FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72, NO. 



More recent data (Southern California Coastal 

 Water Research Project, 1971)2 for thep,p'DDE 

 content of the mussel, Mytilus calif ornianus , show 

 that two samples taken on the Palos Verdes 

 Peninsula, near Los Angeles, contained 61 and 

 151 ppm of p.p'DDE while samples taken at a 

 greater distance from Los Angeles declined 

 greatly to between 0.3 and 3 ppm at San Diego, 

 Point Conception, and on the farther outlying is- 

 lands. 



Burnett (1971) determined DDT residues in 

 samples of the sand crab, Emerita analoga, from 

 19 locations along the coast between northern 

 Baja California and San Francisco. Only in those 

 crabs from the Los Angeles area did he find values 

 greater than 1 ppm (up to 7.2 ppm). The DDT 

 values fell off rapidly north and south of Los 

 Angeles and averaged about 0.1 ppm at most of 

 these locations. 



These results of the above studies demonstrate 

 that geographical proximity to Los Angeles was 

 accompanied by greatly elevated levels of DDT 

 and its metabolites in marine organisms. 



High DDT residues in marine life in the ocean 

 off Los Angeles had an adverse effect on the 

 fishing industry. In June 1970, canned jack mack- 

 erel, Trachurus symmetricus, shipped from Los 

 Angeles was condemned by the U.S. Food and 

 Drug Administration in New York for high DDT 

 content (13 ppm). The FDA had set a maximum 

 tolerance of 5 ppm on fish products. In the follow- 

 ing year jack mackerel was withheld from dis- 

 tribution by the packers, and jack mackerel and 

 Pacific bonito, Sarda chiliensis, were condemned 

 by the FDA in the Los Angeles area. In December 

 1970, the FDA seized about 8,000 lb of white 

 croaker, also called kingfish, Genyonemus 

 lineatus, that had been caught near Los Angeles. 

 These contained 19 ppm DDT residues. 



While the fishing industry was unable to pin- 

 point any particular area of heavy DDT contami- 

 nation of pelagic fish off southern California, it 

 seemed to be fairly well defined for the more 

 sedentary bottom dwelling species. Although the 

 total DDT in the flesh of the Santa Monica Bay fish 

 samples taken in May 1970 ranged from 12 to 57 

 ppm, about 30 nautical miles away at Farnsworth 

 Bank on the west side of Santa Catalina Island, 



^Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, 1971. 

 Comments on the policy for water quality control proposed by the 

 State Water Resources Control Board. Presented at the State 

 Water Resources Control Board public hearing, San Diego, 

 Calif., 2 Dec. 1971, 27 p. 



DDT in the flesh of a sample of sculpin, Scorpaena 

 guttata, and in flesh samples of four species of 

 rockfishes, Sebastes spp., had a range of only 0.23 

 to 0.49 ppm; and, a sample of white croakers taken 

 off Oceanside, 40 nautical miles south of Los 

 Angeles, contained only 0.61 ppm of DDT residues 

 in the flesh. 



The pelagic fish were not good indicators of the 

 source of pesticide contamination because they 

 are much more migratory than the bottom dwell- 

 ing species, and the area in which they are caught 

 is not necessarily the area in which they were 

 contaminated. Even though this would also mean 

 that their exposure to heavy contamination would 

 be of shorter duration than for bottom fishes living 

 in these areas, they still built up high concentra- 

 tions of DDT in the flesh because pelagic fish tend 

 to store fat throughout the body rather than in the 

 liver as do bottom dwelling, more sedentary 

 species. The DDT residues are stored in the fats, 

 and the distribution of the total body load of DDT 

 residues in the fish is roughly related to the dis- 

 tribution of fat. 



Although we have no flesh sample analyses 

 from pelagic fish to illustrate this point, concen- 

 trations of DDT were found to be two to six times 

 higher in the livers of samples of four different 

 species of bottom dwelling fish taken in 1970 along 

 the coast between San Diego and Oceanside than 

 they were in the livers of a sample of jack mackerel 

 from the same area, and seven to 19 times higher 

 than in the livers of a sample of Pacific sardine, 

 Sardinops sagax, taken in San Diego Bay at about 

 the same time. And even among bottom fish taken 

 from the same area at the same time, those that 

 have more oil in the flesh seem to carry relatively 

 more of the total DDT load in the flesh. For five 

 species of bottom dwelling fishes taken from Santa 

 Monica Bay in 1970, there is an inverse relation 

 between the ratio of DDT in the liver to DDT in the 

 flesh and the percent of oil in the flesh as given in. 

 Table 1. 



Because of the prevalence of winds from the 

 Pacific, and the concentration of agriculture in the 

 inland valleys, we considered it unlikely that the 

 heavy DDT contamination in the ocean off Los 

 Angeles was caused by airborne pesticide resi- 

 dues. Surface runoff was also an unlikely source. 

 Southern California's arid climate, the damming 

 of rivers, the large population and importation of 

 water have resulted in a condition in which the 

 annual discharge by sewers into the ocean is at 

 least twice the average annual surface runoff of 



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