Use of QSARs to Promote More Cost-Effective Use of Chemical Monitoring Resources. 1. Screening Industrial Chemicals and Pesticides, Direct Food Additives, Indirect Food Additives and Pharmaceuticals for Biodegradation, Bioconcentration and Aquatic Toxicity Potential

The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement commits the United States and Canada to restore and protect the chemical integrity of the Great Lakes basin. In particular, the Agreement commits to “virtually eliminate” selected persistent toxic substances. While progress has been made reducing these substances in the Great Lakes basin, other chemicals are emerging as potential pollutants in the basin. Given the thousands of industrial chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, food additives and other substances that could be contaminating the Great Lakes, it is proposed that quantitative structure activity relationships (QSARs) be used to identify these emerging pollutants that are likely to cause adverse effects to organisms in water, sediment and soil from the Great Lakes basin. Previously, QSARs have been applied to identify many untested chemicals for more intensive and costly experimental evaluations (Walker and Brink 1989; Walker 1991, 1995a). These applications of QSARs have promoted more cost-effective use of testing resources (Walker 1995b; Walker et al. 2003). However, to our knowledge, QSARs have not been used to identify chemicals on which environmental or occupational monitoring could be based. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how QSARs can be used to identify substances that could be contaminating the Great Lakes and to illustrate how the use of QSARs can promote more cost-effective use of Great Lakes chemical monitoring resources.