Pollution Threatens River's Health
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by Cassandra Profita Daily Astorian May 9, 2007
VANCOUVER, Washington
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Debrah Marriott, director of the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, shares new data on toxic compounds in the lower river with about 100 people at the “Science to Policy: Many Perspectives, One River” conference on environmental science and policy in Vancouver, Wash., Monday. New data on contamination in the Lower Columbia River show concentrations of pesticides, industrial compounds and flame retardants between Portland and Longview, Wash., that rival those in Seattle's Puget Sound.
According to the two scientists in charge of testing at six sites from Point Adams, just east of Hammond, to Warrendale, about 140 miles upriver, the levels of some toxics detected in river sediment and fish tissue in the most industrialized stretches of the Columbia could be compromising the health and eventual survival of juvenile salmonids.
The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership announced results of recent toxics monitoring tests Monday, kicking off a three-day conference on the river's health. The data were collected by the U.S. Geological Survey and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with the help of $1.6 million from the Bonneville Power Administration.
A final report on the monitoring data will be available in August.
After 20 years of participation in the National Estuary Program, a federally funded environmental protection effort, the lower Columbia River habitat continues to suffer from decades-old applications of the banned agricultural pesticide DDT (dichloro diphenyl tichloroethane), restricted industrial insulators and lubricants (PCBs) Polychlorinated biphenyls, and chemical compounds PAH (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), found in petroleum and its byproducts.
These contaminants are known to bioaccumulate, or grow in concentration, as they move up the food chain from microbes on river sediment to fish and eventually birds in the river's ecosystem. Scientists are also concerned about the impact the contaminants could have on humans who eat the river's fish.
The Columbia's contamination has been in the spotlight since last summer, when the Environmental Protection Agency declared the entire river one of 28 "Great Water Bodies" in the country, a designation that brings heightened federal attention and clean-up funding potential.
LCREP is now asking Congress for $2.3 million from the 2008 budget to continue monitoring toxics in the river system. LCREP Director Debrah Marriott said additional research would be needed to fully understand and correct pollution problems and create a "cleaner, healthier Columbia."
"The Willamette is a major source of agricultural and industrial discharge on the Lower Columbia," said Marriott. But other sources on the lower river and in the entire Columbia River Basin, stretching up to Idaho and into Canada, contribute as well, she said.
"Stormwater discharges, industrial discharges, seafood processing plants, air deposition and hazardous waste sites are all contributing to pollution along the mainstem Columbia River," said Marriott. The new data will help LCREP "assign additional responsibilities" to agencies charged with protecting clean water and wildlife, she said.
New toxics foundAmong their findings, Jennifer Morace, a hydrologist with USGS and Lyndal Johnson, a zoologist for NOAA Fisheries, reported there is still evidence of the legacy contaminants DDT and PCB in the river's food chain, but they also detected newer toxics, including estrogen compounds, various pharmaceuticals, mercury, modern pesticides and the flame retardants PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ether), entering the river. Flame retardants are commonly used in plastic components of televisions and computers as well as furniture, cars and even clothing.
Though the testing didn't seek to pinpoint sources of emerging pollutants, Morace said other studies have traced antibiotics, hormones and flame retardants to stormwater runoff and sewer treatment releases.
"Usually the Columbia does a pretty good job of dilution," she said. "The fact that we're even seeing them at all in this huge water body is amazing. It's opened our eyes to say, 'Hey, we need to look at these.'"
Research shows elevated concentrations of the detected pollutants can damage the endocrine and reproductive systems of threatened and endangered species of salmon, raising the question of how clean-ups might fit into federal species recovery efforts, said Johnson.
Contaminants are "a significant enough problem it could be contributing to their decline and it needs to be considered as a factor," Johnson said. "It needs to be part of the equation."
Worries for regionMorace and Johnson reported higher concentrations of contaminants at Portland's Morrison Street Bridge test site on the Willamette River, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers outside Portland, below St. Helens near Columbia City and below Longview at the Beaver Army Terminal. The test site above Portland at Warrendale showed lower concentrations of contaminants, as did the Point Adams site, though DDT levels were higher near the mouth than in the rest of the river system in April 2005.
To test for the various types of contaminants in river sediment, Morace employed semi-permeable membrane devices, which she described as "virtual fish" or tubes of fat that conducted continuous sampling for months at a time.
Copper detected in the river water was at such high concentrations in some spots, said Morace, it could interfere with normal function of sensory systems that allow fish to find spawning grounds and avoid predators.
Johnson, meanwhile, collected entire juvenile salmon bodies - mostly fall chinook on their way to the ocean - to test for contaminants in tissue, stomach contents and bile and to analyze yolk protein for estrogen compounds.
She found fish throughout the river system were being exposed to PAH, which can alter growth and metabolism in juvenile salmonids; PCB, which can reduce disease resistance and increase disease-related mortality; and DDT, which lowers fertility and larval survivability. At the Morrison Street Bridge test site, levels of PBDEs in fish samples were on par with concentrations that are known to cause neurological damage in rats, she said, though the impact on salmon is unknown.
Elevated levels of estrogen compounds were also detected in the salmonids, and are likely coming from natural human excretions, as well as elevated levels from women on birth control, said Morace.
Research welcomedCatie Fernandez, director of the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce in Astoria, attended the first day of the conference in Vancouver Monday, and said even though it is still not clear exactly where all the river's contaminants are coming from, she hopes the research will form a foundation for future policy decisions - a key topic of discussion among the conference speakers.
"It is helpful to know what we're dealing with in terms of contaminants in the estuary," said Fernandez, whose organization teams up with agencies on the North Coast to monitor and manage estuarine ecosystems. "Once we understand where they're coming from we can hopefully see some regulatory actions."
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Source: Daily Astorian
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