Contamination Status of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Fish from the Han River Estuary, Korea

Abstract

In order to assess the status of OCs contamination in fish inhabiting the coastal zone of Korea, we collected fish samples from Han River estuary from May 2005 to February 2007. The fish collected consists of several species because sampling of same species was difficult at all sites and seasons. Dorsal muscle tissue of fish was dissected from the whole body for analysis. Sampling location and fish species were presented in Fig. 1. Figure 1. Sampling location of fish from Han River estuaryPolychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorine pesticides such as DDTs, HCHs, CHLs and HCB were detected in muscle homogenates of all the fish samples. The overall summary of OCs concentrations is presented in Figure 2. Polychlorinated biphenyls were the predominant contaminants with concentrations ranging from 8.46 to 1710 ng/g lipid weight (lw) and DDT compounds recorded the second highest concentrations with the range of 5.76 - 1170 ng/g lw. HCHs, CHLs and HCB concentration in fish were relatively low ranging 1.14 - 133 ng/g lw, 0.28 – 89.7 ng/g lw, and 0.09 – 61.0 ng/g lw, respectively. The OC levels are relatively lower than those found in harbor regions of Korea (Yim et al., 2004). Among DDT compounds, DDE is dominant with the average composition of 60±12% and followed by DDD (35±11%) and DDT (5±3%). Same signature was also observed in sediment collected from this region before, which indicating that the degradation of DDT is in progress in the coastal environment. Regarding the HCH isomers, high proportion of β-HCH (33±17%) and γ-HCH (46±19%) was observed in fish samples followed by α-HCH (15±6%), and δ-HCH (5±3%). Risk-based screening value (SV) based on EPA method was calculated using the EPA approach to identify the primary chemicals of concern (Figure 2). About 90% of the fish samples showed the PCB concentrations exceeding the SV (5.04 ng/g). The concentrations of DDTs and dieldrin in fish exceeded their SVs at 47% and 20% of the