Publications

Septic-system discharges can be an important source of micropollutants (including pharmaceuticals and endocrine active compounds) to adjacent groundwater and surface water systems. Groundwater samples were collected from well networks tapping glacial till in New England (NE) and sandy surficial aquifer New York (NY) during one sampling round in 2011. The NE network assesses the effect of a single

To better understand the composition of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in landfill leachate, fresh leachate from 19 landfills was sampled across the United States during 2011. The sampled network included 12 municipal and 7 private landfills with varying landfill waste compositions, geographic and climatic settings, ages of waste, waste loads, and leachate production. A total of 129 out o

Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) in wastewater effluents have been linked to changes in sex ratios, intersex (in males), behavioral modifications, and developmental abnormalities in aquatic organisms. Yet efforts to identify and regulate specific EDCs in complex mixtures are problematic because little is known about the estrogen activity (estrogenicity) levels of many common and emerging cont

This report describes a method for the determination of 110 human-use pharmaceuticals using a 100-microliter aliquot of a filtered water sample directly injected into a high-performance liquid chromatograph coupled to a triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer using an electrospray ionization source operated in the positive ion mode. The pharmaceuticals were separated by using a reversed-phase g

Water and sediment samples were collected from June through October 2007 from seven plots at the Rutgers Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Upper Deerfield, New Jersey, and analyzed for a suite of pesticides (including fungicides) and other physical and chemical parameters (including sediment mineralogy) by the U.S. Geological Survey. Plots were selected for inclusion in this study on t

Between April 22 and July 15, 2010, approximately 4.9 million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil well. Approximately 16% of the oil was chemically dispersed, at the surface and at 1500 m depth, using Corexit 9527 and Corexit 9500, which contain dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DOSS) as a major surfactant component. This was the largest documented rele

The National Field Manual for the Collection of Water-Quality Data (National Field Manual) describes protocols and provides guidelines for U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) personnel who collect data used to assess the quality of the Nation's surface-water and ground-water resources. This chapter of the manual addresses the selection of equipment commonly used by USGS personnel to collect and process

Animal manures, used as a nitrogen source for crop production, are often associated with negative impacts on nutrient levels in surface water. The concentrations of estrogens in streams from these manures also are of concern due to potential endocrine disruption in aquatic species. Streams associated with livestock operations were sampled by discrete samples (n = 38) or by time-integrated polar or

A multiyear research effort at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) evaluated several commercially available nitrate reductase (NaR) enzymes as replacements for toxic cadmium in longstanding automated colorimetric air-segmented continuous-flow analyzer (CFA) methods for determining nitrate plus nitrite (NOx) in water. This research culminated in USGS approved

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Metro Wastewater Reclamation District (Metro District), studied biosolids composition and the effects of biosolids applications on groundwater quality and trace-element concentrations in crops of the Metro District properties near Deer Trail, Colorado, during 2004 through 2010. Priority parameters for each monitoring component included the nin

This section of chapter 5 of the National Field Manual for the Collection of Water-Quality Data (NFM) describes the field procedures for collecting small-volume samples using a syringe-tip filtration method. The samples are sent to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) for analysis of organic compounds by direct aqueous injection high-performance liquid chromat

The Potomac River basin is an area where a high prevalence of abnormalities such as testicular oocytes (TO), skin lesions, and mortality has been observed in smallmouth bass (SMB, Micropterus dolomieu). Previous research documented a variety of chemicals in regional streams, implicating chemical exposure as one plausible explanation for these biological effects. Six stream sites in the Potomac bas