The Allegheny River Stewardship Project: A Call For Volunteers

by Conrad Daniel Volz, DrPH, MPH

Project Background, Results of Previous Research

The fish in our waterways are like canaries in the coal mines. Just as canaries are sensors for air quality, fish are sensors for water quality. Our river fish can anticipate the consequences of human exposure to environmental carcinogens, endocrine-active substances and metal, metalloid and elemental toxins. An initial study, the Pittsburgh Fish Consumption Study of 2005-07, showed results that indicate that extracts from the flesh and fat of catfish and white bass from the more contaminated Pittsburgh Pool surrounding the City of Pittsburgh proliferated the growth of estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer cells (MCF-7). These breast cancer cells multiply when exposed to human estrogen or to compounds that mimic estrogens (xenoestrogens.) When these same fish extracts were added to BT-20 breast cancer cells, which are estrogen receptor negative, no cell multiplication was observed. This led the research team to conclude that xenoestrogens produced by pharmaceutical wastes or chemicals found in our detergents and personal care products were bioaccumulating in the fish because of liquid wastes (effluents) from wastewater treat plants and sewer overflows.

Also surprisingly, significantly higher levels of the toxic elements-mercury, arsenic, and selenium-were found in channel catfish caught upstream on the Allegheny River at Kittanning than in those caught in the Pittsburgh Pool near former steel factories. The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water Act human health Ambient Water Quality Criterion for methylmercury is based on levels in fish tissue. Twenty-three percent of samples from Kittanning had mercury levels above the EPA human health standard of .3ppm. There are numerous coal burning power plants located on our rivers both above and below Kittanning, PA, and power plant emissions are a major source of mercury, selenium and arsenic that are found in our waterways.

What is the Allegheny River Stewardship Project?

The Allegheny River Stewardship Project is an effort by leading researchers at CEO-UPCI and the Graduate School of Public Health working with concerned citizens of the Alle-Kiski Valley river communities, to determine the specific sources and types of river pollutants. This is accomplished by monitoring the levels of pharmaceutical estrogens, xenoestrogens and heavy metals in the fish living in the river and are also present in wastewater, river water and river sediment.

What are the goals of the Allegheny River Stewardship Project?

The goals of the Allegheny River Stewardship Project are to:

• Engage river community members to become involved in the stewardship of the Allegheny River;
• Understand the concentrations of contaminants in river fish species, especially those that people eat;
• Associate contaminants in fish with potential pollution sources;
• Identify human exposures to these contaminants;
• Understand the risks to human health and the environment from these contaminants and pollution sources;
• Obtain and share data with policy- makers so that an action plan may be made to solve the identified problems, and;
• Form strategic partnerships with stakeholder groups along the Allegheny River to help ensure ongoing stewardship activities.

What are the expected outcomes of the Allegheny River Stewardship Project?

• To engage river community members, anglers, recreational boaters and the general public (who generally obtain their drinking water from our rivers) in the planning, execution and data analysis portions of the projects. Specifically, this project will teach both interested adult and teenage community members the procedures associated with the catch and measurement, geographic positioning, gender identification, dissection, analysis and interpretation of results of the fish study;
• To understand the different concentrations of contaminants, which are of significance to public health, and which are carcinogenic (able to cause cancer), estrogenic or toxic and have accumulated in the fish species along major sections of the Allegheny River;
• To correlate the concentrations of contaminants in fish with proximity to the liquid wastes (effluents) from industrial facilities, power plants fallout or fly ash pile leeching into the waters, municipal sewer overflows, former industrial waste sites and/ or areas of environmental degradation
• To identify human exposures to the contaminants found in fish either through drinking water and/or eating the fish;
• To understand the risk posed to human or ecological health from these levels of contaminants in fish;
• To obtain data, evidence, and other information that can inform policymakers in preparing for a regional approach to water management;
• To form strategic partnerships with the CEO-UPCI, GSPH, RiverQuest, Venture Outdoors, The Rachel Carson Homestead, the Alle-Kiski Health Foundation, and the Heinz Endowments, in order to galvanize the river communities, groups, schools, and individuals to become stewards of the river;
• To raise awareness in this area of the importance of the river to the public's health and well being, not only in the sense of drinking water or fish consumption but for aesthetic, cultural, historical and recreational values;

Lessons learned from the project will be transformed into long-term community environmental and specific water quality goals, so that the footprint of the project widens and deepens with the passage of time.

What is the duration of the Allegheny River Stewardship Project?

Community meetings, focus groups, and surveys to determine priority locations for actual river sampling are now being held and planned. Actual river fishing and water-and-sediment-sampling will occur at numerous locations on the Allegheny River on weekends from May through early June of 2008. Analysis of samples and report preparation will continue through the late fall of 2008. The project is expected to last until Spring 2009, when researchers will hold a series of community meetings on outcomes of the sampling results. At that time, strategy for community action to solve identified priority problems will be determined.