Environmental estrogens in an urban aquatic ecosystem: I. Spatial and temporal occurrence of estrogenic activity in effluent-dominated systems

Survey of Intersex Occurrence in Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) from the Upper Illinois River Waterway

“…3.-Severity of intersex condition in largemouth bass collected from the upper Illinois River Waterway, Illinois, USA during April-May 2014. The severity rank classification was described by Blazer et al (2007) where 1 was a testes section with a single oocyte, rank 2 were testes with multiple singular (i.e., not clustered) oocytes, rank 3 was defined by clustering of 2-5 oocytes, and rank 4 was identified by multiple clusters in multiple areas within the longitudinal section (Barber et al, 2011;Martinovic-Weigelt et al, 2013). However, this study represents the first documentation of intersex condition in largemouth bass from the upper IRW and, although we acknowledge the limitations of this study, we hope that this initial detection of the condition will serve as a catalyst for future research on the EDCs in the IRW.…”

“…Martinovic-Weigelt et al (2013) documented the widespread occurrence of EEs in streams flowing through Chicago, where annual discharge is composed primarily of WRP effluents. Additional studies have documented significant contaminant loading in fish tissues collected from the Chicago-metropolitan region (Ramirez et al, 2009;Barber et al, 2011;Schultz et al, 2013).…”

On‐Site Exposure to Treated Wastewater Effluent Has Subtle Effects on Male Fathead Minnows and Pronounced Effects on Carp

“…Although effluent EE composition and concentrations have been shown to be highly variable from day to day in past studies (Hemming et al ., , ; Martinovic et al ., ), with the exception of the spring deployments at the O'Brien and Calumet WRPs, the other four WRP deployments yielded almost identical EEQs on days 6 and 12 at the same plant. This finding is consistent with a related dataset of EEQs gathered concurrently with these experiments in the greater Chicago area where WRP effluents were found to be relatively consistent in total estrogenicity when compared to other sources of estrogenicity (Martinovic‐Weigelt et al ., ). The seeming inconsistency between the studies in the Chicago area and previous studies may reflect differences in WRP size and the nature of the influents.…”

In response: Academic perspective

“…The mixtures of PPCPs found in wastewater have been shown to cause changes in fish physiology similar to that of wastewater effluent , and all wastewater may have some estrogenic potential or other molecular impact , which manifests as changes in reproductive characteristics in fish . However, field studies have found that the potential for endocrine disruption may not be always associated with wastewater‐treatment plant effluent and, therefore, PPCPs and may be attributable to other factors associated with human impacts on the environment.…”