermaphrodite fish surfacing in our waterways. In case you missed the first installment, Dr. Alan S. Kolok (an environmental toxicologist who's researched the effects of estrogenic compounds in wastewater treatment on the feminization of male fish) let Surely You Nest know that, although hormones are indeed untreated pollutants at this time, the real danger's not in the tap water we drink but the swimming holes we might choose. He convinced me to lose the bottled water, go back to the tap and resume filtering.

Up today is an interview with an environmental, analytical, and marine chemistry professor who's also studying estrogens in our waterways. My eternal gratitude to Dr. Yuegang Zuo, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Marine Sciences and Technology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, for taking the time to answer my questions. Dr. Zuo recently conducted a study entitled Monitoring Estrogenic Hormones - Undesired Fish Contraceptives, and Investigating Their Sources, Transportation and Fate in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. I so appreciate his taking the time to consider my basic questions about water quality and safety.

My quick-and-dirty on this interview? Dr. Zuo notes that, although they're not yet designed to remove hormones, current wastewater treatment processes actually do take care of some percentage of the estrogens. Glad to hear it. Also, he notes that livestock operations in the Midwest actually are polluting drinking water sources with hormones (scratch the tapwater there, folks. And if you live in D.C., make sure your water's lead-free before jumping on the local water bandwagon). Sounds like on many fronts, more research is needed. Many thanks to Dr. Zuo and Dr. Kolok for the ongoing work they're doing to figure out the causes of intersex fish and ramifications of hormones in our waterways.

***

Dear Dr. Zuo:

Please forgive this intrusion into your professional life, but I am a resident of Washington, DC who is concerned about the large numbers of intersex fish in the Potomac. I've contacted my local officials and WASA, the local water authority, and was told that since this is an "emerging pollutant of concern" that's not covered by the Clean Water Act, no action's being taken to treat DC water.

Thank for your interest in the current research on estrogens and other endocrine disrupting pollutants in our aquatic environment. Your local officials and WASA were right that estrogens and other endocrine disrupting chemicals are a group of emerging environmental pollutants;

Furthermore, WASA indicated that there are no existing methods to treat wastewater to remove hormones. Just from surfing online, this seems not to be the case.

current waste water treatment processes are not designed to decompose these compounds; and they are not regulated by the environmental protection agency.

Do you know of cities in which wastewater treatment removes chemicals including estrogen?

Although the current waste water treatment processes are not designed to eliminate these pollutants, they do remove a significant fraction of these pollutant ranged from 10 ~ 90%. Both chlorination, UV-irradiation, microbial degradation and ozonation processes, which commonly used for the wastewater and drinking water treatment, can remove the concerned pollutants at least partially. However, the removal efficiency of the concerned pollutants has not been well studied yet.

Do you have any advice for me as I attempt to figure out a)how to get my water treatment facility to take this issue seriously?...and b)whether or not the hormones in my public water supply are of concern for my (small) children?

So far, most problems are associated with waste water effluents and livestock operation. Except sites contaminated by livestock operation in some Midwest locations, we have not noticed any drinking water contaminations by estrogenic hormones. To make sure, you may check if your city drinking water source is not contaminated by waste water effluents and livestock operation.

Best regards,

Yuegang Zuo, Ph.D.
Professor of Environmental, Analytical and Marine Chemistry
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

*photo courtesy of GNewman at sxc
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Whither Our Water? Addressing Hormones in Local Waterways

Biology Professor Gives SurelyYouNest the Straight Dope
on Endocrine Disruptors in our Waterways

Anyone who has a kid, heck, anyone who drinks water has done a double-take on the hermaphrodite fish in our waterways. Um, are egg-producing male fish swimming around in my iced tea water? I'm just askin'.

Hermaphroditism isn't just rampant in the Potomac River here in the nation's capitol. Intersex fish are showing up in waterways all over the country. They're not sure why (birth control pills and chicken farm runoff are two top candidates), and most wastewater treatment plants are doing exactly, ah, nothing about it. My local councilmember emailed our water and sewer authority and they had this to say: Not it! We aren't doing anything atall because it's not mandated by the Clean Water Act but if forced to by regulations we will address the hormone issue in the future. In slightly more positive language, of course:

WASA is aware of the presence of these chemicals in wastewater and in the waterways. The science and technology of treating these chemicals in large waste treatment facilities have not been developed yet. Presently, these are not regulated by the federal Clean Water Act. WASA will continue to monitor developments related to these and other emerging pollutants of concern, and will take necessary steps as required and is feasible, especially to comply with related regulatory requirements. As with other chemicals that impact the environment, the most effective steps to take is to control these at the source, and any steps that can be taken to do so would be welcome.

The EPA gave hormones in the the Potomac a concern ranking of eight back in 2006. DCist had this to say at the time:

Presumably this eight lies on your typical scale of one to ten, one being "someone might have peed in the river" and ten being "water-loving alien creatures have made the Potomac their homebase to mete out the destruction of the human race."

A pollutant of emerging concern? I'll say it again, holy man-boobs, Batman! I want to drink clean water. And I know that tap water is more environmentally friendly but I have been loath to drink DC's H2O. Heck, I have been par-tic-u-lar about my water since I was in high school -- when I first posted about my water sourcing agonies here, my friend's mom wrote in chuckling to remind me that I wouldn't even come for sleepovers without my trusty Brita pitcher.

Ah, the power of an interview with a kind, generous-with-his time scientist and professor to ease my mind! Turns out my creative writing degree makes for some wonderfully imaginative bedtime stories but proved dead wrong on the drinking water front. And not just because our federal government hasn't put a finger on the source of their concern yet. It's because the water we swim in is more likely to have issues than the water we drink. See below for the details -- but from now on, it's a sigh of relief and back to the tap for me. I'll be quaffing local water to hydrate while I figure out how to register my concern about chemicals in our waterways, and the impact on not only marine life (some of which we eat) but our swimming holes.

My eternal gratitude to Dr. Alan S. Kolok at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, for taking so much time (on a holiday weekend, no less) to answer my questions. Dr. Kolok is an environmental toxicologist who has researched the effects of estrogenic compounds in wastewater treatment with regard to the feminization of male fish.

***

Dear Dr. Kolok:

Please forgive this intrusion into your professional life, but I am a resident of Washington, DC who is concerned about the large numbers of intersex fish in the Potomac. I've contacted my local officials and WASA, the local water authority, and was told that since this is an "emerging pollutant of concern" that's not covered by the Clean Water Act, no action's being taken to treat DC water.

DrK: That is true.

Furthermore, WASA indicated that there are no existing methods to treat wastewater to remove hormones. Just from surfing online, this seems not to be the case.

DrK: I am not aware of municipalities that have made changes to their treatment specifically to remove hormones. However, there is a growing dataset supporting that aerobic digestion of is an effective remidiation technology for hormones.

Do you know of cities in which wastewater treatment removes chemicals including estrogen?

DrK: In Nebraska the small cities that have incorporated aerobic digestion at their facilities have not been found to be releasing hormones into the environment. I know of at least two facilities in Nebraska that do not use aerobic digestion and are releasing hormones into the environment. This has been found to be true in other states and other countries as well.

Do you have any advice for me as I attempt to figure out a)how to get my water treatment facility to take this issue seriously?

DrK: There are two components to water treatment: wastewater treatment and drinking water. While wastewater treatment has been shown to contain steroids, I am not aware of any studies finding significant concentrations of steroids in drinking water. I would be very surprised to find that both the drinking water and
waste water facilities in D.C. were not concerned about the issue. What to do about it, and how to generate the funds and political will to get it done is a very different matter.

...and b)whether or not the hormones in my public water supply are of concern for my (small) children?

DrK: Your drinking water is most likely safe. In fact, with governmental regulations for drinking water, the water that you get out of the tap is probably better for you than the water that you could drink out of a plastic bottle! Buy a Brita filter (these are fairly cheap) and keep filtered tap water in your fridge, if you are still concerned (this is what my family does).

Sewage effluent will not be a direct problem for your children providing you are vigilent about where they swim (in Connecticut, when I grew up, I used to swim at a beach near a river that drained the town dump! I wouldn't let my children swim there today), and also where your fresh seafood comes from.If you fish or enjoy other local seafood, make sure that you eat in moderation and that it comes from clean environments.

Remember that fish live in water constantly, and are subjected to every chemical dissolved in the water. Your children have a much more limited access to water, and short of swimming, their exposure to raw, untreated water is very minimal.

Alan S. Kolok
Professor
Department of Biology
University of Nebraska at Omaha

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Nuuuurdles

I can't get this out of my mind.






It's from Plastic Ocean, an article about, well, more than what kind of bag you use to transport your groceries. A sailor from Southern California named Charles Moore came across a vast dead zone of trash teeming with plastic (including discarded kayaks) when he went off course while racing. He was so aghast at what he found that now he runs a foundation that sends expeditions out to do oceanic research and educates the public about plastic pollution in the ocean. The Garbage Patch in the Pacific he discovered (similar dead zones are found across the globe) is twice the size of Texas.

The picture above (by Gregg Segal) pretty much captures the egregious impact of plastic on marine life. I'm sure you all have heard that the teeny tiny plastic crap we give out as party favors ends up choking baby seals or that the plastic carriers for your six-pack may end up strangling tiny otters as they grow, or, as it turns out, grossly misshaping a sea turtle. What the picture doesn't capture is how omnipresent plastic is in our lives (start looking around your house -- and start trying to even minimally reduce your plastics usage and you'll become truly alarmed) not to mention how dangerous that plastic can be. The BPA lining our cans that may slowly migrate into our food? Try boatloads of tiny wayward particles of plastic called nurdles that each could bring a toxic load of persistent organic pollutants right to your dinner table...

"The word itself—nurdles—sounds cuddly and harmless, like a cartoon character or a pasta for kids, but what it refers to is most certainly not. Absorbing up to a million times the level of POP pollution in their surrounding waters, nurdles become supersaturated poison pills. They’re light enough to blow around like dust, to spill out of shipping containers, and to wash into harbors, storm drains, and creeks. In the ocean, nurdles are easily mistaken for fish eggs by creatures that would very much like to have such a snack. And once inside the body of a bigeye tuna or a king salmon, these tenacious chemicals are headed directly to your dinner table. One study estimated that nurdles now account for 10 percent of plastic ocean debris."

--Susan Casey, Plastic Ocean in Best Life Magazine

Article above via Fake Plastic Fish, a blog about living plastic-free, and a pretty fascinating read in and of itself.

And now, since it is incredibly difficult to avoid plastic even when you try pretty hard, I thought I would allow a marine mammal to cheer us on up. Thanks, Treehugger, for the link. Hope we can all do Flipper the favor of examining the plastics in our lives to see just how essential we think they are....



Dolphin Play Bubble Rings Read more!