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The
Toledo Blade
www.toledoblade.com
Toxins
retain grip on Ottawa River
By Tom
Henry
August 3, 2000
Don't
expect the fish-consumption advisory for the Ottawa River
to be lifted anytime soon.
Forty-three
of 47 fish taken out of the river last summer by Ohio Environmental
Protection Agency biologists had cancer-causing polychlorinated
biphenyls, or PCBs, in their tissue. The four fish that
weren't contaminated were caught at the most upstream sampling
location, near the University of Toledo, where the river
isn't nearly as polluted as in North Toledo.
The
findings are part of a report the Ohio EPA's central office
in Columbus sent to the Ohio Department of Health.
The
state health department will spend the rest of the year
analyzing each report it receives about waterways. It will
use the reports to decide whether to amend fish-consumption
advisories in early 2001, said Randy Hertzer, a state health
department spokesman.
But
given the Ottawa's legacy of industrial pollution - coupled
with the most recent test results - there's little chance
the river's fish consumption advisory will be lifted, Mr.
Hertzer said.
A fish
consumption advisory and a skin contact advisory have been
in effect for the lower 19 miles of the Ottawa since 1991.
The
study serves as a reminder just how persistent PCBs and
other toxic chemicals can be once they're embedded in sediment,
officials said.
PCBs,
industrial solvents used for more than 50 years, were banned
in the 1970s after scientists linked them to cancer. Much
of what is in the Ottawa likely has been there for years,
officials have said. "This is not unique to Toledo,"
Mr. Hertzer said. "[PCBs] aren't water-soluble and
don't tend to leave the environment easily."
Heather
Lauer, Ohio EPA spokeswoman, said the findings come as no
surprise.
"The
numbers pretty much stayed the same," Ms. Lauer said.
"We can't say that PCBs are getting any better in the
fish tissue, and I certainly wouldn't eat anything that
came out of that river right there [in North Toledo]."
Millions
of dollars have been spent to install caps over the Ottawa's
old waterfront landfills - especially those between the
Stickney Avenue and Lagrange Street bridges, where pollution
is believed to be the worst.
Each
major containment effort has been heralded as a cause for
celebration, drawing state and federal officials as far
away as Columbus and Chicago.
The
next such gathering is planned for late September, when
the cap over the Dura Avenue landfill is expected to be
completed, Ms. Lauer said.
But
officials agree it could take years to see a dramatic improvement.
The Ohio EPA report noted there "does appear to be
a downward trend in the extremely high PCB values"
in the worst part of the river, but conceded that there
is limited data from previous years to make significant
comparisons.
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