05.01.2013 Views

technical guidance documents - Institute for Health and Consumer ...

technical guidance documents - Institute for Health and Consumer ...

technical guidance documents - Institute for Health and Consumer ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

APPENDIX IX<br />

these “blocks” will not contribute to chronic toxic effects. There may be several approaches to<br />

estimate chronic toxicity <strong>for</strong> such chemicals if there are no measured long-term toxicity data<br />

available:<br />

• use the QSAR <strong>for</strong> long-term toxicity as presented in Chapter 4 of the TGD. However, these<br />

QSARs can only be applied in a range of log Kow from approximately 2-6. For chemicals<br />

with higher log Kow the resulting NOEC is often higher than the water solubility.<br />

• <strong>for</strong> blocks which do not demonstrate acute toxicity at or below their water solubility,<br />

QSARs (irrespective of the fact that the result may exceed the water solubility) may be used<br />

as a basis <strong>for</strong> the PNEC by application of a suitable assessment factor. This calculated value<br />

is taken to represent the PNEC of the block unless, it is itself greater than the water<br />

solubility. In this case the water solubility should be substituted as the PNEC. It should be<br />

noted that <strong>for</strong> very high log Kow values, this may lead to unrealistic PNEC values;<br />

• as an indication above log Kow 6, a parabolic equation to derive a BCF <strong>for</strong> fish can be used<br />

(see Section 3.8.3.2 of main text <strong>and</strong> Chapter 4) in combination with the critical body<br />

burden concept (McCarty & Mackay, 1982) to calculate the chronic toxicity. This critical<br />

body burden concept indicates that the long-term critical body burden is equal to the NOEC<br />

multiplied by the BCF (CBB = BCF .NOEC) (Sijm et al., 1992; ECETOC, 1995). To be able<br />

to per<strong>for</strong>m a risk assessment, there may be a need to develop measured chronic data to<br />

support this QSAR prediction.<br />

Undissolved material<br />

Petroleum substances (or components of them) can enter the aquatic environment either in<br />

solution or as undissolved material in slicks or dispersions. Hydrocarbons in undissolved <strong>for</strong>m<br />

might have direct local effects. It is considered that undissolved hydrocarbons will not be present<br />

at the regional level, but in any event this will have to be confirmed by calculating the<br />

PECregional.<br />

Monitoring data<br />

For substances consisting of only a single component sound <strong>and</strong> relevant monitoring data may be<br />

available <strong>for</strong> several compartments. For petroleum substances there are a number of difficulties<br />

related to the use of monitoring data that need specific consideration. Frequently there will be<br />

measurements of total hydrocarbons or of particular hydrocarbon components that may have<br />

come from a range of different petroleum substances.<br />

Such release or monitoring data may be used to provide a worst-case estimate of the<br />

concentration of a “block” <strong>for</strong> screening purposes, assuming that the whole of the release is<br />

attributable to the particular petroleum substance. However, it should be noted that the measured<br />

concentrations represent the sum of all sources of a block whereas the calculated concentrations<br />

<strong>for</strong> a specific “block” represents only the fraction of the total concentration of this “block” in the<br />

environment related to the specific petroleum substance under study. There<strong>for</strong>e, monitoring data<br />

are most suitable <strong>for</strong> the assessment of a certain “block”, as they represent the actual<br />

concentration the organisms are exposed to in the environment, related to all relevant sources.<br />

Compartments other than the aquatic<br />

The description of the use of the HBM <strong>for</strong> the environmental risk assessment of petroleum<br />

substances given above, has focused on the aquatic environment. This is because at the present<br />

time it is only <strong>for</strong> this environmental compartment that sufficient data <strong>and</strong> experience are<br />

316

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!