Fisheries Management & Legislative Report

June was another month that I spent at least a week on the road. This time it was in Washington DC for National Fishing Week. While in DC I attended the Recreational Fishing and Boating Foundation and ASA Reception, the Congressional Caucus Breakfast and the annual meeting of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. In addition to the meetings, I met with Congressman Saxton and his staff, Congressman Pallone and his staff, Senator Lautenberg’s staff and Senator Menendez’s staff. Those meetings were all very productive. Summer flounder, endocrine disruptors and funding for NMFS stock assessment research were all topics we discussed. At the receptions I met with staff from many Congressional Offices and also commercial and recreational representatives from other national and state-wide organizations. Over the years our presence in Washington DC and the credibility that accompanies the JCAA name has gained us access that is unparalleled in the fishing community. When I am in DC, I am asked to meet with legislators and staff from around the country, not just New Jersey. JCAA collaboration is also sought by many recreational and commercial groups from around the country.

One common realization that occurs in all of these discussions is the lack of credible science used by NMFS in decision making. Just talk with Dr. Eric Powell, Emerson Hasbrouck, Bruce Freeman and Dr. Mark Maunder who attended the summer flounder benchmark meetings. They tell us that there are so many holes in the available data that NMFS is basing their decisions on assumptions rather than on facts. As JCAA has stated for some time, the lack of valid research data is the main problem in developing appropriate management measures. What is truly scary is that NMFS holds out summer flounder as one of the fisheries that has an abundance of research. If this is their "poster boy" species, we are in real trouble everywhere else. This lack of science only proves again that our federal legislators must stop passing unfunded mandates and pay for the necessary science. President Bush and the previous Congress passed the Magnusson Stevens Act without providing the funding to cover the mandates. If you expect to have fisheries management plans and set specific rebuilding timelines, you need to have the appropriate valid data. In my discussions with our legislators and their staffs and with the environmental, recreational and commercial groups, I raise this issue time and time again. We need to hold Congress accountable to adequately fund fisheries research so we have the necessary data to manage each species. I believe the minimum starting point is a 60 million dollar yearly appropriation strictly for data collection. I expect NMFS will be developing management plans for about 60 species nationwide with limited or no data. If NMFS’ decisions on the other 60 species follow the same pattern as summer flounder, we may see many of these species totally shut down. The President and Congress cannot allow this to happen. That’s one of the main reasons I spend so much time for JCAA in Washington DC building the coalitions necessary to deal with funding issues.

JCAA and Garden State Seafood have provided funding to the Partnership for Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Science Inc. to send Dr. Eric Powell, Emerson Hasbrouck, and Bruce Freeman to the meetings for the summer flounder benchmark assessment in Woods Hole. In addition, Dr. Mark Maunder is being paid by SSFFF. They are providing an independent scientific review of the data available. They are uncovering multiple gaps in the data that is used for decision making. Their input is proving invaluable. The upcoming review process is very complex and doesn’t take place in public. We don’t know how the review team appointed by NMFS will choose to evaluate the data and make recommendations to the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. Once the benchmark is completed, which is where the public has an opportunity to make suggestions and recommendations, the review team moves behind closed doors, out of the sight of the people most affected by their decisions, and has total authority to adopt or ignore all the recommendations made during the benchmark assessment. They’ve obviously never heard of the "Sunshine Law" and in the past, have totally ignored the negative impact of their decisions. JCAA’s concerns are specifically about summer flounder but more generally about the arbitrary and secretive nature of the process. We are in the process of developing a set of recommendations to bring to Congress to discuss necessary changes in the process. If we are stuck with the Magnusson/Stevens Act, at least we need for the review process to be more transparent and more responsive to the public.

The other issue frequently discussed when I visit our federal and state legislators are the impact of endocrine disruptors. Because of the work of JCAA, sharing research accumulated from many different studies, we have raised awareness at the state and federal level. The more information we have, the more it becomes obvious that endocrine disruptors, through sewer discharges, are having an impact on fisheries stocks. All we have to do is look at a recent study on winter flounder in Jamaica Bay. Above the sewer plant the male and female populations of winter flounder are roughly equivalent. Below the sewer plant, females outnumber males dramatically and we are finding some fish with both sexes. In the Jamaica Bay study we find female/male at 12 or 13/1. And the males they are studying have female genes as well. We have talked about the small mouth bass in the Potomac River and now Chesapeake Bay where we find some males are laying eggs. By the time you receive your August JCAA Newspaper, there will have been a Congressional Hearing on this issue. I will keep you informed. We are also working on some NJ bills to find a way to keep expired drugs from being flushed into the sewer system. Endocrine disruptors extend well beyond drugs into many products we use every day including personal care items and detergents.

by Al Ristori, Star Ledger, 6/12/2008

The other issue frequently discussed when I visit our federal and state legislators are the impact of endocrine disruptors. Because of the work of JCAA, sharing research accumulated from many different studies, we have raised awareness at the state and federal level. The more information we have, the more it becomes obvious that endocrine disruptors, through sewer discharges, are having an impact on fisheries stocks. All we have to do is look at a recent study on winter flounder in Jamaica Bay. Above the sewer plant the male and female populations of winter flounder are roughly equivalent. Below the sewer plant, females outnumber males dramatically and we are finding some fish with both sexes. In the Jamaica Bay study we find female/male at 12 or 13/1. And the males they are studying have female genes as well. We have talked about the small mouth bass in the Potomac River and now Chesapeake Bay where we find some males are laying eggs. By the time you receive your August JCAA Newspaper, there will have been a Congressional Hearing on this issue. I will keep you informed. We are also working on some NJ bills to find a way to keep expired drugs from being flushed into the sewer system. Endocrine disruptors extend well beyond drugs into many products we use every day including personal care items and detergents.

The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (Association) represents all state fish and wildlife agencies regarding the conservation and management of fish and wildlife resources. Many of the member agencies have statutory management responsibilities for marine fish and the Association has a long history of assisting with the development of marine policy, regulations, and legislation including the recent re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

The Association policy regarding Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) to be considered by NOAA and other Federal and state governmental entities is:

• The Association expects a transparent, data-driven and science-based process for establishing MPA’s. Clearly defined goals, coordination mechanisms, stakeholder input opportunities, and accountability measures are vital in order to obtain support and appreciation for MPA’s from the fishing community. In addition, the Association urges NOAA and USFWS to be strongly guided by input from the eight Fishery Management Councils which already consider MPA’s through their management plan processes when establishing federal MPA’s.

• When MPA’s are being considered, the Association believes that government entities should evaluate opportunities for maintaining sustainably managed fishing opportunities within MPA’s. Low impact harvest strategies, like hook and line trolling, do provide fish stock and habitat protection which significantly reduce the necessity of having MPA’s closed to all fishing. In addition, the Association believes fishery objectives or stock recovery targets should be established, with concomitant monitoring, so regulated fishing can be reinstated in those instances when it was necessary to close fishing at the outset.

• It is a long-standing policy of state and federal governments to allow the use of public lands and waters for purposes consistent with sound conservation. This policy is imbedded in the principles of our state and federal managed lands and should be considered in any decision to implement MPA’s – especially no-take areas.

In summary, due consideration should be given to the economic, societal, and cultural values derived from the Nation’s marine resources during the deliberation on MPA’s. Any final determinations should be science based and developed in an open public process. The Association recognizes the important role of fishing, e.g. the recreational angler, in fisheries conservation as both a data source and a key element in funding state fishery conservation efforts. Providing fishing opportunity maintains the model under which this nation supports marine fishery resource management efforts.

-Approved by the Association Membership on March 28, 2008

from Water & Wastewater News, 2/25/2008

After an exhaustive seven-year research effort, Canadian biologists found that miniscule amounts of estrogen present in municipal wastewater discharges can decimate wild fish populations living downstream.

The research, led by Karen Kidd, Ph.D., a biology professor at the University of New Brunswick (Saint John) and the Canadian Rivers Institute, confirms that synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can wreak havoc on the sex lives of fish. Small amounts of estrogen are excreted naturally by women whether or not they are taking birth control pills.

Male fish exposed to estrogen become feminized, producing egg protein normally synthesized by females. In female fish, estrogen often retards normal sexual maturation, including egg production.

"We've known for some time that estrogen can adversely affect the reproductive health of fish, but ours was the first study to show the long-term impact on the sustainability of wild fish populations," Kidd said "What we demonstrated is that estrogen can wipe out entire populations of small fish -- a key food source for larger fish whose survival could in turn be threatened over the longer term."

Estrogen is part of a broader class of sex-changing chemical compounds known as endocrine disrupting substances. These contaminants, also present in pulp mill effluents, can seriously interfere with normal hormonal processes, notes Kidd.

To better understand the impacts of estrogen on fish, the researchers conducted a seven-year, whole-lake study at the Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario. Over three summers, they added tiny amounts -- low parts per trillion -- of the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills to the lake to recreate concentrations measured in municipal wastewater.

During that period, they observed that chronic exposure to estrogen led to the near extinction of the lake's fathead minnow population as well significant declines in larger fish, such as pearl dace and lake trout." Generally, the smaller the fish, the more vulnerable they are to estrogen," remarks Kidd.

Part of the reason, she adds, is that smaller fish have a shorter lifespan and will often die after reproducing only once.

The researchers used synthetic estrogen because it tends to persist longer in the environment than natural estrogens. Yet the problem with estrogen is not its environmental persistence but rather its persistent discharge in municipal wastewater into surface waters.

Kidd says the risk is greatest for aquatic ecosystems downstream from municipalities that either discharge untreated wastewater or maintain only primary treatment facilities. On the flipside, the problem is of less concern near cities that remove a wide range of chemical contaminants, including estrogens, from wastewater using secondary and tertiary treatment processes.

It is now understood, she says, that removing estrogen through wastewater treatment can reverse the adverse impact of this substance/hormone on wild fish. In fact, three years after halting additions of synthetic estrogen to the experimental lake, the researchers discovered that the fathead minnow population was on the rebound. "To me, that's the good news. Once you take the stressor out the system, we now have ample evidence that suggests affected fish populations will recover."

by Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza And Justin Pritchard, Associated Press Writers

PHILADELPHIA — Just a century ago, this historic city notched by the Delaware and Schuylkill treated these rivers as public sewers, but few cared until the waters ran black with stinking filth that spread cholera and typhoid. Today, municipal drinking water is cleansed of germs — but not drugs.

Traces of 56 human and veterinary pharmaceuticals or their byproducts — like the active ingredients in medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems — have been detected in Philadelphia's drinking water. Starting their winding journey in medicine cabinets and feed bins, they are what's left of drugs excreted or discarded from homes and washed from farms upriver.

Is Philadelphia worried? Not so far. Tens of millions of Americans here and elsewhere drink water that has tested positive for minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals, and they don't even realize it, The Associated Press learned during a five-month investigation.

Though U.S. waterways coast to coast are contaminated with residues of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, there's no national strategy to deal with them — no effective mandates to test, treat, limit or even advise the public.

Benjamin H. Grumbles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator for water, told the AP the agency recognizes that this contamination in water supplies is a growing concern and that government has some catching up to do: "Our position is there needs to be more searching, more analysis."

He said the EPA has launched a four-pronged approach: to identify the extent of the problem, to "identify what we don't know and close the gap," to take steps using existing science and regulatory tools, and finally, to increase dialogue and awareness with water providers and state and local agencies.

But none of those goals has any regulatory firepower.

Some researchers, environmentalists, health professionals, water managers and bureaucrats say it's time for government to do more.

"The onus has been on the scientific community to provide the research, but at this point the evidence is conclusive," says U.S. Geological Survey scientist Steven Goodbred, who has studied carp in drug-tainted waters. "Now it's up to the public and policymakers to decide what they want to do about it."

Yet water regulators are barely budging:

The government has set no national standards for how much of any pharmaceutical is too much in waterways or taps. Drugs in the environment are "not currently a priority" of the National Center for Environmental Health, says spokesman Charles L. Green, at its parent U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Though the Food and Drug Administration can review the environmental impact of new drugs, it has never rejected one on this basis, according to Raanan Bloom, an FDA environmental officer. Most pharmaceuticals are excluded from environmental review on the basis of their presumed low concentrations in water.

Even though residues of many types of prescription and over-the-counter drugs have been discovered in scores of watersheds and drinking water systems nationwide, the EPA says it awaits more survey data before considering action. The agency has little information "that goes into whether these substances are occurring in the environment ... and at what level," says Suzanne Rudzinski, a manager at EPA's Office of Water.

But even when the EPA says it's taking action, little is accomplished. The agency analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for inclusion on a draft list of contaminants to be considered for regulation. Only one, nitroglycerin, which can be used as a drug for heart problems, has been nominated. Asked to explain, an EPA spokesman acknowledged the primary reason for inclusion was its use in making explosives.

Though pharmaceutical sales are rising, plants that cleanse sewage or drinking water are not required to remove drugs. They aren't even required to monitor for them.

When contacted directly by the AP, many water utilities confirmed whether they had tested for the presence of pharmaceuticals in their water. But federal agencies and industry groups declined to identify the cities and treatment plants where traces of pharmaceuticals had been found during independent studies, citing confidentiality concerns.

Philadelphia has found more pharmaceuticals in its source and drinking waters than any of the other 61 big water providers surveyed by the AP. It tested for more drugs and byproducts than other utilities — a total of 72 — and it found 56, or three-quarters of those checked, in its drinking water. It found 63 — almost 90% of those checked — in its source waters. More study is planned.

However, water managers detected scant concentrations similar to other places, suggesting they found so much largely because they tested for a larger list of pharmaceuticals — not necessarily because their watersheds are more contaminated. David A. Katz, a deputy water commissioner for the city, said the water was tested so heavily out of vigilance: "We choose to know; we choose to look."

Under no obligation to tell, Philadelphia keeps it quiet when tests show that drugs have reached its drinking water, the AP found. Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland provided the findings for an AP survey but added: "We don't want to create any perception where people would be alarmed."

John Muldowney, who oversees the city's three drinking water treatment plants, said no immediate upgrades are planned to filter out pharmaceuticals. "Based just on the data that's available now ... we would be risking spending a lot of money, a lot of public funds, for very little health benefit," he explained.

Government leaders seem largely to share that attitude. "We're not really doing anything on this right now," says a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., though he has earmarked funds in the past to study environmental drugs in his state.

Congress held hearings in 2006 on endocrine-disrupting compounds after researchers discovered that the Potomac River, dotted with sewage treatment plants, contains feminized male bass which create egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. But the hearings produced no new proposals.

In Boston, drug makers, state representatives and water managers have been grinding through their third year trying to craft a compromise approach to dealing with the problem on a national scale. Scott Cassel, director of the Product Stewardship Institute, which is hosting the dialogue, says controlling waterborne pharmaceuticals will make the disposal of old computers "seem simple by comparison."

"There's definitely a growing movement and a growing concern, but at this point there isn't a lot of direction from the federal government," adds Susan Frechette, a policy expert at the institute.

Grumbles, the EPA's top water pollution official, said the agency has embarked on four studies specific to the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in wastewater and fish tissue. One "national study," expected to be completed next year, will look at the inflow and outflow at nine sewage plants; another will study sludge from 74 randomly selected sewage treatment plants.

The fish tissue study will focus on five streams where the flow primarily originates at a sewage treatment plant.

Just two months ago the agency developed three new methods to detect and quantify about 160 different pharmaceuticals and personal care products, including steroids and hormones, in wastewater and sewage sludge, Grumbles said.

A year ago, the federal government put out its first consumer guidelines for discarding leftover or expired medicines. The goal was to slow the flow of drugs flushed down the toilet. Though Grumbles acknowledged that human excretions are the major factor in spreading pharmaceuticals through the waste stream, he said it is important for all Americans to realize "the toilet is not a trash can."

But the guidelines immediately drew criticism from some environmentalists, water treatment experts and pharmaceutical researchers who say they are contradictory, confusing, and don't solve the problem.

The guidelines say that about a dozen specific drugs should still be flushed down the toilet to keep others from finding and abusing them. The rest should be mixed with something unsavory like coffee grounds and tossed into the trash. That just moves the problem, though: The drugs end up at landfills, where they can slowly seep into the groundwater.

The EPA is also engaged in a national study — expected to be completed by the end of the summer — to examine how long-term health care facilities and nursing homes dispose of pharmaceuticals.

"We don't really know what to do with waste pharmaceuticals," acknowledges Laura Brannen, executive director of the professional group Hospitals for a Healthy Environment.

The government barely oversees drugs spilled or tossed by hospitals and drug makers. Discharge limits for drug makers concentrate on chemicals used in manufacturing, not the drugs themselves; Virginia Cunningham, an environmental executive at drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC, says the industry spills very little of the drugs that turn up in waterways.

At hospitals, the EPA flags about three dozen specific drugs as hazardous waste. Though their dangers are acknowledged, the rules for special disposal have been casually observed, according to environmental specialists in the industry. They say many hospitals still dump some of those hazardous pharmaceuticals into their other garbage.

Also, the list hasn't been updated for years and ignores scores of troublesome newer drugs, including toxic chemotherapy agents.

"It has not been practical or economical to keep pace with the large number of pharmaceuticals developed, approved ... and marketed each year," explains EPA spokeswoman Roxanne Smith.

And what of the drug waste generated by millions of U.S. households? It's exempt from these rules. The EPA again says it would be impractical to act.

In fairness, even those pressing for action realize that regulators must strike a hard balance between potential benefits and costs. Several recent studies indicate that even very dilute pharmaceuticals can harm human cells, but scientists are still unsure if there's a significant health risk from drinking water with trace drugs.

Environmental standards focus on better-understood contaminants from disease-causing germs to manmade dioxins. The government also is pondering a raft of newly identified water contaminants in many products from cosmetics to vitamins — not just in pharmaceuticals.

The government has tried to narrow the focus of much of its drugs-in-water research to powerful hormones that orchestrate reproduction and development and omnipresent antibiotics that strengthen the very germs in the environment that they're meant to kill in the body.

"This is a complex issue because each and every one of us is a part of this problem. But there's no doubt we need a new standard of wastewater treatment. If the limits were there, believe me when I say it could be done," argues environmental toxicologist Greg Moller, at the University of Idaho.

As with global warming, some cities and states have tried to forge ahead, even without strong federal direction. Small pilot programs and one-day pickups of unused drugs have popped up in the Northeast, California, Washington state, Florida, and elsewhere.

Maine is preparing to accept unwanted pharmaceuticals on a grander scale. The federal and state governments have split the $300,000 cost to launch a four-county trial in coming months. Pharmaceutical buyers will take home prepaid mailers to send drug leftovers to a way station, where most will be picked up for transport to incinerators. Organizers intend eventually to roll out the program statewide.

Drug pollution stirs more anxiety in Europe, Canada and Australia, and officials in those places have acted more aggressively to reclaim unused drugs. A French program recaptured about 6,500 tons at drugstores in 2005, managers estimate. Two-thirds of the French say they participate, according to one poll.

That program is run by Jacques Aumonier, an environmental officer for Cephalon, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based biopharmaceuticals firm. He said pharmaceutical levels in water may be modest now, "but with more and more drug use, it can become more important."

Some researchers and activists want to catch and stop drugs from entering waterways at both types of water treatment plants — those for sewage and for drinking water. Standard techniques allow many to slip through, research shows. It seems possible to remove virtually all detectable pharmaceutical traces with an advanced treatment known as reverse osmosis, and hotter incinerators also could burn more drugs.

But all that is viewed as too expensive and maybe unnecessary, at least until the threat is better understood.

"When there's no regulation or limit, and no evidence of human health impacts, it's very hard to justify putting in energy and money to test for it," said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas. Never mind spending much more to remove it.

Some critics want drug companies to design medicines that break down more easily into safer byproducts. "In the long run ... we can at least make some of the compounds greener," says chemist Klaus Kuemmerer, at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany.

However, that would come "a distant third" after designing drugs for effectiveness and safety, says Cunningham of GlaxoSmithKline.

In coming years, public pressure is likely to grow, as more pharmaceuticals find their way into less water. Drug use is expanding in many countries, and more communities will need to recycle treated wastewater for drinking to cope with increased demand, drought, and global warming.

At the same time, today's chemical tests that reveal pollutants in parts per trillion will no doubt be able to detect even finer levels in the future. The added knowledge may not equal bliss, though.

"There isn't such a thing as 100% pure water," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to sound warnings over pharmaceutical pollution. "Yet people have a tough time with the idea that water contains all kinds of chemicals."

by Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza And Justin Pritchard, Associated Press Writers

LAKE MEAD, Nev. — On this brisk, glittering morning, a flat-bottomed boat glides across the massive reservoir that provides Las Vegas its drinking water. An ominous rumble growls beneath the craft as its two long, electrified claws extend into the depths. Moments later, dozens of stunned fish float to the surface.

Federal scientists scoop them up and transfer them into 50-quart Coleman ice chests for transport to a makeshift lab on the dusty lakeshore. Within the hour, the researchers will club the seven-pound common carps to death, draw their blood, snip out their gonads and pack them in aluminum foil and dry ice.

The specimens will be flown across the country to laboratories where aquatic toxicologists are studying what happens to fish that live in water contaminated with at least 13 different medications — from over-the-counter pain killers to prescription antibiotics and mood stabilizers.

More often than not these days, the laboratory tests bring unwelcome results.

A five-month Associated Press investigation has determined that trace amounts of many of the pharmaceuticals we take to stay healthy are seeping into drinking water supplies, and a growing body of research indicates that this could harm humans.

But people aren't the only ones who consume that water. There is more and more evidence that some animals that live in or drink from streams and lakes are seriously affected.

Pharmaceuticals in the water are being blamed for severe reproductive problems in many types of fish: The endangered razorback sucker and male fathead minnow have been found with lower sperm counts and damaged sperm; some walleyes and male carp have become what are called feminized fish, producing egg yolk proteins typically made only by females.

Meanwhile, female fish have developed male genital organs. Also, there are skewed sex ratios in some aquatic populations, and sexually abnormal bass that produce cells for both sperm and eggs.

There are problems with other wildlife as well: kidney failure in vultures, impaired reproduction in mussels, inhibited growth in algae.

"We have no reason to think that this is a unique situation," says Erik Orsak, an environmental contaminants specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, pulling off rubber gloves splattered with fish blood at Lake Mead. "We find pretty much anywhere we look, these compounds are ubiquitous."

For example: In a broad study still underway, fish collected in waterways near or in Chicago; West Chester, Pa.; Orlando; Dallas; and Phoenix have tested positive for an array of pharmaceuticals — analgesics, antibiotics, antidepressants, antihistamines, anti-hypertension drugs and anti-seizure medications.

That research follows a 2003 study in northern Texas, where every bluegill, black crappie and channel catfish researchers caught living downstream of a wastewater treatment plant tested positive for the active ingredients in two widely used antidepressants — one of the first times the residues of such drugs were detected in wildlife.

In several recent studies of soil fertilized with livestock manure or with the sludge product from wastewater treatment plants, American scientists found earthworms had accumulated those same compounds, while vegetables — including corn, lettuce and potatoes — had absorbed antibiotics. "These results raise potential human health concerns," wrote researchers.

Blood and liver samples of bull sharks in Florida's Caloosahatchee River, a nursery area for juvenile bull sharks and home to six wastewater treatment plants, are being tested for the presence of an array of medications this winter. Of the first ten sharks sampled, nine tested positive for the active ingredient in an antidepressant.

And in Colorado's Boulder Creek, 50 of the 60 white suckers collected downstream of Boulder's wastewater treatment plant were female, compared to about half of them upstream.

Elsewhere in the world — from the icy streams of England to the wild game reserves of South Africa — snails, fish, even antelope, are showing signs of possible pharmaceutical contamination. For example, fish and prawn in China exposed to treated wastewater had shortened life spans, Pacific oysters off the coast of Singapore had inhibited growth, and in Norway, Atlantic salmon exposed to levels of estrogen similar to those found in the North Sea had severe reproductive problems.

More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in surface waters throughout the world.

"It's inescapable," said Sudeep Chandra, an assistant professor at University of Nevada, Reno who studies inland waters and aquatic life. "There's enough global information now to confirm these contaminants are affecting organisms and wildlife."

While some researchers have captured wildlife and tested it for pharmaceuticals, many more have brought wildlife into their laboratories and exposed them to traces of human pharmaceuticals at levels similar to those found in water, aquatic plants and animals.

The results have been troubling.

Freshwater mussels exposed to tiny amounts of an antidepressant's active ingredient released premature larvae, giving the next generation lower odds of survival; in a separate lab study, the antidepressant also stunted reproduction in tiny fresh water mud snails.

When researchers slid hydras — a tiny polyp that under a microscope looks like a slender jellyfish — into water tainted with minute amounts of pharmaceuticals, their mouths, feet and tentacles stopped growing. While the hydras are minuscule, the implications are grave: Chronic exposure to trace levels of commonly found pharmaceuticals can damage a species at the foundation of a food pyramid.

Tiny zooplankton, another sentinel species, died off in the lab when they were exposed to extremely small amounts of a common drug used to treat humans suffering from internal worms and other digesting parasites.

In a landmark, seven-year study published last year, researchers turned an entire pristine Canadian lake into their laboratory, deliberately dripping the active ingredient in birth control pills into the water in amounts similar to those found to have contaminated aquatic life, plants and water in nature.

After just seven weeks, male fathead minnows began producing yolk proteins, their gonads shrank, and their behavior was feminized — they fought less, floating passively. They also stopped reproducing, resulting in "ultimately, a near extinction of this species from the lake," said the scientists.

While the Canadian study was prompted by human intervention, similar die-offs have occurred in the wild.

In Pakistan, the entire population of a common vulture virtually disappeared after the birds began eating carcasses of cows that had been treated with an anti-inflammatory drug. Scientists, in a 2004 study, said they eventually determined that the birds' kidneys were failing.

"The death of those vultures — the fact that you could get a complete collapse of a population due to pharmaceuticals in the environment — that was a powerful thing," said Christian Daughton, an EPA researcher in Las Vegas. "It was a major ecological catastrophe."

In November, at the annual Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry meeting in Milwaukee, 30 new studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment were presented — hormones found in the Chicago River; abnormalities in Japanese zebra fish; ibuprofen, gemfibrozil, triclosan and naproxen in the lower Great Lakes.

Many of those studies refer to the heralded research at Lake Mead. There, on a recent morning, Steven Goodbred struggled to hold a large wriggling carp with both hands. On the outside, the carp looked fine, vibrant and strong, but the U.S. Geological Survey scientist assumed the worst.

"Typically we see low levels of sex steroids, limited testicular function, low sperm count, that kind of thing," he said slipping the fish into a holding tank and closing the lid. "We'll have to wait and see about this fellow."

These carp live, eat, reproduce and die at the mouth of what amounts to a 30-mile-long drainage system that starts within the toilets and sinks of the casinos, hotels and homes of Sin City.

Some 180 million gallons of effluent are discharged into the channel each day from three wastewater treatment plants. The daily sewage discharge is expected to increase to 400 million gallons a day by 2050.

The USGS and U.S Fish and Wildlife Service tracked the channel from its origins, before the inflow from the sewage plants, to where it empties into Las Vegas Bay in the lake. Their findings: The amount of endocrine-disrupting compounds (including hormone treatments and other chemicals affecting reproduction) increased more than 646 times.

Not far from the mouth of the drainage channel — amid the fishing boats and sightseeing tours — water is sucked into a long pipe, destined for a drinking water treatment plant, then Las Vegas — thus beginning the cycle all over again.

Other communities in Nevada, as well as locales in California and Arizona, also draw on Lake Mead.

"Lake Mead is a fortuitous worst-case scenario" for study, said environmental toxicologist Greg Moller, holding a bottle of Lake Mead water he planned to take back to his lab at the University of Idaho. "You've got the wastewater, you've got the documented impact on wildlife, and you have drinking water uptake."

Although more than eight million tourists, including 500,000 anglers, visit the reservoir annually, there are no warnings about the contaminants. No signs. No advisories.

That's not unusual. Scientists have been finding pharmaceuticals in hundreds of other public waterways across the nation and throughout the world — almost always without public fanfare, as documented in the AP investigation.

At the same time, scientists are looking for remedies. In Las Vegas, just off the Strip at the Desert Research Institute, microbial biologist Duane Moser optimistically held a tray of increasingly murky test tubes.

"We put a little bit of estrogen in here, and then we added a particular bacteria, and guess what? The bacteria are consuming the estrogen," he said. Someday, perhaps, scientists will be able to use these special bacteria to clean estrogen out of contaminated water.

"It's early, but it's promising," he said.

National Writer Martha Mendoza reported from Lake Mead, while writers Jeff Donn, based in Boston, and Justin Pritchard, based in Los Angeles, also contributed.