Theresa Presser
Biography
Theresa Presser is a Research Chemist with the Earth System Processes Division of the Water Mission Area in Menlo Park, California. Her expertise is the environmental science of selenium. Selenium is a reproductive toxin that bioaccumulates through food webs to affect top predator species. Her field studies and body of site knowledge of Se-impacted areas document and analyze the connection of anthropogenic activities (e.g., agricultural drainage, oil refining, and mining of phosphate, coal, copper, and uranium) to aquatic environments. Her research conceptualizes, quantifies, and models the variables that determine how selenium is processed from geologic sources through ecosystems. Ecosystem-scale selenium modeling, developed in collaboration with Samuel Luoma, provides a new quantitative tool to predict the ecological effects of selenium and, thus, understand the management of selenium in the environment. The model frames a site-specific occurrence of selenium; quantifies exposure of predators through dietary selenium biodynamics (i.e., species-specific physiological parameters); and connects to the base of the food web using a metric that describes the partitioning of selenium between particulate material and dissolved phases. The initial basis for the methodology used data from a set of common aquatic settings and food webs to illustrate that an environmentally safe dissolved selenium concentration will differ among ecosystems depending on the biogeochemical conditions and ecological pathways in those systems. Thus, model development narrows uncertainties for ecosystem protection through integration of a site-specific system’s ecology, biochemistry, and hydrology and inhabiting species’ life-cycle and ecotoxicology. A cooperative U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife website entitled Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Local and Global Perspectives is available at: https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/linking-selen...
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Lake Koocanusa Water Quality
Lake Koocanusa is a transboundary reservoir located in southeastern British Columbia and northwestern Montana. The reservoir was officially impounded in 1972 after construction of Libby Dam, which began in 1966. The dam was constructed as part of a treaty between the United States and Canada to cooperatively develop the water resources of the Columbia River drainage basin. The reservoir has a...
Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Local and Global Perspectives
The sources, biogeochemistry, and ecotoxicology of selenium (Se) combine to produce a widespread potential for ecological risk such as deformities in birds and fish. Linking the understanding of source characteristics to a mechanistic, biodynamic dietary model of Se exposure on an ecosystem-scale improves the prediction of Se effects and its potential remediation.
Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Mining
Environmental sources of selenium (Se) such as from organic-enriched sedimentary deposits are geologic in nature and thus can occur on regional scales. A constructed map of the global distribution of Se source rocks informs potential areas of reconnaissance for modeling of Se risk including the phosphate deposits of southeastern Idaho and the coals of Appalachia.
Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Irrigation
Adverse effects of selenium (Se) on fish and waterfowl in wetlands receiving agricultural drainage occurred in the 1980s in the San Joaquin Valley of California. The identified mechanisms of Se enrichment helped resolve Se toxicity problems associated with irrigated agriculture in the arid West. Bioaccumulation of Se in ancient marine sediments is postulated as a primary pathway in source...
Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Refining
The San Francisco Bay-Delta receives selenium (Se) internally from oil refineries and externally through riverine agricultural discharges. Predator species considered at risk from Se consume the estuary’s dominant bivalve, C. amurensis, an efficient bioaccumulator of Se. Modeling predicts site-specific ecological risk and derives a range of protective Se concentrations for use by decision-...
Linking Selenium Sources to Ecosystems: Modeling
Selenium (Se) as a contaminant of ecosystems is bioaccumulative and causes reproductive effects in fish and wildlife. Ecosystem-scale Se modeling predicts Se bioaccumulation based on dietary biodynamics within site-specific food webs. The model can be used to forecast Se toxicity under different management or regulatory proposals or to translate a tissue guideline to a dissolved guideline. ...
Understanding and documenting the scientific basis of selenium ecological protection in support of site-specific guidelines development for Lake Koocanusa, Montana, U.S.A., and British Columbia, Canada
Modeling of ecosystems is a part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s protocol for developing site-specific selenium guidelines for protection of aquatic life. Selenium as an environmental contaminant is known to bioaccumulate and cause reproductive effects in fish and wildlife. Here we apply a modeling methodology—ecosystem-scale...
Presser, Theresa S.; Naftz, David L.
Status of selenium in south San Francisco Bay—A basis for modeling potential guidelines to meet National tissue criteria for fish and a proposed wildlife criterion for birds
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed Aquatic Life and AquaticDependent Wildlife Criteria for Selenium (Se) in California’s San Francisco Bay and Delta (Bay-Delta) in June 2016. Here we apply the same modeling methodology—Ecosystem-Scale Selenium Modeling— to an assessment of conditions and documentation of food webs of south San...
Luoma, Samuel N.; Presser, Theresa S.
Conceptual modeling framework to support development of site-specific selenium criteria for Lake Koocanusa, Montana, U.S.A., and British Columbia, Canada
The U.S. Geological Survey, working with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy, has developed a conceptual modeling framework that can be used to provide structured and scientifically based input to the Lake Koocanusa Monitoring and Research Working Group as...
Jenni, Karen E.; Naftz, David L.; Presser, Theresa S.
Selenium in ecosystems within the mountaintop coal mining and valley-fill region of southern West Virginia-assessment and ecosystem-scale modeling
Coal and associated waste rock are among environmental selenium (Se) sources that have the potential to affect reproduction in fish and aquatic birds. Ecosystems of southern West Virginia that are affected by drainage from mountaintop coal mines and valleys filled with waste rock in the Coal, Gauley, and Lower Guyandotte watersheds were assessed...
Presser, Theresa S.
Decision analysis framing study; in-valley drainage management strategies for the western San Joaquin Valley, California
Constraints on drainage management in the western San Joaquin Valley and implications of proposed approaches to management were recently evaluated by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS found that a significant amount of data for relevant technical issues was available and that a structured, analytical decision support tool could help...
Presser, Theresa S.; Jenni, Karen E.; Nieman, Timothy; Coleman, James
Bioaccumulation and trophic transfer of selenium
No abstract available.
Chapman, P. M.; Adams, William J.; Brooks, Marjorie L.; Luoma, Samuel N.; Ohlendorf, Harry M.; Presser, Theresa S.; Shaw, P.; Stewart, A. Robin; Grosell, M.; Buchwalter, David B.; Fisher, Nicholas S.; Luoma, S. N.; Matthews, T.; Orr, P.; Wang, W.-X. What you need to know about selenium
No abstract available.
Chapman, P. M.; Adams, William J.; Brooks, M.; Luoma, S. N.; Presser, Theresa S.; Ohlendorf, H. M.; Shaw, P.; Young, T.; Finley, K.; Adams, William J.; Besser, John M.; Hopkins, W. A.; Jolley, D.B.; Martin-McNaughton, J.; Presser, Theresa S.; Shaw, D.P.; Unrine, J.M. A methodology for ecosystem-scale modeling of selenium
The main route of exposure for selenium (Se) is dietary, yet regulations lack biologically based protocols for evaluations of risk. We propose here an ecosystem-scale model that conceptualizes and quantifies the variables that determinehow Se is processed from water through diet to predators. This approach uses biogeochemical and physiological...
Presser, Theresa S.; Luoma, Samuel N. Emerging opportunities in management of selenium contamination
The metalloid selenium (Se) has the diverse reactivity characteristic of the chalcogens in addition to organometallic behavior. Laboratory measurements indicate that Se is an acute reproductive toxicant, which makes it a concern for the environment. Yet to date, a lack of understanding on how Se species distribute through food webs—bioaccumulation...
Luoma, Samuel N.; Presser, Theresa S.
Modeling of selenium for the San Diego Creek watershed and Newport Bay, California
The San Diego Creek watershed and Newport Bay in southern California are contaminated with selenium (Se) as a result of groundwater associated with urban development overlying a historical wetland, the Swamp of the Frogs. The primary Se source is drainage from surrounding seleniferous marine sedimentary formations. An ecosystem-scale model was...
Presser, Theresa S.; Luoma, Samuel N. Technical Analysis of In-Valley Drainage Management Strategies for the Western San Joaquin Valley, California
The western San Joaquin Valley is one of the most productive farming areas in the United States, but salt-buildup in soils and shallow groundwater aquifers threatens this area?s productivity. Elevated selenium concentrations in soils and groundwater complicate drainage management and salt disposal. In this document, we evaluate constraints on...
Presser, Theresa S.; Schwarzbach, Steven E. Forecasting selenium discharges to the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary--Ecological effects of a proposed San Luis Drain extension
Selenium discharges to the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta) could change significantly if federal and state agencies (1) approve an extension of the San Luis Drain to convey agricultural drainage from the western San Joaquin Valley to the North Bay (Suisun Bay, Carquinez Strait, and San Pablo Bay); (2) allow changes in flow patterns of...
Presser, Theresa S.; Luoma, Samuel N.