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The first comprehensive chemical and biological characterization of wastewater from food, beverage, and feedstock facilities across theUnited States
Citation:
Hubbard, L., D. Kolpin, B. Blackwell, P. Bradley, N. Evans, C. Givens, J. Gray, R. Lane, E. MedlockKakaley, K. Romanok, K. Smalling, Dan Villeneuve, AND V. Wilson. The first comprehensive chemical and biological characterization of wastewater from food, beverage, and feedstock facilities across theUnited States. National Water Quality Monitoring Council Meeting, Virtual, Virtual, April 19 - 23, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Commercial food production facilities release wastewater effluent containing complex chemical and biological signatures. Current monitoring of these wastewaters is focused on basic constituents, however the effects of the complex environmental mixtures to resident aquatic species remain equivocal. In this this two-phase study, chemical and biological signatures of effluent from a variety of food processing facility types (food, beverage, feedstock processing) were revealed in phase one. Initial phase one assessments allowed for more rigorous assessment of environmental exposures to multiple aquatic species (microbial communities, minnow, crayfish) in phase two.
Description:
ABSTRACT: Commercial food, beverage, and feedstock processing facilities produce wastewater with complex chemical and biological signatures which is commonly discharged into the environment with unknown effects to the aquatic environment. Current monitoring of these wastewaters is primarily focused on basic constituents (e.g. dissolved oxygen, suspended solids, nutrients, etc.), however, these wastewater discharges are an under-investigated potential source of chemical and biological contaminants to the environment. In 2018, wastewater samples from 23 food, beverage, and feedstock processing facilities were collected from 17 states and analyzed for more than 580 target organic contaminants (e.g. pharmaceuticals, pesticides, hormones, PFAS, antibiotics, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)). In addition, wastewater extracts were screened for in vitro estrogenic, androgenic, and glucocorticoid activity. Initial study results indicate that such processing facilities can be an important environmental source of organic contaminants, with 196 different compounds detected at concentrations up to 143 µg L-1. The most frequently detected types of organic contaminants included five herbicides, two VOCs, two pharmaceuticals, one benzotriazole, and one hormone detected at ≥ 10 facilities. Ten of the 196 compounds had detections > 20 µg L-1. No facility discharges were found to contain measurable glucocorticoid activity, 10 had measurable androgenic activity, and all 23 facility discharges were found to have estrogenic activity. In phase II (August to October 2020), we collected wastewater from a subset of seven of the original facilities for a more comprehensive characterization of chemical and microbial contaminants. In addition, to better determine environmental exposures, water, bed sediment, and tissue (e.g. minnows, crayfish) were also collected from the receiving waters both upstream and downstream of the wastewater discharge point. Abstract does not necessarily reflect U.S. Environmental Protection Agency views or policy.