NOTICES
To Fish or Not to Fish? Think Twice
New warnings caution anglers of Willamette River health risks
by Ben Jacklet of The Tribune in Portland, Ore. (reprinted with permission; originally published June 15, 2004)
Some Portlanders would no sooner
fish their dinner from the Willamette
River than they would hunt for wild
game in Forest Park.
Others, like Terry Gallant and Mike
Klopfenstein, have been fishing the
Willamette for years and have no plans
to stop now that summer’s returning.
So how safe is the Willamette for
fishing?
It depends on what you’re catching.
The latest data shows that migratory
fish like spring Chinook salmon are as
clean as fish get, while resident fish
such as small-mouthed bass are often
dangerously loaded with polychlo
rinated biphenyls, toxic pesticides,
dioxin, and other contaminants.
As for sturgeon, the ancient fish that
Gallant and Klopfenstein were pursuing
on a recent morning on the Willamette,
new tests show that they also contain some
toxins, though at much lower levels
than bass, carp, and other resident fish.
State and county health officials are
issuing an updated fish advisory this
week and posting new signs along the
river warning of the health risks of
eating fish caught in the Willamette.
The latest data show that carp contain
the most PCBs, at around 2 parts per
million, while bass have about 1 part
per million and bullhead catfish contain
approximately 0.5 parts per million.
Based on those levels of PCBs,
scientists are recommending that
women beyond childbearing age and
healthy men should eat no more than
8 ounces of resident fish from the
Willamette per month. Women of child
bearing age, children, and anyone with
a weak immune system or thyroid or
liver problems should avoid eating any
carp, bass, or catfish from the Willamette,
according to the health advisory.
The new warnings follow a massive
fish collection effort performed two
years ago. As part of the Portland harbor
Superfund investigation, scientists
caught about 1,500 fish from the lower
Willamette and sent them off to labs to
be tested for 399 chemicals.
The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency still has not released the results
from those tests publicly. But David
Stone, a toxicologist with the state’s
health department, confirmed that the
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□
fish advisory and the new batch of
warning signs were a direct result of the
Superfund investigation.
“We already knew (the pollutants)
were in the river sediment, but I think
some people are surprised at how much
turned up in the fish,” Stone said.
The study was funded by the Lower
Willamette Group, which consists of
the Port of Portland, the city, and harbor
businesses that could end up on the
hook for a river cleanup running $200
million or more.
The study is expected to provide
important information about the river’s
fish and the health risks they pose. It
also could end up costing the businesses
that funded it big bucks.
That’s because the more polluted
the fish in the harbor turn out to be,
the more cleanup ultimately will be
addition to bass, catfish, and carp, the
study tested suckers, sculpin, and
juvenile Chinook salmon for hundreds
of chemicals.
The Lower Willamette Group only
agreed to collect resident fish and
juvenile fish for their study because
migratory species such as sturgeon,
salmon, and lampreys move around so
much that it would be impossible to deter
mine where they ingested any pollutants
that might be found in their tissue.
After several public interest groups
and Indian tribes argued that migratory
species also should be studied, state
researchers decided to fill that data gap,
taking samples last summer.
Stone said salmon came up “very
clean,” while sturgeon were “variable.”
The state researchers studied five
sturgeon just under the limit of 42
... migratory fish ... are as clean as fish get, while
resident fish ... are often dangerously loaded with
polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic pesticides, dioxin...
required, potentially translating into
greater liability for industrial
powerhouses identified by the EPA as
“potentially responsible parties,”
including Oregon Steel Mills Inc.,
Gunderson Inc., and NW Natural.
Fish Data Long Awaited
The lower Willamette’s woes are
well-documented. The harbor was
designated a Superfund site in
December 2000 after scientists found
tar, DDT, creosote, PCBs, and dioxin
in the sediment at the bottom of the
river. Frequent advisories from the
Portland Bureau of Environmental
Services also warn of raw sewage over
flowing into the river during heavy rains.
But information about how the river
pollution affects fish and the people
who eat them has been surprisingly
limited. The first study came in 2000,
when The Oregonian newspaper
teamed up with scientists at Oregon
State University to document that fish
from the lower river contain several
toxins, most notably PCBs.
The Lower Willamette Group’s
study builds on those findings. In
Siletz News ■ □ ■ August 2004
inches, and while the levels of PCBs
they found were far lower than in bass
and carp, they were worth noting, Stone
said, particularly since PCBs build up
in a fish’s fatty tissue over time.
“These fish we tested were on the
smaller side,” Stone said. “With a larger
fish, you would expect that they would
have accumulated more (toxins).”
Lampreys, the eel-like fish that are
harvested near Willamette Falls by tribal
fishermen, showed far less contamina
tion than in previous studies, Stone said.
Who’s at Risk?
Questions remain about who fishes
the river, where and when, and for
which species.
Travis Williams, executive director
of Willamette Riverkeeper, is trying to
answer those questions this summer.
His group is conducting a fish
consumption survey funded by a
$50,000 grant from the Spirit Mountain
Community Fund.
On a recent afternoon, Williams
steered his jet boat into the Willamette
backwaters near the Swan Island boat
ramp.
Floating trash and discolored water
around a nearby outfall pipe didn’t stop
several people in lawn chairs from
casting for panfish.
“My son’s a big-time fisherman,”
Clarence Dorn said. “He talked me into
giving it a try here. ... Whatever he
brings home, we eat. I got a grand
daughter who just loves it. Put a plate
in front of her, she gobbles it up.”
Further down the bank, in the shade
of the massive Freightliner wind tunnel,
two men were fishing for bait to use for
sturgeon fishing in the Willamette. George
Gonzales said he wasn't sure what the
health risks were in eating sturgeon.
“I know they move around a lot,”
he said. “I also know they live a long time.
But yeah, I don’t know about PCBs.”
Williams said his goal is to
determine who fishes the Portland river,
how often, where and when, and how
much of their catch they eat.
“Over the years there have been
different things said about who is
actually out there catching fish and
consuming fish,” Williams said. “We
can go by generalities and anecdotal
evidence, as we have been for years, or
we can go out there and talk to the
people on the river on a very regimented
basis to find out what they’re doing.
“Those are the folks and the species
of fish that we really need to end up factor
ing into our cleanup of Portland harbor.”
Lyudmila Blashchishena of
Russian Oregon Social Services has
warned people from Portland’s Russian
community about the dangers of fish
caught in the Willamette as part of a
different outreach project.
“But many of them still fish the
river and still eat the fish,” she said.
“They give the fish as gifts or some
times sell them.”
Blashchishena said immigrants are
often less aware of environmental health
dangers and thus more vulnerable.
“In the Soviet Union you never
heard this sort of thing,” she said. “No
one told us anything.”
People who want to learn more about
the hazards of fishing the Willamette River
can attend a public meeting scheduled
for 6:30 p.m. June 29 at the St. Johns
Community Center, 8427 N. Central St.