Appendix D Food Codes for NHANES - OEHHA

SRP Review Draft Version 2 June, 2012
deposition can be significant (Eisenreich et al., 1981; Kelly et al., 1991). Field studies at
Lake Superior, a relatively pristine water body in which organics deposit primarily from
atmospheric sources, report HCB in water, sediment and fish tissue samples (Eisenreich
et al., 1981).
Niimi and Oliver (1989) determined the percent lipid content and HCB concentration in
muscle tissue of four salmonid species (brown, lake, and rainbow trout and coho
salmon) collected from Lake Ontario. Based on the published water concentration of
HCB in Lake Ontario, the researchers calculate a total BAF of 101,333. The total BAF
was lipid-normalized based on 4% muscle lipid content in the fish, and adjusted for the
concentration of freely dissolved HCB in water, assuming a DOC content of 0.25 mg/L
in Lake Ontario from Gobas (1993). The resulting BAF(fd) is 2.6 x 10 6 .
We did not adjust the BAF(fd) to the muscle lipid fraction of rainbow trout (0.04) used in
the California “Hot Spots” program because it is the same as the fish investigated by
Niimi and Oliver (1989). We calculated the freely dissolved HCB fraction in water (0.78)
from Eq. H.4 using the national default DOC and POC content of lakes and reservoirs
(U.S. EPA, 2003a). A final BAF point estimate of 81,120 (2.6 x 10 6 x 0.04 x 0.78) is
recommended for California fish.
U.S. EPA (1998) calculates a similar BAF(fd) of log 6.40 (2.5 x 10 6 ) using Lake Ontario
whole fish HCB data from Oliver and Niimi (1988). This BAF(fd) is similar to that
estimated by Niimi and Oliver (1989) using only the muscle HCB concentration (BAF(fd)
= 2.6 x 10 6 ) of the fish presented. U.S. EPA (1998) also calculated a mean log BAF(fd)
of 5.70 (5.0 x 10 5 ) derived from BSAF data for HCB. Pereria et al. (1988) and Burkhard
et al. (1997) determined a similar log BAF(fd) in the range of 6.03 to 6.68 for
bioaccumulation of HCB in small, mostly non-sport fish in estuarine environments.
I.2.1.3 Hexachlorocylcohexanes
Technical grade hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) generally consists of five isomers,
including α-, β-, γ-, δ-, and ε-HCH. α-HCH is the most common isomer in technical
grade HCH, and γ-HCH, also known as lindane, is most often isolated and used for its
insecticidal action. Consequently, most environmental fate and bioaccumulation studies
have investigated the α- and γ-isomers.
Lindane is a relatively small MW compound with a short half-life in fish, so rapid
equilibrium occurs between the chemical concentration in fish and the water (Oliver and
Niimi, 1985). The short half-life is probably a result of its log Kow < 4. The high chlorine
content of HCHs prevents metabolism of the isomers by rainbow trout (Konwick et al.,
2006). The half-life of lindane in sport-sized fish (11-13 days) is longer than in juvenile
fish (about 4 days). However, Geyer et al. (1997) report that α-HCH has a longer halflife
of 14.8 days in juvenile rainbow trout. In addition, they observed a positive
correlation for fish lipid content and the BCF for lindane.
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