Assessing the toxicity to fish embryos of surface water from the Watts Bar Lake/Clinch River system
Conference
·
OSTI ID:212051
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
Successful reproduction of fish populations requires the successful development of offspring into new reproductive cohorts. In order to evaluate the ability of fish offspring to survive and develop properly in the Watts Bar Lake/Clinch River system downstream of the Department of Energy facilities in Oak Ridge, TN, a series of fish embryo-larval toxicity tests were conducted on surface water samples from Poplar Creek and the Clinch River adjacent to the Oak Ridge Reservation. Quarterly tests were conducted over an eighteen-month interval with embryos from laboratory stocks of the Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes). Eggs obtained from largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus) collected from reference sites during their respective breeding seasons were fertilized in vitro for additional embryo-larval tests utilizing fish species indigenous to the Watts Bar/Clinch River system. Average survival of medaka embryos decreased significantly in water from Poplar Creek sites within the Oak Ridge Reservation, coincident with an increase in the prevalence of certain developmental abnormalities. Similar but less pronounced results were also obtained with redbreast sunfish embryos. Development of largemouth bass eggs was not adversely affected by any of the tested water samples. These findings suggest that the development of fish eggs and fry in certain reaches of the Watts Bar Lake/Clinch River system may be negatively impacted by activities on the Oak Ridge Reservation.
- OSTI ID:
- 212051
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9511137--; ISBN 1-880611-03-1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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