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A method is presented for developing sediment quality guidelines (SQG) for narcotic chemicals in general and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in particular. The guidelines can be applied to any individual or mixture of narcotic chemicals including PAHs using only the chemical's octanol/water partition coefficient. They are derived using the final chronic values for type I narcotics developed from a database consisting of LC50s for 145 chemicals and 33 species, including fish, amphibians, arthropods, mollusks, polychaetes, coelenterates, and protozoans. The target lipid model is used that accounts for the variations in toxicity due to differing species sensitivities as well as chemical differences. The SQGs are derived using the equilibrium partitioning model (EqP), and the results are compared to other sediment quality guidelines. The criterion for a mixture of PAHs is based on the known additivity of narcotic chemicals. The toxic unit concentration corrected for solubility is calculated for each chemical in themixture and then summed. A total toxic unit greater than one indicates a toxic mixture. The prediction is compared to the results from anexperiment using sediment spiked singly and with a mixture of PAHs. The toxicity and amphipod abundance of field-collected sediments are also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

951,," A method is presented for developing water quality criteria (WQC) for type I narcotic chemicals in general and PAHs in particular.The criteria can be applied to any individual or mixture of narcoticchemicals using only the chemical's octanol-water partition coefficient KOW. It is derived from a database of LC50s comprising156 chemicals and 33 species, including fish, amphibians, arthropods, mollusks, polychaetes, coelenterates, and protozoans. A target lipid model is proposed that accounts for variations in toxicity due to differing species sensitivities and chemical differences. The model isbased on the idea that a target lipid is the site of action in the organism. Further. it is assumed that target lipid has the same lipid-octanol linear free energy relationship for all species. This impliesthat the slope of the log(LC50)-log(KOW) relationship is the same for all species. However, individual species may have varying target lipid body burdens that cause toxicity. The target lipid LC50 body burdens derived from concentration data in the water only are compared to measured total lipid LC50 body burdens for five species. They are essentially equal, indicating that the target lipid concentration is equal to the total extracted lipid concentration. The precise relationship between partitioning in target lipid and octanol is established. The species-specific body burdens are used to determine the WQC final acute value, i.e-, the 95-percentile level of protection.An acute-to-chronic ratio is used to compute the body burden corresponding to the WQC final chronic value, which is the procedure used toderive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency water quality criteria. The criteria are expressed either as dissolved concentrations in the water column or as tissue concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid-phase microextraction fibers coated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) provide a convenient passive sampling format to characterize bioavailability of petroleum substances. Hydrocarbons absorb onto PDMS in proportion to both freely dissolved concentrations and partitioning properties of the individual constituents, which parallels the mechanistic basis used to predict aquatic toxicity in the PETROTOX model. When deployed in a non-depletive manner, combining SPME with thermal desorption and quantification using gas chromatography-flame ionization creates a biomimetic extraction (BE) procedure that has the potential to simplify aquatic hazard assessments of petroleum substances since the total moles of all hydrocarbons sorbed to the fiber can be related to toxic thresholds in target lipid of aquatic organisms. The objective of this work is to describe the technical basis for applying BE measurements to predict toxicity of petroleum substances. Critical BE-based PDMS concentrations corresponding to adverse effects were empirically derived from toxicity tests on different petroleum substances with multiple test species. The resulting species sensitivity distribution (SSD) of PDMS effect concentrations was then compared and found consistent with the previously reported target lipid-based SSD. Further, BE data collected on samples of aqueous media dosed with a wide range of petroleum substances were highly correlated to predicted toxic units derived using the PETROTOX model. These findings provide justification for applying BE in environmental hazard and risk evaluations of petroleum substances and related mixtures., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The biotic ligand model (BLM) was developed to explain and predict the effects of water chemistry on the acute toxicity of metals to aquatic organisms. The biotic ligand is defined as a specific receptor within an organism where metal complexation leads to acute toxicity. The BLM is designed to predict metal interactions at the biotic ligand within the context of aqueous metal speciation and competitive binding of protective cations such as calcium. Toxicity is defined as accumulation of metal at the biotic ligand at or above a critical threshold concentration. This modeling framework provides mechanistic explanations for the observed effects of aqueous ligands, such as natural organic matter, and water hardness on metal toxicity. In this paper, the development of a copper version of the BLM is described. The calibrated model is then used to calculate LC50 (the lethal concentration for 50% of test organisms) and is evaluated by comparison with published toxicity data sets for freshwater fish (fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas) and Daphnia.

The biotic ligand model (BLM) of acute metal toxicity to aquatic organisms is based on the idea that mortality occurs when the metal-biotic ligand complex reaches a critical concentration. For fish, the biotic ligand is either known or suspected to be the sodium or calcium channel proteins in the gill surface that regulate the ionic composition of the blood. For other organisms, it is hypothesized that a biotic ligand exists and that mortality can be modeled in a similar way. The biotic ligand interacts with the metal cations in solution. The amount of metal that binds is determined by a competition for metal ions between the biotic ligand and the other aqueous ligands, particularly dissolved organic matter (DOM), and the competition for the biotic ligand between the toxic metal ion and the other metal cations in solution, for example, calcium. The model is a generalization of the free ion activity model that relates toxicity to the concentration of the divalent metal cation. The difference is the presence of competitive binding at the biotic ligand, which models the protective effects of other metal cations, and the direct influence of pH. The model is implemented using the Windermere humic aqueous model (WHAM) model of metal-DOM complexation. It is applied to copper and silver using gill complexation constants reported by R. Playle and coworkers. Initial application is made to the fathead minnow data set reported by R. Erickson and a water effects ratio data set by J. Diamond. The use of the BLM for determining total maximum daily loadings (TMDLs) and for regional risk assessments is discussed within a probabilistic framework. At first glance, it appears that a large amount of data are required for a successful application. However, the use of lognormal probability distributions reduces the required data to a manageable amount.