Fish advisory issued for east metro lakes

[rchaze60]

 
ST. PAUL (AP) - The Minnesota Department of Health is warning people to limit the amount of fish they eat from several lakes in the eastern Twin Cities area where tests have shown the fish contain a chemical once manufactured by 3M.

The new fish advisories were issued Thursday for Como and a chain of lakes including Phalen, Gervais, Gervais Mill Pond, Round, Keller, Kohlman and Spoon in Ramsey County and for Demontreville, Olson, Lake Elmo and Ravine lakes in Washington County.

The chemical levels don't likely pose a health risk for swimmers, health officials said.

The new advice is based on analysis of fish sampling that is part of a broader ongoing study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency of perfluorochemical contamination in Minnesota fish, surface and ground waters, soil and air.

The sampling was begun after chemical perfluorooctane sulfonate was found earlier this year in bluegills taken from Lake Calhoun in south Minneapolis. About 30 lakes in the metro area were chosen for sampling to see if the Calhoun findings were unusual. So far, data analysis has been completed on fish fillets from 10 lakes, the health department and the MPCA said in a joint news release.

Results from the other lakes will become available over the next two to three months, the agencies said.

While the source of the PFOS in urban lakes hasn't been determined, health officials said it's possible the elevated levels in fish from Lake Elmo are related to the nearby 3M waste disposal sites, which are known to have affected ground water in the east Twin Cities metro area.

3M spokesman Bill Nelson said more data are needed before that determination can be made.

In some studies, the PFOS has been shown to cause cancer, liver and thyroid problems in animals, but no adverse health effects have been found in humans.

The fish advisories are based on potential risks from years of consumption. Health officials said there have been no reports of people getting sick after eating fish containing PFOS.

"As we get more fish from more lakes, we're hoping to see some patterns and track down the causes," said Paul Hoff, who's supervising the study. "We want to find the source and cut it off."

3M's Nelson said the recent findings of elevated chemical levels in the metro lakes supports the company's decision to phase out the manufacture of PFOS. 3M began manufacturing the chemical in the 1950s and stopped in 2002.

 

[holdemtwice]

 please date this release randy !!!   i know some of the other lakes tested  have come in ......

[rchaze60]

this came out as of yesterday  it was on KTSP yesterday

[holdemtwice]

 thanx  bro !!!

[Realtree]

I'm pretty sure this is also linked to the ground water warnings that I posted a few months back based on 3M chemicals seeping into the ground water supplies in the E Metro over near Spinach's next of the woods. I looked back through some of the archived threads but could not locate it as of yet but I will keep looking. Spinach mentioned at that time I believe that they have been warning area residents about not drinking any (or maybe just any unfiltered) tap water in his area of the metro.

Anyone with more specific info feel free to correct or update me if I am thinking of something totally different. 

[rchaze60]

hey bro this is something new that just came out yesterday

[Realtree]

The new advice is based on analysis of fish sampling that is part of a broader ongoing study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency of perfluorochemical contamination in Minnesota fish, surface and ground waters, soil and air.

While the source of the PFOS in urban lakes hasn't been determined, health officials said it's possible the elevated levels in fish from Lake Elmo are related to the nearby 3M waste disposal sites, which are known to have affected ground water in the east Twin Cities metro area.

It sounds like it probably is Randy, and is just spreading out further and affecting the lakes and fish population now in addition to the ground water issue. I am looking for more info on this to see if I can find info on more specific findings for lake and fish contamination levels in the area to share. I know we have alot of members and staff that fish the E Metro area. I'll post anything that I find.

Thanks for the heads up on this Randy, this could be a serious health issue I would assume for anyone consuming large quantities of contaminated fish over an extended period of time. I know the article says it has had effects on animals but no known effects on humans, it is still pretty early in the process for human medical issues to be totally ruled out. Everyone please stay up to date on this issue for you, your families and your pets safe health. 

[Realtree]

I found this article, which sheds a little more light on some aspects of this issue. I hope this helps everyone to get a better understanding of the current situation effecting the fish in this area.    Outdoors Realtree



PFOS present in fish in east metro lakes
by Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio
August 16, 2007

New fish consumption advisories have been added to 12 east metro lakes after pollution officials discovered elevated levels of the perfluorinated chemical PFOS in several fish species. The new fish guidelines follow a similar advisory posted this spring for a Minneapolis lake. In April, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency revealed that it had found high levels of PFOS in Lake Calhoun.

St. Paul, Minn. ? When the MPCA discovered PFOS in Lake Calhoun's bluegills the agency wondered if it was an isolated incident or if it represented more widespread PFC contamination. Agency staff quickly expanded their fish sampling - adding 30 lakes to their testing program. They also sampled more fish species including black crappies, largemouth bass and where they could find them, northern pike.

Paul Hoff, who supervises the unit that conducted the sampling, says the new findings have answered that initial question and they have raised others.

"I think what we can say here is the answer is that Calhoun is not alone in having some elevated levels of PFOS. But it's not also typical. We found a range of concentrations out of these first 10 lakes," he said

For example fish from three lakes - Bald Eagle, White Bear and Square Lake - had such low levels of PFOS that they didn't trigger a consumption advisory. But the black crappies and large mouth bass sampled from Lake Elmo far exceeded the levels of PFOS found in Lake Calhoun bluegills. 

In the case of Lake Elmo, Hoff says it's located near 3M's former disposal site in Oakdale. 3M was the sole manufacturer of PFOS until 2002. The company stopped making the compound after discovering that it had distributed widely throughout the environment.

The Ramsey County lakes covered by the advisory are Como, Phalen, Gervais, Gervais Mill Pond, Round, Keller, Kohlman and Spoon. Besides Lake Elmo, the Washington County lakes affected are Olson, Ravine and Demontreville.

Hoff says most of these other lakes are not near known disposal sites. He says since PFOS was used in more than a dozen stain and water resistant products, it's likely that the chemical is still being used in manufacturing, commercial applications and agriculture.

"We do think that storm water conveyance systems, storm sewers and runoff in the surrounding watershed have something to do it. But a lot depends on the land use and what sort of activity takes place within those watersheds," he says.

But Hoff says he's not ready to rule anything out, including the possibility that the chemical has drifted down to the lakes from atmospheric emissions. People should not stop eating fish from metro lakes because of these latest tests, according to Pat McCann, with the Minnesota Department of Health. McCann says the guidelines are based on the assumption that people consume fish over a lifetime. Because PFOS affects different parts of the body than other chemicals like mercury, there is no evidence that it is more harmful in combination with those chemicals, she says.

"For example PFOS, it has an effect on the hormone levels, thyroid hormone levels or on cholesterol. Whereas mercury is a nervous system toxin, it affects your nervous system. And so those two chemicals react very differently in your body and they don't affect the same systems. So you wouldn't think that they would act in an additive kind of way."

The fish consumption advisories for the 12 east metro lakes range from one meal per week to one meal per month depending on the lake and the fish species. In general the advisory recommends only one meal a week for bluegills, black crappies and other sunfish and one meal per month for large mouth bass. But the guidelines are more restrictive for Lake Elmo where the PFOS concentrations are higher.

[Realtree]

PFC's prompt fish advisories in Lake Calhoun and Mississippi River
by Lorna Benson, Minnesota Public Radio
April 16, 2007

Public health officials have issued new fish consumption advisories after finding elevated levels of a perfluorinated chemical once used by 3M in bluegills from a Minneapolis lake and in Mississippi River fish as far south as Winona.

The chemical, called PFOS, is part of a family of compounds 3M once used to make water- and stain-resistant products including Scotchgard. Studies have shown that high doses of PFOS can be toxic to lab animals. It's not clear yet what exposure to the chemicals means for human health.

St. Paul, Minn. ? The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was expecting to find PFCs in Mississippi River fish. For decades 3M's production plant in Cottage Grove discharged thousands of pounds of the chemicals into the river. The plant still releases PFCs, although the amounts have diminished greatly in recent years.

A previous MPCA fish study conducted in 2005 was the first to show that several species of river fish had PFCs in their tissue. This latest round of testing, conducted on dozens of additional fish, simply confirms those results and expands the list of affected species to include walleye, northern pike, largemouth bass and carp.

But the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was not expecting to find high levels of PFCs in Lake Calhoun, located in the heart of Minneapolis's Uptown neighborhood.

"I think we were all surprised and are very concerned about it. We didn't expect to see levels like this so far away from the known disposal areas and manufacturing areas," said Paul Hoff, who supervises the MPCA unit that conducted the sampling.


Hoff's group collected five white suckers and five bluegills from Lake Calhoun. All of them revealed some level of PFCs. But the bluegills had the most. The average level of PFOS among the five fish was 319 parts per billion. That was enough to prompt the Minnesota Department of Health to issue a new fish advisory recommending no more than one meal of bluegills per month from Lake Calhoun.

"The levels that we see here are even higher than downstream from the 3M plant, would indicate there's some other source to me," according to Hoff. "But again we're real early in our investigation on that and I have a number of different angles to track down to try and find out why it's showing up there at Calhoun."

One of those angles is whether the chemicals are coming from a disposal area somewhere in the Minneapolis watershed.

Another possibility is homes or businesses. Besides 3M's Scotchgard-brand spray, there are at least a dozen other known products that contained PFOS including firefighting foam.

In addition to the hunt for the source, MPCA officials also want to find out why the chemicals seem to accumulate in bluegills more than most other species of fish tested so far.

"There's obviously something going on with the bluegill that we don't understand with the accumulation of these chemicals," said University of Minnesota researcher Matt Simcik. His 2004 water samples from Lake Calhoun were the first to detect PFOS in the lake. His findings prompted the MPCA to sample the lake's fish last year.

Simcik's samples showed levels of PFOS between 20 to 30 parts per trillion in the water. He says that should have translated to roughly 20 to 30 parts per billion in the tissue of any exposed fish -- not 300 parts per billion.

"It seems like perfluorochemicals keep doing this to us at every turn. Once we think we've got them understood they tend to behave differently than we expect them to," he said.

Besides the Lake Calhoun fish consumption advisory, the Minnesota Department of Health has revised some of its recommendations for fish in the Mississippi River. Advisories now extend from the Twin Cities all the way to Winona. The new guidelines can be found on the agency's Web site.

Environmental health researcher Pat McCann says her agency is also making a special effort to get the word out to some groups who may fish in these areas more frequently and thus have potentially higher levels of exposure.

"There's a Hmong radio station and a Vietnamese radio station. So we're getting messages put on those radio stations and I think Lao and Cambodian as well," McCann said.

In the next month the Health Department, along with the MPCA and the DNR will test more metro area fish for PFCs. They plan to sample fish in Lake Minnetonka, White Bear Lake, Bald Eagle Lake, Hiawatha, Nokomis and the Lake Phalen and Lake Elmo chains.

3M wouldn't comment on the MPCA's fish study. A spokesman says the company wants to examine the data first.