ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (9/21/06)

The Washington Post (Sept. 6) reported that “abnormally developed fish, possessing both male and female characteristics” have been found in the Potomac River and its tributaries. More than 80 percent of male smallmouth bass were growing eggs.

These hermaphroditic fish are caused by “endocrine disruptors,” hormone and hormone-mimicking pollutants. Water officials in the Washington, D.C., area tried to reassure everyone that the water was safe. After Katrina official reassurances are problematic.

Once coal miners took canaries into the mines to check for deadly gasses. When the canaries stopped singing, the air was lethal. The fish have stopped singing along the Potomac.

In areas throughout the country 50% of juvenile male fish have become girlie-fish, male fish with female organs. The problem is more severe where water is scarce and endocrine disruptors are re-cycled through gray water and aquifers, adding disruptors each time around.

Some suspected endocrine disruptors are estrogen and estrogen- mimics taken by many Americans. U.S.G.S. scientists writing in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science and Technology (Vol. 36, No. 6, 2002) expressed concern about a possible causality between hormonally active chemicals and “abnormal physiological processes and reproductive impairment.”

Croaking frogs could be Flagstaff’s singing canaries. Are there signs of endocrine disruptors amongst the aquatics in the Rio de Flag below the water treatment plant and gray water ponds throughout the city? If there are, then gray water used for snowmaking at the Snowbowl is not only a religious and environmental concern, but also one of public health.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2006