Toxic organics and trace metals in air and precipitation at sites near Lake Michigan

Conference · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:351159

Sweet, C W; Harlin, K S ^[1]

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1. Illinois State Water Survey, Champaign, IL (United States)

Between April 1994 and October, 1995, the US Environmental Protection Agency sponsored an intensive monitoring effort on Lake Michigan to acquire data needed to construct a mass balance model for selected toxic chemicals in the lake. As part of this effort, the authors operated 7 air monitoring stations on the shores of Lake Michigan and one rural inland station. Samples of precipitation, airborne particles, and gas phase organics as well as continuous meteorological data were collected at each of the sites. The samples were analyzed for 105 individual PCB congeners, 13 organochlorine pesticides, 18 PAHs, and 13 trace metals. These data will be used by the Lake Michigan modeling group to estimate inputs of target chemicals to the lake from the atmosphere. In this report, the authors discuss the spatial and seasonal variations seen in the concentrations of the target chemicals measured at the 8 monitoring sites. The annual average concentrations of most analytes measured at the Chicago urban site were 5 to 50 times higher than those measured at the rural and remote sites. However at certain times of the year, high concentrations of PCBs and a few pesticides were also measured at some of the rural sites. The use of these data in atmospheric deposition calculations for Lake Michigan is discussed.

• OSTI ID: 351159
• Report Number(s): CONF-970677--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
LAKE MICHIGAN
MONITORING
PARTICULATES
POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS
POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
WATER POLLUTION