DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300402

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   86 lines

PART OF POCOMOKE RIVER CLOSED PFIESTERIA LIKELY CAUSE OF 13 ILLNESSES

Virginia and Maryland closed part of the Pocomoke River on Friday after a medical team said it is very likely that a toxin released by pfiesteria or a similar micro-organism made seven people ill.

Gov. George F. Allen and Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening announced that the lower portion of the river that forms the border of the two states on the Eastern Shore was made off-limits to swimming, fishing and boating.

The announcements came a few hours after Virginia health officials said during a news conference that a fish kill on the river appeared to be abating.

The Virginia Department of Health said it closed the Virginia side of the river based on findings by doctors from Maryland who had examined 13 watermen and state employees who had worked on the Pocomoke.

The workers had complained of health problems after coming into contact with the water or with dead or dying fish.

Seven of them experienced mild memory loss, similar to a mild concussion - a condition that could only be medically explained by exposure to a waterborne toxin, said Dr. Glenn Morris, who led the team of doctors from the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University hospitals.

On Wednesday, four of the seven underwent a sophisticated brain scan, which confirmed that they showed a particular abnormality of the brain apparently caused by exposure to pfiesteria, Morris said. ``That was the confirmation.''

Laboratory studies have confirmed that pfiesteria's toxins cause short-term neurological problems in rats.

But because scientists have yet to identify the chemical make-up of the pfiesteria toxin, they cannot definitively identify its presence in people.

``We are no longer skeptical,'' said Dr. Martin P. Wasserman, Maryland secretary of health and mental hygiene, who previously had stressed the lack of such an established connection.

Morris said the duration of human health problems associated with pfiesteria isn't known.

``We have a sense that these people are getting better,'' he said.

North Carolina State University researcher JoAnn Burkholder, who is credited with discovering pfiesteria and with identifying it as the cause of fish kills in North Carolina, praised Maryland officials for their ``proactive'' response to the troubles in the Pocomoke. She said the state was now ``taking the lead'' in addressing the microbe, which is blamed for the deaths of a billion fish in North Carolina.

Virginia Health Commissioner Randy Gordon said Virginia was closing a 5- to 6-mile stretch of the river ``as a precaution until we have had a chance to take an in-depth look at the findings and consider our options.'' He said there was no way to tell how long the waters would remain closed.

``We want to take a look at the (Johns) Hopkins and University of Maryland results before we make a decision'' on how long to keep the Virginia waters closed, he said.

Samples collected from the Virginia portion of the river are also being tested for pfiesteria or similar organisms by Old Dominion University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Glendening, Maryland's governor, stressed that toxic outbreaks of pfiesteria have not been found in the region outside of the lower Pocomoke. And he plugged the local seafood industry, which has been reporting sagging sales in the face of public concern about the safety of its products, despite the fact that only 1 percent of Maryland seafood comes from the Pocomoke.

``All evidence indicates very clearly that the health risk is limited to the lower portion of the Pocomoke River,'' Glendening said. ``I plan to recreate on the Chesapeake Bay this weekend. I plan to eat Chesapeake Bay seafood this weekend.''

Gordon said holiday boaters in the Chesapeake Bay near the area should not be affected by the problems on the Pocomoke River.

``This does not affect the Bay, it does not affect the (Pocomoke) Sound. It just affects the river,'' Gordon said. Earlier Friday, Gordon said the number of dead and dying fish on the Pocomoke apparently has declined.

``It appears that the fish kill we saw a couple of days ago has died down. We didn't see any fish on top of the water,'' Gordon said.

Maryland had closed the river earlier this month after 11,000 dead fish were found where the river empties into the sound. That fish kill did not extend into Virginia waters. On Tuesday, about 2,000 dead menhaden were found in Virginia waters. And on Wednesday, recreational fishermen reported catching fish with lesions in Folly Creek on the seaside of Accomack County.

Pfiesteria piscicida, a one-celled organism that produces toxins that attack animals and leave bloody lesions on fish, was blamed for the early August fish kill. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press,

The Washington Post and staff writer Karen Jolly Davis. ILLUSTRATION: Map

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