 | Vol. 3 No. 4 Spring 1996 |
| A Newsletter About New Jersey's Water Quality Programs |
Whole Effluent Toxicity Discussed at Workshop
by Betty Boros-Russo, Bureau of Watershed Permitting
On December 5, 1995 the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) held a workshop to discuss Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) - a test that measures how pollutants effect the growth, reproduction, and survival of aquatic organisms over a seven-day period. The workshop was attended by 45 nationally recognized scientists from government, academia, and business who were invited to share their experience with WET. Funding for the workshop was provided by the American Industrial Health Council, the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The areas of discussion included laboratory test methods and appropriate endpoints, effluent toxicity testing variability, and predicting receiving system impacts from WET tests.
The overall workshop conclusions were:
- The universally accepted WET exposure methods are technically sound and require no immediate modifications.
- WET testing is an effective tool for predicting impact in lotic receiving systems. Additional laboratory field validation is not essential for the continued use of WET testing.
- The largest sources of variability in WET testing are the level of analyst expertise and judgment and test organism condition/health.
- Deviation from established methods can be controlled by an effective QA/QC program.
The panel recognized that proper application of tests and data interpretation were key factors in implementing a successful WET program, and improvements, primarily to the statistical analytical methods, should be considered. Full proceedings will be published by SETAC by late summer or early fall. SETAC may be reached by mail at 1010 North 12th Avenue, Pensacola, FL 32501-3370 or by phone at (904) 469-1500. The Division of Water Quality representative for WET is Betty Boros Russo, who may be reached at (609) 633-3869.
Articles appearing in the New Jersey Discharger may be reprinted provided source credit is given.
Tom Cosmas converted the original text into this HTML and is willing to accept most of the blame for any typo errors.