Acute toxicity of a shoreline cleaner, CytoSol, mixed with oil and ecological risk assessment of its use on the Galician Coast

37 páginas, 2 tablas, 9 figuras.-- The final publication is available at www.springerlink.comThe application of embryo-larval bioassay with the purple sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus and the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis at 48 hours, and with neonates of the mysid Siriella armata at 96 hours, was used to evaluate the acute toxicities of the following preparations: 1) the shoreline cleaning agent CytoSol; 2) the water accommodated fraction of CytoSol and a light crude oil; and 3) the runoff from a pilot-scale treatment with CytoSol of a rocky coastal substrate impregnated with residues from the Prestige oil spill (November 2002). The mussel was the most sensitive organism to CytoSol and runoff effects (EC50=8.0 µL/L and 64.3 mL/L respectively) and the mysid was the least sensitive to the runoff (EC50>200 mL/L). The predicted no-effect environmental concentration (PNEC) was calculated from the no-observed effect concentration (NOEC) of the species most sensitive to the runoff. The predicted environmental concentration (PEC) was estimated from a simple and reasonable dilution model and the PEC/PNEC ratio was calculated according to the area treated and the values of the variables considered in the model. The implications for the management of the treatment operations are discussedThe authors are grateful to the Centro para la Prevención y Lucha contra la Contaminación Marítima y del Litoral (CEPRECO, Ministerio de la Presidencia) for funding this studyPeer reviewe