Onondaga Lake, an urban lake located in Syracuse, has a long history of industrial pollution and drains to Lake Ontario. Approximately 20% of the lake inflow is contributed by an 82-MGD municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) serving the Syracuse metropolitan area. However, the occurrence, fate, and risks of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the Onondaga Lake watershed remains largely uncharacterized. In this study, we applied a suspect screening approach based upon high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) to identify and quantify CECs suspected of being present in this lake system. We collected grab samples from Onondaga Lake, its four major tributaries and the WWTP outlet between June and October 2017. Samples were extracted by solid-phase extraction and analyzed on an LTQ Orbitrap XL high resolution mass spectrometer in positive and negative electrospray ionization modes. For suspect screening, we compiled an in-house compound database combining analytes targeted in the USGS pharmaceutical and pesticide methods and CECs previously detected in New York streams and lakes. Using this database, we tentatively identified 130 CECs as suspect hits (detected at least once) in all samples. The average number of suspect hits followed the order of WWTP effluent (99) &gt; Onondaga Lake (60) &gt; tributaries (~35), with a large overlap in the suspect hits between WWTP effluent and lake water. We further confirmed 22 of 37 suspect CECs using authentic standard reference compounds. For comparison with grab sampling, we also deployed POCIS passive samplers at two different depths in Onondaga Lake and analyzed samples using the same protocols. Our ongoing work focuses on using multivariate statistical tools, such as principal component analysis, to assess the sources of CECs, and evaluating the seasonal variability, vertical distribution and mass balance of CECs in the lake system.<br/>

Combining HRMS-based suspect screening and statistical analysis to assess contaminants of emerging concern in a wastewater-impacted urban lake

255th National Meeting (2018)

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