The evidence that in Northern Italy significant sources of perfluoroalkylacids (PFAA) are present induced the Italian government to establish a Working Group on Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) for PFAA in order to include some of them in the list of national specific pollutants for surface water monitoring according to the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). The list of substances included perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) and related short chain PFAA such as perfluorobutanoate (PFBA), perfluoropentanoate (PFPeA), perfluorohexanoate (PFHxA) and perfluorobutanesulfonate (PFBS), which is a substitute of perfluorooctanesulfonate. For each of them a dossier collects available data on regulation, physico-chemical properties, emission and sources, occurrence, acute and chronic toxicity on aquatic species and mammals, including humans.Quality standards (QS) were derived for the different protection objectives (pelagic and benthic communities, predators by secondary poisoning, human health via consumption of fishery products and water) according to the European guideline. The lowest QS is finally chosen as the relevant EQS. For PFOA a QS for biota was derived for protection from secondary poisoning and the corresponding QS for water was back-calculated, obtaining a freshwater EQS of 0.1 mu g L-1. For PFBA, PFPeA, PFHxA and PFBS threshold limits proposed for drinking waters were adopted as EQS. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The risk posed by complex chemical mixtures in the environment to wildlife and humans is increasingly debated, but has been rarely tested under environmentally relevant scenarios. To address this issue, two mixtures of 14 or 19 substances of concern (pesticides, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, a surfactant, and a plasticizer), each present at its safety limit concentration imposed by the European legislation, were prepared and tested for their toxic effects. The effects of the mixtures were assessed in 35 bioassays, based on 11 organisms representing different trophic levels. A consortium of 16 laboratories was involved in performing the bioassays. The mixtures elicited quantifiable toxic effects on some of the test systems employed, including i) changes in marine microbial composition, ii) microalgae toxicity, iii) immobilization in the crustacean Daphnia magna, iv) fish embryo toxicity, v) impaired frog embryo development, and vi) increased expression on oxidative stress-linked reporter genes. Estrogenic activity close to regulatory safety limit concentrations was uncovered by receptor-binding assays. The results highlight the need of precautionary actions on the assessment of chemical mixtures even in cases where individual toxicants are present at seemingly harmless concentrations.