Identifying limitations of the OECD water-sediment test (OECD 308) and developing suitable alternatives to assess persistence

Dübendorf (Switzerland)

The OECD guideline 308 describes a laboratory test method to assess aerobic and anaerobic transformation of organic chemicals in aquatic sediment systems and is an integral part of tiered testing strategies in different legislative frameworks for the environmental risk assessment of chemicals. Over the years, several shortcomings of the OECD guideline 308 have been identified and its usefulness for persistence and exposure assessment has been questioned.

The objectives of the 3-year project “LRI ECO18 – Improved strategy to assess chemical persistence at the water-sediment interface” were two-fold: (i) to better understand the value and information content of the existing OECD 308 protocol, and (ii) to develop an improved test strategy for assessing persistence in sediment and surface water in a consistent and robust manner.

The goal of the final stakeholder workshop on October 6, 2015, is to summarize stakeholder perspectives on the status quo of both OECD guidelines 308 and 309, and to complement this with a dissemination of the findings of the project LRI ECO18. The main focus of the workshop will be the question whether and how persistence and half-life information can be obtained from OECD 308 and 309 data.

Links: Cefic LRI ECO18 webpage