| Contents Notes |
Because Canada and the United States share a common coastline, the transboundary transport of contaminants by ocean currents on the West Coast is likely (Thomson, 1994). From a U.S. perspective this transport could range from a relatively localized migration from the extreme southern part of coastal BC (White Rock/Sturgeon Bank) over the border into the waters adjacent to Point Roberts, to larger scale processes that could potentially transport contaminants discharged by the Fraser River or the Vancouver (Iona) or Victoria (Clover and Macaulay Points) sewage outfalls to U.S. locations in the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca, or even into Puget Sound. From a Canadian perspective concern would primarily focus on the transport north from Seattle and Puget Sound, although contaminants from pulp mills or oil refiners in northern Washington State could also conceivably reach Canadian waters.... Paper produced in conjunction with a 1994 Symposium on the Marine Environment of the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound and Juan de Fuca provide the most recent overviews of the state of knowledge of oceanography, contaminant processes and potential for transboundary transport in the region....The assessment here will briefly summarize the results of these overviews as well as more recent work on the oceanography and contaminant distributions, and then address the issues of what still needs to be done to assess transboundary tranport. -- Introduction. |
