Assessing Sediment Toxicity from Navigational Pools of the Upper Mississippi River Using a 28-Day Hyalella azteca Test

Abstract

Abstract.To assess the extent of sediment contamination in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) system after the flood of 1993, sediment samples were collected from 24 of the 26 navigational pools in the river and from one site in the Saint Croix River in the summer of 1994. Whole-sediment tests were conducted with the amphipod Hyalella azteca for 28 days measuring the effects on survival, growth, and sexual maturation. Amphipod survival was significantly reduced in only one sediment (13B) relative to the control and reference sediments. Body length of amphipods was significantly reduced relative to the control and reference sediments in only one sample (26C). Sexual matura tion was not significantly reduced in any treatment when compared to the control and reference sediments. No significant correlations were observed between survival, growth, and maturation to either the physical or chemical characteristics of the sediment samples from the river. When highly reliable effect range medians (ERMs) were used to evaluate sediment chemis try, 47 of 49 (96%) of the samples were correctly classified as nontoxic. These results indicate that sediment samples from the Upper Mississippi River are relatively uncontaminated com pared to other areas of known contamination in the United States.

An Evaluation of the Toxicity of Contaminated Sediments from Waukegan Harbor, Illinois, Following Remediation

“…A total of 85% of the Waukegan samples that were toxic to H. azteca in the present study exceeded a mean PEC quotient of 0.6 or were above a proportion of 0.2 PECs exceeded. Therefore, the sediments from Waukegan Harbor that were toxic to H. azteca (toxicity identified based primarily on growth) were contaminated at similar concentrations to toxic sediments from other areas in the United States Kemble et al 1998;Long and MacDonald 1998;MacDonald et al 2000a). Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between average mean PEC quotients and the average incidence of toxicity in a freshwater database matching toxicity and chemistry (MacDonald et al 2000a).…”

“…The number of PECs exceeded and mean PEC quotients were calculated for each sample evaluated in the present study (Table 4). The proportion of PECs exceeded was also calculated for each sediment sample from Waukegan Harbor and for sediment toxicity tests reported for H. azteca by Ingersoll et al (1996; n ϭ 62 samples), Kemble et al (1998;n ϭ 49 samples), and Ingersoll et al (1998;n ϭ 18 samples). A mean PEC quotient was calculated for each of these samples by first dividing the concentration of an individual chemical by its respective PEC, summing each of these individual values, and dividing the sum by the number of PECs for that sample Ingersoll et al 1998;Long et al 1998;MacDonald et al 2000a).…”

Comprehensive assessment of heavy metal contamination in sediment of the Pearl River Estuary and adjacent shelf

“…Although the biological toxicity test using sediments with different heavy metal content has been conducted by many authors (Kemble et al, 1998;Norwood et al, 2007;Penttinen et al, 2008), the sediment quality guidelines do not account for the physico-chemical attributes (such as grain size, organic matter content, sulfides, chemical species and complexes) of the sediments that may increase or decrease the potential for toxic effects at a specific area (Ho et al, 2010). Therefore, the ecological risk evaluation based on the total concentration of trace metal in sediment is believed to be problematic because different sediments exhibit different degrees of bioavailability for the same total metal content (Di Toro et al, 1990).…”

Assessment of sediment toxicity during anaerobic biodegradation of vegetable oil using Microtox® and Hyalella azteca bioassays

“…The Microtox 1 test has been used widely over the past two decades for toxicity assessment of soil and sediments (Cook and Wells, 1996;Bombardier and Bermingham, 1999;Doberty, 2001;Lee et al, 2003b), and the Microtox 1 SPT has been used successfully to evaluate the efficacy of oil spill remediation strategies (Lee et al, 1995(Lee et al, , 2003b. Likewise, amphipod survival (e.g., Hyalella azteca, Eohaustorius esturius) has been often used to evaluate sediment toxicity in recent years (Ingersoll et al, , 1996Kemble et al, 1994Kemble et al, , 1998Kemble et al, , 1999Bhattacharyya et al, 2003;Blaise et al, 2004). In comparison to other biotests, such as echinoid fertilization, microinvertebrate embryo-larval toxicity, and induction of mixed function oxygenase, the Microtox 1 SPT and amphipod tests appeared among the most sensitive assays for evaluating toxicity of sediments and interstitial waters during oil spill impact assessment (Lee et al, 2003a).…”