HP1 Portland Harbor (USA) Superfund Site Investigation
256 Portland Ballroom
1:20 PM - 5:20 PM, Thursday
() Forensic Analysis, Source Partitioning and Risk Assessment Modeling of Portland Harbou Contaminated Sediments.
Kassim, Tarek1, 1 Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331
ABSTRACT- Implementing the environmental analysis and impact assessment concept to track down contaminated sediments is intimately related to applying an integrated process for identifying and evaluating the fate and transport consequences of contaminants of concern in the aquatic environment. In many rivers, lakes, or harbor environments, bottom sediments are mostly composed of complex organic mixtures of various contaminants, which are of environmental concern due to their high concentrations, toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation rate. Contaminated sediments can pose potential hazard to large groups of aquatic species and humans. The situation could be even worse especially if the detected pollutants are toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic and/or endocrine disruptive and the impact zone is close to the human beings communities. The Portland Harbor, a representative example of a contaminated sediment environment, has played a key role in economic development of the City of Portland and the State of Oregon for decades. Because of its current contamination, the US-EPA has placed the harbor onto the National Priorities List by its designation as a federal superfund site. As a result, this paper aims at: (a) demonstrating a unique forensic analysis approach that would help characterize the extent of organic contamination in the harbor in terms of its sedimentary hydrocarbon and polar molecular markers (MMs), (b) performing a genetic source partitioning model (using extended Q-mode factor analysis and linear programming technique) in order to group the MM information into specific associations (i.e., end-members) that would help assess and identify the various pollution sources and original MM compositions reflecting aquatic sediment impact to the Harbor, and (c) evaluating the joint toxic effects of multicomponent mixtures (i.e., additivity, synergism, antagonism) of characterized contaminants in the harbor using fresh water alga Selenastrum capricornutum chronic 96-hr toxicity testing.
Key words: source partitioning model, forensic analysis, sediments, risk assessment