Meeting Abstract
P3.102 Monday, Jan. 6 15:30 PCB contamination in Yadkin River NC fish: potential human and ecological impacts WILLIAMS, L.E.*; DEFUR, P.L.; Environmental Stewardship Concepts; Environmental Stewardship Concepts environsc@gmail.com
We reviewed fish contamination data collected by the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources on the Yadkin River Basin following reports that PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) concentrations are elevated above levels considered safe by the NC Department of Health. The Yadkin R. sampling was designed to cover a wide spatial extent from the farthest upriver location to the most downriver collection site. Looking only at the average PCB concentrations in fish tissue sampled (range: 10.9 – 35.9 ppb), none of the locations sampled along the Yadkin River have PCB levels above the NC standards of 50 ppb (but are above EPA’s 1.5 ppb). However, many of the individual fish samples (range: 4.2 – 129 ppb) from the upper sampling locations, High Rock Lake, and the two sampling locations just downriver from Badin Lake have PCB concentrations that exceed the PCB levels used by NC to determine fish advisories. Indeed, some of the fish had PCBs at more than twice the 50 ppb. These PCB levels are high enough to cause reproductive impairment in several aquatic animals and potentially in people consuming fish from the Yadkin. The results for these locations indicate a pattern of change in PCB levels as a function of location from upriver to downriver. The highest concentrations were recorded in fish from the Yadkin River just below Badin Lake at the Narrows Dam and at the Falls Dam. The lowest PCB levels in fish occurred in the farthest downriver area, indicating an increase at Falls Reservoir and then declining fish tissue PCB levels downriver. This pattern suggests that at least primary PCB sources are upriver of Falls Reservoir, and fewer or no sources downriver. This pattern is repeated upriver at High Rock Lake, where high PCB levels exist in the two uppermost sampling locations but then drop downriver.
