Fishing for Answers in Tainted Bay : Pollution Study Sounds Alarm, but County Should Do So Also

The results of the long-awaited study of San Diego Bay fish are cause for concern for anyone who eats what he or she catches in those troubled waters. Unfortunately, the conclusions also reveal the need to determine if the fish are contaminated by other harmful pollutants--research for which there is no money available.

Also somewhat curious is the county Department of Health Services’ desire to wait for state review before sounding the alarm about the contaminated fish.

The $309,000 county study found potentially harmful levels of mercury and PCBs (a group of chemicals considered a suspected carcinogen) in the 340 fish taken from the bay.

Researchers concluded that it would take 70 years of daily fish consumption to produce health problems. But the danger was enough for Health Services Director J. William Cox to advise people not to eat bay fish every day, and to warn pregnant women not to eat them at all.

Regrettably, the fish received only a limited screening for benzene, toluene and several other chemicals, including toxins such as arsenic, selenium and radionuclides.

Bay fishermen, especially the Asians and Filipinos who eat more bay fish than other ethnic groups and are much more likely to eat organs in which toxic chemicals concentrate, according to the report, need more information about the effects of those pollutants. The first study was costly, and another one is likely to be. But it would be a mistake not to heed the report’s call for more research and a bay monitoring program to test more species of fish for poisons.

Who should pay? Cox says that Port District tenants cannot be held responsible for all the pollutants, but either they or the Port itself are the most available sources of funds. Financially strapped city, county and state governments are unlikely to have the money anytime soon.

The health services department intends to advertise its warnings in local ethnic newspapers, but not until after the state has reviewed the findings. Cox believes that the pollutants are a problem up and down the coast, and deserve a coordinated response. That may be true, but it is no reason to delay warnings to local fish consumers.