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Potential Importance of Inhalation Exposures for Wildlife Using Screening-Level Ecological Risk Assessment

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10807030701456809

1549-7860

Josephine Archbold, Ruth N. Hull, Miriam L. Diamond,

Heavy metals in environment

ABSTRACT Ecological risk assessments (ERAs) have largely ignored exposure to wildlife via inhalation on the assumption that it is negligible compared to the ingestion route of exposure. The assessment of inhalation risk also has been limited due to a paucity of relevant ecotoxicity data. This article presents toxicity reference values (TRVs) for small mammals based on chronic or subchronic exposure studies for a range of organic and trace metal contaminants and ecologically relevant inhalation endpoints. Potential risk to small mammals due to ingestion and inhalation exposure were compared in two hypothetical air emission scenarios for a point source (incinerator) and non-point source emissions (vehicular emissions). Using two screening-level ERAs, we conclude that it may now be time to reconsider inhalation risk to wildlife in the case of atmospheric emissions of some metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In the case of birds, the toxicological database remains too small to assess risks via this pathway. However, for mammals, we suggest that inhalation exposures to contaminants such as cadmium, benzene, and other VOCs could be important. Key Words: inhalationair emissionsecological risk assessmentmobile sourceincineratorexposure pathway ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Minnesota Department of Transportation Research Services Section, St. Paul, Minnesota, Contract No. 74708 (wo) 110. Notes *Any durations that occurred during a critical life stage are considered chronic and UFs are not applied to those exposures (CitationSample et al. 1996).