HP1 Portland Harbor (USA) Superfund Site Investigation
256 Portland Ballroom
1:20 PM - 5:20 PM, Thursday
() Persistent Organic Pollutants in Fish from Portland Harbor, Oregon.
Stone, D1, Davoli, D2, Kissinger, L2, 1 Oregon Health Services, Portland, Oregon, USA2 USEPA, Seattle, Washington, USA
ABSTRACT- One of the major sampling efforts in the Portland Harbor Superfund investigation was the collection of numerous fish species from the lower Willamette River. Whole body and fillet tissue were analyzed for a variety of contaminants in resident and migratory fish. For methodological comparison, the level of PCBs measured as Aroclors was compared to the level of PCBs measured as congeners to determine how well the different analyses agree. Distinct differences in the level of PCBs, pesticides, dioxins/furans and congener TEQs were observed between resident fish with limited home-range and migratory or wide-ranging fish. Two resident fish, smallmouth bass, Micropterus Dolomieui and common carp, Cyprinus carpio, had the highest accumulation of organic pollutants among species that are commonly caught and consumed in Portland Harbor. Migratory species, such as spring chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, had the lowest level of dioxin/furan and PCB contamination. The profile of PCB congeners differed among species and sample sites along the river, indicating the possible use of PCB congener profiling as a tool to correlate tissue and sediment contamination. These results suggest that fish who reside entirely within Portland Harbor have a higher burden of contamination compared with species that are able to migrate to other waters.
Key words: POPs, Portland Harbor, fish