Biological Studies in Military-Industrial
Waste Surveys
DANIEL L. STONEBURNER, Captain
U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland 21010
INTRODUCTION
Three basic questions should be asked by persons interested and involved with the
problems of pollution abatement; improvement of industrial and domestic waste treatment
facilities; drafting environmental impact and assessment statements; and requesting, or
reviewing requests, for discharge permits: 1) Is there a waste loading (pollution) problem?;
2) If there is a waste loading problem, how large an area does the waste material impact
upon?; and 3) How toxic is the waste material with respect to the living systems that it
contacts?
In more concise terms, those persons involved with the problems of pollution
abatement should determine the existence of the problems, delimit the extent of
environmental degradation due to the waste materials, and define the toxicity of the wastes,
acute and chronic, individually and in combination, to the living systems upon which the
wastes impinge.
Currently, one of the best tools available for the determination, delimitation, and
definition of the impact of waste materials on ourselves and our environment is information
obtained from biological studies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
The "environmental quality" monitoring system utilized in biological studies is, in the
true sense of the word, continuous, viz., the communities of organisms living in the
environments which are receiving the waste materials.
Biological data obtained from such a monitoring system can be used to demonstrate
whether waste discharges significantly degrade receiving waters by the statistical
comparison of quantitative data taken from sample stations located above and below waste
discharges.
When degradation of the receiving stream is detected, the downstream extent of the
waste impact can be ascertained. Both the existence and extent of environmental
degradation are essential components of environmental impact and assessment statements.
In terms of waste toxicity, biological data obtained from stream studies and acute, 96-hour
bio-assays can be used to corroborate or allay suspicions concerning a waste for which only
chemical and physical characterizations are available.
BIOLOGICAL MONITORING COMPONENTS
Currently, at the U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency, two components of the
aquatic biological system are examined: a producer component (8,9) (unicellular algae with
a silicon quartz wall) called diatoms and a consumer component (arthropods, gastropods
and worms, retained by a standard 30 mesh sieve) called macroinvertebrates (7, 10, 11).
SAMPLING CRITERIA
To compare samples from these two components of stream communities, one must
assume that they are homogeneously distributed in the environment to be sampled. This
assumption incurs a stringent requirement on the procurement of biological samples, viz.,
that only samples obtained from similar habitats, micro-environments, of a stream maybe
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