Dana W Kolpin
Biography
Dana received his B.S. from Iowa State University and his M.S. from the University of Iowa (both in geology). Dana started his career with the USGS in 1986. His research interests include the fate, transport, and effects of environmental contaminants (e.g. pesticides, human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, hormones, etc.) in the environment. He was the project lead of the USGS Toxic Program’s CECs in the Environment Project (https://toxics.usgs.gov/investigations/cec/) for its entire history (1998 – 2017). He now project lead of the USGS Toxic Program’s newly formed Food Project (i.e. understanding the potential for health risks from contaminant exposures associated with production, manufacturing, use, and consumption of food, beverage, and feedstock products: https://www2.usgs.gov/envirohealth/science_teams/food/index.php). He has published over 200 papers and reports on environmental contaminants. His paper "Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic wastewater contaminants in U.S. streams, 1999-2000: A national reconnaissance" was a seminal paper on the occurrence of CECs in water resources, and was the first national-scale study of such compounds conducted in the United States. This paper has become the most heavily cited paper in Environmental Science & Technology history. He has published a diverse array of papers on the topic of environmental contaminants including research on CECs in landfills, changes in stream water chemistry and hydrology related to the closure of a wastewater treatment plant, detection of swine hepatitis E virus in streams, the transport of neonicotinoid insecticides in streams, the uptake of CECs into earthworms and into fish neural tissue, the occurrence of natural toxins (i.e. phytoestrogens and mycotoxins) in streams, and the first ever documentation of the off-field transport on nitrapyrin and herbicide safeners to streams. He most recent research interests include linking tap water quality to human health end points.
Science and Products
Food Resources Science Team
Access to an adequate, safe, and sustainable food supply is one of the highest priorities for our society. Agricultural crop and livestock production often occur within the same landscapes. Their yields as well as pests, diseases, and other threats are effectively managed by using a variety of tools such as synthetic nutrients, pesticides, and veterinary pharmaceuticals. Best management...
Exploring the Suitability of a Modeling Approach to Estimate Contaminant Occurrence in Drinking Water Sources
Scientists explored the suitability of the DeFacto Reuse in our Nation's Consumable Supply (DRINCS) model to estimate the likelihood of contaminants from upstream wastewater discharges to enter drinking water facility intakes.
Selected Pharmaceuticals Not Likely to Persist in Wild Fish: Results of Uptake and Elimination Testing
Laboratory study shows that both uptake and elimination of selected pharmaceuticals within bluegill tissues is rapid indicating that persistence in bluegills in the environment is likely to be low except in those fish that reside downstream from a consistent, substantial, contaminant source.
Temporal and spatial variation in pharmaceutical concentrations in an urban river system
Many studies have quantified pharmaceuticals in the environment, few however, have incorporated detailed temporal and spatial variability due to associated costs in terms of time and materials. Here, we target 33 physico-chemically diverse pharmaceuticals in a spatiotemporal exposure study into the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the wastewater...
Burns, Emily E.; Carter, Laura J.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Thomas-Oates, Jane; Boxall, Alistair B.A. Pharmaceutical manufacturing facility discharges can substantially increase the pharmaceutical load to U.S. wastewaters
Discharges from pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities (PMFs) previously have been identified as important sources of pharmaceuticals to the environment. Yet few studies are available to establish the influence of PMFs on the pharmaceutical source contribution to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and waterways at the national scale....
Scott, Tia-Marie; Phillips, Patrick J.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Colella, Kaitlyn M.; Furlong, Edward T.; Foreman, William T.; Gray, James L. Modeled de facto reuse and contaminants of emerging concern in drinking water source waters
De facto reuse is the percentage of drinking water treatment plant (DWTP) intake potentially composed of effluent discharged from upstream wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Results from grab samples and a De Facto Reuse in our Nation's Consumable Supply (DRINCS) geospatial watershed model were used to quantify contaminants of emerging concern (...
Nguyen, Thuy; Westerhoff, Paul; Furlong, Edward T.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Batt, Angela L.; Mash, Heath E.; Schenck, Kathleen M.; Boone, J. Scott; Rice, Jacelyn; Glassmeyer, Susan T. Year-round presence of neonicotinoid insecticides in tributaries to the Great Lakes, USA
To better characterize the transport of neonicotinoid insecticides to the world's largest freshwater ecosystem, monthly samples (October 2015–September 2016) were collected from 10 major tributaries to the Great Lakes, USA. For the monthly tributary samples, neonicotinoids were detected in every month sampled and five of the six target...
Hladik, Michelle; Corsi, Steven; Kolpin, Dana W.; Baldwin, Austin K.; Blackwell, Brett R.; Cavallin, Jenna E. Occurrence of dichloroacetamide herbicide safeners and co-applied herbicides in midwestern U.S. streams
Dichloroacetamide safeners (e.g., AD-67, benoxacor, dichlormid, and furilazole) are co-applied with chloroacetanilide herbicides to protect crops from herbicide toxicity. While such safeners have been used since the early 1970s, there are minimal data about safener usage, occurrence in streams, or potential ecological effects. This study focused...
Woodward, Emily; Hladik, Michelle; Kolpin, Dana W. Estimating virus occurrence using Bayesian modeling in multiple drinking water systems of the United States
Drinking water treatment plants rely on purification of contaminated source waters to provide communities with potable water. One group of possible contaminants are enteric viruses. Measurement of viral quantities in environmental water systems are often performed using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or quantitative PCR (qPCR). However, true...
Varughese, Eunice A.; Brinkman, Nichole E; Anneken, Emily M; Cashdollar, Jennifer S; Fout, G. Shay; Furlong, Edward T.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Glassmeyer, Susan T.; Keely, Scott P Investigating the influence of nitrate nitrogen on post-smolt Atlantic salmon Salmo salar reproductive physiology in water recirculation aquaculture systems
A major issue affecting land-based, closed containment Atlantic salmon Salmo salar growout production in water recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) is precocious male maturation, which can negatively impact factors such as feed conversion, fillet yield, and product quality. Along with other water quality parameters, elevated ...
Good, Christopher; Davidson, John; Iwanowicz, Luke R.; Meyer, Michael T.; Dietze, Julie E.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Marancik, David; Birkett, Jill; Williams, Christina; Summerfelt, Steven T. Are exposure predictions, used for the prioritization of pharmaceuticals in the environment, fit for purpose?
Prioritization methodologies are often used for identifying those pharmaceuticals that pose the greatest risk to the natural environment and to focus laboratory testing or environmental monitoring toward pharmaceuticals of greatest concern. Risk-based prioritization approaches, employing models to derive exposure concentrations, are commonly used...
Burns, Emily E.; Thomas-Oates, Jane; Kolpin, Dana W.; Furlong, Edward T.; Boxall, Alistair B.A. Uptake and disposition of select pharmaceuticals by bluegill exposed at constant concentrations in a flow-through aquatic exposure system
The increasing use of pharmaceuticals has led to their subsequent input into and release from wastewater treatment plants, with corresponding discharge into surface waters that may subsequently exert adverse effects upon aquatic organisms. Although the distribution of pharmaceuticals in surface water has been extensively studied, the details of...
Zhao, Jian-Liang; Furlong, Edward T.; Schoenfuss, Heiko L.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Bird, Kyle L.; Feifarek, David J.; Schwab, Eric A.; Ying, Guang-Guo Highlighting the complexities of a groundwater pilot study during an avian influenza outbreak: Methods, lessons learned, and select contaminant results
The highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N2) outbreak in the Midwestern United States (US) in 2015 was historic due to the number of birds and poultry operations impacted and the corresponding economic loss to the poultry industry and was the largest animal health emergency in US history. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with the assistance of...
Hubbard, Laura E.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Fields, Chad L. ; Hladik, Michelle L.; Iwanowicz, Luke R. Avian influenza virus RNA in groundwater wells supplying poultry farms affected by the 2015 influenza outbreak
During the 2015 outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) on poultry farms in the midwestern United States, concern was raised about the potential for HPAI to contaminate groundwater. Our study objective was to evaluate the occurrence of HPAI in the groundwater supply wells on 13 outbreak-affected poultry farms in Iowa and...
Borchardt, Mark A.; Spencer, Susan K.; Hubbard, Laura E.; Firnstahl, Aaron; Stokdyk, Joel; Kolpin, Dana W. Expanded target-chemical analysis reveals extensive mixed-organic-contaminant exposure in USA streams
Surface water from 38 streams nationwide was assessed using 14 target-organic methods (719 compounds). Designed-bioactive anthropogenic contaminants (biocides, pharmaceuticals) comprised 57% of 406 organics detected at least once. The 10 most-frequently detected anthropogenic-organics included eight pesticides (desulfinylfipronil, AMPA,...
Bradley, Paul M.; Journey, Celeste A.; Romanok, Kristin; Barber, Larry B.; Buxton, Herbert T.; Foreman, William T.; Furlong, Edward T.; Glassmeyer, Susan T.; Hladik, Michelle L.; Iwanowicz, Luke R. ; Jones, Daniel K.; Kolpin, Dana W.; Kuivila, Kathryn M. ; Loftin, Keith A.; Mills, Marc A.; Meyer, Michael T.; Orlando, James L. ; Reilly, Timothy J.; Smalling, Kelly L. ; Villeneuve, Daniel L.