Integrated Assessments of Potential Risks to Aquatic Organisms and Public Water Supply from Wastewater-Derived Chemical Mixtures in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Active

On this page:

• Summary
• Background
• Project Approaches
• Additional Reading

Summary

Major findings of efforts in the Shenandoah and Potomac River watersheds suggest that:

• Wastewater reuse may be a significant source of contaminant loading to rivers
• Complex chemical mixtures are widespread, resulting in both predicted and observed risks to aquatic organisms
• De facto wastewater reuse (the presence of treated wastewater in drinking water sources) may negatively affect public water supplies

These findings have water resource management implications that this project will explore further in cooperation with the Chesapeake Bay Program, with the ultimate goal of reducing the impact of toxic contaminants to protect aquatic ecosystem health for generations to come.

Background

The Chesapeake Bay and its watershed is one of America’s greatest natural treasures. However, toxic contaminants introduced into the watershed from sources such as industrial waste, municipal wastewater discharges, agricultural runoff, and stormwater runoff can harm the living resources that call the Bay home. Human health can also be affected, such as through impacts to drinking water quality or consumption of contaminated animal tissues.

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One of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s goals is to reduce the impact of these contaminants on the Bay and its surrounding areas. To achieve this goal, the USGS has been leading several research efforts to: (1) gain insights into the sources, fate, and effects of toxic contaminants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and (2) inform efforts to mitigate their harmful effects.

Project Approaches

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The USGS Environmental Health Mission Area's Toxic Substances Hydrology Program has conducted several integrated studies in coordination with the Chesapeake Bay Program to better understand the occurrence and fate of toxic contaminants in surface waters, with much focus on contributions from contaminant loading from treated wastewater.

Treated wastewater is water that has been processed through physical, chemical, or biological processes to remove contaminants before being discharged into rivers and other bodies of water. This reuse of treated wastewater is an essential component of the modern water cycle that can help maintain flow of water in rivers during dry periods. Many emerging contaminants, however, are not fully removed by conventional wastewater treatment technologies. These contaminants, once discharged into the environment, may have harmful effects on aquatic life and human health.

Early studies in the Shenandoah identified a number of constituents derived from natural and anthropogenic sources in the river waters sampled, including pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, hormones, disinfection by-products, and fossil fuel combustion products. Although more than 550 individual constituents were found, these represent only a small fraction of the potential contaminants present in the water. Since then, holistic integrated approaches have been developed to assess the perceived versus actual risk posed to aquatic organisms and human health from exposure to these complex chemical mixtures derived from water reuse and other sources in the Shenandoah as well as the broader Potomac River watershed, of which the Shenandoah is a subbasin.

A fundamental challenge in conducting integrated transdisciplinary research is linking continental-scale issues to molecular-scale processes. This requires the ability to upscale or downscale to address a particular study need while maintaining the integration of landscape, hydrological, chemical, and biological processes.

 

The approaches used by this project to address these challenges include:

1. Documenting the effects of streamflow and landscape variables on contaminant concentrations and determining the relations to the cumulative loadings from wastewater treatment plants. This involved developing an accumulated wastewater ratio model for the Shenandoah River watershed that: (1) accounts for upstream contributions of all municipal and industrial effluent discharges and (2) calculates the percentage of wastewater for each stream in the watershed.
   • Associated web tool (Kandel et al., 2019)
   • Associated data release (Kandel et al., 2019)
2. Determining the spatial and temporal concentration and composition patterns of 273 constituents detected in water sampled collected in the Shenandoah River watershed between 2014 and 2016.
   • Associated data release (Barber et al., 2019)
3. Conducting on-site mobile laboratory exposure studies to evaluate the relations between fish endocrine disruption and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in both streams and municipal wastewater effluent. These experiments applied and refined protocols developed at wastewater treatment plants and impacted streams by other studies (Barber et al., 2007; Vajda et al., 2011; Barber et al., 2012).
   • Associated report (Barber et al., 2019)

4. Focusing on complex chemical mixture exposure pathways and potential effects and risks to aquatic organisms.

   • Associated report (Barber et al., 2022)

5. Focusing on effects of complex chemical mixture exposure on physiological, molecular, and multi-omics pathways for the model organism fathead minnow.

   • Associated report currently in review: Bertolatus, D.W., Barber, L.B., Martyniuk, C.J., Zhen, H, Collette, T.W., Ekman, D.R., Jastrow, A., Rapp, J.L., and Vajda, A.M., 2022 – in review, Watershed-scale integrated ecotoxicological assessment: Multi-omic responses of fathead minnows exposed to complex chemical mixtures. To be submitted to Science of the Total Environment.

6. Focusing on effects of de facto wastewater reuse on disinfection byproduct formation in public water supply systems.

   • Associated report (Weisman et al., 2019)

   • Associated report (Weisman et al., 2022)

7. Upscaling the wastewater reuse model to the Potomac River watershed.

   • Associated report (Faunce et al., 2023)

   • Associated data release (Faunce et al., 2023)

   • Associated web tool (Faunce, 2023)

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Additional Reading:

• Abbott, B.W., Bishop, K., Zarnetske, J.P., Minaudo, C., Chapin, F.S., III, Krause, S., Hannah, D.M., Conner, L., Ellison, D., Godsey, S.E., Plont, S., Marcais, J., Kolbe, T., Huebner, A., Frei, R.J., Hampton, T., Gu, S., Buhman, M., Sayedi, S.S., Ursache, O., Chapin, M., Henderson, K.D., and Pinay, G., 2019, Human domination of the global water cycle absent from depictions and perceptions. Nature Geoscience, v. 12, p. 533-540.
• Barber, L.B., Lee, K.E., Swackhamer, D.L., and Schoenfuss, H.L., 2007, Reproductive responses of male fathead minnows exposed to wastewater treatment plant effluent, effluent treated with XAD8 resin, and an environmentally relevant mixture of alkylphenol compounds. Aquatic Toxicology, v. 82, p. 36-46.
• Barber, L.B., Vajda, A.M., Douville, C., Norris, D.O., and Writer, J.H., 2012, Fish endocrine disruption responses to a major wastewater treatment facility upgrade. Environmental Science and Technology, v. 46, p. 2121-2131.
• Bergman, A., Heindel, J.J., Jobling, S., Kidd, K.A., and Zoeller, R.T., 2013, State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals – 2012. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
• Blazer, V.S., Iwanowicz, L.R., Henderson, H., Mazik, P.M., Jenkins, J.A., Alvarez, D.A., and Young, J.A., 2012, Reproductive endocrine disruption in smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) in the Potomac River basin: spatial and temporal comparisons of biological effects. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, v. 184, p. 4309-4334.
• Bradley, P.M., Journey, C.A., Romanok, K.M., Barber, L.B., Buxton, H.T., Foreman, W.T., Furlong, E.T., Glassmeyer, S.T., Hladik, M.L., Iwanowicz, L.R., Jones, D.K., Kolpin, D.W., Kuivila, K.M., Loftin, K.A., Mills, M.A., Meyer, M.T., Orlando, J.L., Reilly, T.J., Smalling, K.L., and Villeneuve, D.L., 2017, Expanded target-chemical analysis reveals extensive mixed-organic-contaminant exposure in USA streams. Environmental Science and Technology, v. 51, p. 4792-4802.
• Dieter, C.A., Maupin, M.A., Caldwell, R.R., Harris, M.A., Ivahnenko, T.I., Lovelace, J.K., Barber, N.L., and Linsey, K.S., 2018, Estimated use of water in the United States in 2015. U.S. Geological Survey Circ. 1441: U.S. Geological Survey; Washington, DC. Accessed March 2020 at [https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1441].
• Gordon, S., Jones, D.K., Blazer, V.S., Iwanowicz, L., Williams, B., and Smalling, K., 2021, Modeling estrogenic activity in streams throughout the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay watersheds. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, v. 193, Article number 105.
• Kolpin, D.W., Furlong, E.T., Meyer, M.T., Thurman, E.M., Zaugg, S.D., Barber, L.B., and Buxton, H.T., 2002, Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic wastewater contaminants in U.S. streams, 1999-2000 - A national reconnaissance. Environmental Science and Technology, v. 36, p. 1202-1211.
• Kolpin, D.W., Blazer, V.S., Gray, J.L., Focazio, M.J., Young, J.A., Alvarez, D.A., Iwanowicz, L.R., Foreman, W.T., Furlong, E.T., Speiran, G.K., Zaugg, S.D., Hubbard, L.E., Meyer, M.T., Sandstrom, M.W., and Barber, L.B., 2013, Chemical contaminants in water and sediment near fish nesting sites in the Potomac River Basin: Determining potential exposures to smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu). Science of the Total Environment, v. 443, p. 700-716.
• Masoner, J.R., Kolpin, D.W., Cozzarelli, I.M., Barber, L.B., Burden, D.S., Foreman, W.T., Forshay, K.J., Furlong, E.T., Groves, J.F., Hladik, M.L., Hopton, M.E., Jaeschke, J.B., Keefe, S.H., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Lowrance, R., Romanok, K.M., Rus, D.L., Selbig, W.R., Williams, B.H., and Bradley, P.M., 2019, Urban stormwater: An overlooked pathway of extensive mixed contaminants to surface and groundwaters in the United States. Environmental Science and Technology, v. 53, p. 10070-10081.
• National Research Council, 2012, Water Reuse: Potential for Expanding the Nation’s Water Supply through Reuse of Municipal Wastewater. National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
• United Nations World Water Assessment Programme, 2017, Wastewater – The Untapped Resource. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2017, UNESCO, Paris, France.
• U.S. Geological Survey, 2019, The water cycle. U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC. Accessed October 2019 at [https://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html.]
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2020, National water reuse action plan: Improving the security, sustainability, and resilience of our nation’s water resources. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Collaborative Implementation, Version 1: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Washington, DC, 40 p. plus Appendices.
• Vajda, A.M., Barber, L.B., Gray, J.L., Lopez, E.M., Bolden, A.M., Schoenfuss, H.L., and Norris, D.O., 2011, Demasculinization of male fish by wastewater treatment plant effluent. Aquatic Toxicology, v. 103, p. 213-221.