quality information in 20 estuaries. In 1978, after the Fishery Conservation and 
Management Act was passed, DMF changed its emphasis and began to collect fishery 
resource information or stock assessment information from our coastal waters. Although 
we started the resource stock assessment program in 1979 to obtain relative abundance 
information on important commercial fisheries in our coastal waters, we began to look at 
external diseases on these fish throughout our coastal sampling. 
As a result of that work, we have examined about 1,740 fish to date from sampling 
sites located within one-half mile outside of Boston Harbor. Outside Boston Harbor, the 
incidence of external diseases, including fin rot, skeletal abnormalities, lymphocystis, and 
other external lesions, is 1.8 percent. One-third of disease incidence was fin rot (DMF 
unpublished). In comparison to data collected offshore by the National Marine Fisheries 
Service (NMFS) in their groundfish surveys throughout the Northeast, we find that the 1.8 
percent incidence rate is double the offshore rate. In the 105,000 fish collected and 
examined offshore by NMFS, the incidence rate \^as 0.99 percent (Despres-Patanjo et al., 
1982). 
During our routine 1983 sampling operation to collect information on lobsters, we 
examined 272 lobsters for external diseases, principally black gill and shell disease at 12 
sites along the Massachusetts coast. The two areas with the highest incidence were 
Boston and New Bedford Harbor. Both are heavily polluted with organic substances and 
metals. Black gill disease in New Bedford occurred in 54 percent of those animals 
examined, and shell disease in 50 percent. Lobsters outside of Boston Harbor showed a 33 
percent incidence of black gill disease and a 12.5 percent incidence of shell disease 
(Estrella, 1984). 
In February 1984, DMF was contacted by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone 
Management with a proposal to collect winter flounder in Boston Harbor in conjunction 
with the NMFS. The Office of Coastal Zone Management was interested in examining 
internal diseases, principally neoplasias on the liver of winter flounder, because Dr. 
Murchelano had been studying the same phenomenon offshore and found little or no 
incidence of neoplasia in flounder or other fish offshore. We agreed to obtain samples of 
winter flounder for NMFS and work with them on a brief study just to see if, in fact, 
neoplasia was occurring in Boston Harbor. I believe the information was also used as part 
of the State's review of the 301(h) waiver document that was prepared by Metcalf and 
Eddy for the Metropolitan District Commission. 
The first sampling of fish occurred in April 1984. We sampled 100 fish: 50 from off 
of Long Island in Boston Harbor, and another 50 fish from Deer Island Flat, which is just 
southeast of the Logan Airport area. Twenty percent of all of those fish showed gross 
liver lesions; eight percent, after histological examination by Dr. Murchelano, proved to 
be cancerous and showed extreme neoplasia. Subsequent sampling on June 26 of another 
100 fish in one sample from the Deer Island area showed exactly the same incidence of 
gross lesions and neoplasia (Murchelano and Wolke, 1985). 
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