Relationship of Fisheries Risk 



Assessment to Monitoring 



Under the Clean Water Act 



State water quality standards include two primary elements: desig- 

 nated uses and criteria. Recreationcil fishing and shellfishing are ex- 

 amples of designated uses that may be applied to a water body. Criteria 

 are concentration levels of contaminants in surface water that provide 

 protection from the effects of toxic chemicals, with an ample margin 

 of safety. There are two basic kinds of criteria: those that protect 

 aquatic life and those that protect human health. 



The criteria incorporated into state water quality standards are en- 

 forceable requirements used by the states to regulate dischargers. In 

 support of the state programs, and to meet the requirements of Section 

 304(a) of the Clean Water Act, EPA periodically issues national water 

 quality criteria recommendations for use by the states in setting their 

 enforceable standards. In developing national criteria recommenda- 

 tions to protect public health, EPA considers human exposure to 

 chemical contaminants in fish and shellfish as well as drinking water. 



The Criteria and Standards Division of EPA's Office of Water Regula- 

 tions and Standards is responsible for developing national criteria 

 recommendations under Section 304(a) of the Clean Water Act. The 

 current criteria are summarized in Quality Criteria for Water - 1986 

 (U.S. EPA 1986h). The technical procedures for deriving human 

 health criteria for water are described in Water Quality Criteria Docu- 

 ments, Availability (U.S. EPA 1980b). 



The development of water quality criteria to limit human exposure to 

 contaminants in fish and shellfish requires the translation of the con- 

 taminant level not to be exceeded in the animal tissues to a level in the 

 water in which the animal resides. This is accomplished through the 

 use of the bioconcentration factors (BCF). A BCF is a measure of the 

 potential of a chemical to accumulate in biological tissues. A BCF value 

 is defined as the ratio of the concentration of a chemical in tissues of a 

 given aquatic species to the concentration in water. Each chemical 

 BCF may be estimated either directly from the results of bioassay 

 testing or from an octanol-water partitioning coefficient for the chemi- 

 cal, if test data are not available. 



The calculation of a water quality criterion to protect human health 

 from exposure to contaminants in fish and shellfish is accomplished 

 through the use of the BCF and toxicological and epidemiological data 

 (e.g., data on the amount, or dose, of the contaminant that results in a 

 defined human health risk). The coefficients used in this manual to 

 define the critical dose or the toxic potency for each chemical (see 

 Dose-Response Assessment) are the same as those used to develop 

 water quality criteria. IRIS (U.S. EPA 1987a) is the central location 

 for human health-related data and information used by all EPA 

 programs. 



States routinely conduct chemical analyses of fish and shellfish tissue 

 as part of their environmental monitoring programs. The results of fish 

 contamination monitoring are documented in state reports and in the 



