Characterization of chemical waste site contamination and its extent using bioassays

: Bioassays were used in a three-phase research project to assess the comparative sensitivity of test organisms to known chemicals, determine if the chemical components in field soil and water samples containing unknown contaminants could be inferred from our laboratory studies using known chemicals, and to investigate kriging (a relatively new statistical mapping technique) and bioassays as methods to define the areal extent of chemical contamination. The algal assay generally was most sensitive to samples of pure chemicals, soil elutriates and water from eight sights with known chemical contamination. Bioassays of nine samples of unknown chemical composition from The Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) site showed that a lettuce seed soil contact phytoassay was most sensitive. In general, our bioassays can be used to broadly identify toxic components of contaminated soil.