And the Waters Turned to Blood by Rodney Barker, Simon & Schuster, $24, 346 pages.
The News & Observer
April 13, 1997
The cell from hell (or maybe just purgatory)
A controversial new book suggests that a deadly danger
lurks in the waters of North Carolina.
By PHILLIP MANNING
How do you hype a book? First, find a scary title. Then, design
a blood-red front cover that reads: "In the Rivers and Coastal
Waters of America an Ancient and Deadly Organism, Reawakened by
Man-Made Pollution, May Become the Ultimate Biological Threat."
On the back cover, throw in a catchy quote: "Like something
out of a horror movie, the cell from hell attacks its victims
in gruesome ways." That's what the publisher has done for
"And the Waters Turned to Blood." And since the "cell
from hell" lives in North Carolina rivers, a lot of people
are left wondering what to do. Head for the hills or stay here
and await the attack of the "Ultimate Biological Threat"?
Fortunately, the book doesn't live up to its cover. In fact, Rodney
Barker's thesis is quite simple: Something dangerous lurks in
the waters of North Carolina. It is killing fish, and it has made
people sick. Unfortunately, his smoothly written, but somewhat
flawed book, raises as many questions as it answers. But it does
make two things clear. This is no time to panic, but it is time
to be concerned. Consequently, this is a story every North Carolinian
should know.
Barker, an investigative reporter from New Mexico, opens his narrative
in 1988. Fish are dying in a laboratory aquarium at North Carolina
State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, but researchers
think they know the cause: a species of dinoflagellate, an ancient
group of microscopic marine organisms. The most notorious dino
is Gymnodium breve, which secretes a deadly toxin and is responsible
for the red tides that occasionally ravage the world's coasts,
killing millions of fish.
But examination shows that G. breve is not the culprit. Instead,
the microscope reveals an unknown dinoflagellate. The lab director
asks Dr. JoAnn Burkholder, an assistant professor of aquatic botany
at the university, to help identify the mysterious dino. After
examining water samples from the contaminated aquarium, Burkholder
realizes she is dealing with a new species of dinoflagellate and
confirms that it attacks live fish. Ominously, she finds the same
deadly dino in water samples taken during a fish kill on the Pamlico
River.
In 1992, Burkholder publishes her findings in the prestigious
scientific journal Nature. Later, she and a colleague officially
name the dino Pfiesteria piscicida - fish killer. But Burkholder's
triumph has a unforeseen price. She and her lab assistant, Howard
Glasgow, suffer a frightening illness, a neurological disorder
that affects their short-term memories and alters their personalities.
Her illness prompts Burkholder to begin contacting people who
frequent North Carolina's coastal rivers. She locates several
people with symptoms resembling her own and becomes convinced
that pfiesteria is a threat not only to fish but also to people.
And she asks: Why pfiesteria? Why North Carolina? Why now?
In the spring of 1995, Burkholder gets a clue. The News &
Observer runs an expose on North Carolina's fast-growing hog farming
industry. She learns that North Carolina hogs are producing waste
equivalent to that produced by 15 million people. Some of this
waste - rich in nitrogen and phosphorous - runs off into rivers
that are already overloaded with nutrients. Burkholder had long
suspected that pfiesteria thrive in nutrient-rich waters, and
the articles lead her to believe that hog waste might have unleashed
the lethal dinoflagellate.
This, then, is the story Barker tells. It is, however, only part
of the book. The author devotes countless pages to describing
the obstacles Burkholder encounters: the jealous academics who
hindered her research, the obstructionist bureaucrats and dilatory
politicians who tried to cut off her funding and downplay her
warnings. But that's not news; those folks are the same the world
over. Pfiesteria, however, is news, and the anecdotes about bickering
bureaucrats dilute the story.
The book's other weakness is more serious; it is a scientific
mystery without the science. Nowhere is there a graph or a table.
There are no statistics, little data and no bibliography. How
then should one evaluate Barker's central thesis? How dangerous
is pfiesteria to North Carolinians? Barker's not sure; he ends
the book by writing that "We still don't know whether pfiesteria
will be a plague upon our waters of Old Testament proportions."
Nevertheless, we can draw some conclusions.
First, as Barker makes abundantly clear, JoAnn Burkholder is a
hero, and we should be grateful for the ground-breaking research
she has done on pfiesteria. Second, pfiesteria exists in our coastal
rivers, and it produces a toxin that kills fish and harms humans
- it has already been found in the vicinity of more than 100 fish
kills. Third, the waters of our rivers are hazardous to humans
during pfiesteria-induced fish kills. Fourth, nutrients almost
certainly increase pfiesteria activity. Finally, to reduce the
threat pfiesteria poses to both humans and fish, we must cut down
the nutrients we flush into our rivers, from every source - including
hog waste. But, how much waste we must eliminate to be safe is
not yet known.
Barker must be commended for drawing attention to the problems
of our much-abused rivers and estuaries. He has not written a
perfect book, but he has written an important one.
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