New methods for determining petroleum hydrocarbon(PHC)-induced soil toxicity with the goal of developing appropriate, site-specific soil guidelines

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Petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) are one of the most widespread soil contaminants in Canada and consist of a wide range of organic compounds found in, or derived from, geological sources such as oil, coal and bitumen. PHCs can cause a wide variety of problems related to their toxicity, mobility and persistence. Due to the abundance of PHC-contaminated sites, remediation of affected soils is an ongoing activity in Canada. Most commonly, soils are remediated to generic federal and/or provincial guidelines that have largely been derived using test species from the temperate zone. As temperate test species may react very differently than those found in other environments, it is permissible to derive site-specific guidelines for PHC-contaminated soils in other areas of Canada. One aspect of this research proposal is to derive site-specific PHC guidelines for a site in the Northwest Territories using plant and invertebrate species native to the area. Standardized (Environment Canada approved) eco-toxicological testing, using appropriate plant and invertebrate species that have not been used in this manner before is important, but it is recognized that there are inherent limitations to conventional toxicity testing for PHC mixtures. From a practical standpoint, the process of conventional testing is time consuming, requires the collection and culturing of living species, and the shipment of large quantities of soil to specialized laboratories. We propose to address some of these limitations, by concurrently developing non-standard approaches for soil toxicity testing that are high-throughput, and have a lower resource burden (i.e. lower cost, less transport of material, time savings, etc.). The non-standard approaches are at various stages of testing, validation and regulatory acceptance/adoption, but we propose that they are ultimately poised to change the manner in which toxicity of PHCs and other contaminants in environmental media are measured and regulated. The results of this project will be of significant value in the fields of environmental remediation and policy. Furthermore, this project has the potential to set a precedent in toxicity testing methodology applied across major industrial sections in Canada.********