Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990 TAG: 9006110240
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Since then, catfish afflicted by the same hideous sores have been found in a dozen Pennsylvania ponds and lakes, in the Chesapeake Bay and even in lakes in New York, Virginia and West Virginia. Tests show some of the tumors are cancerous.
Officials and fishermen remain baffled.
"Everybody wants to find out what the story is," said Reading Mayor Warren Haggerty Jr.
Reading has more at stake than many areas. Ontelaunee supplies the city with drinking water.
The problem has been known to federal and state officials since 1984. In 1987, a study was conducted on the tumorous fish, but nothing was released to the public, according to a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Michael L. Kaufmann, a state Fish Commission biologist, said the state had not wanted to "alarm the public unnecessarily."
"If we don't find a problem, we don't announce anything to the public," he said. "The only time we announce to the public is when there is a public outcry over it.
"The public might ask, and rightfully so, why we haven't discussed this in particular. One reason is we didn't notice the tumors in the past like we are seeing them now."
An article about the problem in a sports magazine caused an outcry in Reading last winter, prompting the city to spend $15,000 on a study that will determine if the tumors disappear with the change of seasons. A study to determine the cause of the tumors would cost $400,000, money state and federal officials say they don't have to spend.
"We have tested the water and continue to assure the community that it is safe to drink," DER Regional Director Leon T. Gonshor said in April.
The latest study has helped locate tumorous fish in other lakes.
"We are beginning to believe it is much more widespread than anybody realized," said Cindy Rice, environmental contaminants specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in State College.
She said earlier studies presented several possibilities for the cause of the tumors in Lake Ontelaunee: genetics; chemical carcinogens not yet identified; a virus; and large quantities of copper sulfate used to kill algae in the lake.
Rice said fish tumors can be an "early warning" of environmental contamination. In addition, she said, some of the liver tumors raise suspicion of a carcinogen.
But Eric May, a fish pathologist from the University of Maryland-Baltimore, said he doubted a carcinogen was causing the tumors.
May, who is conducting the study, noted only the brown bullheads seem affected.
"It becomes obvious there is something more unique in the brown bullheads and not in the water," he said. "We are trying to find the common thread that seems to cause it. In my opinion, it's a virus."
But, he's not absolutely certain. And to find out would cost $400,000.
"It would appear because of the public outcry, we probably have to find out 100 percent that we are dealing with a virus," May said. "We should bite the bullet and spend the money."
by CNB