Secondary treatment phase of tertiary wastewater treatment works significantly reduces estrogenic load

Estrogenic compounds enter waterways via effluents from wastewater treatment works (WWTW), thereby indicating a potential risk to organisms inhabiting adjacent receiving waters. However, little is known about the loads or concentrations of estrogenic compounds that enter Australian WWTWs, the efficiency of removing estrogenic compounds throughout the various stages of tertiary WWTW processes (which are common in Australia), nor the concentrations released into estuarine or marine receiving waters, and the associated risk for aquatic taxa residing in these environments. Therefore, seven estrogenic compounds, comprising the natural estrogens estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (E2) and estriol (E3), the synthetic estrogen (EE2), and the industrial chemicals bisphenol A (BPA), 4-t-octyl phenol (4-t-OP) and 4-nonyl phenol (4-NP), in wastewater samples were quantified via liquid chromatographic-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) after solid-phase extraction at different stages of wastewater treatment and associated receiving waters. The concentrations of the target compounds in wastewater ranged from < LOQ (limit of quantification) to 158 ng/L for Tanilba Bay WWTW and < LOQ to 162 ng/L for Belmont WWTW. Most target compounds significantly declined after the secondary treatment phase. Appreciable removal efficiency throughout the treatment process was observed with removal from 39.21 to 99.98% of influent values at both WWTWs. The reduction of the natural estrogens (E1, E2 and E3) and 4-t-OP were significantly greater than EE2, BPA, and 4-NP in both WWTWs. Risk quotients (RQs) were calculated to assess potential ecological risks from individual estrogenic compounds. In predicted diluted effluents, no targeted compounds showed any ecological risk (RQ ≤1.65 × 10−2) at both WWTWs. Similarly, all RQs for shore samples at both WWTWs were below 1. Finally, the hazard index (HI), which represents combined estrogenic contaminants’ ecological risk, indicated no mentionable risk for predicted diluted effluents (HI = 0.0097 to 0.0218) as well as shoreline samples (HI = 0.393 to 0.522) in the receiving estuarine or marine waters.