DATE: Friday, September 26, 1997            TAG: 9709260971

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY LANE DeGREGORY, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   50 lines

3 STATES' U.S. SENATORS PROPOSE BILL TO PURSUE RESEARCH INTO PFIESTERIA

One day after scientists said they found the first cell of pfiesteria off the Outer Banks, a group of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland senators introduced congressional legislation that could increase federal funds to study the micro-organism that has killed millions of fish.

Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., co-sponsored the Pfiesteria Research Act of 1997, which was introduced Thursday.

The bill authorizes the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate research.

It also paves the way for federal funding for research at state universities - including the Applied Aquatic Ecology Center being established at North Carolina State University. N.C. State scientist JoAnn Burkholder, a leading researcher of pfiesteria, helped discover the microorganism in 1990.

Pfiesteria is a common organism but can take on a toxic form under certain environmental conditions. Scientists believe pollution triggers the transformation.The toxic form of pfiesteria has killed or sickened millions of fish in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland and is suspected of causing health problems among watermen and researchers.

It usually is associated with inland waters. But on Wednesday, a North Carolina water quality expert said a single cell of pfiesteria was found about a mile south of Corolla, in the ocean off the northern Outer Banks. He said swimming and fishing in that area, however, could continue.

``Pfiesteria has become more than North Carolina's problem and, as such, a federal response is needed,'' Faircloth said Thursday. ``The No. 1 need is research into this mystery, what causes it and how we can stop it.''

The federal legislation authorizes Congress to appropriate $1.8 million for the N.C. State center. U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., R-N.C., is planning to introduce the bill into the House within the next few weeks. Then, if it becomes law, the federal funding process would have to approve any appropriation.

``We're trying to get federal monies to study pfiesteria from other bills, too,'' said Sean Callinicos, an environmental attorney who works in Faircloth's Washington, D.C., office. ``It's pretty much a done deal that the EPA's spending bill will include $3 million for pfiesteria research. And there's another $500,000 or so that's still up in the air for NOAA research at the Beaufort, N.C., lab.

``The bill that was introduced today,'' Callinicos said Thursday, ``sends a strong signal that pfiesteria is one of the most deserving research projects out there.'' KEYWORDS: PFIESTERIA

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