Use of biological assay systems to assess the relative carcinogenic hazards of disinfection by-products.

Other workers have clearly shown that most, if not all, drinking water in the U.S. contains chemicals that possess mutagenic and/or carcinogenic activity by using bacterial and in vitro methods. In the present work, increased numbers of tumors were observed with samples of organic material isolated from 5 U.S. cities administered as tumor initiators in mouse skin initiation/promotion studies. Only in one case was the result significantly different from control. In studies designed to test whether disinfection practice contributes significantly to the tumor initiating activity found in drinking water mixed results have been obtained. In one experiment, water disinfected by chlorination, ozonation or combined chlorine resulted in a significantly greater number of papillomas when compared to nondisinfected water. In two subsequent experiments, where water was obtained from the Ohio River at different times of the year, no evidence of increased initiating activity was observed with any disinfectant. Analysis of water obtained at the comparable times of the year for total organic halogen, and trihalomethane formation revealed a substantial variation in the formation of these products. Considering the problems such variability poses for estimating risks associated with disinfection by-products, a model system which makes use of commercially obtained humic acid as a substrate for chlorination was investigated using the Ames test. Humic and fulvic acids obtained from two surface waters as well as the commercially obtained humic acid were without activity in TA 1535, TA 1537, TA 1538, TA 98 or TA 100 strains of S. typhimurium. Following treatment with a 0.8 molar ratio of chlorine (based on carbon) significant mutagenic activity was observed with all humic and fulvic acid samples. Comparisons of the specific mutagenic activity of the chlorinated products suggests that the commercial material might provide a useful model for studying health hazards associated with disinfection reactions by-products.