Natural attenuation of pharmaceuticals and alkylphenol polyethoxylate metabolites during river transport: Photochemical and biological transformation

The capacity of rivers to naturally attenuate trace organic compounds is an important but poorly understood process because the many factors that control attenuation are interrelated and difficult to study in isolation. To better understand the relative importance of chemical (photolysis and sorption) and biological attenuation processes, contaminant removal along a 12-km stretch of the Santa Ana River (SAR) was determined as a function of travel time, distance, and irradiance. Target contaminants included three pharmaceuticals (gemfibrozil, ibuprofen, and naproxen) and their metabolites, and the metabolites of alkylphenol polyethoxylates (APEMs). The APEMs included alkylphenols (APs), short-chain alkylphenol polyethoxylates (APEOs), alkylphenol polyethoxycarboxylates (APECs), and carboxyalkylphenol polyethoxycarboxylates (CAPECs). Overall removals ranged from 50% for APs to 100% for naproxen and increased with distance and time, in many cases following first-order kinetics. For naproxen, which is photolabile, average removals were 20 to 30% more during the day than at night; the nighttime and daytime half-lives were 3 h and 1.7 to 1.9 h, respectively. Comparison of field and laboratory data suggests that approximately 40% of the daytime naproxen removal can be attributed to photolysis with the remainder due to other processes, most likely sorption. For ibuprofen and gemfibrozil, half-lives were 5.4 and 2.7 h, respectively, and laboratory data suggest that biotransformation is the principal attenuating process. The APEM attenuation might be due to sorption and biotransformation; phototransformation may also play a minor role. These data demonstrate that travel times on the order of hours can significantly mitigate the impact of effluent discharge on the water quality of shallow rivers.