‘Not Sick Yet’ : Anglers Shrug Off Warnings on Toxic Fish

Despite a warning by state health officials that fish caught in Santa Monica and San Pedro bays may be contaminated with dangerous levels of toxins, area fishermen on Friday expressed mostly skepticism about any health threat.

“My family and I eat fish everyday, and we’re not sick yet,” said Samuel Salanga, 80, of Torrance, fishing off the Cabrillo Beach Pier in San Pedro along with about 50 others.

The pier is one of three places where the state Department of Health Services said that any fish caught should not be eaten. The other places to be avoided, the department said Thursday, are the Whites Point sewage outfall near the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Gerald Desmond Bridge in Long Beach Harbor. The department said the levels of DDT and other toxins are highest in fish at those locations.

Salanga, a lifelong fisherman who said he began fishing as a boy in his native Philippines, admitted that the news about the contaminated fish frightened him a bit. But, he said, not enough to stop him from eating his catch.

“I’ve been fishing out in this neighborhood since 1956 to help support the family,” said Salanga, a retired cook.

Fishing is best in the summer and, like many other fishermen he knows, Salanga said he catches enough to stock his freezer and last the family through the winter.

‘Part of My Livelihood’

“I’m a poor man,” he said. “This is part of my livelihood. If I have no money to buy anything else, then what? Do I starve?”

Health services officials stopped short of recommending that all fish caught in the two bays not be eaten. But they urged that consumption, especially by children and pregnant women, be limited and that several precautions be taken in preparing the fish.

However, in the wake of several reports over the past years calling attention to the contamination, the question of why the Department of Health Services released its warning only this week was being debated Friday.

Vince Vandre, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game, said the Southern California Coastal Research Project had data on high concentrations of contaminants in fish as early as 1973 and again in 1981 and 1982. That information, Vandre said, was provided not only to state health authorities, but to local health departments.

“They knew about those things and didn’t issue any warnings,” Vandre said. “But health departments are notoriously--or maybe I should say historically--very reluctant to issue health warnings unless they have absolutely certain evidence that a health danger exists.”

Recent Reports Reviewed

Health services officials said they took their step after reviewing several recent reports showing high concentrations of toxic contamination in marine life in the two bays.

Michael Martin, director of the state mussel watch program for the Department of Fish and Game, said there are strong indications that fish caught near populated areas throughout Southern California coastal waters may have dangerously high levels of DDT and PCBs.

“We have been of the opinion that (the waters off) Santa Barbara to the Mexican border and beyond are strongly influenced by PCB and DDT contamination,” he said.

He said that high levels of those toxics have been found in mussels in the Los Angeles Harbor, Newport Bay and San Diego Harbor.

Martin said it was “appropriate” for the state Health Services Department to have issued its warning. But he said it was based on information that had been available “for quite a while.”

Pleased With Action

“I don’t think the levels (of contamination in fish) have decreased demonstratively,” Martin said. “I don’t know if they have increased. I’m certainly happy to see Health Services has examined the situation and made a recommendation. I guess I feel it’s as rapid as one can expect.”

But at Cabrillo Pier, the mood was much different.

Recalling government warnings during the 1960s against eating mercury-contaminated swordfish caught off the East Coast, Joe LaCanford, a longshoreman who operates the snack shop at the pier, said he did not believe it then and he does not believe the new warning either.

“There ain’t no danger,” he said in a booming voice.

Like other longtime area fishermen, LaCanford, who worked as a commercial fisherman for more than decade, maintains that the area’s marine life is healthier and more abundant than it has been for a decade.

‘It’s Clean Now’

“Ten years ago you didn’t see any moss or seaweed or clams or sea urchins because the harbor was polluted. But it’s clean now,” he said, pointing to clumps of seaweed visible in the water off the pier. LaCanford credited this to stricter government regulations and heightened public environmental awareness.

LaCanford’s wife, Penny, added that even if the area’s fish are contaminated with DDT, as state officials warn, the family plans to continue eating it.

“We’ve polluted everything--fruits, the meat we eat, the air we breathe. I don’t think this is any worse than anything else,” she said.

Several other fishermen, such as retired executive Julius Polsky, who said he spends several days a week at Venice Beach Pier just for the fun of it and seldom eats his catch, also shrugged off the new warning.

“My cat eats the fish,” he said, relaxing in a lawn chair, listening to his portable radio and nibbling pistachio nuts.