Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
The confirmation that a smallmouth bass caught in a Pennsylvania river last year had a rare type of cancerous tumor has some people concerned about the health of aquatic life in the region, and worried that the waterway might be polluted with dangerous chemicals.
As reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday, officials with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission confirmed that the bass did have a cancerous tumor, adding they would continue to investigate the matter and collect evidence “to build a case” so that they could “take some action on behalf of the fish” in the Susquehanna River.
Cancer is rare in fish, and the Commission said that this is the first-ever confirmed tumor to be found in a smallmouth bass in the Susquehanna River. Executive director John Arway told the newspaper that he and his colleagues first started noticing lesions on local fish in 2005, and that they had been petitioning the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection since then to include the river on the EPA’s list of “impaired waterways.”
No evidence of any health hazard to humans
Those efforts have thus far been successful, as the two agencies are at odds over whether the designation is warranted. Under the federal Clean Water Act, impaired waters are those lakes, rivers, and streams that fail to meet one or more water-quality standards, and are considered too polluted for their intended uses.
Officials at the EPA have sided with the Pennsylvania DEP, with regional spokesman David Sternberg telling StateImpact Pennsylvania in 2013, “Although we share the continuing concerns about the health of the smallmouth bass population, we do not have sufficient data at this time to scientifically support listing the main stem of the Susquehanna as impaired.”
Arway told the Post that he was hopeful that the discovery of the cancerous fish would help the agency’s case for the impaired waters designation. In the meantime, acting Pennsylvania Department of Health secretary Karen Murphy said that there is “no evidence that carcinomas in fish present any health hazard to humans,” but advised against “consuming fish that have visible signs of sores and lesions.”
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