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A PROBABILISTIC SURVEY OF SEDIMENT TOXICITY IN WEST COAST ESTUARIES
Citation:
Lamberson, J O., W G. Nelson, AND H Lee II. A PROBABILISTIC SURVEY OF SEDIMENT TOXICITY IN WEST COAST ESTUARIES. Presented at Pacific Estuarine Research Society, Portland, OR, May 2-4, 2002.
Description:
A probabalistic survey of coastal condition assessment was conducted in 1999 by participants in US EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). The survey targeted estuaries along the outer coasts of Washington, Oregon and California, including the lower Columbia River, but excluding San Francisco Bay, which was sampled in 2000. The assessment included whole sediment amphipod survival tests with Ampelisca abdita and Eohaustorius estuarius, as well as egg fertilization and embryo development tests with the sea urchin Arbacia puctulata using sediment porewater.. Toxicity tests with the free burrowing amphipod E. estuarius were run only in California. Amphipod sediment toxicity tests indicated greater sensitivity to test sediments with E. estuarius than with the tube-building amphipod A. abdita, though sediment toxicity to amphipods was generally low in all states. Porewater tests of inhibition of egg fertilization and embryo development in the sea urchin A. punctulata were more responsive to the test sediments than the amphipod whole sediment tests and results ranged from low toxicity in Washington and Oregon through low to moderate toxicity in southern California.