FISH AS CANARIES AT ABERDEEN P.G.

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

FISH AS CANARIES
Last summer, I had the opportunity visit the water treatment plant at 
the Aberdeen Proving Ground's "Old O Field." With an unknown mixture of 
buried chemical munitions and other materials, Old O Field is one of 
the military's most contaminated pieces of real estate. It is encircled 
with electronic sniffing devices, designed to warn of lethal chemical 
releases.
As best as I can recall, the water treatment plant appeared to use 
conventional pump-and-treat technology, but the memorable technology 
was the use of a small aquarium of tiny fish to monitor continuously 
the effluent from the treatment plant.
Basically, if the filters in the water treatment facility fail to 
remove toxic constituents, the fish thrash around and die. It appears 
not only to be an effective monitoring system, but it visibly 
illustrates the difference between the impact of treated and 
non-treated water on the natural environment.
I have recently received two brief technical documents on the 
fish-based monitoring system from the Army Biomedical Research and 
Development Laboratory. I have keyed in their abstracts below.
Lenny Siegel
 
T.R. Shedd et al, "On-Line Statistical Analysis of Fish Ventilatory 
Response Data," U.S. Army Biomedical Research and Development 
Laboratory. 
Abstract
An automated system was developed to identify developing toxic 
conditions in water by continuously monitoring the ventilatory and 
movement patterns of up to 31 fish. Parameters monitored and recorded 
at 15 minute intervals include ventilatory rate and depth, cough (gill 
purge) rate, and percent whole body movement. A statistical control 
chart methodology was used to detect shifts from baseline levels for 
each of the three ventilatory parameters for each fish on a real-time 
basis. Movement was treated as a discrete variable and was analyzed 
using contingency tables. This presentation illustrates the 
implementation of this approach in a personal computer-based monitoring 
system and discusses the successful use of the system to rapidly detect 
developing toxic conditions while avoiding "false alarm" conditions.
 
T.R. Shedd et al, "Rapid Toxicity Assessment Using the Annual 
Killifish, Nothobranchius guentheri," U.S. Army Biomedical Research and 
Development Laboratory, 1994 Poster Presentation. 
Abstract
A test method has been developed to use newly hatched killifish 
(Nothobranchius guentheri) for rapid acute toxicity screening. The 
unique nature of the reproductive cycle of the annual killifish allows 
for the long-term storage of the embryos under semi-dry laboratory 
conditions. The embryos may be hatched from storage for us in a 
toxicity test. EC50 and LC50 results of the killifish test were 
compared to those of five standard EPA tests. Several compounds having 
various modes of toxicity including heavy metals, biocides, narcotics 
and common effluent constituents were evaluated. Analysis of the data 
revealed the rapid killifish test to be similar in sensitivity to the 
standard EPA tests. There are several advantages to the killifish test: 
a 24 hour exposure duration, utilization of standard laboratory 
equipment, and no requirements for continuous culture in order to have 
fish available for toxicity screening. While it is known that no one 
toxicity test is adequate to assess the toxicity of all classes of 
compounds, the killifish test could be used in combination with other 
rapid tests to give a multi-trophic-level assessment at sensitivity 
levels near the standard EPA tests. Savings in culture and testing 
resources could be applied to more complete containment or on-site 
screening evaluations for assessing potential toxic impacts in their 
environment.