Long Island Lobster Deaths - Are Malathion and/or Methoprene To Blame?

Subject:   Long Island Lobster Deaths - Are Malathion and/or Methoprene To Blame?
Date:      Sun, 23 Apr 2000 12:13:31 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
          Senior Research Scientist
          State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation - Integrated Pest Management

Dear Lyndon, I thought you might like to read two articles by Joe Haberstroh of Newsday regarding the mysterious Long Island lobster deaths, the first is entitled: ON THE WATERS - Is Anti-Mosquito Anti-Lobster?

Lobsters and mosquitoes would seem about as related as elephants and jelly fish. But lobsters and mosquitoes-all insects, actually-are distant cousins. They share membership in the same scientific phylum, a group of animals that have similar basic forms.

Granted, it's a gigantic phylum, the biggest in nature-Arthropoda, which includes insects, spiders and crustaceans.

Lobsters, which are crustaceans, are hatched from eggs and undergo larval stages before reaching adulthood. So do mosquitoes. Lobsters see their world mosaic-style, through compound eyes. Insects do, too. Male lobsters find their mates by detecting the smell of chemicals given off by the females when their eggs are ready for fertilization. Same deal with insects.

"Lobsters are essentially insects with gills," says Robert Simon, an environmental consultant in Virginia who is studying Long Island Sound lobsters to see what pollutants they may ingest.

Says Robert Bayer, a biologist with the University of Maine: "Anything that will kill an insect will kill a lobster." The well-established biological relationship between lobsters and insects support the interest by Simon, Bayer and others in the highly charged notion that the pesticides applied to rid Long Island of mosquitoes last fall may have contributed to the deaths of millions of lobsters in Long Island Sound.

It's far from proven, of course. It's more likely, agree most scientific observers, that the lobsters have been snuffed out by more than a single culprit. More like a gang. The possible causes include changes in water temperature, pollution over decades and the parasite that has been identified in the tissues of some of the lobsters.

Simon, who is originally from Peconic, has allied himself with Fish Unlimited, the fisheries conservation group based on Shelter Island.

That group is more openly opinionated than the university-affiliated scientists and government biologists studying the matter: For example, Fish Unlimited has said its independent testing of Long Island Sound sediment is intended to "confirm" its "suspicions" that pesticides and/or contaminated mud from dredging projects killed the lobsters.

But more institutionally based observers, such as Bayer, who has studied lobsters for more than 20 years, and Lance Stewart, a veteran University of Connecticut scientist who helps shape regional lobster-management policies, are also intrigued by the insect-lobster links, and what they may mean.

"Some of these insect controls are designed to work on the metabolic processes of insects," said Stewart, "and those are much like crustacea." Government representatives have tended to downplay the relationship between last fall's mosquito spraying and last fall's lobster die-off. They offer the reminder that the western Long Island Sound also had a die-off in 1998, though it was much milder.

But the coincidence is powerful. All the jurisdictions along Long Island Sound were sprayed. Then the lobsters died. No one disputes that it must be investigated.

But no one besides Fish Unlimited places such cause-and-effect emphasis on the point. Richard French, the University of Connecticut biologist who has led the laboratory effort on the die-off, urges caution. Mosquito spray is not good for any living thing, he says, but it is not deadly for all organisms.

"One of the concerns I have is, we can look for these pesticides and we may find them, but what we don't know is what a significant level is," he said.

"What's a lethal dose? What is sub-lethal dose? It varies with the animal." Some broader ecological problem with the sound may be at play, French said, because unexplained deaths of crabs and sea urchins also took place in 1999.

Bayer, the Maine scientist, would not disagree with any of that. But he still cannot help wondering about last year's spraying of bugs and the effect it may have had on their distant, underwater cousins.

Lobsters use attenae to feel where they're going. Same with insects. Lobsters have external skeletons (their shells). Depending on what stage of their life they are in, the same holds true for insects.

The mosquito spraying "is far from a smoking gun," Bayer says, "But to me, it's prime on our list of factors to investigate."

The First Annual Lobster Health Symposium in Stamford, Conn., last week was a bonanza of ideas and opinions about the mystery ailment that has decimated lobsters in the Long Island Sound. If nothing else, it was remarkable to witness the mingling of local lobstermen with scientists from the nation's top marine-science laboratories.

A few items and issues remain to set into order, beginning with the second day of the symposium. That morning, scientists gathered in small groups and talked loosely about the die-off's possible causes.

A couple of the unproven but intriguing notions: Gene Pool. The extensive trapping of lobsters in Long Island Sound has allowed lobsters that would not be strong enough to survive in the wild to flourish and reproduce. This has led to a watering down of the lobster gene pool, making the population more susceptible to an epidemic.

All That Bait: The lobstermen have dropped so much bait into the Sound - maybe two pounds slipped into each trap - that it has subtly altered the chemistry of the water. The decaying bait sucks oxygen out of the water, the theory goes, so the lobsters have less to use. This would stress the lobsters and make it easier for diseases to attack them.

Gladstone Jones III Esq., At Your Service Jones, a New Orleans environmental law attorney, huddled for hours with several lobstermen in the restaurant of the symposium hotel. He was not shy at all about the likelihood he would put together a class action lawsuit on their behalf.

The defendants? Jones said they might include different municipalities, counties and pesticides applicators who either were responsible for sewage- treatment plant discharges into the Sound, or for the pesticides that some people believe may have contributed to the die-off.

Jones, who appeared at the symposium dressed more like a lobsterman than a rising attorney, first made a name for himself in 1994. Then, at the age of 29, he sued Exxon and an oil-waste disposal company in connection with the dumping of waste in a pond in Grand Bois, La. (pop.318).

After a dramatic trial that was documented in People magazine - complete with a photo of Jones at home with his wife and cat - the waste disposal company settled for a reported $5 million to $10 million. The jury found in favor of four of the plaintiffs but ordered Exxon to pay just $35,000.

Last year, Jones represented two families in Florida who are suing the manufacturers of Malathion, a pesticide used there to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly.

Malathion was used last year by New York City, the town of Huntington and other jurisdictions to kill mosquitoes, which can carry the deadly West Nile virus.

Jones said he planned to cite scientific studies to link the sprayings with the lobster deaths.

He also acknowledged that other causes - low oxygen in the western Sound - probably played a role.

Methoprene and the DEC On every label of Methoprene "briquets," little blocks of anti-mosquito poison that are used in Nassau and Suffolk, it says: "Do Not Apply to Known Fish Habitats." The state Department of Environmental Conservation likes that restriction, and on March 23, it formally rejected the manufacturer's application to remove it from the label.

The product is used in storm drains, catch basins, roadside ditches, freshwater swamps and marshes - most places where mosquitoes breed.

Now for the lobster connection: Methoprene has drawn mention in the die-off issue because, among other things, it disrupts the molting process of mosquitoes. Because some lobsters have been observed molting too early, and because some females have molted even as they bear eggs, some scientists have been interested in whether Methoprene used on land somehow got into the Sound and affected the lobsters.

The DEC was more concerned about frogs and fish, however. The agency told the Methoprene maker, Wellmark International, of Bensenville, Ill., that the product is associated with deformities in frogs. But the DEC also had wider concerns, saying that it was concerned about the product's effects on fish.

Disaster Dollars When the federal government declared in February that a "fishery resource disaster" had occurred on Long Island Sound, the lobstermen hoped that either grants or low interest loans would soon follow.

As they have learned, the system hardly works that way. Sometimes such declarations trigger immediate help. But often, the assistance takes months to organize and deliver.

"Frankly, it has been an ad hoc approach," says Bruce Morehead, acting director for sustainable fisheries for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The first of the 13 fisheries-disaster declarations was announced in March, 1994. The government issued it in response to the collapse of the New England groundfish industry, which was based on the historical taking of such fish as cod and haddock.

Within a few weeks, Congress passed a supplemental federal budget primarily to pay for earthquake damage in Southern California. But Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), inserted $30 million to help the fishermen of New England, which included some based on Long Island.

It also took just a few months for money to be appropriated to help Alaska's salmon fishermen after a commercial fisheries failure was declared for that industry in the summer of 1998. The key player then was Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In 1994, an earlier disaster was declared for Northwest salmon fishermen. Congress eventually appropriated $12 million to restore spawning streams and buy back some of the fishermen's licenses, but it took more than a year to "get the money out the door," Morehead says.

At the moment, four disaster declarations await funding. Besides the Long Island Sound lobster industry, disasters have been announced for North Carolina and Florida fishermen, whose gear and boats have been wrecked by two major coastal storms, and for groundfishermen in California, where long-term declines of hake and whiting have hit the fishing fleet hard.

The U.S. House passed a supplemental budget this spring that included money for the Sound's lobstermen, but the Senate declined to consider the supplemental spending plan.

That means the lobstermen likely will wait until the fall, when the federal budget is approved, to see to what extent their disaster attracts federal dollars.

Lobstermen might take solace in the fact that every time a federal fisheries failure has been declared, money has been found to address it.

Well Lyndon, Once again there is more "circumstantial" evidence that your "registered" POISONS have serious, untested side effects on our environment, and they do not even eliminate the pest problems. I notice California's fishing fleets have also been hit hard - has anyone in your department looked at your "registered" POISONS as a potential cause?

When will it eventually be "legal" (in your opinion) to use safe and far more effective alternatives to actually control pest problems in California?

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