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Thursday, April 13, 2000

Title: Fish from Roanoke and Dan rivers contaminated with BDEs Task force investigates tainted fish

Virginia's DEQ will also monitor the river to determine the source of the contamination.

By RON NIXON THE ROANOKE TIMES

The Department of Environmental Quality and several state and federal agencies have formed a task force to investigate recent reports of fish contamination in the Roanoke and Dan rivers, the agency announced Wednesday.

The task force will analyze information about brominated diphenyl ethers, or BDEs, a group of chemicals found in recent fish tissue samples taken from the rivers near Brookneal and South Boston.

BDEs are used as flame retardants.

Included in the task force are the Virginia Department of Health, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The Roanoke River becomes the Staunton River near Brookneal and then flows into North Carolina.

The DEQ plans additional river monitoring and steps to identify possible sources of the pollutants.

The DEQ already was monitoring PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, that were found in fish in the Roanoke River. The agency has also analyzed the fish samples for other chemicals including BDEs, DDT and chlordane.

"We believe it is important for Virginia to have current information on the condition of our rivers," said DEQ director Dennis Treacy.

"We will work closely with the other members of the task force to expand our knowledge of these pollutants, and we will make the results of our investigation available as quickly as possible."

The DEQ has made the results of its monitoring available on its Web site and at public libraries.

The agency began posting data on the Internet after a Joint Legislative and Review Audit Committee report found that it had not adequately informed the public about toxins in the Roanoke River.

The audit agency also found that DEQ had lost data and collected information without any thought to how it would be used.

The audit agency's study was done last year after The Roanoke Times reported that the DEQ had withheld a database with historic toxics data from the public, state scientists, its staffers and the EPA.

The agency later turned over copies of the database to the EPA and provided it to state scientists.

Earlier this year, the General Assembly passed a bill that required officials from the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health to submit reports to the legislature as they develop new policies for determining when water monitoring should occur and when to issue advisories warning against eating fish from polluted waterways.

The bill stated that those reports were due at least one month before the policies were adopted and specified that they be submitted no later than Dec. 1.

Gov. Jim Gilmore amended the bill to remove deadlines for filing the information, but left in the requirement that reports be submitted to the legislative committees. That means legislators would have no guarantee that they would receive a progress report by the end of this year.

The governor's amendment makes it clear that the legislature would not be informed until after the new policies already are in effect.

http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/news/story92069.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), April 13, 2000