Human health risks from fish consumption following a catastrophic gas oil spill in the Chiquito River, Veracruz, Mexico
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Human health risks from fish consumption following a catastrophic gas oil spill in the Chiquito River, Veracruz, Mexico Randy H. Adams & Valeria Ojeda-Castillo & Francisco J. Guzmán-Osorio & Gerónimo Álvarez-Coronel & Verónica Isidra Domínguez-Rodríguez
Received: 22 May 2020 / Accepted: 10 November 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract An industrial accident resulted in a gas oil spill of 11,808 barrels in the upper part of the Coatzacoalcos River watershed. After river shore cleanup, concentrations of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in muscle (+ skin) were determined in captured fish to evaluate human health risk due to fish consumption post-spill in the most affected communities. Data on fish consumption, body weight, and diet factor were collected by questionnaires and field observations. Using standard formulas for carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic substances, site-specific remediation levels were calculated in fish, comparing them to the real levels observed. Likewise, the levels of PAHs in fish captured pre- and post-spill were compared to determine their origin (pyrolytic vs. petrogenic). The TPH concentrations were between 119,000 and 523,000 ng/g (dry weight) and no significant difference (P > 0.05) was found pre- vs. post-spill. The concentration of total PAHs varied between 2494.83 and 35,412.23 ng/g R. H. Adams : F. J. Guzmán-Osorio : G. Álvarez-Coronel : V. I. Domínguez-Rodríguez (*) División Académica de Ciencias Biológicas, Laboratorio de Remediación, Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco (UJAT), Carretera Villahermosa-Cárdenas, Km. 0.5 S/N. Entronque a Bosques de Saloya, CP 86150 Villahermosa, Tabasco, México e-mail: [email protected] V. Ojeda-Castillo Centro de Investigación y Asistencia en Tecnología y Diseño del Estado de Jalisco A.C. (CIATEJ), Unidad de Tecnología Ambiental, Av. Normalistas No. 800, Col. Colinas de la Normal, C.P. 44270 Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
(dry weight), with the concentrations of naphthalene (520.9 ng/g) and phenanthrene (7532.7 ng/g) being much higher than in control samples, and being from the gas oil spill (petrogenic origin). The site-specific remediation levels calculated for TPH and PAH were much higher than the maximum levels actually detected. No human health risks were found from hydrocarbons from the spill, at least after cleanup efforts and natural attenuation (six months). Keywords Cancer . Contamination . Gas oil . Sitespecific remediation levels
Introduction Accidents caused by crude oil spills can cause short and large term impacts to the environment and humans (Moreira et al. 2011; Veerasingam et al. 2011). The analytical determination of hydrocarbons in soil has frequently used the concept of “total petroleum hydrocarbons” (TPH) so as to discount other possible origins. TPH is a mixture of hundreds of chemical compounds from crude oil, and represents one of the most common organic pollutants in the environment that are toxic to humans (Ansari et al. 2012; Moreira et al. 2011). Polycyclic a
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