US EPA

6795900 

Journal Article 

Particle size and chemical control of heavy metals in bed sediment from the Rouge River, southeast Michigan 

Murray, KS; Cauvet, D; Lybeer, M; Thomas, JC; , 

1999 

1 

Environmental Science & Technology
ISSN: 0013-936X
EISSN: 1520-5851 

AMER CHEMICAL SOC 

WASHINGTON 

33 

7 

987-992 

10.1021/es9807946 

WOS:000079543100019 

Anthropogenic activities related to 100 years of industrialization in the metropolitan Detroit area have significantly enriched the bed sediment of the lower reaches of the Rouge River in Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn. These enriched elements, which may represent a threat to biota, are predominantly present in sequentially extracted reducible and oxidizable chemical phases with small contributions from residual phases. In size-fractionated samples (>300, 300-75, 75-38, 38-17, and 17 mu m) trace metal concentrations generally increase with decreasing particle size, with the greatest contribution to this increase from the oxidizable phase. Experimental results obtained on replicate samples of river sediment demonstrate that the accuracy of the sequential extraction procedure, evaluated by comparing the sums of the three individual fractions, is generally better than 10%. Oxidizable and reducible phases therefore constitute important sources of potentially available heavy metals that need to be explicitly considered when evaluating sediment and water quality impacts on biota.