Surveillance for Chlorinated Hydrocarbon
Pesticides in Surface Waters
ANDREW W. BREIDENBACH, Chief, Technical Operations
Water Quality Section, Basic Data Branch
Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control
Public Health Service
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center
Cincinnati, Ohio
The Public Health Service Water Pollution Control Surveillance System includes 131 surface-water sampling stations on major waterways and modern laboratory facilities in Cincinnati, Ohio. These stations are operated by the Public
Health Service with the active cooperation and participation of other agencies --
Federal, State, and local, as well as industries and universities. The system provides data on the nature and extent of pollution in our major rivers and the Great
Lakes. Samples are taken at frequencies as high as several per hr in the case of
automatic water quality data acquisition equipment, and as low as once or twice
per year. Frequency of sampling is varied to fit the severity of the pollution
problem and requirements for satisfactory interpretation. Samples are subjected
to a variety of analyses. Automated analyses are carried out by monitoring equipment, where such equipment has been installed (1). Many general chemical analyses are carried out on shipped samples by automated equipment after the samples
reach the laboratory. Other samples are subjected to analyses for trace metals,
for alpha and beta radioactivity, specific radionuclides, plankton, benthos, microbiological organisms,   and organic chemicals at the laboratories in Cincinnati.
Chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides are, as the name implies hydrocarbons in
which one or more of the hydrogen atoms has been replaced by chlorine atoms.
This family is part of a larger and more heterogeneous group ot ctiemical compounds referred to as organic compounds. These occur in exceedingly small concentrations in river water. The chlorinated hydrocarbon group, however, has
probably received more attention in the laboratory as well as in public news
media because of the toxicity to fish of some members of the group.
In the early part of this century when domestic sources contributed the overwhelming share of pollution to rivers and streams, we depended, rather successfully upon the natural oxidative mechanisms of the stream to degrade organic
waste material and to the innocuous fragments of carbon dioxide and water itself.
Man has been quite ingenious in his search for new and useful compounds. Some
of the compounds used today resist the natural processes of biodegradation. We
now appreciate and enjoy the use of any number of chemically rigorous substances.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons are but one example of such rigorous compounds. Detergents, paints, lacquers, plastics, rubber, and motor oil all exhibit refractory
characteristics. These products represent the tremendous advances which have had
a positive effect upon our national economy and our standard of living. Nevertheless, we should note that the by-products and waste products associated with these
materials, as well as the materials themselves, are not readily destructible. It is
quite evident that the ultimate disposal location for many of these compounds is
the surface water which runs down to form the streams and major rivers of the Nation.   Thus, it is not surprising that we find these rigorous materials in waters by
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