CONCENTRATIONS OF PERSISTENT ORGANOCHLORINE COMPOUNDS IN SPRUCE NEEDLES FROM WESTERN FINLAND

Persistent organochlorine compounds in spruce needles from Western Fin land, altogether 60 samples, were analyzed by GC/ECD and GC/MS. The di stribution of alpha-HCH, lindane and hexachlorobenzene in the spruce n eedles was found to be uniform all over the area investigated. The con centrations of alpha-HCH were higher than the concentrations of lindan e. In the PCB profiles, PCB-153 and PCB-138 dominated in all samples, the concentration of PCB-153 being remarkably higher than that df PCB- 138. As a rule, the needles from the year 1991 contained these compoun ds in larger amounts than the needles from the year 1992. TeCDFs, PeCD Fs, HexaCDFs, TeCDDs and PeCDDs in very low (pg/g) concentrations were detected in the pooled samples. The concentrations of the PCDFs were higher than the concentrations of PCDDs. The effect of the tree age on the concentrations of organochlorine compounds was not observed.