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COMPARISON OF THE RELATIVE SENSITIVITY OF THREE BENTHIC INVERTEBRATES TO COPPER CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS FROM THE KEWEENAW WATERWAY
Citation:
West, C., C. Mattson, E. Leonard, G. Phipps, AND G. Ankley. COMPARISON OF THE RELATIVE SENSITIVITY OF THREE BENTHIC INVERTEBRATES TO COPPER CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS FROM THE KEWEENAW WATERWAY. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-94/248 (NTIS PB94174703).
Description:
The Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan was once a major copper mining area and these mining activities were responsible for depositing tons of tailings in and around the Keweenaw Waterway. n recent years there has been concerned about possible toxic effects of the contaminated sediments on aquatic communities in the system. n the fall of 1990, sediments were collected from various locations along the Waterway. en-day tests were conducted with the samples using three species of benthic invertebrates that have been proposed as suitable for evaluating the toxicity of freshwater sediments: Hyalella azteca (amphipods), Chironomus tentans (chironomids) and Lumbriculus variegatus (oligochastes). umber of sediments were toxic to one or more of the three species and, in general, there was good agreement among the tests with regard to identifying toxic samples. nexpectedly, the relative sensitivity of the three species to the test sediments was not accurately predicted from water-only copper exposures. his indicates that factors modifying exposure, such as different lifestyles and/or varying sensitivity to physics-chemical characteristics of sediments can influence results of sediment toxicity tests.