Assessing the impact of wastewater treatment plant upgrades on fish health

评估废水处理厂升级对鱼类健康的影响

• 批准号: 530553-2018
• 负责人: Servos, Mark
• 金额: $ 0.88万
• 依托单位: University of Waterloo
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Collaborative Research and Development Grants
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=697972
• 关键词: Assessing; impact; wastewater; treatment; plant

Continued urbanization of human populations has put increasing demands on the limited water resources available in Canada. Although wastewater treatment has been effective in reducing acute toxicity and eutrophication, new emerging chemicals released in the effluents are raising concerns. These chemicals can interact with organisms through numerous interlinked mechanisms to cause adverse outcomes on ecosystem health, including fish populations. Wastewater utilities face considerable uncertainty related to the potential ecological significance of these changes and the options available to effectively remove them. The new Wastewater Effluent Systems Regulations (Fisheries Act) require all Canadian wastewater systems to achieve minimum baselines for selected effluent parameters. However, these do not include the diversity of emerging contaminants, such as environmental estrogens, that are present in effluents that can have important effects on reproduction in fish. As wastewater utilities invest in treatment process upgrades to meet the regulation and protect receiving environments, it will be important to determine how these contaminants are affected and how ecosystems respond. In the Grand River watershed, in southern Ontario, many effects have been documented in fish associated with the two major wastewater treatment plants. However, these facilities are currently undergoing major process upgrades (2012-2020). Research has been ongoing in the watershed for more than a decade at these sites and therefore has created a unique opportunity to follow the response of the ecosystem (i.e., fish) to these major investments. Past data sets, along with archived and newly collected samples, will be used to assess how biological responses (genes to populations) are altered in a sentinel fish species (rainbow darter, Etheostoma caeruleum). This will be supported with analytical chemistry and laboratory bioassays to better understand changes in exposure and risk over time. The project will strengthen the utilities' ability to assess efforts to protect the environment and guide future investment decisions.

人口的持续城市化对加拿大有限的水资源提出了越来越高的需求。尽管废水处理可以有效减少急性毒性和富营养化，但废水中释放的新化学物质引起了人们的担忧。这些化学物质可以通过许多相互关联的机制与生物体相互作用，对生态系统健康（包括鱼类种群）造成不利后果。污水处理厂面临着相当大的不确定性，这些不确定性与这些变化的潜在生态意义以及有效消除这些变化的可用选项有关。新的废水排放系统法规（渔业法）要求所有加拿大废水系统达到选定废水参数的最低基线。然而，这些不包括新出现的污染物的多样性，例如废水中存在的环境雌激素，这些污染物可能对鱼类的繁殖产生重要影响。随着污水处理厂投资升级处理工艺以满足法规要求并保护接收环境，确定这些污染物如何受到影响以及生态系统如何应对非常重要。在安大略省南部的格兰德河流域，与两个主要废水处理厂相关的鱼类受到了许多影响。然而，这些设施目前正在进行重大工艺升级（2012-2020）。十多年来，这些地点一直在流域进行研究，因此创造了一个独特的机会来跟踪生态系统（即鱼类）对这些重大投资的反应。过去的数据集以及存档和新收集的样本将用于评估哨兵鱼类（虹鳟鱼、Etheostoma caeruleum）的生物反应（种群基因）如何改变。这将得到分析化学和实验室生物测定的支持，以更好地了解暴露和风险随时间的变化。该项目将增强公用事业公司评估环境保护工作并指导未来投资决策的能力。