Browsing by Subject "Contaminants"

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Bioassessment of sediment quality near storm water outfalls and other sites of concern in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas
(1999) Burgess, Robert Stockton, 1965-; Montagna, Paul A.
The goal of this project was to determine if the ecological integrity of meiofaunal communities was being affected by storm water outfall sediment chemistry, hydrographic parameters, or physical disturbance. Fifteen of 36 study sites were near storm water outfalls. The other 21 sites were reference or highly polluted sites to contrast the outfall sites with background levels and known chemically stressed sites. Because Corpus Christi Bay is a shallow open bay system, physical disturbance due to sediment re-suspension was also estimated. Contamination from non-point sources at storm water sites produced the highest concentrations of both trace metals and cyclic organic pollutants found in this study. Trace metal contaminants were tightly bound to the sediments, and their effects on the biotic communities can only be distinguished from background at one outfall site. Cyclic organic pollutants concentrations were elevated at 66% of the outfall sites, and effects on biotic communities can be distinguished from background at 88% of these sites. The four most contaminated storm water sites exhibited extreme reductions in measures of both macrofaunal and meiofaunal community integrity. Re-suspension was a confounding factor with organic pollutants at five relatively clean outfall sites, where it eliminated the harpacticoid copepod community, and negatively affected the macrofaunal community. In general, of the 36 sites, the 4 most degraded sites were storm water outfalls