Saw this on CNN.com today !



SHARPSBURG, Maryland (AP) -- Male fish that are growing eggs have been found
in the Potomac River near Sharpsburg, a sign that a little-understood type
of pollution is spreading downstream from West Virginia, a federal scientist
says.

The so-called intersex abnormality may be caused by pollutants from sewage
plants, feedlots and factories that can interfere with animals' hormone
systems, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Nine male smallmouth bass taken from the Potomac near Sharpsburg, about 60
miles upstream from Washington, were found to have developed eggs inside
their sex organs, said Vicki S. Blazer, a scientist overseeing the research
for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Authorities say the problems are likely related to a class of pollutants
called endocrine disruptors, which short-circuit animals' natural systems of
hormone chemical messages.

Officials are awaiting the results of water-quality testing that might point
to a specific chemical behind the fish problems, Blazer said.

"It certainly indicates something's going on," Blazer said of the new
findings in Maryland. "But what, we don't know."

The Potomac River is the main source of drinking water for the Washington
metropolitan area and many upstream communities. It provides about 75
percent of the water supply to the 3.6 million residents of Washington and
its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

Blazer, who works at a federal fish lab in Leetown, West Virginia., said she
found the latest abnormalities last week while examining tissues from fish
taken from the river near Sharpsburg.

The same symptoms had previously been found about 170 miles upstream, in the
South Branch of the Potomac in Hardy County, West Virginia.

Blazer and other scientists discovered the problem there last year while
investigating a rash of mass fish deaths.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers are seeking money for a much
larger study across the Potomac watershed.

Endocrine disruptors comprise a vast universe of pollutants capable of
driving a hormone system haywire. Some are hormones themselves -- such as
human estrogen from women taking birth-control pills or animal hormones
washed downstream with manure -- that can pass through sewage plants
untouched.

In Hardy County, officials were especially concerned about chicken waste
from poultry farms.

Others endocrine disruptors are hormone "mimics" -- industrial chemicals or
factory byproducts which confuse the body because they are chemically
similar to natural hormones.

These pollutants are often found in very low concentrations, so until
recently no equipment could detect them. But the first nationwide survey, in
1999 and 2000, found hormones in about 37 percent of streams tested.

Many scientists are concerned that people, as well as other animals, might
be affected. "It's not good news that there's something that feminizes male
fish in your water," said Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural
Resources Defense Council.

But the Environmental Protection Agency has not set standards for many of
these pollutants. Because of this, many drinking-water plants make no
special efforts to remove them.

Authorities in West Virginia are investigating whether there is a link to
higher rates of certain cancers in people there.

A recent survey of cancer in Hardy County, where some residents get drinking
water from the South Branch, found rates of cancer of the liver,
gallbladder, ovaries and uterus that were higher than the state average. All
four cancers can in some cases grow faster in the presence of estrogen or
chemicals that mimic it, cancer experts said.

"It is at least theoretically possible that those two concepts are worth
thinking about side-by-side," said Alan Ducatman, chairman of the Department
of Community Medicine at West Virginia University.




--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear