Development of a water quality criterion for chronic toxicity using an alternative measure of the NOEL
Conference
·
OSTI ID:212082
- Delaware River Basin Commission, West Trenton, NJ (United States)
The use of the NOEL (No Effect Level) to determine safe concentrations of toxic substances has recently been questioned since the NOEL is generally estimated using hypothesis testing procedures, and is significantly affected by several test variables. An alternative approach involved the selection of a benchmark effect level and a statistical procedure to estimate the effluent concentration which would result in a fixed reduction of 10% in the growth of the fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas, or the reproduction of the cladoceran, Ceriodaphnia. Tests conducted on ambient samples and samples from 50 industrial and municipal effluents discharging to the tidal Delaware River were utilized to derive EC10 and NOEL values for each test. 72% of the ratios of the EC10 to NOEL values were less than or equal to 1.0 indicating that the NOEL determined using hypothesis testing procedures frequently exceeded a concentration which produces a 10% reduction in the response of test organisms compared to control organisms. A water quality criterion for chronic toxicity was developed using these results by calculating the goth percentile of the cumulative frequency distribution of the ratios. This procedure is similar to the one used by the US Environmental Protection Agency to develop the acute toxicity criterion of 0.3 Toxic Units. A 90th percentile value of 0.47 was calculated for this data set. A water quality criterion of 0.5 Toxic Units for chronic toxicity to aquatic life in the tidal Delaware River would therefore represent a more consistent and acceptable level of chronic toxicity based upon a fixed and minimal impairment in growth and reproduction.
- OSTI ID:
- 212082
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9511137--; ISBN 1-880611-03-1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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