Second Fundão Dam Rupture Science Meeting: Updating the science.

The second Fundão Dam Rupture Science Meeting was held in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil, on 21 and 22 September 2022. A total of 100 delegates attended the meeting, which featured high-quality oral presentations and posters over the two days and lively discussions of the science presented. The meeting resulted in nine papers being published in this special series. In the discussion, it was commented that the first meeting had been more a meeting of competitive perspectives but that the second meeting featured a more collaborative sharing of knowledge. Also, there had been substantial improvement in ways to deal with the lack of pre-event data and account for other stressors in the system, and as a result, stronger conclusions regarding the recovery rates of the system were able to be made. Importantly, there was no evidence for a feasible "time bomb" of a future catastrophic release of contaminants, but it was agreed that different scenarios continue to be researched. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:70-73. © 2023 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Spatial-temporal variations of metals and arsenic in sediments from the Doce River after the Fundão Dam rupture and their bioaccumulation in Corbicula fluminea.

The rupture of the Fundão dam in Brazil released tons of mining tailings into the Doce River Basin (DRB). This investigation aimed to determine the bioaccumulation of metals in soft tissues of the bivalve Corbicula fluminea exposed to sediments collected in the DRB in four periods (just after, 1, 3, and 3.5 years after the dam rupture). In the exposure bioassays, the concentrations of Al, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn in sediments and bivalve soft tissues were quantified. The concentration of some elements (As, Cd, Mn, and Al) in sediments exceeded the federal limits or regional backgrounds at some sampling sites, but their concentrations tended to decrease over time. However, higher concentrations of many elements were detected in the winter of 2019. Several elements were detected in C. fluminea soft tissues, but the bioaccumulation factors were generally low or not related to those elements associated with the ore tailings, evidencing that the bioavailability of metals to bivalves, in laboratory conditions, was limited. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:87-98. © 2023 SETAC.

Sub-lethal combined effects of illicit drug and decreased pH on marine mussels: A short-time exposure to crack cocaine in CO2 enrichment scenarios.

The increasing CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere promote ocean acidification. Seawater chemistry changes interact with contaminants, such as illicit drugs in the coastal zones. This work evaluates impacts of pH decrease and crack-cocaine exposure on the commercial mussel Perna perna through biomarker responses (lysosomal membrane stability, lipid peroxidation, and DNA strand breaks). The organisms were exposed to different crack-cocaine concentrations (0.5, 5.0, and 50 µg L-1) combined with different pH values (8.3, 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.5, and 6.0) for 96 h. Crack-cocaine in the different acidification scenarios triggered cyto-genotoxicity, which affected the overall health of mussels exposed to cocaine environmentally relevant concentration. This study produced the first data on biomarker responses associated with CO2-induced acidification and illicit drugs (crack-cocaine) in marine organisms.

Cytogenotoxicity biomarkers in fat snook Centropomus parallelus from Cananéia and São Vicente estuaries, SP, Brazil.

The aquatic environment receives many contaminants that can induce damages at the molecular, biochemical, cellular and physiological levels. Centropomus parallelus, an important food resource for local populations, is a predator fish that feeds on small fishes and benthic invertebrates, thus being vulnerable to the bioconcentration and biomagnification processes. This study aimed to evaluate cytogenotoxic responses in erythrocytes from C. parallelus juveniles collected in the Cananéia and São Vicente estuaries, both in winter and in summer. After anesthesia, blood samples were collected by caudal puncture. Blood smears were prepared on glass slides and stained with May-Grünwald-Giemsa dye. Two thousand cells were analyzed per slide (1000x), and nuclear abnormalities (NA) and micronuclei (MN) were scored. The São Vicente sample showed MN and NA frequencies (%/1000 cells) of 0.325 and 3.575, in winter, and of 0.125 and 2.935 in summer respectively; the Cananéia sample showed frequencies of 0.0325 and 0.03, in winter, and of 0.065 and 0.355 in summer, respectively. The rates found in São Vicente were significantly higher than those found in Cananéia, evidencing that the levels of pollution in that estuary were high enough to induce genetic damages.