Channel catfish caught in the Allegheny River near Kittanning contain five times more toxic mercury and selenium than fish at Pittsburgh's Point, and Conrad Dan Volz wants to enlist fishermen and others throughout the watershed in the Allegheny River Stewardship Program to help find out why.

Dr. Volz, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, said the 20-month, $150,000 community-based project will measure the toxic contaminants in fish caught in the Allegheny River, locate potential pollution sources and assess the risks to human health and the environment.

A first informational public meeting will be held from 6 to 8 tonight in the Royal Gatherings Banquet Room of Dingbats Restaurant, at the Pittsburgh Mills Mall on Route 28, and Dr. Volz is casting a wide net.

"We want to start getting input from teachers, community leaders, residents, fishermen, conservation groups and students on what pollution problems are affecting them and what they want us to do," Dr. Volz said. "If we can get them involved in collection of samples, they will become energized about stewardship of the river."

The high mercury and selenium levels, discovered in channel catfish caught during a preliminary study by Dr. Volz this summer, are surprising because channel catfish are not bottom feeders but high-level predators, and because the Allegheny has always been the cleanest of Pittsburgh's three rivers.

"We think we've found the source and it is the Reliant Energy coal-fired power plant in Cheswick," Dr. Volz said. "The emissions don't get dispersed high into the atmosphere like at other plants, but seem to be blown directly up river into the Allegheny watershed."

Pat Hammond, a spokeswoman for Reliant, said the power plant is in compliance with its emissions permits and is in the process of installing pollution controls that will reduce mercury emissions by 80 to 90 percent while reducing sulfur dioxide emissions by 98 percent.

Dr. Volz said attendees at tonight's meeting will be given results of a 2005-07 fish consumption study that indicates that in addition to the power plant pollutants, large amounts of man-made chemicals and pharmaceutical estrogens are entering the river through sewer overflow pipes and sewer treatment plant discharges.

Estrogenic chemicals come from garden pesticides, plasticizers, glues, cosmetics and products that dissolve detergents. Pharmaceutical estrogens are found in female hormone replacement drugs and birth control pills thrown away into toilets and drains. Scientific studies have linked the ingestion of such chemicals to hormone problems and some cancers.

The findings are important, Dr. Volz said, because more than 1.2 million people get their drinking water from the Allegheny River, and estrogenic substances remain in water even after it goes through a treatment process.

"Overall, fish are sentinels of water quality, like canaries were in coal mines, and we need to pay attention to what's happening to them and what that means to our drinking water," he said.

Tonight's meeting will be followed in coming months by other community-based meetings focusing on pollution problems and sampling locations. The project will recruit volunteers to help collect 300 to 500 fish samples from the river from May 1 through mid-June. It will take six months to analyze the fish samples for toxic metal contamination and estrogen compounds.

Results of the project will be announced in the spring or early summer of 2009, and participants will be asked to come up with plans to address the pollution sources.