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Photoenhanced Toxicity of Petroleum to Aquatic Invertebrates and Fish: Review of State of the Science
Citation:
Barron, M. Photoenhanced Toxicity of Petroleum to Aquatic Invertebrates and Fish: Review of State of the Science. SETAC Europe, Rome, N/A, ITALY, May 13 - 17, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
This abstract will be presented at the SETAC Europe meeting in Rome. Its impact and value to EPA includes: 1) EPA is the lead federal agency in freshwater oil spills, and the sole Agency that determines listing of oil spill mitigating agents; 2) the presentation highlights the importance of environmental conditions (sunlight) as an important determinant of oil toxicity, that is not generally recognized in the spill response community; and 3) this is an invited presentation in a special oil symposium, which provides additional prestige and highlights the importance of EPA's petroleum research.
Description:
Photoenhanced toxicity is a distinct mechanism of petroleum toxicity that is mediated by the interaction of solar radiation with specific polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) in oil. Phototoxicity is observed as a 2 to greater than 1000 fold increase in chemical toxicity to aquatic organisms that have also been exposed to light sources containing sufficient quantity and quality of ultraviolet radiation (UV). When tested under natural sunlight or laboratory sources of UV, fresh and weathered middle distillates, crudes and heavy oils can exhibit photoenhanced toxicity. These same products do not exhibit phototoxicity in standard test protocols because of low UV irradiance in laboratory lighting. Fresh water, estuarine and marine waters have been shown to have sufficient solar radiation exposure to elicit photoehanced toxicity, and a diversity of aquatic invertebrate and fish species can exhibit photoenhanced toxicity when exposed to combinations of oil and UV. Risks of photoenhanced toxicity will be greatest to early life stages of aquatic organisms that are translucent to UV and that inhabit the photic zone of the water column and intertidal areas exposed to oil.