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<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Fish
sex change investigated:CU group establishes treatment plant effluent as
culprit<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2006/dec/10/fish-sex-change-investigatedx1/">http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2006/dec/10/fish-sex-change-investigatedx1/</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>By Boonsri Dickinson and Todd Neff, Camera Staff Writers<br>
Sunday, December 10, 2006 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In 2004,
David Norris reported that fish just below the Boulder Wastewater Treatment Plant's
outflow pipe were changing sex.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Two years
later, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Colorado</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> integrative
physiology professor has expanded his study, which now involves one "Fish
Exposure Mobile" research trailer in operation and a second on the way.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Science
done in the trailer has verified Norris' 2004 study and shown that surprisingly
low concentrations of treatment-plant effluent can change male fish into
females.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The 2004
study showed that certain chemicals from pharmaceuticals and personal-care
products made it through the Boulder Wastewater Treatment Plant and into
Boulder Creek. Ninety percent of the white suckers swimming downstream of the
plant were female. Upstream, there was an even split.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"What
we see in the fish downstream is as if they are taking birth control
pills," Norris said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
female fish — both the transsexuals and the original girls — had
smaller-than-average ovaries. The remaining males produced less sperm, showing
the water effluent also has contraceptive effects, he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
chemicals are believed to come from excreted birth-control hormones, natural
female hormones and detergents flushed down toilets and drains. In the
ecosystem, they are known as endocrine disrupters, settling into cell receptors
intended for hormones and garbling the body's chemical communications.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To
bolster his evidence, in 2005 Norris and colleague Alan Vajda, a CU research
associate, set up the Fish Exposure Mobile in a trailer borrowed from the
Colorado Division of Wildlife. U.S. Geological Survey scientists Larry Barber
and James Gray also are working with Norris' team, and the city of <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Boulder</st1:place></st1:City>'s cooperation
also has been vital, the scientists say.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
consider the city an equal partner," Barber said. "Without their cooperation
and encouragement to do good science and answer questions regardless of
implications, it wouldn't have happened."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Where
Norris and Vajda are what Barber called "world-class
endocrinologists," Barber and Gray are chemists who have advanced detection
techniques to the point they can spot human estrogen in concentrations as low
as 0.2 parts per trillion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>They
needed such exactitude because human estrogen, or 17 beta estradiol, affects
fish at concentrations as low as one part per trillion — the equivalent
of a pinch of salt in an Olympic pool, Norris said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Barber
said volumes of human estrogen in the pure treatment-plant effluent range from
one part per trillion to about 10 parts per trillion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Fish
Exposure Mobile, parked next to the creek on sewage treatment plant property,
pulls water directly from the plant's outflow pipe and can dilute it using
precise volumes of upstream Boulder Creek water.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fathead
minnows swim in two identical tanks inside, each 200 gallons. One fills with
upstream creek water; the other with varying degrees of wastewater plant
effluent. Such control lets researchers see how fish react to varying effluent
concentrations.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>They
aimed to create a controlled experiment and confirm if estrogen and other
compounds from the treatment plant were responsible for the fish sex change.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
males were feminized in seven days," Norris said. "You don't need a
Ph.D. to sex them."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The males
have bumps on the forehead and often attack each other. The fish exposed to the
effluent water lost their bumps and acted like girls. It confirmed effluent to
be the culprit.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The Fish
Exposure Mobile's ability to control effluent concentrations is providing new
insights.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Diluting
the treatment plant's effluent 50 percent feminized breeding male fish in a week
to 15 days, Norris said. Some of the effects remained evident even when the
wastewater plant effluent was diluted 75 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We
were excited to get these results, but at the same time we're a little bit
appalled at what we've seen," Norris said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Norris
said CU and USGS researchers are converting a second trailer donated by the
state health department. They hope to have it ready by next spring.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fish
Exposure Mobile II will travel to different sewage-treatment plants, starting
in Vail and later in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Grand Junction</st1:place></st1:City>.
The researchers suspect they will find similar chemistry in treatment-plant
effluent elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Sheila
Murphy, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in <st1:City w:st="on">Boulder</st1:City>,
said the Fish Exposure Mobile work has been important to counter skeptics who
attribute transsexual fish in the <st1:place w:st="on">Potomac River</st1:place>
and other waterways to temperature changes or other environmental influences.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"What
it's showing is that it's indeed from the wastewater plant," Murphy said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><em><i><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Contact
Camera Staff Writer Todd Neff at (303) 473-1327 or nefft@dailycamera.com.</span></font></i></em>
<o:p></o:p></p>
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