Sediments toxaphene

Stern GA, MD Loewen, BM Miskimmin, DCG Muir, JB Westmore (1996) Characterization of two major toxaphene components in treated lake sediment. Environ Sci Technol 30 2251-2258. 

Toxaphene partitions to the atmosphere, surface and groundwaters, soil and sediment particulates, and adipose tissue. As a result of its volatility and resistance to photolytic transformation, toxaphene has been transported over long distances in the atmosphere (USPHS 1994). Toxaphene residues have been detected in various environmental compartments hundreds of kilometers distant... 

McDowell, L.L., G.H. Willis, C.E. Murphree, L.M. Southwick, and S. Smith. 1981. Toxaphene and sediment yields in runoff from a Mississippi Delta watershed. Jour. Environ. Qual. 10 168-173. 

Seiber, N.J., S.C. Madden, M.M. McChesney, and W.L. Winterlin. 1979. Toxaphene dissipation from treated cotton field environments component residual behavior on leaves, and in air, soil and sediments determined by capillary gas chromatography. Jour. Agric. Food Chem. 27 284-290. 

Williams, R.R. and T.R. Bidleman. 1978. Toxaphene degradation in estuarine sediments. Jour. Agric. Food Chem. 26 260-262. 

Chlorinated micropoUutants are harmful for man and environment due to their toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation. Persistent compounds are very stable and difficult to get metabolized and mineralized by biological and chemical processes in the environment, and as a result, they have become ubiquitous in water, sediments, and the atmosphere bioaccumulation is the result of the lipophilicity of these compounds. Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and -furans (PCDD/F) are not produced purposely like many of other chlorinated technical products, such as chlorinated biocides DDT, lindane, and toxaphene. The production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the dirty dozen has now been banned worldwide by the Stockholm protocol. It should be mentioned that about 3000 halogenated products have now been isolated as natural products in plants, microorganisms, and animals," but the total amount of these products is much smaller compared to xenobiotics. 

Of the 5.34 x 1051 of toxaphene that were used in North America (includes the United States and Mexico), 1.541 (3%) was estimated to remain in active circulation as of the year 2000, 6.5 x 1041 (12%) had been removed from the continental environment by advection of air and water and burial in soils and sediments, and 4.54 x 1051 (85%) had been removed by degradation reactions. Most of the toxaphene in active circulation resides in the soils of the southern U.S. and Mexico (83%). The efficiency of toxaphene transfer to the Great Lakes from its usage within the basin was estimated to be 78 to 220 times greater than transfer from the southern United States. However, load-... 

Profiles of toxaphene in dated sediment cores have been used to infer historical deposition and degradation of toxaphene in Lake Superior and the nearby inland lakes [50,94,95], Michigan [94,96] and Ontario [94,97-99]. There is sufficient detail from these studies to infer the history of inputs of toxaphene... 

Table 9 Concentrations and fluxes and year of maximum deposition of toxaphene in dated sediment cores from the Great Lakes... 

Ruppe et al. [84] demonstrated that the toxaphene profile in the sediment sample from western Lake Ontario was dominated by the known major metabolites B6-923 and B7-1001 (Fig. 10). These authors were also able to identify transformation products of B7-1001. They concluded that only small amounts of B7-1001 and B6-923 had been metabolized based on the ratios to their transformation products identified in vitro using an anaerobic bacterial culture. 

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