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Aquatic Sciences

Fishery Management Chemicals

Development of Fishery Management Chemicals for Public Fisheries:  Role of the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

Background:  Natural resource agencies depend on a variety of fishery management chemicals and drugs to ensure the health of their fishery resources.  Currently, state and federal management agencies rely on a variety of chemical tools to manage populations of detrimental invasive species such as the lamprey in the Great Lakes.  They also depend on the availability of safe and efficacious chemicals to ensure the health and fitness of fish cultured for public use.  Before any chemical can be used as a management or rearing tool, they must be either registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (management chemicals) or approved by the Center for Veterinary Medicine of the Food and Drug Administration (aquaculture chemicals).  Since 1964, the UGSG Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) has been the leader in the development and submission of data to those regulatory agencies supporting registrations or approvals of management and aquaculture chemicals.  The UMESC leadership in this area continues today.

UMESC Unique Research Capabilities:  The generation of data for submission to regulatory agencies is broadly controlled by provisions of the Good Laboratory Practices Act.  Because of our long history and extensive knowledge and experience developing data to support the use of chemicals by public natural resource agencies, UMESC is uniquely qualified to accomplish this work.  Capabilities unique to the UMESC include:

• State-of-the-art wet lab facilities that allow researchers to implement nearly any study design
• An aquatic invasive species isolation and research complex
• Water tanks that allow researchers to tailor the chemical composition of water to replicate virtually any water chemistry in the world
• A full time animal culturist and expansive aquaculture facility specifically geared for rearing a wide range of fish species and aquatic invertebrates
• A quality assurance officer to provide oversight to studies conducted according to Good Laboratory Practices
• State-of-the-art analytical equipment capable of detecting fishery chemicals in a variety of matrices including water, tissues, and sediment
• State-of-the-art environmental chambers that allow researchers to conduct a variety of stringently controlled acute and chronic studies with nearly any aquatic organism
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing allowing researchers to conduct chemical fate and metabolism studies with radioactive chemicals
• A cadre of biologists and chemists uniquely trained to utilize the facility to develop data supporting chemical registrations and approvals.