A study by the Department of Fish and Game has come up with very different evidence that trustee staff say is potentially groundbreaking. State biologists found more eggs died in oiled streams than in unoiled streams. But the big surprise was that egg mortality was higher in 1991 than in 1989. Eggs were even dying in parts of streams where oil never reached. Researchers speculate that pink salmon hatched from eggs exposed to oil suffered genetic damage that caused their own eggs to fail two years later.
Further work is under way to test the hypothesis of genetic damage in eggs exposed to crude oil.
Unfortunately the peer review process, by which studies are published and examined by fellow scientists, is slow and drawn out. It may be years before independent scientists render a verdict on pink salmon or other spill subjects where opposite conclusions were reached. One reason for the differing results in the salmon study might be that Exxon sampled fewer streams five oiled and four unoiled, compared to 10 oiled and 15 unoiled streams sampled by the state, according to Brian Bue, a state biologist who attended the Atlanta symposium last spring where Exxon first disclosed its findings. Also, Exxon used incubators to watch egg growth and the state didn't, Bue said. The state study, on the other hand, might be flawed.