Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in soils of Bahía Blanca city and region (Argentina)

TOMBESI NORMA; POZO KARLA; PRIBYLOVA P.; AUDY O.; KLANOVA J.

Buenos Aires

Congreso; SETAC Latin America 11th Biennial Meeting; 2015

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC)

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as organochlorine pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are listed under Stockholm Convention. In this study four soils samples were analyzed for HCHs (α-, β-, γ-, and δ-), DDTs (p,p′-DDE, p,p′-DDD, p,p′-DDT), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), pentachlorobenzene (PeCB)) and seven indicator (PCBs) congeners (PCB-28, -52, -101, -118, -153, -138, and -180). Sampling sites were located two in Bahía Blanca city and two sites located to the west and south (about 40 km and 80 km respectively). In all samples PeCB was below detection limit (< LOD) and HCB ranged from ~14 to 53 pg/g dry weight (d.w.). ΣHCHs (pg/g d.w.) ranged from ~86 to 360, with the highest levels corresponding to the samples obtained in Bahía Blanca sites. γ-HCH was found in all samples and showed the highest HCH contribution (46% to 84%), which can be associated with the use of Lindane (consists almost entirely of γ?HCH). ΣDDTs (pg/g d.w.) showed the highest levels of all pesticides studied, with concentrations ranging from ~100 to 2000, and with DDT/DDE ratio of ~1,7 and 1,1 for the samples obtained in Bahía Blanca city (ratio often used to distinguish probable recent use when DDT/DDE >1). The pattern of OCs distribution (DDT and metabolites > HCHs) was similar to the observed in agricultural soils from southeastern region of Argentina (Arias et al., 2011). Σ7PCBs (pg/g d.w.) ranged from ~250 to 1700. Bahía Blanca samples (~1400 +/- 350) duplicate the others (~400 +/- 200). Although the substances are banned in the country, these results showed that they are still in the environment. Thus, the present study contribute with new data about the current status of this region located in the southwest of Buenos Aires Province (Argentina) respect to POPs, and show the importance and need of monitoring programs. Acknowledgments This investigation was supported by Universidad Nacional del Sur, PGI MayDS project (N.Tombesi). The authors thanks to Fondecyt 1130329 project (K.Pozo). This project was supported by the National Sustainability Programme of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (LO1214) and the RECETOX research infrastructure (LM2011028). References: Stockholm Convention, 2011 http://chm.pops.int/ Arias et al. (2011) In: Pesticides-Formulations, Effects, Fate (INTECH), p 313 - 332