Ecological Testing - Sediment Toxicity Testing

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Fauna and benthic organisms that live in soil or sediment may be impacted by contaminated matrtices. Sediment can cause a long-term exposure from chemicals that may have more effect on these organisms than overlying surface water. Risk to ecological receptors can be assessed by using data generated from ecological assays. This information can be used to reduce the amount of soil or sediment removed from a site that may cause significant risk to the environment. The net result is a reduction of remediation costs.

New England Bioassay offers a suite of toxicity assays that can aid the ecological risk assessor in making sound decisions in the ecological risk characterization process. These tools can provide addtional information to aid in the weight-of-evidence approach to ecological risk assessment.

Sediments are a major repository for many persistent contaminants introduced into surface waters and concentrations of contaminants in sediments are often several orders of magnitude higher than those in the overlying water.

Elutriate, Pore Water, and Solid-Phase Sediment Tests

NEB performs a variety of tests to evaluate sediment contamination with the specific methodology depending upon the sediment phase evaluated [whole sediment (solid-phase tests), suspended sediments, elutriates, pore water, and sediment extracts]. Tests with suspended sediments, elutriates, pore waters, and sediment extracts are performed using traditional invertebrate and vertebrate test organisms used for compliance testing. Solid-phase tests are used to assess the toxic effects of whole sediments on invertebrate survival, growth, or reproduction in static or flow-through water systems. NEB has facilities for maintaining cultures of Chironomus tentans (Diptera) and Hyalella azteca (Amphipoda), the two most commonly used invertebrates in freshwater whole-sediment toxicity evaluations. For longer-term bioaccumulation tests, freshwater oligochaetes, Lumbriculus variegatus , can be obtained from commercial suppliers and acclimated to the specific test conditions. For saltwater (marine and estuarine) sediment evaluations, healthy test organisms [e.g., Ampelisca abdita and Leptocheirus plumulosus (amphipods)] are purchased from commercial suppliers and acclimated at NEB in natural or synthetic seawater under the specific environmental conditions prior to toxicity evaluations.

NEB offers the following assays:

Chronic Freshwater Whole Sediment Toxicity Tests

Amphipod toxicity (Hyalella azteca)
Midge larvae toxicity (Chironomus tentans)

Chronic Marine Sediment Toxicity Tests

Amphipod toxicity (Ampelisca abdita Leptocheiras plumulosus)

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