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Toxic fish Mail Tribune photo / Jim Craven Manager Randy Robart feeds fish at the Cole Rivers Hatchery Friday. A federal study shows high levels of PCBs and DDT in juvenile salmon reared at hatcheries statewide, including Cole Rivers. High levels of PCB, DDT found in salmon raised in hatcheries By MARK FREEMAN Juvenile salmon reared in Southern Oregon's three state fish hatcheries are showing high levels of banned toxic chemicals, casting concerns that their food source is contaminated. A federal study shows levels of PCBs, an industrial lubricant and known carcinogen banned here in the 1970s, and the banned pesticide DDT were found in juvenile chinook salmon at Cole Rivers and Butte Falls hatcheries in Jackson County and at Elk River Hatchery near Port Orford. Scientists also found fluctuating levels of the contaminants in the fishmeal pellets that are fed to hatchery fish, leading to concerns that similar levels could be found in hatchery coho salmon, steelhead and rainbow trout not tested in this study. The chinook samples were taken from juveniles fed and released in 1996 and '97. Many of those same juveniles are returning as large adults this summer and fall to the Rogue, Elk, Coquille, Umpqua and Chetco rivers of southwestern Oregon. Contaminant levels in hatchery fish were far higher than those found in wild juvenile salmon, yet they were not considered high enough to alone be lethal to the infant fish, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which conducted the study. Levels likely would be negligible, or even undetectable, in the returning adults because a 20-pound adult salmon's body mass is composed far more from natural food than a 6-ounce juvenile fish raised solely on the fishmeal diet, a NMFS official said Friday. "The stuff that's in them when they leave (the hatchery), basically, becomes inconsequential when they return," said John Stein, director of the environmental conservation division of NMFS' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. "It has no effect at all, in respect to the health of adult (salmon)," Stein said. The NMFS study did not test hatchery rainbow trout, but the salmon results led state hatchery managers to question whether hatchery trout have similar, or even higher, levels of toxins in them. While Cole Rivers salmon are usually fed for about eight months before they are released, the hatchery rainbows can be fed fishmeal for as long as 21/2 years - potentially making their flesh more tainted with PCBs or DDT than their chinook cousins. The trout are often fed fishmeal pellets from their infancy until just two days before they are stocked into lakes - and occasionally caught and eaten by sport-anglers that very day. "Forty-eight hours before they're in the streams, they've eaten commercial fish food," Cole Rivers Hatchery Manager Randy Robart said. "It's suspect, in my mind. We're certainly very concerned about it, and we want some questions answered, quickly." The PCB-tainted salmon found at the three Southern Oregon hatcheries were fed fishmeal pellets produced by Bio-Oregon Inc., a Warrenton company whose co-owner acknowledged Friday that the products used to make the feed are a likely source of the contaminants. The pellets are made from ground fish carcasses, fishmeal and oils bought locally and from as far away as South America, as well as vegetable proteins and other ingredients, said Bio-Oregon co-owner Bruce Buckmaster. "The next step is to find out what ingredient is bringing the contaminant into the product," Buckmaster said. "There has to be a needle in this haystack, and we need to find it." In the meantime, Robart said he believes the concerns over tainted hatchery fish likely are not strong enough to warrant a temporary halt to stocking of hatchery fish, including the untested trout. "I'm not going to quit eating them, if I catch them," Robart said of the stocked trout. "But I won't eat more of them at one time." NMFS, charged under the Endangered Species Act with protecting threatened salmon such as Southern Oregon's wild coho, began systematically testing hatchery and wild juveniles for contaminants in the mid-1990s, including the Cole Rivers, Butte Falls and Elk River fish in 1996-97. Tissue tests found PCB levels of 5 to 70 parts per billion. Salmon begin to show health impacts with PCB levels of 24 to 72 parts per billion. The Southern Oregon fish had some of the highest PCB levels, testing at more than 50 parts per billion, according to the study's draft summary. DDT levels within the juvenile chinook at Cole Rivers and Butte Falls hatcheries were about 30 parts per billion. Buckmaster said Bio-Oregon did not previously test for contaminants such as PCBs, but currently does some annual screening. He said various fish-food companies worldwide may need to start testing and comparing their ingredients in hopes of isolating the tainted oils or carcasses and possibly rid them from the production process. While PCBs are known to cause cancer and DDT has harmed reproduction in birds such as the peregrine falcon, it was unknown whether the birds or other animals that prey on juvenile salmon are harmed by the contaminants. George Nandor, one of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's statewide hatchery program managers, said that adult salmon - and not just juveniles - need to be tested before making any assumptions about potential health impacts to humans. "It would be more important to test adults," Nandor said, "because that's what people eat." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.