Deriving Human Health and Aquatic Life Water Quality Criteria in the United States for Bioaccumulative Substances: A Historical Review and Future Perspective

Abstract

Methods used to derive water quality regulations for persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic substances (PBTs) in the United States have evolved substantially over the past 50 yr, leveraging current understandings and assumptions about the nature and magnitude of partitioning and accumulation of substances in water, sediments, and organisms. In the United States and across the world, environmental regulations continue to evolve into more refined water quality criteria protective of aquatic life and human health. The present review provides historical context on the establishment of aquatic life and human health water quality criteria in the United States by compiling information from regulatory agencies and peer‐reviewed literature on methods used to characterize and quantify bioaccumulation of substances in aquatic organisms and humans. Primary data needs and assumptions for various methods, as well as their application in setting criteria by the US Environmental Protection Agency over the past half century, are highlighted. Our review offers an important retrospective on the data and methods used to derive water quality criteria for PBTs and provides commentary on the future of US criteria development. Environ Toxicol Chem 2021;40:2394–2405. © 2021 SETAC

Assessing the effects of gold mining on environment: A case study of Shekiso district, Guji zone, Ethiopia

“…The free cyanide concentrations in the Drame and Fega Rivers, as well as the Lokotu and Dawa Rivers, were slightly higher than the WHO guideline values ( Table 4 ). Likewise, lead concentrations for all the rivers were also above both world health organizations (WHO) and EPA standardized levels ( WHO, 2019 ; Barnhart et al., 2021 and Parsoya, 2022 , ​ Regassa, 2021 ).…”

A review of regulatory modeling frameworks supporting numeric water quality criteria development in the United States

“…The most common mechanistic model used for the development of regulatory criteria is the BLM (Di Toro et al, 2001; Niyogi & Wood, 2004; Santore et al, 2001). Substance‐specific BLMs have been developed for several metals (i.e., aluminum, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel, lead, and zinc in freshwater systems and copper, nickel, and zinc in saltwater systems) and consist of multiple submodels that mechanistically simulate chemical speciation, competition of ionic bonding, as well as accumulation and toxicity to aquatic species (Adams et al, 2020; Barnhart et al, 2021; Windward Environmental LLC, 2020). Copper is the only contaminant for which USEPA has established aquatic life criteria using the BLM (Santore et al, 2001; USEPA, 2007), and this guidance has suffered from low adoption among states, which may be due to difficulty in statewide implementation and/or the large amount of data needed to parameterize the model (USEPA, 2022a).…”

“…With method development and increased data availability, approaches for numeric criteria derivation have continued to advance to more appropriately characterize complex and variable environmental conditions (e.g., see Barnhart et al, 2021;Buchwalter et al, 2017). However, there remains a trade-off between the capacity to simulate complex interactions of bioavailability and biomagnification of toxic substances, and the ability to derive broadly applicable regulatory numeric criteria protective of water quality (USEPA, 2005(USEPA, , 2022a.…”

Higher Risks of Copper Toxicity in Turbid Waters: Quantifying the Bioavailability of Particle-Bound Metals to Set Site-Specific Water Quality Criteria

“…In turbid waters, particle-bound contaminants, such as metals, constitute a significant portion of the total concentration. However, the prevalent water quality criteria (or standards) of metals are mostly based on their dissolved concentration, seemingly neglecting the contribution of the particulate metals. , Admittedly, using the dissolved concentration (0.45-μm filtered) for toxicity assessment is a significant improvement over the previously adopted measure of total recoverable metal (using rigorous acid digestion), because stronger correlations exist between the dissolved concentration and metal toxicity. , Yet such neglect of particulate metals is a compromise due to the lack of a simple and adequate approach to incorporate particulate metals into the risk assessment, rather than due to their negligible risks.…”

“…28−30 The TK part predicts tissue concentration based on Cu exposure, simulating the bioaccumulation processes, including dissolved uptake, particle ingestion, assimilation, egestion, and elimination; and the TD part predicts survival probability based on the tissue concentration. Our objectives include (1) to calculate the relative contribution of dissolved and particulate Cu in Cu bioaccumulation; (2) to separate and quantify the multiple roles of Cu-bearing SPM in causing toxicity; (3) to propose a modifying factor for assessing the risks of Cu in the presence of SPM. The information is expected to facilitate setting sitespecific water quality criteria in turbid waters.…”