Atmospheric concentrations and potential sources of PCBs, PBDEs, and pesticides to Acadia National Park Sait C. Sofuoglu a , Aysun Sofuoglu a , Thomas M. Holsen b , Colleen M. Alexander c , James J. Pagano c, * a Department of Chemical Engineering, Environmental Research Center, Izmir Institute of Technology, Gulbahce, Urla, 35430 Izmir, Turkey b Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699-5710, USA c Environmental Research Center, Department of Chemistry, 8C Snygg Hall, Washington Blvd., State University of New York at Oswego, Oswego, NY 13126, USA article info Article history: Received 4 October 2012 Received in revised form 28 January 2013 Accepted 8 February 2013 Keywords: POPs Back-trajectory PSCF Long-range transport Acadia National Park abstract This study assessed concentrations and investigated potential source regions for PCBs, PBDEs, and organochlorine pesticides in Acadia National Park, Maine, USA. Back-trajectories and potential source contribution function (PSCF) values were used to map potential source areas for total-PCBs, BDE-47, and 10 organochlorine pesticides. The constructed PSCF maps showed that ANP receives high pollutant concentrations in air masses that travel along four main pathways: (1) from the SW along the eastern Atlantic seaboard, (2) from the WSW over St. Louis, and Columbus regions, (3) from the west over Chicago, and Toronto regions, and (4) from WNW to NNW over the Great Lakes, and Quebec regions. Transport of all studied pollutants were equally distributed between the first three pathways, with only minor contributions from the last pathway. This study concludes that the high-pollutant concentrations arriving at ANP do not exclusively originate from the major urban centers along the eastern Atlantic seaboard. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Persistent organic pollutants include a wide range of chemical groups such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated ethers (PBDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). These chemicals are resistant to degradation, have a tendency to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues, and many are considered to be endocrine disruptors (Jones and de Voogt, 1999). The production and usage of many of these chem- icals (PCBs and OCPs) were banned almost two decades ago, while two of the PBDE technical formulations (penta- and octa-BDE) were banned in the European Union and in ten states of the USA in 2004 (Frederiksen et al., 2009). Pesticide source regions are generally widespread because of historical and current use. For example dieldrin, DDT, and total chlordane (consisting of cis- and trans-chlordane, and trans-non- achlor) were found to be transported to the Great Lakes region from the south, whereas hexachlorocyclohexanes were transported from much of the US and Canada, and endosulfans originated from mainly in the northern U.S. states (Hafner and Hites, 2003). Previ- ous studies have shown that urban areas have higher concentrations of PCBs compared to nonurban areas (Hafner and Hites, 2003; Hsu et al., 2003) as urban areas are thought to be ubiquitous PCB sources due to past use. Urban areas may also have specific sources that may include sludge drying beds, landfills, and transformer storage yards (Hsu et al., 2003). Urbanerural concen- tration gradients correlate with local population densities (Schuster et al., 2010b). Jamshidi et al. (2007) presented evidence that ventilation of indoor air is most probably responsible for the urban pulse, not volatilization from soil on a ruraleurban transect. On a global scale, estimated spatial patterns (Breivik et al., 2007) were found to be in accordance with surface soil concentrations measured by Meijer et al. (2002). In addition to soils, PCBs may be emitted from hot spot areas (Kaya et al., 2012; Odabasi et al., 2009; Ruzickova et al., 2007) or volatilized from contaminated waters and shelf seas (Ilyina et al., 2008). Mobilization of strongly retained POPs from soils and riverine sediments may be possible due to flooding (Dvorska et al., 2009). A review of global PCB data (Li et al., 2009) showed that primary sources dominate where previously deposited PCBs are not avail- able for re-volatilization because they are strongly retained in soil for compounds with soileair fugacity fractions well below 0.5. Secondary sources become important for compounds with soileair fugacity fractions above 0.5, because they are available for airesoil exchange, and therefore “grasshopping”. The dominance of primary sources, which is shown to be the case in Europe (Schuster et al., * Corresponding author. E-mail address: james.pagano@oswego.edu (J.J. Pagano). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Environmental Pollution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envpol 0269-7491/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2013.02.015 Environmental Pollution 177 (2013) 116e124