2010: Oxley Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant: Pesticide: Propiconazole - Australian Pesticides Map

Concentration of Selected Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and Pharmaceutical and Personal CareProducts Entering Wastewater Treatment Plants in South East Queensland

Ali Shareef, Mike Williams and Rai Kookana

p 11/12 Other potential compounds of interest that were detected in both influent and effluent samples collected for BAC analysis include the azole fungicide, propiconazole, and the serotonin-norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitor (SNRI) antidepressant, venlafaxine. Without adjusting the concentrations of propiconazole or venlafaxine to a surrogate, there was little apparent removal of both compounds during treatment with concentrations in

both influent and effluent in the low to mid-ng/L range.

A previous study assessing removal of fungicides in Swiss WWTPs indicates there was also poor removal of propiconazole, where it was detected in effluents at similar concentration range as our study (Kahle et al., 2008). Azole fungicides can be used as chemotherapy agents as one of their modes of action is to reduce estrogen levels by inhibiting aromatase (Zarn et al., 2003), indicating they havethe potential to act as an EDC.

https://www.urbanwateralliance.org.au/publications/UWSRA-tr20.pdf