PARENT SESSION
Multiple Stressors: Effects on Fish & Wildlife.
Kathryn Gallagher, Betsy Grim
Wednesday, November 15, 2000
1:20 PM to 5:20 PM
CC 204

(391) Mixture toxicity identification in contaminated groundwater.

Altenburger, Rolf¹, Brack, Werner¹, Popp, Peter¹, Weiss, Holger¹, Schüürmann, Gerrit¹, ¹

ABSTRACT- Remediation efforts for contaminated groundwaters are commonly based on chemical analysis only. However, as any inventory of pollutants may be fragmentary the focus of our work was to combine biotesting and chemical analysis with fractionation techniques in order to identify major toxicants. In the highly contaminated Bitterfeld area of East Germany with a wide chemical production pattern in the past we studied water probes from various drillings into the quaternary water table. Using a biotest battery approach we found diverse effect fingerprints on a small scale that did not go conform with priority contaminants as derived from a mass balance approach. Using various sample manipulations the toxicity contributions from volatile compounds and confounding factors such as hydrogen sulfite could be qualified. GC/MS screening, QSAR-derived minimum toxicity calculations and toxic unit considerations made it plausible that complex contamination patterns may be held responsible for toxic responses.

Key words: groundwater, mixture toxicity, toxicity identification