Description of Work Currently, a standard test method does not exist for evaluating the effects of sediment-associated toxicants on freshwater mussels. A standard guide for conducting water-only laboratory toxicity tests with freshwater mussels was approved in 2006 (ASTM 2008a) and provides a tested and validated, consensus-based methodology for conducting acute or chronic water toxicity tests with the early life stages (glochidia and juveniles) of freshwater mussels. Several recent peer-reviewed scientific publications have presented data on various toxicants (Bringolf et al. 2007a,b,c; Wang et al. 2007a,b,c) generated with this method and demonstrate consistency and reliability in inter-laboratory (round robin) toxicity tests similar [...]
