Water Discharges at Sea: Collecting Realistic Laboratory Data on Fish Behaviour to Support Risk Assessment and Monitoring

Abstract

Abstract Produced water management calls for risk assessment and monitoring of the possible impact of discharges on the Environment. This paper presents the most recent developments of a large R&D programme aiming at assessing the real impact of sublethal doses of HC and other released chemicals on a food chain representative of the North Sea Environment This food chain focuses on superior organisms, including fish. This paper will more specifically describe a unique facility, the Continuous Flow System (CF5), which was purposely built at the Akvamiljo Research Centre in Stavanger, Norway, to study the behaviour of such living organisms wider controlled exposure. The CFS has a continuous sea water supply which allows for water effluents produced by the oil industry to be simulated under controlled compositional and physical conditions. 36 chambers are available for testing under representative produced water qualities, even with poorly soluble compounds or compounds requiring stirring or heating to dissolve. The latest results show that this CF5 is a very efficient tool in both bioaccumulation studies, under typically 3 to 6 weeks exposure, and biomarker assessment. The paper focuses on bioaccumulation and shows how the CF5 contributes to the data acquisition required in global risk assessment modelling to be used by the industry, such as targeted, for example, by the DREAM project. Examples of uptake and depuration mechanisms in fishes exposed to sublethal concentrations of polyaromatic hydrocarbons are given in parallel with interesting correlations between PAHs in tissues, PAHs metabolites and enzyme activity in these fishes. Finally it explains how the Akvamiljo Centre has opened its doors to the oil profession, academia and research institutions, and the potential it represents for the industry.