Biological implications for contaminants of emerging concern in the Great Lakes–Upper St Lawrence River drainage: An effect-based ecological hazard assessment in fish

Abstract

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) are released widely and continuously into the Great Lakes Basin–Upper St Lawrence River study area, with many detected in surface water at concentrations known to adversely affect fish. We applied a recent ecological hazard assessment methodology to identify the biological significance of a database of 21,441 surface water CEC concentrations compiled from 7,162 surface water samples collected at 1,021 sampling sites in 387 individual waterbodies throughout the Great Lakes Basin. We assessed hazard to fish in 12 effect categories (e.g., mortality, developmental, reproductive) from aqueous exposure to 16 emerging contaminants. Our hazard assessment used pairs of screening values to generate contaminant- and effect-specific ordinal hazard scores. Using this novel methodology, we generated a database of 93,864 hazard scores. We found the highest level of hazard to fish, indicating probable adverse impacts, was broadly distributed and often associated with municipalities. Mortality, reproductive, and developmental effect categories combined accounted for 17.5% of high hazard observations. Low hazard, indicating possible adverse effects, was prevalent for numerous effect categories and occurred throughout the period 1991–2021. For mortality, reproductive, and developmental effect categories, the incidence of elevated hazard (low or high hazard) among assessed water samples was 20.4%, 39.5%, and 20.3%, respectively. On a local scale, effect-based assessment is an efficient and conceptually simple tool for natural resource managers to obtain effect- and site-specific hazard information concerning CEC effects in fish that can be used in project planning and results interpretation for natural resource monitoring, restoration, and protection.