A 30-Year Study of Impacts, Recovery, and Development of Critical Effect Sizes for Endocrine Disruption in White Sucker (Catostomus commersonii) Exposed to Bleached-Kraft Pulp Mill Effluent at Jackfish Bay, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Jackfish Bay is an isolated bay on the north shore of Lake Superior, Canada that has received effluent from a large bleached-kraft pulp mill since the 1940s. Studies conducted in the late 1980s found evidence of reductions in sex steroid hormone levels in multiple fish species living in the Bay, and increased growth, condition and relative liver weights, with a reduction in internal fat storage, reduced gonadal sizes, delayed sexual maturation, and altered levels of circulating sex steroid hormones in white sucker (Catostomus commersonii). These early studies provided some of the first pieces of evidence of endocrine disruption in wild animals. Studies on white sucker have continued at Jackfish Bay, monitoring fish health after the installation of secondary waste treatment (1989), changes in the pulp bleaching process (1990s), during facility maintenance shutdowns and during a series of facility closures associated with changing ownership (2000s), and were carried through to 2019 resulting in a 30-year study of fish health impacts, endocrine disruption, chemical exposure, and ecosystem recovery. The objective of the present study was to summarize and understand more than 75 physiological, endocrine, chemical and whole organism endpoints that have been studied providing important context for the complexity of endocrine responses, species differences, and challenges with extrapolation. Differences in body size, liver size, gonad size and condition persist, although changes in liver and gonad indices are much smaller than in the early years. Population modeling of the initial reproductive alterations predicted a 30% reduction in the population size, however with improvements over the last couple of decades those population impacts improved considerably. Reflection on these 30 years of detailed studies, on environmental conditions, physiological, and whole organism endpoints, gives insight into the complexity of endocrine responses to environmental change and mitigation.

Effects of 2,4,6-Trichlorophenol on Clarias batrachus: a biomarkers approach

“…In chronic toxicity studies on fish, chlorophenols have been reported to cause a wide range of negative impacts such as oxidative stress, carcinogenesis and reproductive toxicity (Fang et al 2014 ; Ge et al 2017 ); alterations in plasma steroids, liver size, sexual maturity, fish growth and survival (Sepúlveda et al 2003 ; Van Der Kraak et al 1992 ) and various condition indices (e.g. condition factor, hepatosomatic and gonadosomatic index, Ussery et al 2021 ). Since biomarkers can act as indicators of environmental pollutants, their use to evaluate the toxicity of 2,4,6-TCP will provide key information (Jemec et al 2016 ).…”

Using Fish as a Sentinel in Risk Management of Contaminated Sediments

“…In this study, a typical value for the perch lipid content was set to 0.8%, and measured levels were normalized to 5% lipid content, i.e., multiplied by a factor of 6.25. Toxic equivalence (TEQ) for PCDD/F and dioxin-like PCBs (dl-PCB) was calculated using congenerspecific toxic equivalence factors (TEFs) reported by the World Health Organization (van den Berg et al 2006). When the PCDD/F levels were below detection limits for all congeners, the average medium bound for all samples with no detectable PCDD/Fs was used to calculate TEQ.…”

“…Reflections on long-term records of surveys in ecosystems may provide valuable information for environmental management (Arciszewski et al 2021 ; Ussery et al 2021 ). An evaluation of about fifty fish health surveys in the Swedish cellulose industry receiving waters conducted between 1985 and 2015 (Sandström et al 2016 ) found that there has been a good recovery of fish health in most receiving waters compared to conditions during the 1980s and 1990s.…”

“…The environmental effects of emissions from the cellulose industry have, since the 1960s, been an area for environmental research forming the basis for successive mitigation actions to protect aquatic life (Norrström and Karlsson 2015 ; Ussery et al 2021 ). Numerous field studies targeting effects on fish have been conducted in Scandinavia (Sandström et al 1988 ; Landner et al 1994 ; Förlin et al 1995 ; Karels and Oikari 2000 ), North- and South America (Adams et al 1992 ; Munkittrick et al 1994 ; McMaster et al 2006 ; Chiang et al 2010 ; Mower et al 2011 ; Barra et al 2021 ) and Oceania (Harris et al 1992 ; van den Heuvel et al 2010 ).…”

Incorporating Industrial and Climatic Covariates into Analyses of Fish Health Indicators Measured in a Stream in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

“…Among the studies performed in the OSR to understand the effects of industrial developments, analyses of fish health indicators have been undertaken in streams in the minable sub-region since the late 1990s [6][7][8]. Using designs inspired by the Federal Environmental Effects Monitoring program (EEM; [9,10]), these fish studies typically collected sentinel species from an exposed site and statistically evaluate anatomical measurements relative to an upstream or local reference site not exposed to the stressor of interest e.g., [11]. This design has also been used for other indicators and has routinely identified differences at the downstream exposure locations, suggesting the potential influence of industrial activities [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”