An Overview of Toxic Contaminants in Water and Sediments of the Great Lakes Part I

Use of a food web model to evaluate the factors responsible for high PCB fish concentrations in Lake Ellasjøen, a high Arctic Lake

“…A second hypothesis is that nutrient-rich lakes tend to have higher concentrations of POC and DOC compared with oligotrophic lakes. DOC, which is not typically part of the food web (Wetzel 1983), can absorb hydrophobic PCBs, thus rendering them less available for uptake by aquatic organisms (Allan and Ball 1990;Borga et al 2005;Gobas and Morrison 2000). The particles may also dilute the PCBs and reduce contaminant concentrations per unit biomass (Taylor et al 1991).…”

Atsdr Evaluation of Health Effects of Chemicals

“…Although there was evidence of sediment bioturbation by deposit-feeding worms and burrowing organisms, the sediment profiles for mirex and other chlorinated hydrocarbons were not destroyed (Eisenreich et al, 1989). Between the 1960s, when mirex production began, and the early 1980s, after production ceased, levels of mirex in bottom sediments increased in Lake Ontario, with the Niagara River being the major source of this compound (Allan and Ball, 1990).....! ; -I .. ' Mirex may be removed from Lake Ontario by several mechanisms, including the transport of contaminated suspended particulate material via water outflow into the St. Lawrence River, biomass removal through fishing and migration (e.g., migrating eels contaminated with mirex), volatilization, and photolysis (Lum et al, 1987).…”

“…Between 1975 and 1982, mirex was detected in the aqueous phase in 6 of 22 samples in the Niagara River at levels between 0.0005 and 0.0075 ng/L (ppt) (Allan and Ball, 1990). Twelve percent of 104 whole water samples, collected from the Niagara River between 1981 and 1983, had mirex concentrations that ranged from below the detection limit (0.06 ng/L[ppt]) to 2.6 ng/L, with a median concentration of 0.06 ng/L (Oliver and Nicol, 1984).…”

Examination of temporal DDT trends in Lake Erie fish communities using dynamic linear modeling

“…Historical contamination studies in the Great Lakes have consistently identified Lake Erie as having some of the lowest biotic DDT concentrations (e.g., Clark et al, 1984), although the sediments are just as contaminated as those of other lakes (Allan and Ball, 1990;Gewurtz and Diamond, 2003). To reconcile this seeming disparity, several hypotheses have been proposed that linked the Lake Erie eutrophication levels to the relatively low POP burdens in the biota of the system (Gewurtz and Diamond, 2003).…”