Research Guides: Troubled Waters: Tracing Waste in the Delaware River: An Interdisciplinary Documentary Project: Contaminants

General Articles on Anthropogenic Pollution

Drinking Water Contaminants Website (EPA)
Information on drinking water contaminants: list of contaminants and maximum contaminant levels allowed; and basic information of common contaminants in an A-Z index.
Urban Contaminant Dynamics: From Source to Effect
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An article reviewing "persistent organic pollutants (POPs), particulate
matter, pharmaceuticals, and trace metals arising from nonindustrial urban processes and activities."
The Importance of Water to the U.S. Economy: Synthesis Report
A synthesis report by the EPA, Office of Water. Published November 2013.

Petroleum hydrocarbons/PAHs (oil, sealcoat, burned waste)

Production and Uses Statistics: From the U.S. Energy Information Administration (U.S. Enenrgy Information Administration)
Uses of Oil and oil products – statistics, breakdown and other related info. Scroll down to bottom of page.
Pollution Prevention and Management Strategies for PAHs in the NY/NJ Harbor
A 17Very useful information on major regional sources of PAHs and their chemical and physical characteristics and properties.
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Citation: Valle, S.; Panero, M.A.; Shor, L. Pollution prevention and management strategies for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the New York/New Jersey Harbor; Harbor consortium of the New York Academy of Sciences: New York, NY, 2007.
Supply and Disposition of Petroleum and other liquids
You can click on each table value to get an interactive time series chart.
Toxicological profile for wood creosote, coal tar creosote, coal tar,coal tar pitch, and coal tar pitch volatiles
Peer-reviewed. Explains chemical components of coal tar, production and use, properties, routes of exposure, environmental fate and toxicology. Published by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: Atlanta, GA, September 2002.
Coal-Tar-Based Pavement Sealcoat and PAHs: Implications for the Environment, Human Health, and Stormwater Management (2012)
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Research continues to identify environmental compartments—including stormwater runoff, lake sediment, soil, house dust, and most recently, air—contaminated by PAHs from coal-tar-based sealcoat and to demonstrate potential risks to biological communities and human health.
Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons in Drinking-water
Background document for development of WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality. Originally published in Guidelines for drinking-water quality, 2nd ed. Addendum to Vol. 2. Health criteria and other supporting information. World Health Organization, Geneva, 1998.
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World Health Organization. (1996). Guidelines for drinking-water quality. 2nd ed. Volume 2: Health criteria and other supporting information. Geneva: W.H.O.
Fact Sheet on PAH

Flame Retardants

Bromine Science and Environment Forum (BSEF)
Representing the producers of bromine formed the Brominated Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) since 1997. One can find regulatory information, current and archived news and production and applications on specific substances. Many studies on testing, health, recycling are available also. See Library documents for detailed risk assessment reports.
An Exposure Assessment of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE)
EPA releases final report addressing: the production, use, and lifecycle of PBDEs; environmental fate; environmental levels; and human exposure.
Brominated Flame Retardants in the Environment
User-friendly and informative guide that explains source, fate, and references.
Furniture flame retardancy partnership Fact Sheet
Pentabromodiphenyl ether (pentaDBE) has been the predominant flame retardant used in furniture foam. As it was phased out in 2004, EPA has formed a partnership with manufacturers to find safer alternatives. This fact sheet covers the essentials and links to the full report.

Plastics

American Chemistry Council: Plastics Division
The Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents leading manufacturers of plastic resins. This website has information on recycling, statistics on production volume, and regulatory news.
PlasticsNews.com
A good source for reports, news, data on market demand and recycling statistics for all types of plastics. Plastics News focuses on commercial, financial, legislative and market-related developments worldwide that affect North American plastic product manufacturers and their suppliers and customers.
Relevance of drinking water as a source of human exposure to bisphenol A
Arnold et al. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2013 March; 23(2): 137–144
The Perils of Plastics (Time Magazine, 2010)
This is a consumer-oriented article that mentions the dangers of plasticizers such as phthalates and Bisphenol-A in their role as hormone disruptors, the regulatory approaches exemplified by EPA (Toxic Substances Control Act) vs the European Union (REACH), and what can be done about it.

More info Chem 302 Research Guide!

Much more information is available in the Chem 302 research guide on every contaminant class and source.

How to find complete profile for pollutants

The best source to get the complete profile of a pollutant including input and output is the HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank). You can see a description of the database here.

Example: Search TOXNET for the chemical compound (e.g. Bisphenol A, a plasticizer). It is useful to search TOXNET because then you see what other pieces of information are available, making for a more holistic view of the topic.
Choose to see the HSDB results. You can see from the left naviation bar the sections: Environmental Fate and Exposure (including biodegradation, bioaccumulation, levels in different types of surface water, drinking water etc); Manufacture and Use (includes methods of manufacture, demand, production, import and export).
Data sources are peer-reviewed, cited explicitly and updated at least biannually.

Always search literature databases to update information obtained from HSDB.

PPCP (Pharmaceutical & Personal Care Products)

PPCPs include: medications, cosmetics, detergents, fragrances, sun screen, vitamins, antidepressants, hormonal substances, pain medications, antibiotics, caffeine, nutritional supplements etc.

Top 200 Drugs in 2012
Bartholow M. Top 200 Drugs of 2012. Pharmacy Times 2013 Jul 13;79(7):42,44. Ranked by number of prescriptions and by dollars in sales.
Pharmaceutical Preparations, Except Biologicials (U.S. Census Bureau)
Data from 2010 Current Industrial Report.
FASTSTATS: Therapeutic Drug Use (CDC)
Statistics on number of drug orders and most frequently prescribed drug classes for physician office visits, outpatient hospital visits, and emergency room visits. Links to more detailed data included.
Selected prescription drug classes used in the past 30 days, by sex and age: United States, selected years 1988–1994 through 2007–2010
Table 92 (3 pages) in Health, United States, 2012.
Two Published Literature Databases Relevant to Issues Surrounding PPCPs as Environmental Contaminants
The first listing comprises literature that is relevant to all aspects of PPCPs as environmental contaminants. These records compose the main PPCPs literature database. The second listing comprises a subset of the main database. These are relevant to the specific sub-topic of drug disposal and environmental stewardship.
USGS research on the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment

Pesticides, Fungicides, Herbicides

Chemical Inputs: Pesticide Use & Markets
Details how much pesticides, fungicides, insecticides were applied on crops from 1980-2007, also links to other relevant information.
Estimated Annual Agricultural Pesticide Use for Counties of the Conterminous United States, 1992–2009
This report provides estimated annual agricultural pesticide use for counties of the conterminous United States for 459 compounds from 1992 through 2009.
EPA Pesticide Information System
Includes all information on pesticides, including marketing and use data, registration of pesticides, rules and regulations, health effects, searching for publication by pesticide labels.
Occurrence and fate of chemicals used for agriculture
From the Toxic Substances Hydrology Program (USGS). Links to
Agri-environmental indicator - consumption of pesticides (EU, 2012)
This article provides a fact sheet of the European Union (EU) agri-environmental indicator consumption of pesticides. It consists of an overview of recent data, complemented by all information on definitions, measurement methods and context needed to interpret them correctly.