Brominated flame retardants in the Great Lakes

Abstract

Brominated flame retardants in the Great Lakes have not been as well studied as many of the polychlorinated pollutants, especially PCBs, but in the last 5-10 years there has been some significant progress. The ubiquity of these compounds in the sediment and fishes of the lakes has now been well established, and perhaps more alarmingly, it is now known that the concentrations of some of these compounds are actually increasing. This observation is particularly important given that the concentrations of most of the other persistent organic pollutants in the lakes are decreasing. Despite their production cessation in the mid-1970s, polybrominated biphenyls are still present in fishes and sediment from most of the lakes. In general, these PBB concentrations are decreasing slowly, if at all. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers are present in air, fishes, birds, and sediment from the lakes. In lake trout and in herring gull eggs, the PBDE concentrations have been doubling every 3-5 years; in sediment cores, the doubling time is ∼ 15 years. Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCD) are also present in fishes and sediment from the lakes, but at much lower levels compared to the PBDEs. Two novel flame retardants (1,2-bis(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane (TBE) and 1,2,3,4,5-pentabromoethylbenzene) have been found in the air and sediment of the lakes. Clearly, it would be good to monitor the concentrations of all of these compounds in (at least) the sediment and fishes of the lakes to determine long-term trends. One might want to focus especially on those BFRs that will continue to be in production; these include deca-BDE (congener 209), HBCD, and TBE. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.