Fish Taken Near 20 Paper Mills Tied to Cancer Risk

The Environmental Protection Agency urged consumers Monday to avoid eating fish caught near 20 paper mills, including two in California, because of the cancer risk resulting from high levels of dioxin in the water.

A regular diet of fish taken from waters near the worst of the plants, an International Paper Co. facility near Georgetown, S.C., would give a person a one in 50 chance of getting cancer, the EPA calculated.

The state Department of Health Services in Sacramento responded to the EPA study Monday by issuing a health advisory for fish and shellfish taken from waters near pulp mills in California. There are four pulp mills in the state, although only two of them made EPA’s list of the 20 worst polluters.

The EPA results were based on tests of fish taken from the most polluted waters near the discharge pipes of the paper mills. The scientists then calculated the potential health threat on the basis of a consumer eating at least two quarter-pound portions of such fish a month.

“This was designed to be a worst case scenario,” said Sean McElheny, an EPA spokesman.

For the waters near the “20 worst plants,” regular consumption of the dioxin-contaminated fish would result in one additional cancer per 10,000 consumers, according to the report’s statistical projections.

The two California plants on the list are the Simpson Paper Co. plant in Anderson on the Sacramento River about 60 miles north of the state capital and the Simpson plant in Fairhaven on the Northern California coast.

In addition to the two cited by EPA, the state advisory covered the Louisiana-Pacific plant in Samoa near Eureka, also on the northern coast, and the Gaylord Container Corp. plant in Antioch in the upper Delta area of the San Francisco Bay.

“This advisory is really directed at sports fishermen or persons who routinely take fish caught near one of these plants,” said Steven Book, chief of the health hazard assessment division of the Department of Health Services.

Consumers who buy seafood or shell fish at a supermarket or fish market are unlikely to be exposed to significant amounts of dioxin, Book said. Because these commercially bought fish “come from a variety of locations,” a consumer could expect to get a “very limited, probably insignificant exposure” to dioxin over a lifetime, he said.

The EPA study also noted that some fish, such as catfish, suckers or squawfish, may pose a greater risk because they tend to remain in the same location, including possibly the waters near a paper plant. But migratory fish, such as salmon, do not pose the same risk because they would not stay in the dioxin-contaminated waters.

It was not until the mid-1980s that the EPA concluded that paper and pulp mills, using a chlorine bleaching process, were a source of dioxin found in fish. Since then, federal officials have been studying the potential risk to humans and wildlife, while also pressing the plants to reduce their discharges of dioxin-contaminated water.

In 1988, EPA officials took fish from waters near 104 paper or pulp plants.

On Monday the agency said that--based on tests of these fish--people who regularly eat the fish taken near five plants in the Southeastern United States face a high risk of liver damage, as well as cancer. In addition to the Georgetown, S.C., plant, they are the Union Camp Corp. plant in Franklin, Va.; the Buckeye Cellulose plant in Perry, Fla.; the Weyerhauser Co. plant in Plymouth, N.C., and the Westvaco Corp. plant in Covington, Va.