Use of benthic invertebrate community structure and the sediment quality triad to evaluate metal‐contaminated sediment in the upper clark fork river, montana

Abstract

The upper Clark Fork River, above Flathead River, is contaminated with large amounts of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Mn, and Zn ores from past mining activities. The contaminated area extends from the Butte and Anaconda area to at least 230 km downstream to Milltown Reservoir. Both the upper Clark Fork River and Milltown Reservoir have been designated as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites because of metal‐contaminated bottom sediments. We evaluated the impacts of past mining activities on the Clark Fork River ecosystem using benthic invertebrate community assessment, residue chemistry, and toxicity testing. Oligochaeta and Chironomidae generally accounted for over 90% of the benthic invertebrate community in the soft sediment depositional areas. Taxa of Oligochaeta and Chironomidae were predominantly pollution tolerant. Higher numbers of Chironomidae genera were present at stations with higher concentrations of metals in sediment identified as toxic by the amphipod Hyalella azteca in 28‐d exposures. Frequency of mouthpart deformities in genera of Chironomidae was low and did not correspond to concentrations of metals in sediment. Total abundance of organisms/m2 did not correspond to concentrations of metals in the sediment samples. Chemical analyses, laboratory toxicity tests, and benthic community evaluations all provide evidence of metal‐induced degradation to aquatic communities in both the reservoir and the river. Using a weight‐of‐evidence approach‐the Sediment Quality Triad ‐ provided good concurrence among measures of benthic community structure, sediment chemistry, and laboratory toxicity.

The effect of long-term contamination by heavy metals on community and genome alterations of Chironomidae (Diptera) in a stream with mine drainage water (southern Poland)

“…Along-term study of the impact of heavy metals originating from a Zn and Pb mine on the macroinvertebrate community showed an increasing abundance of Chironomidae (Armitage et al 2007). Similar results were obtained by Canfield et al (2009) and Michailova et al (2012a). They didn't find any influence of high concentrations of heavy metals on the macroinvertebrates which inhabited strongly contaminated sediments.…”

Environmental quality assessment on a river system polluted by mining activities

“…Appropriate graphic presentations of triad data (i.e. the triaxial graphs) are useful to describe the geographical trends and magnitude in differences among the sites studied, and to display the relationships between patterns of chemistry, toxicity and biology (Canfield et al, 1994;Chapman et al, 1997). In particular, the SQT can be defined as a conceptual framework for collecting synoptic measurements of the components, and for collectively assessing relative sediment quality (Chapman et al, 1997).…”

Multi-trophic level response to extreme metal contamination from gold mining in a subarctic lake

“…R. Soc. B 283: 20161125 tolerant of metal(loid)s such as arsenic, lead and zinc [71]. Nonetheless, the chironomid assemblage in Pocket Lake also exhibited changes coincident with the timing of the onset of mining operations and contamination ( figure 3; electronic supplementary material, figure S5).…”