Objective The objective of the project is to demonstrate biological early warning systems for monitoring industrial waste water with mixtures of pollutants. Four industrial demonstration sites are to be selected by the Netherlands Institute for Water Management and Waste Water Treatment, the industries belonging to the petrochemical, pesticide manufacturing, tank cleaning, and synthetic fiber sectors. At each industrial site, a fish biomonitoring system will be installed and supplied with treated industrial waste water effluent. These monitors should enable industry to take immediate remedial action, should the toxicity of its waste effluents increase. The monitor performance will be evaluated on the basis of their reliability.Biological in line testing of industrial effluents using fish was developed to maturity. Problems with an existing fish test system were removed one by one, leading to a reduction of the signal to noise ratio and suppression of false alarms.Long term trials were performed within 3 Dutch chemical and petrochemical industry plants. The events recorded by the fish could not always be traced back to chemical agents; however, false alarms being virtually excluded by the arrangement of the assay, this indicated that fish are well suited to detect hazards that are not detected by routine chemical monitoring. Annual depreciation and operating costs of the in line fish test assay are calculated at approximately 9000 ECU, thus providing a rather inexpensive proof of industry's compliance with effluent water quality requirements.The value of the fish test lies in: identifying the location, magnitude and frequency of industrial spills in general; triggering sampling for more extensive chemical and biological analyses, indicating the need for and monitoring the progress of good housekeeping measures, reliably and at low cost.The fish test system is a further step towards biomonitoring and directly measuring the toxicity of effluents integrating over all compounds contained, thus preventing the need to analyse all the chemical compounds and adding up their toxicities, with doubtful results. Reconsideration of the monitoring philosophy towards biomonitoring will be necessary; the test system provides one of the tools to be used for regulatory action.Biological in-line testing of industrial effluents was developed to maturity within a project carried out by the Delft-based BKH CONSULTING ENGINEERS and KERREN UMWELTTECHNIK at Viersen/Germany. The project was assisted by the European Commission at a rate of 30 % of the total cost within the ACE 89 programme for demonstration of clean technologies and contamination monitoring. Problems with the existing fish test assay that had been developed by KERREN were removed one by one, leading to a reduction of the signal to noise ratio and suppression of false alarms. Practice tests were performed within three Dutch chemical and petrochemical industry plants. The events recorded by the fish could not always be traced back to chemical agents; however, false alarms being virtually excluded by the arrangement of the assay, this indicated that fish are well suited to detect hazards that are not detected by routine chemical monitoring. Annual depreciation and operation costs of the in-line fish test assay are calculated at approximately 9.000 ECU, thus providing a rather inexpensive proof of industry's compliance with effluent water quality requirements. The value of the fish test as developed within the project lies in: - identifying the location, magnitude and frequency of industrial spills in general, - triggering sampling for more extensive chemical and biological analysis, and indicating the need for and monitoring the progress of good housekeeping measures, - and this reliably and at low cost. The fish assay is a further step towards biomonitoring and directly measuring the toxicity of effluents integrating over all compounds contained, thus preventing the need to analyze all the chemical compounds and adding up their toxicities, with doubtful results. Authorities' reconsidering of the monitoring philosophy towards bio-monitoring will be necessary, the assay providing one of the tools to be used by regulatory action. Programme(s) ENV-ACE 2 - Action (EEC) by the Community relating to the environment (ACE), 1987-1991 Topic(s) Data not available Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme DEM - Demonstration contracts Coordinator BKH CONSULTING ENGINEERS EU contribution No data Address 10,Poortweg 2600 GB Delft Netherlands See on map Total cost No data
