We have detected hundreds of individual PAH in the Bay|s 
sediments. If they are having an impact on the biota, it is 
likely not to be from just one, but from some combination of 
them. I think that it is a real challenge for scientists to try 
to figure out what's going on. 
One can pick any of the hundreds of PAHs that we have de¬ 
tected in Baltimore Harbor and it will show trends in concen¬ 
tration. It looks as if there may be point sources. We went to 
some of the industrial outfalls in the area, collected, and 
analyzed sediment samples. The concentrations found obviously 
indicate that there are point sources. There is windborne 
transport, but in the highly urbanized, industrialized areas 
there are, as well, industrial and municipal inputs. 
If we were to examine the same compound in Elizabeth River, 
Virginia, we would likely see even higher concentrations. Per¬ 
haps, the Elizabeth River contains the highest concentration of 
PAHs of any estuary in the world — 200 parts per million of ben- 
zo(a)pyrene at approximately 1 foot of depth. The reason is 
creosote. Since the turn of the century there were four or five 
industries on the river that treated telephone poles, railroad 
ties and pilings with creosote, which is a mixture of these 
PAHs. It was used as a pesticide to keep out worms and fungi. 
They spilled it and it seeped into the river. Today, the 
sediments have the historical record. In cores of bottom 
sediments one can see the black inclusions that are basically 
pure creosote. 
If you take these sediments and put them in a tank of 
flowing water and put fish in the tank, after a week you start 
to see fin erosion. In controls with clean sediment, none of 
these effects are seen. Other effects include skin lesions 
after about 2-1/2 to 3 weeks. In some cases the lesions 
penetrate the stomach cavity. Fish collected in the field (i.e, 
Elizabeth River) showed many of the same effects as those 
investigated in the tank laboratory experiments. Perhaps most 
strikingly of all in a highly contaminated area of this one 
river, the Elizabeth, almost 100 percent of the trout and 
croaker over 8 inches in length are blind with cataracts. Some 
of these compounds (PAHs), by the way, cause cataracts in 
mammals as well. 
Some animals have the ability to metabolize compounds such 
as the PAHs. They are trying to get rid of them by making them 
more polar so they exit the body more easily. But in the 
process, they may make them more toxic. It's not the parent 
compound that does the damage in many cases but the metabolite. 
This is a very exciting field of research. I personally 
believe that by going out as chemists and just analyzing a few 
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