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CLEMSON - Those visiting Lake Hartwell have probably seen the advisory signs - don't eat the fish.

Since 1976, the lake have been under these advisories because of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) dumped into the lake via the Twelve Mile River.

Now a Clemson University professor has the funds to research how these pollutants "cycle through fish and other organisms and wind up on the dinner table."

The National Science Foundation awarded $356,000 to Cindy Lee, an environmental chemist and professor of environmental and earth sciences, to do the study on the chemical, which has been linked to problems in brain development in humans.

Lee said the focus of her study will be the Twelve Mile River where PCBs have plagued the waters for more than 50 years after being dumped there by a Pickens capacitor manufacturer.

During cleanup efforts, the Environmental Protection Agency strategy has been for clean sediment to eventually cover up the contaminated soil, but some scientists are concerned that PCBs are still circulating in the food chain.

According to Lee, some PCB compounds "have mirror images that behave similarly under certain conditions, such as evaporation, but differently under other conditions, such as microbial degradation or metabolism in fish, spiders, frogs and other organisms.

"Because of this difference in behavior, we can track the changes with our analytical instruments," she said. "My research group is one of the few in the world to use these techniques."

Craig Zeller, the EPA engineer in charge of the cleanup effort at the lake and river, said Lee's grant and research plans are good news and that a lot of people nationwide will be interested in her findings.

So far, the EPA and Schlumberger, the party responsible for the cleanup, have spent millions researching the problem, he said.

One study was conducted at the Office of Research and Development in Cincinnati, Ohio, done in four phases spanning over five years.

Over the years as clean sediment has covered much of the PCBs, with the levels dropping in the upper six inches of soil in the Twelve Mile arm of the lake to below one part per million, the same hasn't been true in fish tissue, Zeller said.

"The reduction in fish tissue and other aquatic organisms is not dropping at the same rate, if at all," he said.

He said the pollutant is definitely cycling through these living things, but tracking down that cycle is complicated, especially in fish.

Analysis is difficult because you have to consider the fish's age, gender, size, lipid (fat) percentage, migratory habits and eating habits, Zeller said.

Most fish outside of the Twelve Mile arm of the lake have had low PCB levels for years, but fish in that one area, as well as hybrid bass all over the lake, still have high concentrations of the pollutant in their bodies, he added.

Zeller said once introduced to an eco system, PCBs stick around for a long time.

"It could be decades or even forever," he said. "We hope to eventually be able to rescind or at least make the fish advisory less restrictive on the lake."

He also said they think the transfer to organisms begins with diffusion at the surface of the sediment.

Once scientist figure out how the pollutant works its way through the food chain, Lee said it is likely they can come up with new methods to clean them up and keep them out of the fish and other creatures.