Exchange of Polychlorinated Biphenyls between Sediment and Water in the Hudson River Estuary

Abstract

Sediment-bound polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) measured at several sites in the lower Hudson River Estuary are above equilibrium with the overlying water, providing a thermodynamic driving force for exchange from sediment to water. The fluxes of PCB congeners are estimated for a number potential processes: diffusive release of dissolved and colloidal PCBs from the bed, resuspension and subsequent desorption from resuspended particles, and sediment accumulation and burial. All processes are potentially significant, at least for some congeners. The sediment exchange fluxes of PCB solutes for five sites between Governors Island and Haverstraw Bay are estimated to be 20–860 μm m−2 d−1, which is between 2 and 100 times more than the flux of dissolved PCBs coming down the river at Haverstraw Bay. Much of the exchange from sediment to water may be balanced by burial of sorbed PCBs by sediment accumulation. Advection down the river and sediment exchange dominate other potential sources of PCBs to the lower estuary under current loading conditions. The magnitude of the calculated fluxes is consistent with the nonconservative behavior of PCBs in the same region but is higher than earlier modeling estimates that employed different assumptions.