Pinto Lake contaminated
Todd Guild
Register Pajaronian
05/16/2009
Fish found in Pinto Lake in Watsonville contained the highest levels of the pesticide DDT of any lake in California, according to a study released May 4 by the state Water Resource Control Board.
The study, called the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program, randomly tested 152 popular recreation lakes throughout the state, and found that all but a handful were contaminated.
Robery Ketley, senior utility engineer and water quality specialist for the city of Watsonville, cautioned that the samples were taken from carp, which feed closer to the bottom of lakes, where contaminants are often concentrated. Largemouth bass, on the other hand, have different diets and may not be as contaminated.
Future studies could show that these fish — as well as trout, which are introduced to the lake — might be safe to eat. Still, the news has prompted Watsonville officials to issue a warning to anglers and the public to avoid eating any fish taken from Pinto Lake.
“It seems the most sensible, straightforward way to do it,” Ketley said.
The samples were taken in 2007, when the study team collected more than 6,000 fish from 150 lakes and reservoirs.
The study is the largest survey of contaminants in fish from lakes and reservoirs ever conducted in California. The results are from the first year of the two-year survey. In 2008, the team sampled another 130 lakes, for a total of 250 out of California’s 9,000 lakes. A final report including all data collected during the two-year study will be provided in early 2010. The results will help develop cleanup plans for the lakes and safe-eating guidelines for fish.
The cleanest lakes in the state were found at high altitudes in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and in the Trinity Alps.
Mercury — which is largely a holdover from California mining days — and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which come from now banned electrical equipment, are considered the greatest concern, but surveyors also looked for pollutants such as DDT and chlordane.
Mercury is considered a serious problem in fish found in lakes and oceans throughout the world. Twenty-six percent of the lakes surveyed had at least one fish species with mercury levels that make eating them unsafe, according to the report.
