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Review of DDT, DDE, DDD, DDMU and DDMS Toxicity Data for Organisms Used in Estuarine and Marine Sediment Toxicity Tests
Citation:
Burkhard, L., G. Elonen, AND Dave Mount. Review of DDT, DDE, DDD, DDMU and DDMS Toxicity Data for Organisms Used in Estuarine and Marine Sediment Toxicity Tests. BULLETIN OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY. Springer, New York, NY, 110(6):115, (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-023-03754-0
Impact/Purpose:
DDT and its breakdown products of DDE, DDD, DDMU and DDSU are common contaminants at Superfund sites with contaminated sediments. For the development of remedial goals for these sites for the protection of benthic invertebrate species, toxicity thresholds in sediment interstitial water are needed. These thresholds can be approximated by measuring toxicities of the chemicals in water only exposures. A literature search was performed to determine what data were available for the DDT family of compounds for benthic species used in sediment toxicity tests for estuarine and marine sediments. For o,p'-DDT, o,p'-DDE, p,p'- DDD, o,p'-DDD, p,p'-DDMU and p,p'-DDMS, toxicity thresholds were not available. For p,p'-DDT and p,p'-DDE, toxicity thresholds were limited. Most the reported thresholds were based upon mixtures either from field contaminated sediments or the use of pesticide formulation (mixture of isomers) in the toxicity tests. The review revealed the need for toxicity testing of the individual members of DDT family of compounds. With these thresholds, development of remedial goals based upon concentrations in sediment porewater/interstitial water can be implemented for estuarine and marine sites with sediments contaminated with DDTs.
Description:
The open literature was searched for laboratory toxicity data for marine/estuarine organisms exposed to dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its degradation products of dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane (DDD), dichlorodiphenylchloroethylene (DDMU), and dichlorodiphenylchloroethane (DDMS). The goal of the review was to determine water-column toxicity values that could be used for porewater-based assessment of sediment toxicity. Data for individual compounds (and isomers thereof) in this group were very limited; most available data were for mixtures of multiple compounds, some defined and others undefined. Further, the majority of relevant studies involved exposure to spiked or field-contaminated sediment (rather than waterborne exposure), which requires inferring concentration in porewater from bulk sediment. Comparing data on the basis of effect concentrations for water or inferred concentration in sediment pore water, the lower reported effect concentrations were in the range of 0.05 to 0.1 µg/L, generally in studies of longer duration and/or evaluating sub-lethal effects. Because field exposures are generally to mixtures of these compounds in varied proportions, additional data on chemical-specific toxicity would aid in pore-water based toxicity assessment for marine/estuarine sediments contaminated with DDT-related chemicals.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Review of DDT, DDE, DDD, DDMU and DDMS Toxicity Data for Organisms Used in Estuarine and Marine Sediment Toxicity Tests
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37318625/