WA6 Alaska North-Slope Environmental Monitoring
Room 18A/B, Level 4
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Wednesday, 12 November 2003
Chair: Boehm, Paul ,
(375) Trace substances and biomarkers in fish from the North Slope of Alaska.
Spies, R.1, Gold, J.1, Hardin, D.1, Bell, D.1, 1 Applied Marine Sciences, Livermore, CA, USA
ABSTRACT- The bioaccumulation of trace substances, including anthropogenic contaminants was investigated in five species of fish in and near the North Slope oil field developments, including the Liberty and Northstar project areas. The fish species evaluated were: Arctic Cod, Arctic Cisco, Four Horn Sculpin, Broad Whitefish and Humpback Whitefish. There were a total of five collection sites. Fish were evaluated for whole body concentrations of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), organochlorine compounds (PCBs and 12 pesticides) and 12 trace metals. Two biomarkers of contaminant exposure were also measured: P4501A in liver hepatocytes and gut epithelial cells and bile hydrocarbon metabolites. The results of this study are to be used to evaluate any present problems and as a basis for establishing a monitoring program to evaluate potential increases of biologically available substances with future oil field development. Based on the number of site-trace contaminant and site-biomarker differences we recommended the Four Horn Sculpin for further monitoring. We present and discuss the relative power of different sized collections of Four Horn Sculpin to detect changes in various trace contaminants and the number of years required to detect different percentage change with a fixed number of fish per site
Key words: contaminants, Alaska, biomarkers, fish