Effluent Alters Sexuality of Fish

Treated wastewater is altering the genes of native fish -- making male fish more like females and females more like males.

A study is finding that an endangered fish species experiences dramatic hormonal changes after being immersed for three months in treated effluent from Pima County's Roger Road sewage plant.

For some hormones, male and female bonytail chub tested in wastewater contain up to five times more hormones of the opposite sex than of their own sex.

The University of Arizona and federal researchers worry it's not just fish that could be affected.

Sometime around 2020, Tucsonans may start drinking wastewater -- in a much more highly treated form than the Roger Road plant now dumps into the Santa Cruz River.

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