Health Consultation: Public Health Evaluation of Fish Contaminant Data in the Housatonic River, Lake Zoar, Lake Lillinonah, West Cornwall, and Bull's Bridge in Kent, Connecticut.

摘要

The Housatonic River is approximately 149 miles long, beginning in the Berkshire mountains in western Massachusetts and flowing south, through western Connecticut into the Long Island Sound. Its major tributaries are the Williams, Green and Konkapot Rivers in Massachusetts, the Tenmile River in New York, and the Shepaug, Pomperaug, Naugatuck, and Still Rivers in Connecticut. It receives the Naugatuck River at Derby, Connecticut, and the Still River south of New Milford, Connecticut. The General Electric (GE) facility, which produced and handled polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the 1930s to 1977 in its Pittsfield, Massachusetts facility, caused significant contamination of Housatonic River sediments and fish in the Massachusetts portion of the river. PCB-contaminated sediments have been transported into the Connecticut portion of the river over the years. This has resulted in fish becoming contaminated with PCBs to the extent that fish consumption advisories have been in place in several parts of the Housatonic River in Connecticut since 1977. The Patrick Center for Environmental Research, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Philadelphia Academy) samples fish in the Housatonic River for GE on a biennial basis and reports this information to the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CTDPH) and Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CTDEP) Fisheries Program. The sampling locations were chosen in the 1970s and remain in place for the purpose of evaluating temporal trends. CTDPH reviews new fish tissue data sampled by the Philadelphia Academy from the Housatonic River biennially and evaluates whether the current fish consumption advisory needs to be modified to protect public health based on the level of PCB contamination. This sampling program has been in place since 1984 (EPA 2005). CTDPH has evaluated fish sampling data from 2006 and the results of this evaluation are the focus of this document.