Baltimore Ecosystem Study polar organic contaminant integrative sampler data for pharmaceuticals and personal care products in core sites within Gwynns Falls watershed and reference sites.

An ongoing component of the Baltimore urban long-term ecological research (LTER) project (Baltimore Ecosystem Study, BES) is the use of the watershed approach and monitoring of stream water quality to evaluate the impacts of multiple chemical stressors on urban stream ecosystem functioning within Baltimore. The LTER research has focused on the Gwynns Falls watershed, which spans a gradient from highly urban, urban-residential, and suburban zones. In addition, a forested watershed serves as a reference. The long-term sampling network includes four longitudinal sampling sites along the Gwynns Falls mainstem, as well as several small (40-100 ha) watershed within or near the Gwynns Falls, providing data on water quality in different land use zones of the watersheds. Each study site is continuously monitored for discharge and is sampled weekly for water chemistry. Those data are available elsewhere on the BES website. We are interested in studying the presence and concentrations of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) within urban streams, and then linking these PPCPs with various stream ecosystem functions. To quantify the concentrations of PPCPs in streams, we deploy polar organic contaminant integrative samples (POCIS), which integrate all organic contaminants that pass by them in a stream over a set period of deployment. These POCIS allow us to integrate the total amount of PPCPs within a stream over a set period of time, and then to relate these concentrations with other ecosystem processes. We monitored PPCP concentration in four suburban to urban sites within the Gwynns Falls, as well as one exurban and one forested stream monitoring site. Each POCIS was deployed for two weeks at a stream monitoring site in March 2012. After completion of the sampling period, POCIS were removed from the streams and shipped on ice to the University of Nebraska for extraction and quantification of recovered compounds. This dataset includes all compounds extracted and quantified from this specific POCIS deployment. A subset of these data are included in the following publication: Rosi, E.J., H.A. Bechtold, D. Snow, M. Rojas, A.J. Reisinger, and J.J. Kelly. 2018. Urban stream microbial communities show resistance to pharmaceutical exposure. Ecosphere 9(1):e02041. doi: 10.1002/ecs2.2041 Codes and abbreviations 1 - GRGF - Gwynns Run at Gwynns Falls - Urban 2 - GFCP - Gwynns Falls at Carroll Park - Urban 3 - DRKR - Dead Run at Krome Avenue - Urban 4 - GFGB - Gwynns Falls at Gwynnbrook Avenue (Delight) - Suburban 5 - BARN - Baisman Run at Ivy Hill Road - Suburban unsewered 6 - POBR - Pond Branch forested reference site - Forested reference Column,Column Name,Variable-if different than Column Name (units) A,LAB_ID_String, Unique identifier for laboratory analysis B,Site, Site C,Replicate D,Analysis_Date, Date POCIS were analyzed E,1,7-Dimethylxanthine (ng/L) F,Acetaminophen (ng/L) G, Amphetamine (ng/L) H, Caffeine (ng/L) I, Carbamazepine (ng/L) J, Cimetidine (ng/L) K,Cotinine (ng/L) L,Diphenhydramine (ng/L) M,MDA, 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (ng/L) N,MDMA, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ng/L) O,Methamphetamine (ng/L) P,Morphine (ng/L) Q,Sulfadimethoxine (ng/L) R,Sulfamethazine (ng/L) S,Sulfamethoxazole (ng/L) T,Thiabendazole (ng/L) Note: Reporting Limit for all PPCPs is 0.5 ng/L per laboratory analysis. Methods: Polar Organic Contaminant Integrative Samples (POCIS; Environmental Sampling Techonlogies, EST-Lab.com) were deployed at a representative location in the stream. POCIS remained deployed for two weeks in March 2012. POCIS were then collected, transported to the lab on ice, and then shipped to the University of Nebraska where compounds were eluted from POCIS with methanol and were identified and quantified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (see Rosi et al. 2018 and references therein for detailed description).