title: Monitoring contaminants of emerging concern from tertiary wastewater treatment plants using passive sampling modelled with performance reference compounds.
abstract: The Lake Simcoe watershed in Ontario, Canada is an important recreational area and a recharge zone for groundwater resources. Lake Simcoe is a relatively shallow lotic system that has been impacted by urban development, recreation, industry and agriculture. As part of a watershed management plan, six wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) located in this catchment basin were selected to measure the inputs of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) of wastewater origin. These WWTPs were recently upgraded to tertiary treatment for phosphorus removal. Polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) and semipermeable membrane devices (SPMDs) were used to monitor for hydrophilic and hydrophobic CECs, respectively, in treated and untreated wastewater. The passive samplers were calibrated with performance reference compounds (PRCs) by measuring the loss of deuterated beta blocker drugs spiked into POCIS and the loss of PCB congeners spiked into SPMDs over the course of 14-day deployment periods. From the PRC data, field sampling rates of CECs were determined and applied to estimate time-weighted average (TWA) concentrations and mass loadings in mg/day/1000 members of the population serviced. In treated wastewater, TWA concentrations of an antibiotic, sulfamethoxazole, the prescription drugs, carbamazepine, naproxen and gemfibrozil, and the non-prescription drug, ibuprofen, were estimated to be in the low (<18 ng/L) range. The artificial sweeteners, sucralose and acesulfame, were particularly useful chemical tracers, with estimated TWA concentrations in treated wastewater ranging from 128 to 213 ng/L and 4 to 33 ng/L, respectively. The steroid hormones were detected only rarely in treated wastewater. Triclosan, triclocarban and the synthetic musks, HHCB and AHTN, were removed efficiently (>77 %), possibly because of the tertiary treatment technologies. Therefore, the mass loadings for these personal care products were all <5 mg/day/1000 people. Overall, this study indicates that tertiary treatment technologies designed for phosphorus removal do not entirely remove the target CECs.
authors.affiliation: Water Quality Centre, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada. tamannasultana@trentu.ca.
authors.forename: Tamanna
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sultana
authors.affiliation: Institute for Watershed Science, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada.
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: Water Quality Centre, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ehsanul Hoque
authors.affiliation: Water Quality Centre, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada.|Institute for Watershed Science, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada.
authors.forename: Chris D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Metcalfe
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D009864:Ontario; D009930:Organic Chemicals / Q000032:analysis; D012015:Reference Standards; D014260:Triclosan / Q000032:analysis; D062065:Wastewater / Q000737:chemistry*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D009930:Organic Chemicals; D014260:Triclosan; D062065:Wastewater; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Contaminants of emerging concern; Passive samplers; Personal care products; Pharmaceuticals; Wastewater