October is National Apple Month

Apples, our official National Fruit, are the the quintessential American staple harkening visions of pies and cider. Today, they are the second most popular fruit in the United States, just behind bananas. As we prepare to celebrate Halloween and all things Fall, we can’t forget that October is National Apple Month.

Despite their popularity, apples and their hundreds of millions of pounds of annual production are still held to US EPA standards when it comes to pesticides registered for use on apple orchards. There are seven states in the US that dominate apple production: Washington (where 60% of the country’s apple supply is grown), Oregon, California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virgina. This map shows apple production in US in 1980 and 2020.

It can take decades and countless pollinators to bring us our apple pies. Trees can take 3-6 years to grow from greenhouse seedling to apple-producing maturity, and the many new species that grace our grocery store’s produce counters are decades in the making. Between April and May of each year, the trees are, literally abuzz with pollinators, followed by peak harvest between August and October. The result? delicious, crisp and sweet apples that range from the most popular, Gala, to the harder to find, Mutsu. In honor of our National Fruit, we took a look at ecological PWC scenarios associated with apple production.

US EPA recently (April 2023) changed the ecological PWC scenarios to be the same scenarios as drinking water which are HUC-2 Region based and include different scenarios for three Koc ranges. Prior to the adoption of the drinking water scenarios, there were four apple scenarios used by US EPA for ecological exposure estimates: PAappleSTD, NCappleSTD, ORappleSTD, and...

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Bioswales: A Natural Tool in the War Against Urban Pollutants

Urban areas face an ongoing battle against water pollutants that wash from our sidewalks and roads into waterways throughout the year. While pollutants like tire dust, heavy metals, and organic contaminants pose year-round threats, the shift from fall to winter introduces unique seasonal challenges, including road salt and heating-related pollution. To combat this, more and more urban areas are turning to… Nature. Bioswales, the natural guardians of water quality, provide year-round and seasonal protection against pollutants while simultaneously enhancing the aesthetic and educational aspects of our urban environments.

Throughout the year, urban areas contend with heavy metals seeping into water bodies, organic contaminants carried by urban runoff, the menace of microplastics that were once trash and debris, and tire dust, a consistent contributor to both air and water pollution. However, when winter arrives, our urban areas and waterways contend with a new set of pollution challenges found in de-icing road salt that elevates salinity levels and corrodes infrastructure, increased construction activities leading to sediment runoff, and waste associated with heating units, from oil-based to wood. Without added controls, all of these pollutants can easily find their way into our environment.

In the quest to protect urban water bodies from this myriad of pollutants, bioswales emerge as nature's unsung heroes. In essence, bioswales are engineered channels that effectively manage... >> Read the full article

Waterborne to attend SETAC North America 44th Annual Meeting. Louisville, Kentucky

Join Waterborne Environmental at the upcoming SETAC conference on November 12-16, 2023!

We're sending Waterborne scientists who will staff our booth (find us at Booth #54), present short courses and papers (abstracts below), and meet with colleagues within the industry. If you'd like to set up a meeting, please contact Waterborne's SETAC lead, Nathan Snyder, at snydern@waterborne-env.com.

5.02.P-Mo-180, Accessing Pollinator Decline Associated Risks to Endangered Plant Populations using Bayesian Networks.

Authors: Paul Glaum, Nathan Snyder, Matthew E Kern, Twyla Michelle Blickley, and Patrick Havens.

Why it’s important:

Endangered species can experience risk due to an array of direct and indirect factors, each understood with varying amounts of available data. While the traditional Risk Quotient approach can synthesize this complexity into a tractable single number, it is limited in its ability to address uncertainty and incorporate the structural framework that mediates this risk in nature. Approaches like Bayesian Networks can incorporate conditional probabilities that structure uncertainty both hierarchically and synergistically to obtain evidence-based inference even with limited data. This level of detailed risk assessment can produce a deeper understanding of the sources of risk and potential mitigation options. With our SETAC poster, we apply this framework to endangered plant species experiencing risk based in pollinator loss due to pesticide exposure.

1.14.P-Tu-055, The Development of the MERCI Modeling Framework to Evaluate the Exposure of Sunscreen and Cosmetic Ingredients to Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems

Authors: W. Martin Williams, Scott Dyer,Todd Gouin, Nicola Hefner, Eva Klingelmann, Amelie Ott, Sascha Pawlowski, and Maura Roberts.

Why it’s important:

The MERCI tiered modeling framework consists of suite of models and scenarios to evaluate the direct release of cosmetic ingredients to the environment. The framework is designed to identify if a chemical may cause adverse effects to aquatic ecosystems initially with minimal effort and often with sparse information. Progressive tiers introduce additional processes and complexity to improve the accuracy of predictions. This progression allows risk assessors in industry and regulatory agencies to expend resources only when necessary, and it provides guidance on specific studies that may help improve that accuracy. The framework was initially developed to evaluate the potential exposure of UV filters to coral from the wash-off of sunscreens in populated beach settings, but the models and scenarios are applicable to the direct release of most any constituent (e.g., fertilizers, biocides, preservatives, fragrances, wastewater) to near-shore waters.

4.25.P-Tu-188, Refining environmental exposure assessments for consumer-use down-the-drain ingredients using spatially resolved datasets and surface water flow modeling: Focus on Europe

Authors: Susan A. Csiszar, Ryan Heisler, Chiara Maria Vitale, Brenna Kent, Raghu Vamshi, Amy Ritter, Kathleen McDonough

Why it’s important:

Ensuring a healthy environment for the future is a priority for manufacturers and ingredient suppliers of formulated consumer products. Therefore, the ability to determine the potential exposure from down-the-drain products into wastewater treatment plants then into receiving waterbodies is important. This poster shows the iSTREEM^® model expansion that can provide estimated river concentration distributions for Europe.

Waterborne Environmental is a renowned consulting firm that has provided innovative solutions to the world’s most complex environmental problems since 1993. Our experienced, unbiased scientists and engineers work across industries to evaluate environmental, ecological, and human risks. Our work spans across industry and regulatory agencies to support the balance in the needs of a growing population with the environmental impact on our valuable natural resources.

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