Step 3: Food chain modeling (Cont.)

This calculation assumes that the most likely bioaccumulative compound

exposure pathways for fish are food-to-fish and sediment-to-fish pathways. This

assumption holds only for those compounds in which:

a. Food ingestion, direct ingestion of sediment, and possibly gill contact with

suspended sediment are the most important exposure mechanisms.

b. There is preferential binding to the sediment due to their hydrophobic

properties.

c. Exposure to water-column foraging fish is extremely low due to the low

solubility of these compounds.

The USACE provides bioaccumulation data (BSAF Database), which is

downloadable from http//www.wes.army.mil/el/dots/database.html).

The product of this subsection is an initial estimate of the body burden of the

COCs in a selected receptor.

Chapter 3 Ecological Exposure Assessment