Industrial operations such as surface mining, road building, and aggregate washing result in high concentrations of suspended particles (Total Suspended Solids; TSS) in surface waters which must be treated prior to discharge into fish-bearing waters. A common industrial practice is to add flocculants to improve the efficacy and speed of TSS sedimentation. A significant environmental issue even small amounts of uncomplexed cationic polymer coagulant/flocculant remaining in treated water is highly toxic to fish at very low concentrations (LC₅₀ ∼ 0.3 mg L⁻¹). Fingerling trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were exposed to (1) a cationic flocculant (Water Lynx 800 (WL800), (2) a Clearflow neutralizing polymer (CN369), and (3) a combination of WL800 and CN369 at various ratios with measured LC₅₀ as an index of toxicity. Acute toxicity was entirely reversed by addition of the neutralizing polymer at WL800:CN369 ratios >1:1.5 mg/L.

Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proximal mechanism of acute cationic polymer toxicity is hypoxemia due to accumulation of polymer on the gill epithelia rather than gill damage. Exposure of 0.5 mg/L WL800 reduced oxygen consumption by >50% reduction by 12 h and this was accompanied by significantly increased blood, brain, and liver [lactate] and [glucose]. The development of an inexpensive amelioration technique preventing cationic polymer toxicity is a significant advancement in surface and industrial water treatment to prevent cationic polymer mediated fish kills.

地表采矿、道路建设和骨料清洗等工业操作会导致地表水中的悬浮颗粒（总悬浮固体；TSS）浓度很高，在排放到含鱼水域之前必须对其进行处理。一种常见的工业实践是添加絮凝剂以提高 TSS 沉降的功效和速度。一个显着的环境问题，即使是少量未络合的阳离子聚合物混凝剂/絮凝剂残留在处理过的水中，在非常低的浓度（LC ₅₀ ∼ 0.3 mg L ^-1）下对鱼也有剧毒。鱼种鳟鱼（Oncorhynchus mykiss) 暴露于 (1) 阳离子絮凝剂 (Water Lynx 800 (WL800)、(2) Clearflow 中和聚合物 (CN369) 和 (3) WL800 和 CN369 以不同比例的组合，测量的 LC ₅₀作为指数在 WL800:CN369 比 >1:1.5 mg/L 时加入中和聚合物可完全逆转急性毒性。

此外，我们证明急性阳离子聚合物毒性的近端机制是由于聚合物在鳃上皮细胞上的积累而不是鳃损伤引起的低氧血症。0.5 mg/L WL800 的暴露在 12 小时内减少了 >50% 的耗氧量，这伴随着血液、大脑和肝脏 [乳酸] 和 [葡萄糖] 的显着增加。开发一种防止阳离子聚合物毒性的廉价改进技术是地表水和工业水处理的重大进步，可防止阳离子聚合物介导的鱼类死亡。