BIOACCUMULATION OF SYNTHETIC MUSKS, UV FILTERS, AND TRICLOSAN IN FISH FROM AN EFFLUENT-DOMINATED STREAM

The occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment has received broad interest over the last decade. Of particular relevance are effluent-dominated streams, which may be considered worse-case scenarios for studying PPCPs due to limited upstream dilution. Organisms residing in these aquatic systems may receive continuous, life-cycle exposures to wastewater contaminants such that compounds with relatively short environmental half-lives may be considered “pseudopersistent” in effluent-dominated ecosystems. A novel GC-MS screening method targeting 15 personal care products in fish muscle has been developed and employed to investigate accumulation of target analytes in fish collected from a regional effluent-dominated stream. Statistically derived method detection limits (MDLs), resulting from preparation and analysis of 1.0 g tissue specimens, ranged from 3-17 ng/g. Twelve of 15 analytes were detected at concentrations exceeding the MDL in at least one of twelve samples. Compounds consistently detected above quantitation limits in all analyzed tissues, as well as water sampled five times over a 42-day period from the same stream, included galaxolide, tonalide, benzophenone, and triclosan. Average field bioaccumulation factors for these four analytes were 730 L/kg, 870 L/kg, 980 L/kg, and 170 L/kg, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first study reporting environmentally-relevant bioaccumulation factors for these emerging contaminants in an effluent-dominated ecosystem.