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Aquatic toxicity testing for aquatic life impact assessments and recent scientific advancements
Citation:
Phillips, L., K. O'Brien, A. Bergdale, B. Staples, R. Pepin, S. Bogdan, D. Denton, R. stuber, AND T. Norberg-King. Aquatic toxicity testing for aquatic life impact assessments and recent scientific advancements. SETAC North America, Minneapolis, MN, November 12 - 16, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
The US Clean Water Act (CWA) sets both the goal of maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters and the national policy that the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts be prohibited. The use of aquatic toxicity testing, such as whole effluent toxicity (WET), under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits program, is an important component of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) integrated approach to water quality-based toxics control, along with aquatic life chemical-specific criteria and biological assessment. This presentation illustrates the use of aquatic toxicity testing and its scientific approaches for assessing possible impacts to aquatic life. We provide examples from EPA regions and ORD of how toxicity testing can provide valuable insights into the ecological impacts to aquatic communities due to exposure to pollutants.
Description:
The focus of this presentation is to provide an overview of the use of aquatic toxicity testing for assessing possible impacts to aquatic life and how new scientific approaches are being researched. Toxicity testing of both ambient and effluent monitoring samples will be discussed as well as some of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) toxicity testing recommendations. In the U.S., the Clean Water Act (CWA, 1972) established a national policy that the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts be prohibited. The use of aquatic toxicity testing, such as whole effluent toxicity (WET), under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits program, is an important component of EPA’s integrated approach to water quality-based toxics control, along with aquatic life chemical-specific criteria and biological assessments. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of some of the key underlying scientific principles for generating representative and valid toxicity monitoring data which is used for water quality decisions affecting aquatic life protection. It will discuss the primary advantages of toxicity tests such as the evaluation of the integrated effects of all chemicals instantaneously in an aqueous sample and measuring the toxicity of chemicals for which EPA has not yet established numeric water quality criteria. It will discuss how toxicity testing can provide valuable insights into the ecological impacts to aquatic communities due to exposure to pollutants. Highlights of the important scientific principles and key technical considerations to support representative water quality toxicity monitoring will be covered as well as the various approaches to water quality toxicity monitoring. In addition, we will summarize current scientific advancements, research and the potential future direction of water quality toxicity monitoring such as additional test species and emerging scientific techniques (i.e., in vivo to in vitro test methods).An overview of the ongoing international water quality toxicity monitoring discussions will be provided. The views expressed in this presentation are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Agency.