Dangers of Eating Seafood From Polluted S.D. Bay to Be Studied

The San Diego Unified Port District on Tuesday agreed to finance a landmark study that for the first time will examine possible health risks posed to people who consume fish and shellfish caught in San Diego Bay.

The Board of Port Commissioners voted unanimously to provide $284,000 for the project, which will be directed by the county’s Department of Environmental Health Services. Pending formal approval by county supervisors, the study could begin by July and will take about 18 months.

“This will allow us to draw meaningful conclusions about the extent and magnitude of the risk to human health posed by contamination of the bay,” said Chris Gonaver, project planner for the county. “Up until this time, we have not had a comprehensive study that looked at the potential danger of consuming fish and shellfish from the bay.”

A spokeswoman for the Environmental Health Coalition, a group that has lobbied vigorously for a cleanup of bay contamination, agreed, calling the study “good news.”

‘Needs to Be Cleaned Up’

“I’m pleased the port commissioners decided to fund it,” Sonya Holmquist said. “But, regardless of the health risks to humans that are discovered, the bay needs to be cleaned up to a point where it can support a good environment for the marine life as well.”

The study will commence with a sampling of fish and shellfish from two sections of the bay--that near Harbor Island, which has been plagued by contaminants such as cancer-causing PCBs, and in South Bay where the Otay River empties. The South Bay area is heavily fished by anglers, among them commercial fishermen who harvest as much as 46,000 pounds of mullet a year.

At the same time those samples are being analyzed for a wide range of chemical contaminants, a survey of fishermen will be conducted to determine the demographics of those who consume fish from the bay and which fish are most popular.

“We want to find out who’s eating fish from the bay, what species of fish they’re consuming and what amounts they’re eating over a year’s time,” Gonaver said. Those fish on the most dinner tables will then be caught in four additional geographic areas of the bay and tested for the presence of a more narrow range of contaminants.

Increase in Interest

Scientists will then use computer modeling to assess the health risks posed by the public’s fish-eating habits. Depending on the findings, the county may recommend limiting consumption of certain fish, that fishing be limited to certain areas of the bay or that fishing be banned outright.

Over the last few years, reports of the presence of heavy metals and other toxic pollutants have spurred an increase in public and official interest in the bay, an 18-square-mile inlet that is the largest of its kind in Southern California.

In 1985, state investigators found unusually high levels of copper in shellfish and sediment in the South Bay and later found Paco Terminals to be the source. A year later, Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical was accused of discharging PCBs into storm drains leading to a lagoon in the bay.

Other problems include the dumping of sewage by recreational boaters and other industrial contaminants that enter the bay in runoff.

Although a series of studies have unveiled chemical contamination in specific areas of the bay, none has examined the health risk to humans such toxics may pose. Because scientific data on the effects of low-level, long-term exposure to chemical contaminants is sparse, Gonaver said, coming up with specific health guidelines may be difficult.

The San Diego study is similar to one under way at Santa Monica Bay, which also has been plagued by contamination problems. Local officials have been assisted by a panel of scientific experts, including representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Fish and Game.

At first, the panel considered studying the health risk posed for divers and other bay users who might encounter contaminants in the water and sediment on the bay floor. The scientists concluded, however, that such activities did not represent significant exposure to the toxics.