Levels and Patterns of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxin and Dibenzofuran Contamination in Fish Samples from Midstream of the Tama River, near Municipal Waste Incineration Plant, Japan.

Abstract

The previous paper demonstrated that emission from a municipal waste incineration (MWI) plant was probably a main potential PCDD/DF source in midstream of the Tama River. Thus, fish samples caught from the midstream of this river, one from a heavily polluted site and the other from comparatively a low polluted site by PCDD/DF, were analyzed for their PCDD/DF levels and patterns, to compare with those found for the surface sediments. Fish sample taken up from the heavily polluted site near the MWI facility showed high I-TEQ value (14.0pg/g) of PCDD/DF as fresh weight (f.w.), although the PCDD/DF congener pattern was somewhat different as compared with that found for the sediment sample. HRGC/HRMS determinations for PCDD/DF in other fish sample caught from the low polluted site, which is at distance of 1 km from the MWI facility and there is a small dam between both sampling points, showed also high I-TEQ value of 7.26pg/g f.w. This value was not only about 23 times higher than that (0.3pg/g) found for the sediment collected from the same point, but also a extreme difference in the PCDD/DF patterns was observed for both fish and sediment samples.