Alternative Approaches to the Monitoring of Toxic Organic Compounds in Surface Waters

Abstract

Abstract The effectiveness of present approaches to the monitoring of toxic organic chemicals in surface waters is questioned on the basis of cost and limited analytical or interpretive capabilities. Cursory examination of routinely generated chromatograms shows that a significant number of compounds exist in the environment about which little or nothing is presently known because of an increasingly rooted acceptance of “list” or “target” approaches to environmental chemistry. A redirection towards broad spectrum approaches is advocated. Such approaches would further allow for the simplication of information generation by concentrating analytical and interpretive efforts on those chromatographic peaks which directly reflect the ‘treatment’ or ‘difference’ established through the sampling scheme (e.g., upstream vs downstream, before treatment vs after, inflow vs outflow, toxic vs non-toxic, one season vs another, epilimnion vs hypolimnion, etc.). Upon consideration of existing technology, a plan of action is presented.