Availability, Treatability, and Toxicity of DDT in River Sediments

The purpose of this work was to document testing and analysis of upland disposal of dredged material potentially impacted with dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) from the Little Sunflower River, Mississippi. Bench-scale efforts were directed towards the investigation of the availability, toxicity, sequestration, and stabilization of DDT in the Little Sunflower River sediments. This entailed modeling and experiments designed to determine the phase partitioning of DDT and its release to the aqueous phase. This work emphasized the study of aged contaminant mixtures in sediment cores for which the sequestration of DDT often renders such unavailable. Reporter gene probes for specific catabolic genes and defined microbial community approaches allowed structured studies to assess DDT degradation, desorption, and stabilization.