2.8 Fin Fish Ingestion

2.8 FIN FISH INGESTION

Fish raised and caught in contaminated surface waters provide a potential for human health impacts to those individuals who eat the fish. The fish are assumed to be caught (either commercially or recreationally) and transported to the consumer for consumption. This pathway is one of two aquatic food pathways considered in MEPAS: fin fish and shellfish ingestion. The shellfish ingestion pathway is described in the Subsection 2.9. The following considerations are given to estimating the ingestion exposure to fin fish.

Transport Medium:: surface water concentration in the water body producing the fin fish, C_swi, pCi/L or mg/L, expressed as a 70-year average value
Special Process:: loss of pollutants during transport in the surface water body by volatilization bioaccumulation of pollutant in edible fish tissue from the water loss of pollutants following catching, prior to consumption by individuals
Exposure Factors:: rate of fin fish ingestion and duration of ingestion.

The loss of pollutants during transport in the surface water body is evaluated using Equation (3). The concentration in edible fish parts is estimated using bioaccumulation factors for the pollutant of interest. At the time of consumption by humans, the concentration in fish is given as follows:

(64)

where

C_ffi = concentration of pollutant i in fin fish at time of consumption by humans (mg/kg or pCi/kg)
C_swi = concentration of pollutant i in surface water in which fin fish are grown, corrected for losses in transit through the surface water system (mg/L or pCi/L)
B_fi = bioaccumulation factor for pollutant i in fin fish (mg/kg edible fish per mg/L water, or pCi/kg edible fish per pCi/L water)
l_gi = rate constant for loss and decay within confined water systems used here to represent losses inside fish meat (d^-1)
TH_ff = holdup time between catching and consumption of fin fish (d).
The average daily dose from ingestion of fin fish is estimated as follows for chemical pollutants:

(65)

where

_ffi

_ff

_ffi

_ff

For radionuclides, the total lifetime dose for fin fish ingestion is estimated as follows:

(66)

where

_ffi

_gi