Selenium : fate and effects in the aquatic environment

British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium

Selenium : fate and effects in the aquatic environment Chapman, Peter M.

Abstract

Selenium has a complex and not fully understood biogeochemistry in the aquatic environment as well as an unusual mode of toxicity (acute via water column exposure; chronic via food chain exposure). It has the narrowest range between nutritional requirements and toxicity of any essential element, and chronic toxicity is not readily predictable. Selenium contamination of waters or even of tissues does not necessarily indicate a problem; there are no generally accepted or universally accepted threshold values for chronic toxicity. Assessing risk must be done site-specifically in a risk assessment framework, focusing on reproductive effects to sensitive exposed fish and waterfowl and on "worst case" hydrologie units. Provided the necessary investigative and monitoring studies are done, any potential selenium problems can be addressed.

Item Metadata

Title	Selenium : fate and effects in the aquatic environment
Creator	Chapman, Peter M.
Contributor	British Columbia Mine Reclamation Symposium; University of British Columbia. Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering
Date Issued	2000
Description	Selenium has a complex and not fully understood biogeochemistry in the aquatic environment as well as an unusual mode of toxicity (acute via water column exposure; chronic via food chain exposure). It has the narrowest range between nutritional requirements and toxicity of any essential element, and chronic toxicity is not readily predictable. Selenium contamination of waters or even of tissues does not necessarily indicate a problem; there are no generally accepted or universally accepted threshold values for chronic toxicity. Assessing risk must be done site-specifically in a risk assessment framework, focusing on reproductive effects to sensitive exposed fish and waterfowl and on "worst case" hydrologie units. Provided the necessary investigative and monitoring studies are done, any potential selenium problems can be addressed.
Extent	179868 bytes
Genre	Conference Paper
Type	Text
File Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
Date Available	2009-07-07
Provider	Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI	10.14288/1.0042377
URI	http://hdl.handle.net/2429/10363
Affiliation	Non UBC
Peer Review Status	Unreviewed
Scholarly Level	Other
Copyright Holder	British Columbia Technical and Research Committee on Reclamation
Rights URI	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository	DSpace

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