Great Lakes Center and Biology Department Seminar:

“Modeling Copper Bioavailability to Freshwater Organisms: The Science Behind the Policy”

by Ray Arnold, PhD
The U.S. EPA has proposed the use of a mechanistic model for calculating freshwater metal criteria, beginning with copper. The model is called the Biotic Ligand Model (BLM). It has proven efficient in predicting the acute toxicity of a variety of metals to freshwater organisms. The BLM can assist in developing technically defensible site-specific criteria, waste load allocations, and ecological risk assessments. It is intended to promote more focused and efficient uses of resources. This seminar provides an introduction, background and rationale for the BLM, a description of its applications and case examples. The attendee will learn about metal toxicity, factors that alter metal toxicity, metal water quality criteria development, sites and modes of action of metals, metal speciation, ligands, toxicity modeling and applications of the BLM.

Thursday, February 14, 2008
12:15 p.m.
Classroom Building B119