Body burdens of PCBs and organochlorines in fish from the St. Clair River AOC: 2002/3 vs. 2014

Session: Poster session

Jim Sherry, Environment Canada, [email protected]
Gerald Tetreault, Environment and Climate Change Canada, [email protected]
Mark McMaster, Environment and Climate Change Canada, [email protected]
Annette Muttray, Consultant, [email protected]
Derek Muir, Environment & Climate Change Canada, [email protected]

Abstract

The St. Clair River flows by the cities of Sarnia and Port Huron, several smaller towns, and First Nations communities; it is also home to numerous petroleum refineries, petrochemical facilities, and coal fired generation plants. In late Fall 2002/3, we sampled adult shorthead redhorse sucker (RHS) and yellow perch from a site within the river’s industrial zone (Stag Island), from a downstream site (Chenal Ecarte), and from Lake Huron (LH) which was our reference. We repeated the collections in 2014 with the addition of emerald shiner (ES).  The fish were analysed for PCBs and organochlorine compounds including hexachlorobutadiene, by high resolution mass spectrometry. We used a multi-factor ANOVA to explore trends across sites and time. Over the 12-year period, the body burdens of most dioxin-like PCBs declined at the river sites.  Based on the DL-PCB data there was little difference between the burdens of calculated toxic equivalencies (TEQs) of the LH and river fish in 2014, with the exception of ES from Stag Island which had elevated ?PCB and TEQ burdens. Although hexachlorobutadiene burdens increased in RHS at Stag Island (p<0.05) by about 8-fold, other organochlorines either declined or did not change at the river sites over the 12-year period.

1. Keyword
St. Clair River

2. Keyword
fish

3. Keyword
organochlorine compounds

4. Additional Keyword
PCBs