Ban Urged on Chemicals Causing Gender-Bending Fish

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published June 5, 2007 at 11:39 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Environmental groups want the EPA to ban certain toxic chemicals from industrial and household detergents. They've asked the agency to prevent the use of the products because of the gender bending eff

Environmental groups want the EPA to ban certain toxic chemicals from industrial and household detergents. They've asked the agency to prevent the use of the products because of the gender bending effect on fish. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

The toxic chemicals are called nonylphenol ethoxylates or NPEs which are used in many detergent products. Researchers believe wastewater and farm runoff polluted with chemicals that stimulate estrogen production, including NPEs, are causing male fish to develop female characteristics. The so-called intersex fish have been found in waters off Orange and Los Angeles Counties and throughout the country over the past decade. Ed Hopkins with the Sierra Club says even at low levels the NPE's are unsafe.

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Hopkins: Male fish have been found bearing eggs and they disrupt the male-to-female sex ratio and they cause other kinds of reproductive problems with fish."

In San Diego, the Point Loma Sewage Treatment plant removes all chemicals the EPA mandates but NPEs are not on that list. The EPA has 90 days to deny the petition or grant it and develop a rule. Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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