Abstract
Project Trackdown is an investigative environmental program aimed at tracking sources of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in Great Lakes tributaries. The program uses a multimedia weight of evidence approach for identifying sources of PCBs to the environment. PCB concentrations in environmental media (sediment, water, suspended sediment and soil), passive samplers and/or exposed biota (mussels, young-of-the-year fish and benthic invertebrates) are used in combination to evaluate bioavailability and identify local anomalies within a tributary. These lines of evidence can be assessed with simple chemometric techniques and fingerprinting of PCB congener profiles, and, combined with anecdotal information such as land use history and tributary alterations, may be used to identify ongoing and locally controllable sources of PCBs to the Great Lakes. The program was successful at developing environmental triggers to differentiate potential source areas from background PCB conditions in urban areas, allowing efforts to focus on identifying active ongoing sources of PCB contamination. Project Trackdown has been carried out in three tributaries to Lake Ontario (Cataraqui River, Etobicoke Creek and Twelve Mile Creek) and two tributaries that flow into the Detroit River (Turkey Creek and Little River). Local ongoing PCB sources have been identified in four projects, leading to abatement or remediation measures. As a collaborative initiative between the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Environment Canada, Project Trackdown has successfully identified several PCB sources leading to substantial cleanup efforts aimed ultimately at reducing PCB contamination to the Great Lakes.
Highlights
Maintenance and improvement of the environmental health of the Great Lakes represent an ongoing international and multi-jurisdictional challenge to scientists and the policy experts who work with them
As part of commitments to conduct specific watershed investigations focused on identifying pollutant sources to the Great Lakes, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (OMOE) and Environment Canada (EC) have been collaborating to identify and address watershed-specific contamination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in tributaries representing a significant source to the Great Lakes
Removal of sediment contaminated with PCBs, mercury, chromium, arsenic and lead
Summary
Maintenance and improvement of the environmental health of the Great Lakes represent an ongoing international and multi-jurisdictional challenge to scientists and the policy experts who work with them. As part of commitments to conduct specific watershed investigations focused on identifying pollutant sources to the Great Lakes, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (OMOE) and Environment Canada (EC) have been collaborating to identify and address watershed-specific contamination of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in tributaries representing a significant source to the Great Lakes. Initiated as a pilot study in 2001 to determine the feasibility of finding locally significant sources of contaminants as ubiquitous as PCB, Project Trackdown’s approaches to tracking sources of contamination were developed in three tributaries along the Canadian shoreline of Lake Ontario (Figure 1): Cataraqui River (Kingston, ON), Etobicoke Creek (Toronto, ON) and Twelve-Mile Creek (St. Catharines, ON). The goal of Project Trackdown was to determine whether it is possible to identify ongoing locally controllable sources of PCB contamination within Ontario watersheds. It provides qualitative environmental triggers that can be used to differentiate between discrete sources of PCBs to the environment from the “noise” of non-specific PCB contamination typical of urban environments
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