Seasonal arsenic exposure from burning chromium-copper-arsenate-treated wood.

All eight members of a rural Wisconsin family experienced recurring neurological and medical illness over three years, especially during the winter months. Arsenic, in concentrations of 12 to 87 ppm, was noted in the hair of the mother and father, and analysis of hair and fingernails of all family members demonstrated pathological levels of arsenic. For four years the five-room home had been heated with a small wood stove in which outdoor or marine plywood and wood remnants had been preferentially burned. Stove ashes that contained more than 1,000 ppm of arsenic contaminated the living area, and the ratio of copper, chromium, and arsenic pentoxide in this ash matched the ratio used in the chromium-copper-arsenate-treated wood.

Formation of arsenite in lead arsenate or calcium arsenate mixtures.

Lead and calcium arsenates have been used as insecticides in the past with various adjuvants added to increase their effectiveness. Adverse health effects have been reported in industrial situations where these materials were formulated, and packaged, and occasionally used. Reduction of arsenate has been demonstrated to occur when mixtures of lime, lime sulfur, sulfur, and casein were added to lead or calcium arsenate. The formation of soluble arsenite increased with time after the formulations were dry mixed. Levels of soluble arsenite declined in aqueous suspension after 1 day but increased again after 2 months. Total arsenite varied from 0.6 to 2.4% of the arsenic present 253 days after formulation.

Characterization of arsenic compounds formed by Daphnia magna and Tetraselmis chuii from inorganic arsenate.

Experiments to grow Tetraselmis chuii (a marine alga) and Daphnia magna in the presence of inorganic arsenate are described. The algae incorporate arsenic rather efficiently and form a lipid-soluble organic arsenic compound. T. chuii has been successfully mass cultured in a medium containing 10 ppm arsenic as arsenate. Daphnia magna was cultured in a medium containing 74As-labeled H3AsO4 and 1 ppm Na2HAsO4 expressed as arsenic. The arsenic metabolites were extracted with a chloroform-methanol solution and isolated by using column and thin-layer chromatography. TLC analysis of the metabolites revealed the presence of a 74As-containing product which migrated with phosphatidylethanolamine. This product was hydrolyzed with the phospholipases A, C, and D. The experimental results are not inconsistent with the presence of an arsenocholine moiety in the lipids. Arsenocholine, arsenobetaine, and acetylarsenocholine have been synthesized and will serve as reference substances in the chromatography experiments. The preparation of arsenocholine-containing lipids is in progress.

Fate of arsenicals in different environmental substrates.

The current knowledge of arsenic (As) transformations in the environment, as well as some gaps in this knowledge, are reviewed. These transformations involve As chemical and biochemical transformations in air, waters, sediments, and soils. Arsenic moves in a dispersive manner through air and water and is in physical and chemical equilibrium in many substrates. It is oxidized, reduced, methylated, volatilized, incorporated into biotic tissues, excreted, adsorbed, and desorbed. Oceanic sediments become the eventual sink for As. The rates of As movement and transformation vary with environmental conditions. Besides inorganic As, various methylated arsenicals are found naturally at environmentally sensitive equilibrium concentrations, which are probably maintained biotically. An As-transformation model has been constructed from rate constants derived from field observations. The environmental factors affecting these rate constants are discussed.

Photodecomposition of Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins.

The toxic herbicide impurity 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin and its homologs decomposed rapidly in alcohol solution under artificial light and natural sunlight, the rate of decomposition depending upon the degree of chlorination. However, photodecomposition was negligible in aqueous suspensions and on wet or dry soil.

Persistence of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides in soils.

The percentages of technical aldrin, chlordane, endrin, heptachlor, Dilan, isodrin, BHC, and toxaphene remaining in Congaree sandy loam soil after 14, years were 40, 40, 41, 16, 23, 15, 10, and 45, respectively; those of purified aldrin and technical dieldrin after 15 years were 28 and 31, respectively; and the percentage of technical DDT in three soils after 17 years was 39. Treatments and maintenance of the soils were such that leaching, volatilization, photodecomposition, mechanical removal, and probably biological decomposition were at a minimum. These values may approach an upper limit of persistence of insecticides in soil.