Erin R. Bennett

Seasonality effects on pharmaceuticals and s‐triazine herbicides in wastewater effluent and surface water from the Canadian side of the upper Detroit River

The influence of seasonal changes in water conditions and parameters on several major pharmacologically active compounds (PhACs) and s-triazine herbicides was assessed in the wastewater and sewage treatment plant (WSTP) effluent as well as the downstream surface water from sites on the Canadian side of the upper Detroit River, between the Little River WSTP and near the water intake of a major drinking water treatment facility for the City of Windsor (ON, Canada). The assessed PhACs were of neutral (carbamazepine, cotinine, caffeine, cyclophosphamide, fluoxetine, norfluoxetine, pentoxifylline, and trimethoprim) and acidic (ibuprofen, bezafibrate, clofibric acid, diclofenac, fenoprofen, gemfibrozil, indomethacin, naproxen, and ketoprofen) varieties. The major assessed s-triazine herbicides were atrazine, simazine, propazine, prometon, ametryn, prometryn, and terbutryn. At sampling times from September 2002 to June 2003, 15 PhACs were detected in the WSTP effluent at concentrations ranging from 1.7 to 1244 ng/L. The PhAC concentrations decreased by as much 92 to 100% at the Little River/Detroit River confluence because of the river dilution effect, with further continual decreases at sites downstream from the WSTP. The only quantifiable s-triazine in WSTP effluent, atrazine, ranged from 6.7 to 200 ng/L and was higher in Detroit River surface waters than in WSTP effluent. Only carbamazepine, cotinine, and atrazine were detectable at the low-nanogram and subnanogram levels in surface waters near a drinking water intake site. Unlike the PhACs, atrazine in the Detroit River is not attributable to point sources, and it is heavily influenced by seasonal agricultural usage and runoff. Detroit River surface water concentrations of carbamazepine, cotinine, and atrazine may present a health concern to aquatic wildlife and to humans via the consumption of drinking water.

Vegetated agricultural drainage ditches for the mitigation of pyrethroid-associated runoff

Drainage ditches are indispensable components of the agricultural production landscape. A benefit of these ditches is contaminant mitigation of agricultural storm runoff. This study determined bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin (two pyrethroid insecticides) partitioning and retention in ditch water, sediment, and plant material as well as estimated necessary ditch length required for effective mitigation. A controlled-release runoff simulation was conducted on a 650-m vegetated drainage ditch in the Mississippi Delta, USA. Bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin were released into the ditch in a water-sediment slurry. Samples of water, sediment, and plants were collected and analyzed for pyrethroid concentrations. Three hours following runoff initiation, inlet bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin water concentrations ranged from 666 and 374 microg/L, respectively, to 7.24 and 5.23 microg/L at 200 m downstream. No chemical residues were detected at the 400-m sampling site. A similar trend was observed throughout the first 7 d of the study where water concentrations were elevated at the front end of the ditch (0-25 m) and greatly reduced by the 400-m sampling site. Regression formulas predicted that bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin concentrations in ditch water were reduced to 0.1% of the initial value within 280 m. Mass balance calculations determined that ditch plants were the major sink and/or sorption site responsible for the rapid aqueous pyrethroid dissipation. By incorporating vegetated drainage ditches into a watershed management program, agriculture can continue to decrease potential non-point source threats to downstream aquatic receiving systems. Overall results of this study illustrate that aquatic macrophytes play an important role in the retention and distribution of pyrethroids in vegetated agricultural drainage ditches.

Emerging methods and tools for environmental risk assessment, decision-making, and policy for nanomaterials: summary of NATO Advanced Research Workshop

Nanomaterials and their associated technologies hold promising opportunities for the development of new materials and applications in a wide variety of disciplines, including medicine, environmental remediation, waste treatment, and energy conservation. However, current information regarding the environmental effects and health risks associated with nanomaterials is limited and sometimes contradictory. This article summarizes the conclusions of a 2008 NATO workshop designed to evaluate the wide-scale implications (e.g., benefits, risks, and costs) of the use of nanomaterials on human health and the environment. A unique feature of this workshop was its interdisciplinary nature and focus on the practical needs of policy decision makers. Workshop presentations and discussion panels were structured along four main themes: technology and benefits, human health risk, environmental risk, and policy implications. Four corresponding working groups (WGs) were formed to develop detailed summaries of the state-of-the-science in their respective areas and to discuss emerging gaps and research needs. The WGs identified gaps between the rapid advances in the types and applications of nanomaterials and the slower pace of human health and environmental risk science, along with strategies to reduce the uncertainties associated with calculating these risks.

A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief: In this Issue of BECT

I am very pleased to announce to the readership and authors of BECT that we have had great success in receiving many excellent editorials, articles and retrospectives celebrating the 50th Anniversary of BECT. Now that we are half way through this anniversary year, I hope that you have found time to read what has been published to date in Volume 96. If not, please take the time to go back to these BECT issues and look at these very informative and inspiring pieces of work (note that they are freely available for download at the beginning of each issue). I am excited to announce that we have more of these types of articles either ready or in preparation for the remaining issues in 2016. I am honored to be part of this Anniversary celebration, as I have had the opportunity to communicate with some of the top global researchers that published in BECT during the early years of the journal. Not only have they published work that is still cited today, they have paved the way for current environmental themes, methods and policy. For example, in this issue, Barnett Rattner and two of the original authors, Stan Wiemeyer and Lawrence Blus, honor one of BECTs seminal papers by Stickel et al. (1973). They have provided a very informative retrospective that highlights the continued importance of this research in avian ecotoxicological monitoring and research studies. In addition to announcing that we are half way through the 50th year of BECT, I wish to highlight the international distribution of articles in the current issue of the journal. These papers have originated from studies conducted North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, illustrating the global nature of BECT. Also, this issue includes a timely focused review on the importance of lipophilicity with respect to the toxicity of bisphenol A and phthalates to aquatic organisms (Mathieu-Denoncourt et al. 2016). Please take the time to review the Table of

Predicting physical properties of emerging compounds with limited physical and chemical data: QSAR model uncertainty and applicability to military munitions

Reliable, up-front information on physical and biological properties of emerging materials is essential before making a decision and investment to formulate, synthesize, scale-up, test, and manufacture a new material for use in both military and civilian applications. Multiple quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) software tools are available for predicting a materials physical/chemical properties and environmental effects. Even though information on emerging materials is often limited, QSAR software output is treated without sufficient uncertainty analysis. We hypothesize that uncertainty and variability in material properties and uncertainty in model prediction can be too large to provide meaningful results. To test this hypothesis, we predicted octanol water partitioning coefficients (logP) for multiple, similar compounds with limited physical-chemical properties using six different commercial logP calculators (KOWWIN, MarvinSketch, ACD/Labs, ALogP, CLogP, SPARC). Analysis was done for materials with largely uncertain properties that were similar, based on molecular formula, to military compounds (RDX, BTTN, TNT) and pharmaceuticals (Carbamazepine, Gemfibrizol). We have also compared QSAR modeling results for a well-studied pesticide and pesticide breakdown product (Atrazine, DDE). Our analysis shows variability due to structural variations of the emerging chemicals may be several orders of magnitude. The model uncertainty across six software packages was very high (10 orders of magnitude) for emerging materials while it was low for traditional chemicals (e.g. Atrazine). Thus the use of QSAR models for emerging materials screening requires extensive model validation and coupling QSAR output with available empirical data and other relevant information.

Obtaining quantitative vapor emissions estimates of polychlorinated biphenyls and other semivolatile organic compounds from contaminated sites

Soils contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs) represent a potentially major, ongoing source of these compounds to the environment, especially during warmer temperatures. A great deal of work has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms that govern the vaporization of SVOCs from soil, but to date, few quantitative estimates have been published regarding emissions from contaminated sites. The present paper describes methods for obtaining quantitative estimates of SVOCs from soils based on flux chamber measurements, modeling, and ambient air measurements. On wet (i.e., H2O) soils, SVOCs at very low chemical loading levels on the adsorption sites (the so-called critical chemical concentration, critical loading, or saturation concentration) will behave, for volatilization purposes, as the pure-liquid substance would. For one soil, the PCB critical concentration was determined to be 775 ppm (95% confidence interval, 5.40E+02). Flux chamber-measured emissions from two contaminated sites were used and compared to model estimated values. The results agree reasonably well and indicate that the modeling approach used provided a conservative upper bound on the emissions. These approaches can be used to develop emissions estimates for SVOC-contaminated sites and inputs to air dispersion models.

Novel control and steady‐state correction method for standard 28‐day bioaccumulation tests using Nereis virens

Evaluation of dredged material for aquatic placement requires assessment of bioaccumulation potentials for benthic organisms using standardized laboratory bioaccumulation tests. Critical to the interpretation of these data is the assessment of steady state for bioaccumulated residues needed to generate biota sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) and to address control correction of day 0 contaminant residues measured in bioassay organisms. This study applied a novel performance reference compound approach with a pulse-chase experimental design to investigate elimination of a series of isotopically labeled polychlorinated biphenyl ((13)C-PCBs) in the polychaete worm Nereis virens while simultaneously evaluating native PCB bioaccumulation from field-collected sediments. Results demonstrated that all (13)C-PCBs, with the exception of (13)C-PCB209 (> 80%), were eliminated by more than 90% after 28 d. The three sediment types yielded similar (13)C-PCB whole-body elimination rate constants (k(tot)) producing the following predictive equation: log k(tot)  =  - 0.09 × log K(OW)  - 0.45. The rapid loss of (13)C-PCBs from worms over the bioassay period indicated that control correction, by subtracting day 0 residues, would result in underestimates of bioavailable sediment residues. Significant uptake of native PCBs was observed only in the most contaminated sediment and proceeded according to kinetic model predictions with steady-state BSAFs ranging from 1 to 3 and peaking for congeners of log K(OW) between 6.2 and 6.5. The performance reference compound approach can provide novel information about chemical toxicokinetics and also serve as a quality check for the physiological performance of the bioassay organism during standardized bioaccumulation testing.

The Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology: The Next Chapter

Six years ago, I was approached by Springer to take over as the fourth Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (BECT). With little hesitation, I agreed that this would be a challenging but exciting new step in my scientific career. In addition, I was honored to become part of a Journal that had such a long storied history. I remember utilizing the Journal in the late 80s as a ‘‘go to’’ journal, as it contained original environmental research papers dealing with the environmental fate and effects of pesticides and PCBs. In addition, the journal was always easily found in the library stacks due to its unique orange cover. My journey as an EiC began in 2012. This was a transitional year where I had the opportunity to work directly with the outgoing EiC, Dr. Herbert Nigg. This was an amazing chance for me to really learn and understand the ins and outs of being an EiC. It also gave me a glimpse into all the hard work that Dr. Nigg, and the BECT editorial board, had put into the journal during his 30-year tenure. I am very thankful for his patience and sound advice that allowed me to get up and running on my own following this transitional year. The first step in taking over the journal was to form a new Editorial Board. My goal was to strike a balance between the existing board and new incoming board members. I was very pleased that many of the existing Editors/Editorial Board members agreed to stay on board. This further helped with the transition into the next phase of BECT. Today, the Editorial Board is made up of 15 Senior Editors and over 130 Editorial Board Editors representing 22 countries (a list can be found on inside cover of BECT), each having his/her own unique area of expertise. I would like to thank them for all of their hard work in helping me during the transition and for their continued support. The second step was to refocus the Aims and Scope of the journal. The main rationale for updating the Aims and Scope was that the new Board found that the current version was too broad and that BECT needed to be focused back to papers that dealt more specifically with environmental contamination and toxicology. Another reason for this was a significant increase in the annual submission rate. Since 2009, the submission rate had more than doubled. This was partly due to increased submissions from Asia and the Middle East (Drouillard and Bennett 2015). With this growing submission rate and advice from Dr. Nigg and BECT’s Senior Editors, the Aims and Scope were refocused. For example, food safety and basic monitoring studies were no longer considered. One of the biggest challenges that I faced when I took over as EiC was to encourage many of my colleagues and fellow researchers to consider publishing in BECT. Many of them had published in BECT in the past but had not considered BECT in recent years since there were so many other journal options that had developed in this field of research. Interestingly, BECT was one of the only options in the 60, 70 and early 80s. To aid in the resurgence of this journal, I spent a great deal of time reintroducing the Journal and explaining the essential role that a bulletin style journal plays in scientific research. Basically, it seemed that many of my colleagues and fellow researchers were fixated on Impact Factor and had not really taken the time to consider the importance of this journal as an outlet for certain types of research and datasets. All in all, BECT & Erin R. Bennett ebennett@uwindsor.ca

A Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

I wish to send a quick note to the readership and authors of BECT. As you know, many journals provide periodic communications to their readership. Owing to this, I have decided to occasionally provide a note to complement the monthly issues of BECT. In addition, I have asked BECT’s Senior Editor’s, on occasion, to contribute an ‘‘Editor’s Note’’ when they feel that an important issue requires further insight or when a specific paper should be highlighted. Please see the ‘‘Editor’s Note’’ in this issue of BECT that highlights a paper about the detection of mercury in Notothenioid fish collected from the Antarctic. New to BECT: We are starting a new type of submission: ‘‘Focused Reviews’’. This type of submission will be like a ‘‘Mini Review’’ that will focus on current topics that we feel are timely and are important to the scientific community. I am pleased to announce that BECT’s first ‘‘Focused Review’’ was published in the October, 2015, issue of BECT. Please see the ‘‘Focused Review’’ entitled ‘‘Impacts of Contaminants on the Ecological Role of Lotic Biofilms’’, Feckler et al. (95) 421–427. This review highlights the current knowledge on how autotrophic and heterotrophic biofilms can be modulated as a response to chemical stress. The Editors of BECT are currently working on additional invited submissions. Finally, I am very excited to announce that 2016 is the 50th Anniversary of BECT. This is a highly important milestone for BECT, placing it as one of the early environmental journals of this particular genre. All in all, we should be very proud of this accomplishment, as this journal was established on the heels of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and prior to the development of many of the Acts and Agencies that currently regulate environmental issues and policies worldwide. Thus, it is very important that this anniversary is made relevant and celebrated by the scientific community. I, together with the Editors, would like to formally invite you to be part of this celebration by contributing to BECT in 2016. If you would like to submit an Editorial or a paper that highlights the history of BECT and its role in environmental research, please feel free to contact me.