Determination of the aquatic PNEC0.05 for boron

Several weight of the evidence approaches for the effects assessment of boron to aquatic organisms have been conducted. The focal point for all of these assessments is the appropriate interpretation of the LC1 for rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, Report No. EPA5601176408. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Toxic Substances, Washington, DC, 1977, as the LC1 from their studies provided the lowest chronic toxicity values for boron. Other studies by these investigators (W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, Completion Report prepared for the Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, USA, 1981; W.J. Birge, J.A. Black, A.G. Westermann, T.M. Short, S.B. Taylor, M.C. Parekh. Completion Report prepared for the Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, USA, 1984; J.A. Black, J.B. Barnum, W.J. Birge, Chemosphere 26 (1993) 1383-1413) further indicate this species to be particularly sensitive to boron. While weight of the evidence approaches have been necessary for diverse risk assessment needs, they each suffer from potential bias via professional judgment. In order to allay these issues and to update the effects assessment for boron, a probabilistic approach was used. Raw data from the Birge and Black studies were reanalyzed to generate chronic values representative of the adverse effects threshold (e.g., LC10) for several species. A comprehensive list of chronic data from these studies and other studies were combined into a cumulative probability term, allowing for the determination of the fifth percentile protection value, or PNEC0.05. The PNEC0.05 for boron was determined to be at least 1.3 mg B/l.