Document 66YZvZ6bOL5z88LOdXxZdB99
sandy creek, n. y. NEWS
W. 2,000
AUG 13 /5 '
State Says Salmon in Lake
Contain a Toxic Chemical
Consumer! were warned River because federal and PCB, a toxic chemical util* State DEC Commissioner Og
last Thursday not to eat atate researchers had die- (zed in a wide range of menu* den R. Reid and State Health
salmon from Lake Ontario or covered that the fish contain factoring processes,
Commissioner Dr. Robert P.
striped bass from the Hudson dangerously high amounts of The warning was issued by Whelan, the New York Time*
laid recently,
The salmon taken out of
Lake Ontario had levels of
between IS and .20 parts per
million of PCB. DEC said.
Polychlorinated Biphently.
The board said the PCB
known at PCB. has baen in ' use since 1930 In the manu
contamination "is of long standing concern In the Great Lakes .system" , and that the
facture of plastics, paints, electrical transformers, orinting Ink. caulking com-
PCB body burden In many valuable Great Lakes fish
oounds and hydraulic fluids. In recent years the state
species exceeds the present U S, Food end Drug Admin
has stocked Lake Ontariowith millions of coho salmon, and
istration level. PCB is similar In molecu
heavy catches have been reoorted. particularly in the
lar structure lo DDT end is
Pulaski section.
not readily soluble in water but highly soluble In fats.
Testing by DBCs Rome laboratory on the salmon was
Like DDT. It is a chlori nated hydrocarbon, the dang
oerformed at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, a spokesman
ers of which were voiced by
in Albany said this morning.
the late Rachel Carson In
The spokesman said based
the early nineteen sixties. But
on the information DEC had
not until the last five years
received as a result of the
has a broad spectrum within the scientific community
testing the PCBa found in the samplings would not pose
begun to warn of PCBa perils.
a threat to the overall salmon
It haa alraady been banned in
orogram, which began in the
Canada and Britain.
Fall of 1968. and will continue.
In the United States, where it is manufactured only by the
M-onsanto Chemical Company federal standards aay that any
food containing more than five parts per million of PCB la
unsafe to eat.
According to the spokes man. a statewide study la being made by DEC of all fish in the waters, in addi tion to the samplings In which the PCB was discovered
Meanwhile, the Greet Lekoa Water Quality Board in Wind
sor, Ont., hss recommended
that the International Joint
Commission urge Its respec
tive governments to begin na
tional public discussions on
the contamination of tha an*
vironment by PCBa and the
consequences of strictly con
trolling the sale, use and dit-
HONS 030867
* oosal of PCBs.