Demonstration and Certification of Amphibian Ecological Risk Assessment Protocol. Cost and Performance Report (Version 2)

Prepared in collaboration with the United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic Division, Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, the United States Geological Survey and AECOM Corporation (formerly ENSR Corporation).

This ESTCP project, Demonstration and Certification of Amphibian Ecological Risk Assessment Protocol, CU-0514, was designed to demonstrate and validate an innovative technique for the evaluation of potential risks to amphibians in palustrine wetland environments. This technique builds on previous Department of Defense (DoD) research which resulted in development of a tiered amphibian ecological risk assessment (ERA) protocol, as well as laboratory toxicity tests for evaluating potential risks to amphibians due to exposure to contaminated soils and sediments (referred to herein as the soil protocol and sediment protocol, respectively). The soil protocol evaluates impacts to adult salamanders and the sediment protocol evaluates impacts to larval tadpoles. When selecting appropriate receptors to derive ERA-based remedial goals, amphibians should be considered since these species play a key ecological role in wetlands and are an important link in ecological food chains, serving both as predators and prey items. However, there is a relative lack of available toxicity data for amphibians. As a result, remedial decisions at sites are often based on data from aquatic or terrestrial species that are not typical of wetlands. These species may be more or less sensitive to chemical stressors than amphibians. This project presents a methodology for evaluating potential risks to amphibians in wetlands and for deriving remediation goals based on these important ecological receptors.