News Coverage
Expedite Lewistown PCB probe and cleanup
Published May 23, 2004
It's enough to break an angler's heart: Nearly half a million trout hatched and raised for stocking in Montana lakes and reservoirs are destroyed instead.
It's also enough to appall anyone who cares about water quality, wildlife, health issues and government responsibility.
The fish, it turns out, are tainted with carcinogenic PCBs, which apparently come from old paint at the state-run Lewistown hatchery where the fish were raised.
The paint was applied in the 1960s and '70s. Congress banned the manufacture of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in 1977, but products containing it were common for years after that.
Over time, flecks of the paint at the Lewistown hatchery washed downstream, contaminating the wild fish population and forcing a "do-not-eat" rule on fish caught on a stretch of the once-pristine Big Spring Creek. At that time, however, the source of the PCBs was not known.
In the early to mid-20th century, PCBs were considered a kind of miracle chemical and were used widely in electrical equipment and a range of other products, including paints. The public didn't know they were dangerous until the late '60s.
PCBs were first detected in the creek's fish in the 1980s, and the advisory about the possible health ramifications of eating fish from the creek was issued in 1995. It wasn't determined until eight years later that the source of the problem was the state's own hatchery?
The molasses pace of pinpointing the Lewistown contamination's source doesn't give us much confidence that other state-owned hatcheries don't have similar problems. (It's not a problem at the Giant Springs hatchery in Great Falls, where the raceways aren't painted at all.)
We may never know all the impacts of the pollution, which range from fewer planted fish, to possible floodplain soil contamination, to possible health impacts on fish eaters.
But we do know the costs are mounting -- including flopping half a million dead and dying fish into the Great Falls landfill.
Right now, the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks hopes to coat the hatchery raceways with a nontoxic sealant to keep any more contaminants from entering the water.
If the Environmental Protection Agency approves that plan, the state's taxpayers and anglers will be out some $300,000 to $500,000 -- and that's a best-case scenario.
If the EPA wants a more extensive cleanup, it's possible the raceways would be demolished and rebuilt, at a cost of millions and a massive short-term decrease in the fish available for planting.
It also may be necessary to dredge or find other ways to clean contaminated stretches of Big Spring Creek. That could cost millions, again from taxpayers' pockets.
When the state is struggling to fund essential services, it's regrettable that taxpayers must foot the bill for another environmental cleanup.
And it's disheartening that Montana families who catch and eat fish for entertainment and sustenance, may unknowingly have risked their health.
The first order of business now is to accurately determine the extent of the problem and stop any continuing pollution.
We urge state and federal officials to quickly identify all the contamination points, then rehabilitate Big Spring Creek, the hatchery and any other tainted site.