Discolored eggs are showing up for the third straight year in blue catfish caught in the Deep Fork River arm of Lake Eufaula.

The color of the eggs, researchers say, is not as vibrant as the purple eggs first discovered in 2006. The discolored eggs found this year also are smaller, as are the ovaries and egg sacks of the affected fish.

“It’s almost obvious that something has to be coming in to the lake. I don’t know what it is or its point of origins — and I really don’t care,” said Dr. Stuart Woods, a biology professor at Connors State College. “What concerns me is the overall environment of the lake. We need to find out why this is happening and make sure it’s not causing other problems.”

Woods and his small band of researchers have spent more than two years trying to find answers. With limited funding, the group has spent countless hours harvesting fish, collecting water and soil samples, and compiling data.

Since the spring of 2006, researchers have collected soil and water along the Deep Fork and tributaries as far west as Okmulgee trying to find possible causes. Suspicions have led them toward an abandoned zinc smelter near Henryetta from which some believe heavy metals still leach into surface waters, and wastewater discharges reported earlier this decade near Okmulgee.

Those efforts, however, have been stymied by a lack of funding — Connors Development Foundation has provided most of what the team has had — and quarreling among government agencies, from which additional assistance has been sparse.

Despite those setbacks, researchers say they will remain vigilant with their efforts to find out why the blue cat population in the north end of Lake Eufaula is exhibiting such signs of distress.

“People tend to ignore environmental problems until it’s too late, said Rochelle Miller, a research team member and an environmental management instructor at Connors. “The reason we’ve been so persistent is we believe that if there is something wrong we will be able to catch it before it gets worse.”

The area of Lake Eufaula from which researchers have found the curiously colored catfish eggs — north of Oklahoma 150 near the Fountainhead Park area and then west toward Henryetta — is included in the draft copy of the state’s most recent list of impaired waters.

The proposed list of impaired waters, which is included in the state’s 2008 Water Quality Report draft, is published by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.

Dan Bowen, a fisheries biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, has helped researchers harvest fish. Bowen said while the reoccurrence of the catfish egg phenomenon is interesting, he is not ready to declare the situation a problem.

“I would like to see some good test results before I will be ready to say something is wrong,” Bowen said.

The testing of specimens harvested during the 2007 spawning season, he said, were delayed because of a funding dispute between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Woods, however, said the fact this phenomenon is being seen for a third year alone is a cause of concern. Other observations — discolored and enlarged gall bladders, smaller and discolored reproductive organs, and smaller catches being reported by fishermen — are causes for further concern.

“This is an issue that has to be investigated,” Woods said. “We are not going away.”

Researchers plan to continue harvesting fish from Lake Eufaula until the spawning season ends. They plan to work the Gentry Creek area next week and the Belle Star area thereafter.

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