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Microplastics and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Abundance, Distribution, and Chemical Analyses in the Nash Run, an Urban Tributary to the Anacostia River (Washington, DC, USA)

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Abstract

Microplastics (small plastic particles < 5 mm, MPs) are an emerging pollutant of concern as they are found in the water and sediment of aquatic habitats. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are persistent organic pollutants which tend to accumulate in aquatic sediments and may be associated with MP degradation. Urban streams have a large impact on these pollutant budgets of large rivers and marine areas. Up to today, there are just a few studies performed on MPs and PAHs together in river systems. MPs and PAHs were investigated to study their abundance and spatial distribution in the Nash Run, a tributary of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC, USA. A chemical characterization of the MPs in the sediment samples was also performed. The total MP concentration ranged from 24 to 127 MP particles/L in water samples. In the sediments, the MP concentrations varied from 0.35 to 4.1 MP particles/g showing a correlation to distance from roadways. Chemical MP analysis revealed that high-density polyethylene (HDPE) was the main chemical MP composition and chemical additives were also identified. Three PAHs, phenanthrene, fluoranthene, and pyrene, were observed in the sediment samples. These PAHs (commonly associated with microplastics) showed a higher concentration than those often occurring in sediments of similar freshwater environments. This is the first study that shows the presence of MPs in both water and sediment and the presence of specific PAHs in sediment at the same sites in a Washington, DC freshwater system.

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Data Availability

The manuscript has data included as tables. All the data will be also available at 10.57912/22634299, American University’s institutional repository, AURA. Website https://aura.american.edu.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers that improved a previous version of the manuscript. We would also like to thank Jonathan Craig for the fruitful discussions. We would like to thank Matt Robinson, currently with the U.S. EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program office, and formally with DC’s Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE), for his support and introduction to Nash Run. Finally, we would also like to thank all the students who helped with the field.

Funding

This project was partly funded through a partnership of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program (Award #20–10-B-283 Project title “Microplastic Research in the Anacostia River Watershed”). The project also was partially funded by American University’s (AU) College of Arts and Science (CAS) Graduate Student Research Funds to Elisa Davey. A Mellon Grant from CAS, AU, was awarded to Barbara Balestra and Jesse Meiller in Fall 2019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Science Department, American University, Washington, DC, 20016, USA

    Elisa Davey, Stephen MacAvoy, Kira Fontana, Natalie Landaverde & Barbara Balestra

  2. Earth Commons Institute, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 20007, USA

    Jesse Meiller

  3. Chemistry Department, American University, Washington, DC, 20016, USA

    Douglas Fox

  4. Paleobiology Department, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian, Washington, DC, 20560, USA

    Barbara Balestra

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  1. Elisa Davey
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Davey, E., Meiller, J., MacAvoy, S. et al. Microplastics and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Abundance, Distribution, and Chemical Analyses in the Nash Run, an Urban Tributary to the Anacostia River (Washington, DC, USA). Water Air Soil Pollut 234, 493 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06468-5

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