FDA Goes Fishing for Toxic Waste
by Joseph Raulinaitis  

     Alyson Saben, an investigator from the Food
and Drug Administration's Boston district, leaned
heavily against the side of the research ship
Gloria Michelle, watching 10-foot waves crash into
the small vessel.
     "I had begun to feel pretty squeamish," Saben
recalled, several months later, "and a few other
people were already sick. So I just sat there with
the rain splashing against my face, and I didn't
even care if I went overboard or not."
     At that moment it was very difficult for
Saben, 28, a former Peace Corps volunteer with less
than two years experience in FDA, to focus on the
importance of her mission--sampling seafood for
contamination in the stormy Atlantic waters off the
coast of New England.
     Several months earlier she hadn't even known
about the problems associated with the waste
disposal area she was sailing over. But awareness
had come quickly and completely when she was
assigned to coordinate the agency's efforts to
sample seafood in and around the area ominously
known to local seafarers as the "dump site."
     Only 18 miles off the coast of Boston, the
area appears on nautical maps as two overlapping
circles, each approximately 2 miles across with an
average depth of about 300 feet. The eastern
boundary lies only 4 miles west of the rich fishing
area known as the Stellwagen Bank.
     The western circle, called the Massachusetts
Bay Industrial Waste Site (or Foul Area), served as
a dumping ground for toxic and radioactive
materials from 1953 to 1976. The eastern part,
officially classified as the Massachusetts Bay
Disposal Site, was used for years as a dumping
ground for materials dredged up from Boston Harbor
and local channel bottoms.
     During the summer of 1991, the International
Wildlife Coalition, working under an Environmental
Protection Agency grant, conducted an underwater
side-scan video survey of part of the dump site
using a remote-controlled underwater camera. Those
films showed almost 100 objects dotting the ocean
floor at some 18 survey sites. Sixty-four of the
objects were identified as cement containers used
to dispose of dangerous materials, and more than
half of them had broken open.
     The amount and type of waste material--some of
it radioactive--from four decades of dumping raised
a very real concern about pollution as well as
contamination of seafood.
     In November 1991, U.S. Congressman Gerry
Studds (D-Mass.) chaired a public hearing about the
dump site. The meeting was held at the Kennedy
Library, whose grassy yards touch the ocean at
Columbia Point in Boston's Dorchester section. If
you draw a straight line in a northwest direction
from the beach in front of the library, you would
arrive at the dump site in about an hour's sailing
time.
     The hall was packed with the press,
environmental groups, and the seafood industry, as
well as representatives of FDA and other government
agencies. U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)
attended with Studds and listened intently as a
cavalcade of witnesses offered both official and
personal testimony to the extent of the dumping
done off the Massachusetts coast since 1940.
     The witnesses presented a collection of horror
stories that included sloppy record-keeping and
illegal mass dumping in  nondesignated areas.
     Congressman Studds wrote FDA's Office of
Seafood, seeking help in assuring the public that
seafood harvested from Massachusetts Bay is safe to
eat. In the months that followed, media interest in
the dumping sites increased.
     FDA's Edward McDonnell, district director of
the agency's Boston district, recalled that various
media sources were reporting pollution in the
waters off Massachusetts Bay. "People were outraged
at the level of dumping in nondesignated waste
sites," he said. "There was a great deal of public
confusion. People were concerned about the food
chain and were asking about the quality of seafood
being taken out of Massachusetts Bay. We [FDA] felt
that we could play an important role in such a risk
assessment and at the same time contribute to
solving the problem."
     So Saben had her work cut out for her.
Complex Task
     Throughout the dreary days of a long New
England winter, Saben found her assignment growing
in scope and complexity.
     "The task was small and focused to begin
with," Saben recalled; then she found out that EPA
was planning a study in the same area.
     A partnership for the project between FDA,
EPA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration was agreed upon in March 1992. The
federal agencies were joined by the Massachusetts
Department of Public Health, which was working on
the site study with EPA. Several other state
agencies were also included in the project.
     By late May, Saben and a host of workers from
all the agencies were spending 12-hour-plus
workdays traveling, trapping, filming, and
generally gathering a wide range of samples from
the gray waters and ocean floor of the dump site.
     To accomplish the mission, Saben, John Lindsay
(NOAA's Coastal Resource coordinator), and almost
100 others spent most of the time on three research
vessels: the 127-foot Ferrel, the smaller Gloria
Michelle, and the largest of the fleet, the 187-
foot Seward Johnson with its four-person submarine,
the Johnson Sea Link II.
     Lindsay noted, "There was an expectation by
the public that we were wasting money on an area
that we had already studied. Some of our
discoveries, such as low-level radiation, indicated
that we really did not know a great deal about the
site. It was worth being out there."
     According to EPA's David Tomey, "We were aware
of the public concerns and realized that fishermen
were actually pulling barrels up [of waste
material]. As a result of these concerns, grant
money was developed for a study of this area. We
looked at the perimeter of the disposal area just
to see how far the dumpers had gone." Tomey is an
aquatic biologist who has been with EPA over six
years.

Uncooperative Lobsters
     FDA survey efforts were directed towards
collecting important bottom-dwelling seafood.
Setting traps for lobsters within the dump site for
bottom-feeding lobsters was an important facet of
the operation. The crew and staff of the Ferrel
placed traps at several sites in the northern part
of the Massachusetts Bay Industrial Waste Site.
Their efforts proved rather disappointing.
     John Biello, a 29-year FDA veteran out of the
Providence, R.I., resident post, who was on board
the Ferrel at the time, said, "There  was a lack of
lobsters, but like hunting or fishing you take what
you get."
     After the first 48 hours, they had only come
up with two lobsters.
     "Everybody was kind of disappointed--we
thought there might not be any lobsters down
there," Saben added. "By the third and fourth day,
several members of the crew started to do the
lobster dance as the traps were lowered into and
raised from the water. It was a lively step in
which the participants would dance around in a
circle on the rolling deck holding their hands out
making claw-like movements. The dance didn't work
either. We really expected more than we got."
     Lobster experts from NOAA felt something was
eating the bait well before the lobsters got to the
traps, accounting for the lack of lobsters.
     EPA's Tomey agreed. "I was on the Ferrel for
two days putting out lobster traps--of course we
were all hoping to get a lot more catch per trap
than we did. We were surprised the traps didn't do
that well with all the dumping and contamination in
that region, it was really a perfect habitat for
lobsters. But the ones we did take in looked fairly
normal."
     In the end, only 25 lobsters were caught by
trap. Fortunately, trawling efforts conducted off
the Gloria Michelle were far more successful,
yielding an additional 18 lobsters.

Radiation and Rough Seas
     For Biello, the excitement dulled a bit when
the weather turned foul. "Anybody who said this was
good duty should have been there on June 1 when the
Ferrel went out to deploy and recover lobster
traps," he said. "It was very rough seas with 9-
foot waves, 35-mile-an-hour winds, and rain."
     "Finally, the Ferrel's captain, John Trokar,
decided not to stay out. I didn't get seasick but
Iœve felt better in my life. I'll admit I supported
his decision to return to dock," Biello added.
     As the seas got rougher, the captain of the
Gloria Michelle, Dave Mattens, also cut short their
trawl and returned to port in Gloucester, Mass. He
explained to Saben that there had been a very real
possibility that the net could have gotten caught
on the bottom, causing the 72-foot-long ship to
sink.
     Rough seas were not the only problem
confronting the small fleet during its seven days
at sea. The Gloria Michelle, with her huge net, was
assigned to trawl the eight designated sites. On
one sweep the net caught on submerged debris,
ripping the bottom out of that expensive piece of
equipment. Still, with a replacement net the crew
completed the mission, bringing in nearly a ton of
cod, flounder, skate, lobster, redfish, and ocean
trout.
     Saben recalled that, "each catch brought a new
wave of excitement" as they watched the big nets
thump down on the Gloria Michelle's deck spilling
out all types of fish. Saben knew that they were
getting almost all of the samples they needed.
     NOAA workers experienced in species
identification helped sort out the fish after each
catch. "We relied a great deal on them," Saben
said. "Without their expertise and commitment to
the project we would not have had the success we
did." Samples were sorted, weighed, measured, and
placed into iced coolers, while fish not needed
were  tossed over the side. All the while, Saben
stood by with her clipboard, keeping tally.
     The refrigerated catch was taken from the
boats and quickly transported to FDA's Winchester
Engineering and Analytical Center in Winchester,
Mass. (There the edible portions would be removed
and ground together into a mixture making a uniform
composite sample, with separate portions analyzed
at different FDA laboratories and results sent to
FDA's Office of Seafood for a complete evaluation.)

Unexpected Company
     Surprisingly, the government fishers were not
alone gathering sea life, despite a government
advisory warning not to harvest bottom-dwelling
species from the area, which was already legally
closed to shellfish or quahog harvesting. On
several occasions, commercial fishing boats swept
into the operational area and pulled alongside the
NOAA research vessels.
     According to Saben, the crews were concerned,
even angry, that the government would disturb their
activities in the contaminated regions. "I couldn't
believe that they would actually be fishing out
there," said Saben. "Essentially, these men were
fishing in a dump that happens to be covered by
water."
     The excitement of the catch was tempered when,
on May 30, FDA's attention became focused on the
anchor of the Gloria Michelle. She had been
operating a remote-controlled underwater camera in
support of the Johnson Sea Link's dives at the
northern end of the Massachusetts Bay Industrial
Waste Site. That area had been used for the
disposal of low-level radioactive material from
1953 until 1959, and the Gloria Michelle dropped
anchor onto the sea floor during operations. When
the anchor was hauled up on board, sensing devices
detected radiation.
     Biello remembered that the radiation safety
specialists monitored everything as it came on
board. "We were aware of the radiation factor but
not afraid of it. We decided that we would just
have to deal with it in the appropriate manner," he
said.
     Every member of the expedition was required to
wear radiation detection badges. They had also been
drilled in the proper safety procedures should
either radioactive materials or explosives be
brought up.
     William Bell, a radiation scientist with the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health, was one
of several such experts assigned to monitor the
fleet. In his 15 years with the state it was his
third trip to the dump site. "I was one of a few
people who had been there before and, although
there was some concern, people felt good that we
were on board," he said.
     About the anchor contamination, Bell remarked,
"It was interesting, detectable but not a threat.
Still, we used all the precautions, wore gloves and
used plastic bags for the samples."
     On the afternoon of June 2, 1992, after a
successful final effort on welcome calm seas, the
staff held their last gathering, swapped stories,
compared notes, accounted for equipment, made sure
everything was straightened away, and prepared to
go home. Saben, Biello, and the other FDAers bid
goodbye to the boat crews and watched them sail
away.
     The people from the other agencies followed
the same routine, ending the earlier phases of the
project. As they headed back to their homes and
offices, almost a ton of seafood samples were being
 processed and sent to laboratory facilities
throughout the country. The long waiting game for
the real results of their labors had begun.

Final Tally
     Eventually, after being scattered across the
nation for analysis at various agency laboratories,
the results of the testing on the seafood samples
taken from the cold New England waters made their
way to the desk of Gregory Cramer, Ph.D., in FDA's
Office of Seafood in Washington, D.C. It was
something Cramer had been waiting for since helping
to collect the samples months earlier.
     "The test results were, in some respects,
surprising. No hazardous levels that might be
harmful to consumers were observed, even though we
collected nearly a ton of seafood adjacent to a
site used for over several decades for dumping a
variety of toxic chemicals," Cramer said.
     He explained that pesticide residues were not
detectable in 41 of the 43 samples of fin fish
tested, while the remaining two samples had only
trace amounts (levels too low to be accurately
characterized). It was much the same for lobster
and shellfish, none of which had more than trace
amounts of pesticide residue.
     Testing of 55 samples of fin fish, lobster and
shellfish indicated that almost half had no
detectable levels of polychlorinated biphenyls
while another 25 had trace amounts. The remaining
five samples did have levels above trace amounts
but still well below FDA acceptable levels.
     The levels of the trace metals cadmium,
arsenic, lead, and mercury were found to occur
within normal ranges, none exceeding FDA limits.
Cramer explained that radiation contamination, in
the form of plutonium-239, showed up in trace
levels in a few of the samples. He attributed the
residue more to atmospheric testing of nuclear
weapons in the 1960s than to the dumping of nuclear
wastes in Massachusetts coastal waters.
     Scientists tested for polynuclear aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs), but only low or barely
detectable levels were found in fin fish samples.
However, lobster and scallop samples indicated
measurable levels of PAHs, generally around the few
parts per billion range. Still, these levels were
consistent with other studies, and not considered
unusual.
     Cramer explained, "Consumers of lobsters and
scallops from Massachusetts Bay should not be
concerned about possible dietary exposure to
carcinogenic PAHs. They are ubiquitous in the
environment as components of petroleum, byproducts
of combustion, and are routinely found on smoked
and grilled foods, as well as on fruits and
vegetables. As a consequence, many food products
may contribute to dietary exposure to PAHs."
     "This was the largest single study of chemical
contaminants in seafood harvested from
Massachusetts Bay. The large variety and quantities
of bottom-dwelling seafood that were analyzed for a
host of chemical contaminants provides a valuable
profile of seafood from the area," he said.
     The long history of industrial discharge into
the ocean off Massachusetts will always be a
concern to consumers and the government, often
complicated by many variables. "This study does,
however, go a long way toward addressing the
present public health significance of this dumping
on seafood," said Cramer. "This snapshot concludes
that the overall residues are low and the  seafood
from Massachusetts Bay is safe to eat." n

Joseph Raulinaitis is a public affairs specialist
in FDA's Boston district office.
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