An Assessment of Endocrine Disrupting Activity Changes in Water Reclamation Systems Through the Use of Bioassays and Chemical Measurements

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess endocrine disrupting activity in water reclamation systems with bioassays and chemical measurements. A total of seven full-scale water reclamation facilities employing different unit operations and two pilot-scale membrane bioreactors were examined. Findings of this study imply that endocrine disrupting activity in primary effluent is mainly caused by steroidal hormones and to a lesser extent by synthetic chemicals such as bisphenol A, nonylphenol, and octylphenol. During secondary treatment, steroidal hormones were removed to a higher degree than nonylphenol, whereas bisphenol A and octylphenol were entirely removed. The total estrogenic activity was removed by an average of 96 percent. The remaining concentrations of some steroids in secondary effluents still had the potential to cause an endocrine disrupting effect in the human breast cell cancer assay. For the majority of facilities the remaining activity is likely attributed to residual concentrations of steroidal compounds.

Development and Calibration of Fate Models for Micro-Constituents in Wastewater

“…Validation of the hormone fate model was completed using data from a WERF study (Drewes et al, 2005). The validation consisted of comparing predicted and reported hormone concentrations in the three facilities of the WERF report (designated therein as plants D, E and G) most closely matching the BNR configuration used in the initial conceptual model.…”

“…The knowledge base of hormone concentrations in municipal wastewater treatment plant influents and effluents around the globe is substantial and growing (Japan: Tanaka et al, 2003;Australia: Ying et al, 2008;Europe: Johnson et al, 2005; U.S.A.: Drewes et al, 2005;Canada: Servos et al, 2005).…”

“…The importance of such factors on the removal of hormones was investigated using a sensitivity analysis in the GPS-X software. Notes: 1) as designated in Drewes et al (2005) 2) Reported primary effluent concentration less than PQL; model input concentration used was 0.1 ng/L 3) MLSS of 3660 mg/L in model did not result in 10.0 d SRT as reported in Drewes et al (2005) The kinetics of biotransformation are governed by wastewater temperature. Figure 3 depicts the effect of the wastewater temperature over a range of 5 to 25 o C on the concentrations of the three hormones in the effluent from the model plant as configured in Figure 1.…”

Endocrine Disrupting Activity Changes in Water Reclamation Systems

“…Full-and pilot-scale facilities were sampled at various locations throughout the treatment process, but this study only reports findings related to the secondary treatment process. Flow schematics of the secondary treatment process for each full-scale facilities were reported in Drewes et al (2005). The pilot-scale MBRs (provided by Kubota and Zenon Environmental) employed HRTs of 5 and 3 hours and SRTs of 10 and 21 days, respectively.…”

“…In this study, one full-scale MBR facility and three pilot-scale MBR facilities were sampled. The data from all three MBR facilities were then averaged and compared to effluent concentrations of secondary treatment processes reported earlier (Drewes et al 2005). A comparison of the removal efficiencies of the MBR systems to the secondary treatment trains is presented in Figure 1.…”