Journal of Environmental Protection最新文献

The unique challenges associated with sampling of macroinvertebrates in flashy urban streams create a methods gap. These streams form isolated pools for much of the year, interspersed with spates that scour and deposit excessive amounts of sediment. Commonly used stream grab sampling methods, such as nets and Hess and Surber fixed-area samplers, work well in wadable streams with perennial flow. Deployed samplers (Hester-Dendy, gravel tray) can be used in waters with or without flow. We evaluated three methods which don't require stream flow: modified Hester-Dendy (MHD), gravel tray, and bucket (a type of cylinder grab sample method), for their potential use in bioassessment of a project involving daylighting of a 180-m culvert on Congress Run, a flashy urban tributary to Mill Creek in Cincinnati, Ohio. Method efficacy was measured using three criteria: usability (level of effort and recoverability of samplers), variability, and community retrieval completeness. The bucket method required the lowest level of effort and had the highest sample recovery. The bucket sampler had the lowest variability for most metrics, including the critical metric of taxa richness, with a coefficient of variation (CV) of 20.9%. The MHD and tray samplers had taxa richness CVs of 42.9% and 53.9%, respectively. The bucket sampler also had the lowest CV (27.4%) for a multi-metric index. The bucket sampler performed best with respect to community retrieval completeness, with higher pooled and average taxa richness. The total number of taxa collected from all the replicate bucket grab samples (42) was greater than that collected by the HD and tray samplers combined (27). Multivariate analyses showed significant grouping with respect to methods and location. This study supports the bucket grab sampler method as a candidate for sampling of flashy urban streams.

Nanotechnology has significant economic, health, and environmental benefits, including renewable energy and innovative environmental solutions. Manufactured nanoparticles have been incorporated into new materials and products because of their novel or enhanced properties. These very same properties also have prompted concerns about the potential environmental and human health hazard and risk posed by the manufactured nanomaterials. Appropriate risk management responses require the development of models capable of predicting the environmental and human health effects of the nanomaterials. Development of predictive models has been hampered by a lack of information concerning the environmental fate, behavior and effects of manufactured nanoparticles. The United Kingdom (UK) Environmental Nanoscience Initiative and the United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency have developed an international research program to enhance the knowledgebase and develop risk-predicting models for manufactured nanoparticles. Here we report selected highlights of the program as it sought to maximize the complementary strengths of the transatlantic scientific communities by funding three integrated US-UK consortia to investigate the transformation of these nanoparticles in terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric environment. Research results demonstrate there is a functional relationship between the physicochemical properties of environmentally transformed nanomaterials and their effects and that this relationship is amenable to modeling. In addition, the joint transatlantic program has allowed the leveraging of additional funding, promoting transboundary scientific collaboration.

In the fall of 2016, a field study was conducted in the Uinta Basin Utah to improve information on oil and natural gas well pad pneumatic controllers (PCs). A total of 80 PC systems at five oil sites (supporting six wells) and three gas sites (supporting 12 wells) were surveyed, and emissions data were produced using a combination of measurements and engineering emission estimates. Ninety-six percent of the PCs surveyed were low actuation frequency intermittent vent type. The overall whole gas emission rate for the study was estimated at 0.36 scf/h with the majority of emissions occurring from three continuous vent PCs (1.0 scf/h average) and eleven (14%) malfunctioning intermittent vent PC systems (1.6 scf/h average). Oil sites employed, on average 10.3 PC systems per well compared to 1.5 for gas sites. Oil and gas sites had group average PC emission rates of 0.28 scf/h and 0.67 scf/h, respectively, with this difference due in part to site selection procedures. The PC system types encountered, the engineering emissions estimate approach, and comparisons to measurements are described. Survey methods included identification of malfunctioning PC systems and emission measurements with augmented high volume sampling and installed mass flow meters, each providing a somewhat different picture of emissions that are elucidated through example cases.

Background: Ambient (outdoor) air pollution has been implicated as a major cause of acute cardiovascular and pulmonary illnesses and increased risk for acute and chronic effects after chronic exposures, including mortality and morbidity. In 2008, due to persistent health concerns about its workforce and their dependents, the US Mission in China began monitoring air quality at the US Embassy in Beijing. Subsequently, monitoring stations were also established at US consulates at Shanghai (2011), Guangzhou (2011), Chengdu (2012), and Shenyang (2013).

Objectives: To determine whether there have been definable trends in air quality in these five Chinese cities.

Methods: Air monitoring results from each locale for accumulated PM2.5 particulate matter were calculated hourly. Accumulated data were organized, culled using a standardized set of heuristics, and analyzed for trends.

Results: China's capital city, Beijing, experienced decreased PM2.5 from 2013 through 2015, but no significant long-term downward trend from 2008 through 2015. Shanghai has not shown any definable air quality trend since 2012. Chengdu experienced some improvement in air quality since 2013, but none discernible from 2012 through 2015. Guangzhou had generally better air quality, and a downward trend since 2012. Shenyang experienced increasingly severe air pollution from 2013 through 2015.

Conclusion: There appear to have been recent tangible, though modest, improvements in air quality in three large Chinese cities: Beijing, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, but no apparent progress in Shanghai, and a worrisome decline in air quality observed in Shenyang. Despite recent progress, there is a long way to go before even the cities which show improvement reach Chinese standards.

Background: More than 80 million Americans may be at risk of a chemical exposure because they live near one of the 101 most hazardous chemical facilities or near routes used to transport hazardous chemicals. One approach to hazard reduction is to use less toxic alternatives. Chlorine, one of the chemicals posing the greatest public health danger, has several alternatives depending on the application.

Methods: We analyzed data collected during 1993-2008 by 17 state health departments participating in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) active chemical incident surveillance program. We conducted descriptive analyses to evaluate whether five chlorine alternatives (calcium hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide, sodium chlorate, sodium hydrosulfite, and sodium hypochlorite) resulted in less severe incidents. We used chi square and z-score analyses to test significance, where appropriate.

Results: During 1993-2008, 2040 incidents involved chlorine, and 1246 incidents involved chlorine alternatives. Nearly 30% of chlorine releases resulted in injured persons, as compared to 13% of chlorine alternatives that resulted in injury. Although similar proportions of persons injured in chlorine or chlorine alternative releases were treated on scene (18% and 14%, respectively) and at a hospital (58% and 60%, respectively), there was a greater proportion of hospital admissions following chlorine releases than there was following releases of chlorine alternatives (10 % vs. 4%) (p < 0.01). There were significantly fewer victims per release for hydrogen peroxide (0.2) than there were for chlorine (1.3) in paper manufacturing (p < 0.01).

Conclusion: Exposures to these five potential chlorine alternatives resulted in a lower proportion of exposed persons requiring hospital admission. To reduce acute public health injuries associated with chemical exposures, users should consider a chlorine alternative when such a substitution is reasonable.

BACKGROUND: Despite humans being exposed to complex chemical mixtures, much of the available research continues to focus on a single compound or metabolite or a select subgroup of compounds inconsistent with the nature of human exposure. Uncertainty regarding how best to model chemical mixtures coupled with few analytic approaches remains a formidable challenge and served as the impetus for study. OBJECTIVES: To identify the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congener(s) within a chemical mixture that was most associated with an endometriosis diagnosis using novel graphical modeling techniques. METHODS: Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models were developed and empirically assessed in a cohort comprising 84 women aged 18-40 years who underwent a laparoscopy or laparotomy between 1999 and 2000; 79 (94%) women had serum concentrations for 68 PCB congeners quantified. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) for endometriosis were estimated for individual PCB congeners using BBN models. RESULTS: PCB congeners #114 (AOR = 3.01; 95% CI = 2.25, 3.77) and #136 (AOR = 1.79; 95% CI = 1.03, 2.55) were associated with an endometriosis diagnosis. Combinations of mixtures inclusive of PCB #114 were all associated with higher odds of endometriosis, underscoring its potential relation with endometriosis. CONCLUSIONS: BBN models identified PCB congener 114 as the most influential congener for the odds of an endometriosis diagnosis in the context of a 68 congener chemical mixture. BBN models offer investigators the opportunity to assess which compounds within a mixture may drive a human health effect.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethylene (DDE) are suspected reproductive toxicants. We assessed serum concentration of 76 PCB congeners, DDE, and risk of human chorionic gonadotropin confirmed pregnancy loss among 79 women followed for up to 12 menstrual cycles or until pregnancy. 55 women had live births, 14 experienced pregnancy losses, and 10 did not achieve pregnancy. PCBs and DDE were quantified using gas chromatography with electron capture. PCBs were grouped a priori by biologic activity. Cox proportional hazard regression adjusting for age (categorized 24 - 29, 30 - 34) and average standardized alcohol and cigarette intake (continuous) was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) of pregnancy loss. Estrogenic PCBs (HR = 1.66, 95% CI: 0.68, 4.02), anti-estrogenic PCBs (HR = 0.10, 95% CI: <0.01, 67.07) and DDE (HR = 1.43, 95% CI: 0.45, 4.52) were not statistically significantly associated with pregnancy loss. Our results provide some signal that estrogenic and antiestrogenic PCBs may be differentially associated with pregnancy loss. Further research is needed to elucidate these associations.