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Survey of the Mutagenicity of Surface Water, Sediments, and Drinking Water from the Penobscot Indian Nation.
Citation:
Warren, S., L. Claxton, T. Hughes, A. Swank, J. Diliberto, V. Marshall, D. Kusnierz, R. Hillger, AND D. DeMarini. Survey of the Mutagenicity of Surface Water, Sediments, and Drinking Water from the Penobscot Indian Nation. CHEMOSPHERE. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 120(1):690-696, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
THIS PACKAGE IS THE NHEERL PART OF THE RARE REPORT WHICH IS BEING CLEARED IN REGION 1 AS A CATEGORY 2. IT HAS NOW BEE PUBLISHED per Dr. DeMarini - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has responsibility for protecting the nation's surface water and groundwater and for ensuring that the supply of drinking water is safe for public consumption. The Clean Water Act (US EPA, 2011) sets national standards for drinking water to protect against health risks, considering available technology and cost. This act regulates point source and nonpoint source discharges of pollutants to the waters of the United States as well as the acceptable level of pollutants in drinking water. Therefore, there is a need to understand the toxicity of source waters, effluent waters, and drinking waters to adequately protect against potential health risks.
Description:
Survey of the Mutagenicity of Surface Water, Sediments, andDrinking Water from the Penobscot Indian NationSarah H. Warren, Larry D. Claxton,1, Thomas J. Hughes,*, Adam Swank,Janet Diliberto, Valerie Marshall, Daniel H. Kusnierz, Robert Hillger, David M. DeMariniNational Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27711, USAbRegion 1, U.S. EPA, 1 Congress St., Suite 1110, Boston, Massachusetts 02114cPenobscot Indian Nation, Department of Natural Resources, Indian Island, Maine 044681Current address: LDC Scientific Services, 6012 Brass Lantern Court, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA*Corresponding author. U.S. EPA, B120A, RTP, NC 27711, USA. Tel.: +1 919 541 7644; fax: +1 919 541 0694. E-mail address: hughes.thomas@epa.gov (T. Hughes). AbstractU.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Regional Applied Research Effort (RARE) projects address the effects of environmental pollutants in a particular region on the health of the population in that region. This report is part of a RARE project that addresses this for the Penobscot Indian Nation (PIN), Penobscot Island, Maine, U.S., where the Penobscot River has had fish advisories for many years due to high levels of mercury. We used the Salmonella mutagenicity assay with strains TA100, TA98, YG1041, and YG1042 with and without metabolic activation to assess the mutagenic potencies of organic extracts of the Penobscot River water and sediment, as well as drinking-water samples, all collected by the PIN Department of Natural Resources. The source water for the PIN drinking water is gravel-packed groundwater wells adjacent to the Penobscot River. Most samples of all extracts were either not mutagenic or had low to moderate mutagenic potencies. The average mutagenic potencies(revertants/L-equivalent) were 337 for the drinking-water extracts and 177 for the river-water extracts; the average mutagenic potency for the river-sediment extracts was 244 revertants (g-equivalent)(-1). This part of the RARE project showed that extracts of the Penobscot River water and sediments and Penobscot drinking water have little to no mutagenic activity that might be due to the classes of compounds that the Salmonella mutagenicity assay detects, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nitro-PAHs (nitroarenes), and aromatic amines. This study is the first to examine the mutagenicity of environmental samples from a tribal nation in the U.S.
