PCBs in Saginaw River Sediment

Michaei J. Anderson
School of Biology and Chemistry
Lake Superior State University.
Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783.



Polychiorinated Biphenyls or PCBs are found just about everywhere on earth,
including the North Pole. In Bay City, a landfill on the Middlegrounds Island in the
Saginaw River has been leaking PCBs, and other chemicals, into the surrounding river
for many years. The PCBs were likely put there in the mid to late 1960s in the form of
liquid industrial wastes. These wastes were placed in trenches dug below the water
table and then filled in.


The purpose of my study was to determine if the concentrations of PCBs in the river
sediment at the Island was different from the concentrations upstream and
downstream. 72 core samples were taken from July 6-8 and stored frozen until they
were analyzed. Before analysis, the PCBs in the samples were extracted with 25
milliliters of HPLC grade hexane. The extracts were analyzed using high performance
liquid chromatography (HPLC) grade hexane. The extracts were analyzed using high
performance liquid chromatography (HLPC). The retention times of some of the HPLC
elution peaks did not match the retention times for the Aroclor 1254 standard. Ultra-
violet spectra of several Aroclor standards were compared to spectra from these
samples. However the samples that did have the peak with PCBs at the same
retention time as the standards, showed higher concentrations of PCBs when going
downstream.


Selected References:
Eli Eco Logic International Inc. Phase III remedial Investigation, Middleground
Landfill Bay City, Michigan. March 1993.

Erickson Mitchell D. Analytical Chemistry of PCBs. Lewis Publishers. Ann
Arbor, MI. 1992.