Braaten, Bjørn

Egidius, Emmy

NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives

r IL~ This paper not to be cited without prior reference to the authors International Council for the Exploration of the Sea c. !>~!J. 1971/E: 11 Fisheries' L"'llprovement Committee ACUTE TOXICITY OF SOME BYPRODUCTS FROM VINYLCHLORIDE PRODUCTION TO SAITHE (POLLACHIUS VIRENS) by Bj9rn Braaten and Er.o.:my Egidius M5Illlerud x} Introduction Since the widespread occurence of byproducts from vinylchloride production was known (Jensen et al. 1970), m.uch attention has been paid to the toxic effects of these compounds. Lots of information is available on the toxicity of organochlorine compounds such as Dieldrin, Methoxychlor and others (Lane and Living stone 1970, Kennedy, et al. 1970). However. these insecticides contain aromatic hydrocarbons in contrast to most of the vinylch10ride byproducts which consist of chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons. chain length up to 5 or 6 (Cl-C). Jensen et al. (1970) de-termined the concentration of Cl-C giving the tfindefinite survival time" to be within the magnitude of 20 pprn for different marine organism. x)Institute of Marine Research, Directorate of Fisheries, Bergen. Norway. This work is part of a project worked by the Pollution Group consisting of G. Berge, B. Braaten, L. Fs2Syn, E. Egidius Ms2S11erud and K. H. Pa1r.nor k. - 2 -The present investigatit'm gives some information of the aqute toxicity of vinylchloride waste products on saithe and pollack (age group I and n). The recovery ability of the anLyuals was also studied. lvlaterial and methods The experim.ental anim.als were pollack. (Pollachius pollachius L.) and saithe (Pollachius virens L.) all caught in the Bergen area of the Nor-wegian west coast. A prelir.o.inary experiment was performed with pollack, in the remaining tests saithe was used. Holding conditions, acclimation of the pollack and set up of the preliminary experiment was similar to experin'lent nQ. 1 (ICES - C.M. 1971/E:IO). The :mentioned paper also describes the handling of saithe which was sirailar to the handling of cod (in experirrlent no. 2). Two additional survival tests were accomplished in 100 and 87 ppn:l re-spectively using saithe caught in May -71. In the survival test with 28 ppm both fish from December -70 and May .. 71 were used. The saithe tlsed in the experhnents had a 1ehgth range from 19 to 28 crh and weight frorn 86 to 132 ? rams. The oval test tanks (appr. 300 1) used for saithe were coated with a plastic film and filled up with 210 1 of test solutions. The fish were transferred to the tanks three days prior to the tests started for acclimationin. con-tinuous flowing water. Ten fish were used in each tank. It would have been desirable to carry out the toxicity tests in continuous flowing water, but due to the low solubility of the toxic material in sea-water, the experiments had to be carried out in a static system. The so-1utions were then aerated. Every day 140 1 was tapped out of each tank and replaced by a freshly made solution. Water sa:m.ples for analysis were taken before a..'ld after renewal. In order to determine the medium. lethal concentration, LD50, the concen-tration values were selected froIn a logaritmic scale (Doudoroff et al. 1951). The following concentrations were used: 100 - 87 - 75 - 65 - 56 - 49 -42 - 37 - 32 and 28 ppm. " - 3 -Since renewal of test solutions was essential, a dayly va.riationin tempera-ture of 3 to 50 e was obtained during the experiments (range 9.5 to 12.50 C in test 2 and range 8.6 to 14.2 in addtitional tests). Salinity was 34.60 /00 ± 20 /00, oxygen content was not measured. Air flows were checked several times daily and adjusted if necessary, and control fishes were tested under similar conditions. The rnaterial tested' was waste products from Norwegian v! nylchloride pro-duction. A prelim.inary test was carried out on the crude waste (EDC crude waste), in the remaining experiments a distillate of the waste product (EDe tar distillate) or.llitting the tar fractions were used. For details in chemical composition of the test material see Jensen et al., in. prep. Analysis were carried out on a Hewlett and Packard 700 Gas Chromatograph fitted with an electron capture detector (nickel) and coupled to an Intorfionics digital integrator (model CRS 100). A SF 96 (10 %) column was used (Jensen and Pahnork, in ·pre.l;>. : . Tin'1.e to 50 % mortality and its 95 % confidence lhnits, were estir.nated for each bioassay (experiment 2) by probit analysis (Litchfield 1949). Results For pollack a LD 50 value between 50 and 100 ppm of EDC crude waste within 24 hours was indicated (table 1). Table 1. Per cent rnortality of pollack exposed to EDC crude waste. Conc. (EEm,} time in hour s 1 I.!. z 6 24 48 300 100 200 100 150 100 100 0 100 50 0 0 0 10 10 0 0 0 0 1 0 .0 0 0 0 Bioassays using saithe with the EDC tar distillate gave approximately sim.i-lar results wiL",in 24 hours, although variable results were encountered (table 2). For exarnple, a higher LD50 value was obtained in 42 ppm compared to the lower values in 37 and 32 ppril respectively. 4: -Table 2.. Survival times of saithe exposed to EDC tar distillate in 96 hours. b - additional test, C - control. Conc. (ppm.) 100 100 (b) 87 87 (b) 75 65 56 49 42 37 32 28 C Time to 50 % m.ortality and 95 % confidence limits (hr) 1 - 2 t - 1 3 M 4 5 (4, 6:H 28 (21, 37) 28 (25, 31) 49 (42, 56) 53 (40, 70) 70 (63, 77) 42 (34, 53) 57 l/Iortality in test % 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 80 80 70 50 20 0 Analysis of the water samples gave extremely variable results, the lowest value was usually found after renewal of the toxic solution. This can be explained by as suzning an incoznplete rnixing of Yvater and toxic compounds. It is nlost probable that some hours will elapse before the solution is equili-brated. However, abnormally high values were also found aU"long the samples. indicating water from the surface fil:m in the sample. A glossy filzn with a rather stiff znen'lhrane was often observed on the surface. A test-fish in continuous motion might be exposed to variable concentrations the first period after renewal of the toxic solution, depending on low solu-bility and incomplete mixing. The observed variation in te:mperature will probably also influence on the !zlortality. On this background a certain un-expected vari2L~ce in the results seerns reasonable. It must be e:mphasized that all concentrations used were based on weight/ volume. Earlier results (ICES - C. M. 1971/E:IO) showed that the actual concentrations in average were 2. 5 tir...'1.es lower than expected. If the sam.e relationship exists in the present rr.l.aterial, the actual LD50 will be close to 16 ppm, instead of cc. 40 ppn'1.. - 5 -An introductory experiment of 'L.'1e ability to recover when transferred to fresh sea-water was performed. After two hours exposure in 100 ppm, all ten fish laid on the bottom. of the tank and only weak opercular m.ove-ments were seen. One fish was then transferred to fresh sea-water and within 5 r.cdnutes it was able to swir.n. Vfith intervals of ten minutes re-spectively two and seven fish were transferred to fresh sea-water. One of the two survived, but only one of the rernaining seven started to swim. A similar test was done in 87 ppm. After three hours all ten fish were taken into fresh sea-water and six of them survived. Some of them could be characterized as complete dead, but they still recovered. Of the three recovered fish from the first and six from the last experiment, all seemed to live quite normal for a week. Discussion and conclusion. The present data indicate that fairly high concentrations (about 40 ppm, weight/volume) are needed to cause acute toxicity on Gadidae of age group I and II. The results are in confor:mation with some preliminary studies reported by Berge, Lj\iSen and Palmork (1970) using 1. 2 dichloropropane, a main component from. industrial container s found in the North Sea. On the contrary, the studies of Jensen et. al. (1970), showed that within the same period of time (96 hr.), only 1/10 of the concentration was necessary to produce a similar acute effect on cod. This great difference in suscepti-bility might partly be explained by species, and age differences, variabilities in cher.nical cornposition of the waste material, and finally different experi-mental conditions, for example ter...'lperature. Further, it was surprising to see that larvae even seen'led to be less susceptible (ICES - C.lvL 1971/E: 9 ) •. :-The reasons for this findings are not obvious, but r.aight be due to a speci#c action of the toxic material on certain organs in the young fish that is not developed in the larva. Since the acute toxic effect to a great extent was reversible, this obser-vation L."J.dicates a toxication effect of physical nature (Crisp et. al. 1967). The results also suggest the possibility of survival for fish exposed tempo-rarily to high concentrations if they are able to leave the toxic area. Still nothing is known about the sublethal and chronic effects caused by such an exposure or exposures to lower concentrations. Abstract 'The survival of I and II age group saithe and pollack in waste products from Norwegian vinyl chloride production was tested and time to 50 % mortality and 95 % confidence limits were estir.o.ated. Recovery tests on apparently dead fish (100 and 87 ppYn of the toxic substances were perforrned.) - 6·-REFERENCES Berge, G., Ljl15en, R. and Pahnork, K. H., 1970. The disposal of con-tainers with industrial waste into The North Sea: A problem to fisheries. Paper presented to FAO Technical Conference on Mari~e Pollution and its Effects on Living Resources and Fishing, Rom.e, Italy, 9-18 Decem.ber 1970, FIR:MP/70/R-73: 3p. Crisp, D. J., Christie, A. O. and Ghobashy, A. F. G. ~ 1967. Narcotic and toxic action of organic compounds on barnacle larvae. Comp. Bio-chem.. Physiol. 22, 629-649. Doudoroff, P., Anderson, B. G., Burdic, G. E., Galtsoff, P. S., Hart, VI. B. , Patric, R., Strong, E.R., Surber, E. vr. and Van Horn, W. M., 1951. Bio-assay m.ethods for the evaluation of acute toxicity of industrial wastes to fish. Sewage ind. Wastes 2, 1380-1397. I. C. E. S., C. M. 1971/E:9. Braaten, B •• Egidius Mszlllerud. E. and Solemda1, P. The influence of byproducts from viny1chloride production on fertilization, development and larval survival on plaice, cod and herring eggs. Jensen. S., Jernelszlv, A., Lange, R. and Pa1m.ork, K.H., 1970. Chlorinated by-products from. viny1ch1oride production: a new source of marine pollution. Paper pre sented to FAO Technical Conference on Marine Pollution and its Effects on Living Resources and Fishing, Rome, Italy, 9-18 Decem.ber, 1970, FIR:MP/70/E-88:8p. Jensen, S. and Pa1:mork, K. H., in prep_ Jensen, 5., Pa1r.aork. K. H. and Wilhe1m.sen, S., in prep. Kennedy, H.D., Eller, L.L. and Walsh, D.F., 1970. Chronic Effects of Methoxychlor on Bluegills and Aquatic Invertebrates. Tech. pap. Bur;. Sport Fish. and Wild. (US) 53 18 p. Lane, C. E. and Livingston, R. J.. 1970. Som.e Acute and Chronic Effects of Dieldrin on the Sailfin Molly. Poecilia Latipinna. Trans. Ar.a. Fish. Soc. 99(3): 489-495. Litchfield, J. T., 1949. A method for rapid graphic solution of time-per cent effect curves. J. Pharrnac. expo Ther. 97 399-408. 

Acute toxicity of some byproducts from vinylchloride production to saithe (Pollachius virens)

Brage IMR

English

HSN Open Archive

https://imr.brage.unit.no/imr-xmlui/bitstream/11250/101699/1/CM_1971_E_11.pdf

Acute toxicity of some byproducts from vinylchloride production to saithe (Pollachius virens)

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives

Brage IMR

HSN Open Archive