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Integrated Research to Assess Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Environment
Citation:
Glassmeyer, S., H. Buxton, E. Furlong, D. Kolpin, M. Mills, AND Dan Villeneuve. Integrated Research to Assess Contaminants of Emerging Concern in the Environment. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) annual meeting, Salt Lake City, UT, November 01 - 05, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
Disseminate research to the scientific community
Description:
The US Geological Survey and the US Environmental Protection Agency are collaborating on a series of projects examining the sources, fates, and potential effects of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the environment. The first project, the Chemical Mixtures pilot project, analyzed water samples from 38 streams impacted by various contaminant sources (e.g. wastewater treatment plants, crops, and/or livestock). The second project, the Wastewater to Drinking Water project, follows a surface water flowpath by collecting water samples from just above a wastewater treatment plant outfall and downstream to a drinking water treatment plant intake and through to a finished water sample. Both studies utilize an integrated approach that includes a comprehensive analysis of specific chemicals (e.g. pharmaceuticals, perfluorinated chemicals, hormones, etc.), environmental diagnostics to identify non-target, unknown chemicals, in vitro bioassays (e.g. estrogenicity, androgenicity, genotoxicity, toxicity in metabolizing cells), rapid whole organisms screens (e.g. Microtox) to assess cumulative bioactivity, and in vivo tests to address specific exposure and response endpoints. A rigorous quality assurance/quality control protocol design is consistently applied from field to laboratory to ensure comparability of results from different techniques. This consistent, integrated approach combines the strength of each technique and is ideal for CEC related research in which traditional environmental and toxicity endpoints are not adequate for fully understanding potential effects to human health and the environment from chemical exposures. This presentation will provide an overview of both studies, in terms of project design and summary results. Other presentations in the session will present more detailed information on these projects.
