MWRA State of Boston Harbor

MONITORING THE HEALTH OF FLOUNDER, MUSSEL, AND LOBSTER
Since 1992, MWRA has monitored winter flounder, lobster, and blue mussel (see monitoring locations). Flounder and lobster are important biomonitoring tools because they are commercially important for food, and they live in close contact with potentially contaminated bottom sediments. Flounder and lobster for testing are collected near Deer Island. Mussels feed by filtering particles out of the water, and can concentrate (bioaccumulate) toxic materials from the water in their tissues.

Winter Flounder caught near Deer Island have a much lower prevalence of liver disease than those caught in the 1980s, and liver tumors are now rare.

Levels of mercury, PCBs, and pesticides in flounder fillet
are well within U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines.

Flounder eat worms and other tiny animals that live in the sediments, and thus can be exposed to sediment contaminants. In the mid-1980s, Boston Harbor flounder may have had among the highest incidence of liver tumors in the northeastern United States.

In more recent years, the flounder caught near Deer Island have not shown the gross abnormalities, such as fin erosion, that were observed during the mid-1980s. Of the liver lesions, a type called “centrotubular hydropic vacuolation” (CHV) has been the most common. On average, the rate of CHV is about two-thirds of the levels found in the 1980s, although this may be partially explained by the age of the fish: the tested fish from Boston Harbor have been younger, and younger fish tend to have lower CHV levels. Liver tumors, which indicate more serious health effects, have not been observed since 1996.

Liver disease in winter flounder is a sensitive indicator of pollution effects on Boston Harbor flounder because the liver can be damaged as contaminants are metabolized. Other forms of liver disease (not shown) also have dropped substantially since the late 1980s but seem to have leveled off over more recent years. (Again these observations should be interpreted with caution, because of the younger age of the fish.)

The flounder livers are tested for levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, copper, nickel, silver, zinc, chromium, PAHs, PCBs, DDT, and ten other pesticides. In order to test for potential human health effects, mercury, PCBs, DDT, and seven other pesticides are also measured in the edible flounder fillets. For many fish species, consumption advisories because of mercury are a concern. However, mercury levels in winter flounder have been stable at about 50-100 parts per billion, well below the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) limit of 1,000 parts per billion. Levels of PCBs and DDT are also well below FDA limits. PCBs, DDT, and mercury in fillet of flounder caught in the harbor have fluctuated between years with no clear pattern. All these chemicals have measured well below the FDA action limits.