Refining Sources of Polychlorinated Biphenyls in the Back River Watershed, Baltimore, Maryland, 2018–2020 ...

• Main Authors: Majcher, Emily, Ghosh, Upal, Needham, Trevor, Lombard, Nathalie, Foss, Ellie, Bokare, Mandare, Joshee, Sarahana, Cheung, Louis, Damond, Jada, Lorah, Michelle
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: USGS 2022
• Subjects: Back River
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m2zo4d-o58o; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/25013

Older urban landscapes present unique and complex stressors to urban streams and their habitats through the introduction of legacy and emerging toxic contaminants. Contaminant sources are often associated with various developed land uses such as older residential areas, active and former industrial sites, contaminated sites, and effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plant discharges. These landscapes have a history of legacy contaminant use such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) resulting in impacts to sediment and water in these complex environments. Despite the ban of PCBs in new commercial use in 1979, PCB contamination is still widespread in the environment, with many fish consumption advisories throughout the Chesapeake Bay region based on elevated PCBs. Several watersheds in the Baltimore region have mandated reductions in PCBs per total maximum daily loads in tidal waters of the watersheds in order to promote compliance with water quality standards. Some of these mandated reductions (for ...