State Seeks $1-Million Study : Safety of Consuming Bottom Fish in Doubt

When health officials warned consumers last year about contamination in bottom fish caught from local piers, regulatory agencies began wondering whether the same types of fish caught by commercial fishing vessels might also be tainted.

The state Department of Health Services and federal Food and Drug Administration say there is no need for alarm about eating commercially caught bottom fish.

The Department of Health Services has, however, proposed a $1-million study to answer, for the first time, questions about chemical levels in bottom fish taken from popular commercial and sportfishing areas off Los Angeles.

The main problem, state regulators and area scientists say, is that bottom fish caught commercially are seldom tested for DDT, PCBs and other chemicals. Major studies have focused on fish caught by scientists at the ends of the city and county sewage outfall pipes and on fish caught by sportfishermen.

“There’s a little bit of spot-checking by the FDA to determine commercial problems, but I think most people would be surprised how little,” said Alex Kelter, chief of the Department of Health Services’ environmental health hazards assessments office.

‘Something Pretty Rare’

Ray Nelson, a spokesman for the FDA, said that agency’s sampling program, which tests 60 to 100 fish a year from the Southern California catch of 176,500 tons, is adequate to indicate problems.

“I would not have any qualms about eating the fish found in the markets,” Nelson said. “We’ve had a few samples with DDE (a compound similar to DDT) and things like that, but you are talking about something pretty rare.”

Not everyone agrees with that viewpoint.

“I think the jury is still out on that,” said one official of the state Department of Fish and Game.

“You can’t . . . draw any conclusions from a sample as small as the FDA’s,” said David Brown, a scientist with the Southern California Coastal Research Project, a city- and county-financed study of sewage effects on the ocean.

“There are probably 50 bottom species and dozens of geographical areas out there,” Brown said. “You can’t do a good study with 30 or 40 fish; you are probably talking about thousands of fish to do it.”

The FDA, however, is responsible for testing fish only that are shipped interstate or taken from federal waters. Those tend to include few bottom fish.

The Department of Health Services is responsible for the safety of canned and processed fish, testing mostly for botulism.

Scientific studies show that fish that grub for food near the sewage outfalls take in polluted worms and sediment.

The most highly contaminated fish near the outfalls include white croaker and Dover sole. White croaker caught by commercial fisherman is sold as tom cod or king fish. Studies of fish samples taken near outfalls have revealed pollutants in sable fish, certain rock fish and Pacific sand dabs, according to scientists at the coastal research project. (Sable fish are sold commercially as butterfish.)

According to the Department of Fish and Game, nine tons of white croaker were caught by Southern California commercial fishermen as of October for sale to the public.

“What we’re wondering is, where were these fish caught, what was in them, and who ate them,” Brown said.

Most officials say fish caught commercially probably are far less contaminated than those caught by sport fishermen because the big commercial boats head for open water, away from the outfalls. Commercial fishing is illegal in Santa Monica Bay.

A study by the coastal research project in 1980 found, however, that 70% of the commercial catch came from within a 50-kilometer radius of three sewage outfalls in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“We are concerned that whatever amount comes from within this 50-kilometer area we need to get a handle on,” said Stuart Richardson, chief of the state health department’s food and drug branch, a participant in the proposed $1-million study.

State and federal officials point out that few fish besides white croaker have ever exceeded the federal safety standards for DDT and PCBs.

But even the federal standards have prompted a controversy.

EPA scientists figure the cancer risk involved in eating a particular fish by using estimates of how much of it the average person eats, combined with data on levels of carcinogens in that fish.

Risks Compared

Based on that technique, which is still being developed, scientists at the coastal research project say the cancer risk from eating white croaker can be compared to the cancer risk of sharing a room with a smoker or the daily drinking of one diet drink containing saccharin.

Kelter said the Department of Health Services is steering clear of the risk-assessment method being developed by EPA because it is filled with uncertainty.

“It is so much a statistical exercise,” Kelter said. “These numbers are based on animal experiments in high doses. The real question is, what are the effects on humans at low doses?”

Meanwhile, the FDA’s Nelson said he is less concerned about bottom fish than about Southern California swordfish, a popular restaurant and grocery store item that for years has contained high levels of mercury. (To a lesser extent, he said, shark meat is contaminated with mercury.)

“You think this is common knowledge, but we just had a call from somebody who was eating a half-pound of swordfish four or five days a week,” Nelson said. “They were suffering from classic symptoms of mercury poisoning.”