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Suspect screening and prioritization of chemicals of concern (COCs) in a forest-water reuse system watershed.

ABSTRACT: Much research has assessed organic chemicals of concern (COCs) in municipal wastewater and receiving waters, but few studies have examined COCs in land treatment systems. Many prior studies have implemented targeted methods that quantify a relatively small fraction of COCs present in wastewater and receiving waters. This study used suspect screening to assess chemical features in ground- and surface waters from a watershed where secondary-treated wastewater is irrigated onto 900 ha of temperate forest, offering a more holistic view of chemicals that contribute to the exposome. Chemical features were prioritized by abundance and ToxPi scoring across seasonal sampling events to determine if the forest-water reuse system contributed to the chemical exposome of ground- and surface waters. The number of chemical features detected in wastewater was usually higher than on- and off-site ground- and surface waters; in wastewater, chemical features trended with precipitation in which greater numbers of features were detected in months with low precipitation. The number of chemical features detected in off- and on-site waters was similar. The lower overlap between chemical features found in wastewater and downstream surface waters, along with the similar numbers of features being detected in upstream and downstream surface waters, suggests that though wastewater may be a source of chemicals to ground and surface waters on-site, dissipation of wastewater-derived features (in number and peak area abundance) likely occurs with limited off-site surface water export by the forested land treatment system. Further, the numbers of features detected on site and the overlap between wastewater and surface waters did not increase during periods of low rainfall, counter to our initial expectations. The chemical features tentatively identified in this watershed appear common to features identified in other studies, warranting further examination on the potential for resulting impacts of these on humans and the environment.

SUBMITTER: Hedgespeth ML

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8425958 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:With improved analytical techniques, environmental monitoring studies are increasingly able to report the occurrence of tens or hundreds of chemicals per site, making it difficult to identify the most relevant chemicals from a biological standpoint. For the present study, organic chemical occurrence was examined, individually and as mixtures, in the context of potential biological effects. Sediment was collected at 71 Great Lakes (USA/Canada) tributary sites and analyzed for 87 chemicals. Multiple risk-based lines of evidence were used to prioritize chemicals and locations, including comparing sediment concentrations and estimated porewater concentrations with established whole-organism benchmarks (i.e., sediment and water quality criteria and screening values) and with high-throughput toxicity screening data from the US Environmental Protection Agency's ToxCast database, estimating additive effects of chemical mixtures on common ToxCast endpoints, and estimating toxic equivalencies for mixtures of alkylphenols and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This multiple-lines-of-evidence approach enabled the screening of more chemicals, mitigated the uncertainties of individual approaches, and strengthened common conclusions. Collectively, at least one benchmark/screening value was exceeded for 54 of the 87 chemicals, with exceedances observed at all 71 of the monitoring sites. Chemicals with the greatest potential for biological effects, both individually and as mixture components, were bisphenol A, 4-nonylphenol, indole, carbazole, and several PAHs. Potential adverse outcomes based on ToxCast gene targets and putative adverse outcome pathways relevant to individual chemicals and chemical mixtures included tumors, skewed sex ratios, reproductive dysfunction, hepatic steatosis, and early mortality, among others. The results provide a screening-level prioritization of chemicals with the greatest potential for adverse biological effects and an indication of sites where they are most likely to occur. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:1016-1041. Published 2022. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.

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Suspect screening and prioritization of chemicals of concern (COCs) in a forest-water reuse system watershed.

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