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Seven years after intersex male smallmouth bass were discovered in the Potomac River, environmentalists are pushing for political action against emerging contaminants they say are polluting the water shared by fish and millions of people in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

"We feel that this is the canary in the coal mine. A troubling indicator of pollutants in the water," said Hedrick Belin, president of Potomac Conservancy, a Potomac River conservation group. "We need to be concerned because we get our drinking water in these locations."

First discovered in 2003, an estimated 80 percent of male smallmouth bass in the Potomac River and its tributaries were found to have eggs in their testes, said Vicki Blazer, fish pathologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

More than 70 percent of public drinking water for the 1.8 million residents in Montgomery and Price George's counties comes from the Potomac River, said Jim Neustadt, director of communications and community relations with Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission.

WSSC complies with all current water quality standards and has been financially supportive of research on emerging contaminants in water, Neustadt said.

Scientists believe new endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in pesticides, livestock waste, and medications such as birth control pills being mixed into river water could be causing the fish mutations.

"The problem is that our sanitary sewer systems are not able to screen these chemicals out. We don't have the systems and the technology to screen them out so it goes back into the fresh water, and ultimately into our drinking water," said U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). "Right now we can't regulate it and the reason is we can't prove what is causing it."

Moran is sponsoring a bill that aims to study the effects of the chemicals, improve regulation standards and give more money to research. A companion bill by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was introduced at the same time in the Senate. No Maryland legislators are co-sponsoring either bill, both of which are in committee, but Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Dist. 3) of Towson and U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D) of Baltimore serve on the committees reviewing the bills.

An issue close to his heart since his daughter was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, Moran said endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been linked to developmental disorders and other illnesses in children.

Since April 20, more than 1,000 people have signed a Potomac Conservancy petition calling on Congress to provide additional funding for research on the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and the intersex fish found in the river.

"Once we figure out what's going on and why this is happening we can take the important steps to reduce the impact of these toxic chemicals," Belin said.

He hopes public awareness will lead to other social action such as best practice initiatives for farmers to reduce animal waste in streams and drug take-back programs for people to safely dispose of unused or expired medications.

Scientists still need to identify major contaminants that can be feasibly managed before much action can take place, Blazer said, a process that could take a few more years.

"They need some very definite proof," Blazer said. "And that's what we're trying to accumulate."