Development of an adaptive monitoring and management framework for environmental substances of concern in municipal wastewater

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Municipal wastewater effluent (MWWE) represents the largest input of wastewaters to rivers in Canada, and a recent National Expert Advisory Panel Report on Challenges and Opportunities to Address Contaminants in Wastewater highlighted the continuing need to examine and address emerging issues. Pharmaceuticals andpersonal care product additives found in the Bow River, Alberta, have been associated with sublethal effects in aquatic organisms collected near MWWE discharges. With projections of population increases, developmental pressures in Rockyview and Foothills Counties, and warming temperatures over the next several decades, the risk in the Bow River will increase. This Project was initiated by the City of Calgary's search for studiesfocused on the impacts of MWWE discharges on the Bow River system, and it will work with a variety ofpartners and Indigenous communities to identify causes, evaluate future risks, and establish priorities forwastewater management. Knowledge gaps will be addressed with state-of-the-art evaluations on the relativeimportance of emerging substances of concern (ESOCs) associated with natural hormones, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. The interplay between ESOCs and other stressors highlights the need for improved monitoring strategies that will allow a comprehensive and integrated assessment of multiple stressors and their effects. This project will train at least 26 HQP positions through 5 universities, including 15 URA, 4 MSc, 4 PhD, 2 PDF and 1 Community-based Researcher (CBR). Studies will use both unique experimental artificial stream facilities and in river measures to identify the environmental fate of ESOCs, detect food web-relatedchanges of concern, and identify sensitive physiological and microbiological tools for detecting early responsesand establishing exposure to MWWEs. Key relationships with Indigenous communities will identify priority issues and areas of concern for design and structure of future research phases. Designing and refiningmonitoring approaches for the largest source of discharges, by volume, are relevant to generate knowledge,tools, and solutions that can have a pan-Canadian impact and application.