§ Mr. Peter AinsworthTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the answer of 23April 2002,Official Report, column 133W, on male fish, if she will make a statement on the outcome of discussions with the Environment Agency and the water industry regarding gender change in male fish. [77374]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 28 October 2002]: Officials from Defra, the Environment Agency, and the water industry met over the summer to discuss implications of the jointly funded research published by the Agency on 26 March for sewage treatment processes. It was agreed that a joint programme of work, now under way, was needed to:
- assess the applicability of results from the 10 UK rivers previously addressed to the wider UK aquatic environment;
- quantify the significance of endocrine disrupting pollution in UK rivers;
- identify common factors between affected sites, such as key stretches of river, aquatic species, and major sewage treatment works (STW) implicated; and
- investigate STW technologies, including cost-benefit assessments.
§ Mr. Peter AinsworthTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the answer of 23 April 2002,Official Report, columns 133–34W, on male fish, if she will publish the findings of research into endocrine disruption in marine life; and if she will make a statement. [77375]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 28 October 2002]: A summary report of the 3-year research programme on endocrine disruption in the marine environment (EDMAR) is due to be published in November. I will place a copy of this and the full report of the programme in the House Library.
Some of the research outcomes from this programme, which was funded by DEFRA, the Environment Agency, the Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research and the European Chemical Industry Association, have already been published in the scientific press and were presented at two seminars and in a series of newsletters.
The main achievements/findings of EDMAR are as follows:
- the development of new methods for detecting endocrine disruption in marine fish and invertebrates;
- evidence of a slight decrease in one biomarker of endocrine disruption (egg protein production in male flounder fish) at some sites;
- signs of oestrogenic (feminising) endocrine disruption in blenny fish in some estuaries;
- very slight effects on migratory trout and salmon, suggesting that endocrine disruption from exposure to oestrogenic contamination in estuaries is not widespread in these species; and
- identification of natural and synthetic causal substances, the most important being natural and synthetic steroid hormones.
DEFRA will be discussing with other Government Departments and Agencies how to take forward the recommendations for further research resulting from the EDMAR programme.