Tungsten in Washington State surface waters

At high concentrations, tungsten can be toxic to humans, animals, and the environment, though little is known about natural, aqueous tungsten in surface waters. To improve understanding and develop a model predicting tungsten concentrations, we collected water and sediment from 77 water bodies in 20 watersheds in Washington State, USA. We found aqueous tungsten concentrations spanning two orders of magnitude (10.3 ng L^-1 - 2.05 μg L^-1) with average tungsten concentrations in both water and sediments more than two-fold higher in watersheds with tungsten-bearing underlying rock types (average: 0.217 μg L^-1, 0.669 mg kg^-1; range: 0.010-2.05 μg L^-1, 0.0713-4.691 mg kg^-1 for surface waters and sediments, respectively) than in watersheds without such underlying geology (average: 0.068 μg L^-1, 0.352 mg kg^-1; range: 0.010-0.211 μg L^-1, 0.0349-2.399 mg kg^-1 for surface waters and sediments, respectively). Aqueous concentrations of tungsten significantly correlated with beryllium (Be) and copper (Cu) (R² = 0.31, 0.41, respectively) and a multiple linear regression model using Be and Cu explained 65% of the variance in measured aqueous tungsten concentrations. Applying this model to existing Be and Cu data from 19 sites across the Pacific Northwest resulted in predicted tungsten concentrations ranging from 0.116 to 0.458 μg L^-1. These predicted concentrations along with our measured concentrations indicate none of these sites were close to the drinking water standard for tungsten set by the former Soviet Union-the only country so far to set limits for tungsten in drinking water (50 μg L^-1).