Bioavailability of organic contaminants in rivers

In rivers, association of organic contaminants with dissolved organic carbon may limit freely dissolved or bioavailable fractions and toxicity of organic contaminants. Consequently, assessment of toxicity of organic contaminants on the basis of their total chemical concentrations may lead to overestimation of risks to organic contaminants. Therefore, to achieve reliable and accurate risks assessment for organic contaminants, determination of bioavailability is important. The influence of humic acid on the bioavailability of organic contaminants in rivers was studied, using three chemicals with different properties as model contaminants, which at the start of the study were detected in wastewater effluents. It was hypothesized that in the presence of dissolved organic carbon, a fraction of the total concentration of an organic contaminant would not be bioavailable in river water. Therefore, the aim of the study was to determine bioavailability and its impact on toxicity. Bioavailability in the presence of humic acid was determined chemically and using a yeast estrogen screen assay. The chemical method comprised solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine freely dissolved and the fraction of the chemicals associated with dissolved organic carbon. The results indicated increased binding to dissolved organic carbon with the hydrophobicity of the test compounds except for perfluorooctane sulfonate. The dissolved organic carbon-water partition coefficient for ethinylestradiol was determined to be Log KDOC 2.36. Log KDOC values of 4.15 and 4.41 at 10 and 100 mg/L humic acid, respectively, were derived for hexabromocyclododecane indicating greater binding than ethinylestradiol due to the more hydrophobic character. The yeast estrogen screen was used as a biological method to measure the effect of humic acid on the bioavailability of ethinylestradiol and a more hydrophobic compound, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Results of the yeast estrogen screen indicated that the presence of humic acid had no effect on bioavailability of either of the chemicals.