RIVER POLLUTION STUDY FINDS HORMONAL DEFECTS IN FISH - SCIENCE: DISCOVERY IN BRITAIN SUGGESTS SEWAGE PLANTS WORLDWIDE MAY CAUSE SIMILAR REPRODUCTIVE-TRACT DAMAGE.

September 22, 1998

The Los Angeles Times

MARLA CONE

In a surprising scientific discovery that, according to this story, suggests pollution is feminizing animals throughout the wild, everyday concentrations of sewage effluent in rivers appear to contain estrogen-like chemicals potent enough to cause fish to be born half-male, half-female. The finding by British scientists provides strong new evidence that hormone-altering pollution one of the most troubling and controversial environmental issues of modern times could be a global ecological threat.

Other recent studies had, according to this story, found scattered populations of animals with bizarre sexual defects living in highly polluted waters, but the new research suggests that the problems are more widespread than previously detected. The British researchers were cited as saying that they uncovered very compelling evidence that sewage treatment plants routinely release hormone-like compounds into rivers that are feminizing "a surprisingly large proportion" of wild fish. The fish were found in eight rivers throughout Great Britain that are considered typical in terms of pollution, so scientists suspect damage to sex hormones is so pervasive that it could be happening in many rivers around the world.

Researchers from Brunel University and the British government were quoted as reporting in the September issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology, "The incidence and severity of intersexuality . . . is both alarming and intriguing," adding that some male fish have such mixed-up hormones that they are born with ovaries and eggs instead of sperm ducts.

In two of the eight rivers downstream of sewage treatment plants, 100% of the male fish sampled had feminized reproductive tracts, ranging from severe to slight. The other six rivers had rates of 20% to 80%.

Gunnar Lindgren, Pl 1363, 446 00 Älvängen, Sweden
Tel/fax 0303/745155, mobil 070-567 90 54
e-mail gunnar.lindgren@ale.mail.telia.com