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SAND SPIKED WITH COPPER AS A REFERENCE TOXICANT MATERIAL FOR SEDIMENT TOXICITY TESTING: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION
Citation:
Burgess, R.M., B. Rogers, S. Rego, J. Corbin, AND G. Morrison. SAND SPIKED WITH COPPER AS A REFERENCE TOXICANT MATERIAL FOR SEDIMENT TOXICITY TESTING: A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-94/091.
Description:
Routine use of solid-phase sediment toxicity tests for scientific and regulatory purposes necessitates the development of solid-phase reference toxicant materials. n order to evaluate an approach for developing such materials, 12 solid-phase 96-h reference toxicant tests were conducted over 12 weeks with the marine bivalve Mulinia lateralis. eference toxicant material was clean muffled sand spiked with copper used in a conventional dilution series with unspiked sand as the diluent. ontrol survival ranged from 92 to 100% and during the exposure weights increased by a factor of about 3 relative to initial weights. easured concentrations of copper in the water column above the reference material during testing showed that the toxicant exposures were relatively consistent between tests. oefficients of variation (CV) for mortality and sublethality (growth) endpoints were 39% and 42%, respectively. oefficients of variation for other solid-phase reference toxicant material studies do not exist, but comparison of the insults of this study with water-only literature values are favorable. alues for CVs in the literature range from 4 to 120% and 2 to 48% for acute and sublethal endpoints, respectively, for water column organisms and about 45% for an acute test using the marine amphipod (Ampelisca abdita). his evaluation demonstrates that use of sand spiked with copper is a credible approach for developing a solid phase reference toxicant material; however, further development is required to reduce both biological and chemical sources of variability.