HA7 Evaluating Movement and Effects of POPs
Room 18C/D, Level 4
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 13 November 2003
Chair: Johnson, Kevin ,
Co-chair: Letcher, Robert ,
(538) Air-water exchange controls phytoplankton PCB concentrations in impacted estuaries.
Yan, S.1, Totten, L.1, Gigliotti, C.1, Offenberg, J.1, Eisenreich, S.2, Dachs, J.3, Reinfelder, J.1, 1 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA2 Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy3 Department of Environmental Chemistry, IIQAB-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain
ABSTRACT- Phytoplankton uptake of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is the first step in their transfer through the food web. Atmospheric POPs can be incorporated directly into the base of the aquatic food chain (phytoplankton and bacteria) mediated by air-water exchange. In order to study this process, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were measured in the air, aerosol, phytoplankton, dissolved, and suspended particle phases of the Lower Hudson River Estuary and coastal Atlantic Ocean off of New York City in five cruises during 1999-2001. This area has been impacted by emissions of PCBs from the Upper Hudson River, sewage treatment effluents, urban runoff, and other processes, supporting average PCB concentrations in the dissolved phase of 1.2 and 0.42 ng/L in Raritan Bay and the coastal Atlantic, respectively. A previously developed dynamic model that couples air-water exchange and phytoplankton uptake was used to predict truly dissolved and phytoplankton concentrations of PCBs using only the gas phase concentrations as input. The predictions were within a factor of two for most PCBs, suggesting that air-water exchange controls phytoplankton concentrations of hydrophobic PCBs in this impacted urban estuary. The atmosphere thus plays an important role in the bioaccumulation of PCBs in the food chain.
Key words: new jersey, hudson river, raritan, new york