Temporal pattern of toxicity in runoff from the Tijuana River Watershed

Abstract

Samples were collected from the Tijuana River under both dry weather (baseflow) conditions and during wet weather, and tested for toxicity using Ceriodaphnia dubia tests. Toxicity of waters in the Tijuana River was generally low under baseflow conditions, but increased markedly during high flow runoff events. In order to determine the temporal pattern of toxicity during individual rain events, sequential grab samples were collected using an autosampler at 5–7 h intervals after the start of the rain event, and tested for acute toxicity. In all cases, peak toxicity values (ranging from 2.8 to 5.8 TU) for each storm occurred within the first 1–2 h of initiation of the rain event, and were statistically higher (using the 95% CL) for each of the pre-storm base flow values. However, there was no statistically significant correlation ( p<0.05) between flow rate and toxicity when all storm data was pooled. Additionally, we used toxicity identification evaluation (TIE) procedures to attempt to identify the classes of chemicals that account for this early storm toxicity. Solid phase extraction was the only treatment that showed consistent and significant ( P<0.05) removal of toxicity. These TIEs, conducted on the most toxic sample of the river's flow during runoff events, suggest that non-polar organics may be responsible for such toxicity. The temporal pattern of toxicity, both during a given storm event and seasonally, indicates that wash-off from the watershed by rainfall may deplete the supply of toxicity available for wash-off in subsequent events, so that a clearly consistent relationship between flow and toxicity was not evident.