Contaminated Sediments in Ports and Waterways: Cleanup Strategies and Technologies

Dredging is one of the most common human modifications of estuaries and although its effects have often been studied, there has been little effort in evaluating the effects on mobile macrofauna, such as fishes and crabs. We evaluated the response of fishes and crabs to 4 d of dredging in a small boat basin within a polyhaline marsh creek of a New Jersey estuary. We used several measures, including fish and crab species composition, abundance, and size from trap collections and movements of marked mummichogs Fundulus heteroclitus before, during, and after dredging. In general, the fauna changed little during the 4 d of dredging relative to the 1.5-month sampling period. Species composition variations that did occur may have been due to seasonal changes that are typically observed during the fall based on annual sampling at this site. The movement of tagged mummichogs was minimal, with most recaptures taking place in the boat basin. Individuals that left the boat basin moved into pools in an adjace...

An Evaluation of Boat Basin Dredging Effects: Response of Fishes and Crabs in a New Jersey Estuary

Sediment quality analyses are conducted for specific reasons and most for some type of regulatory purpose. These purposes could include support for: sediment remediation, dredged material disposal, and sediment monitoring. One such sediment monitoring effort in the United States is to fulfill the requirements set forth in the Water Resources Development Act of 1992 (WRDA). This Act requires EPA to develop the National Sediment Quality Survey, a national evaluation of sediment quality in the United States. The first report was prepared in 1997 and described the incidence and severity of sediment contamination nationwide. The first update to this report was recently released (USEPA, 2004) and is designed to be a screening-level assessment for the identification of potentially contaminated sediments. While there are many challenges to assessing sediment contamination on a localized area, these are drastically magnified at a national scale. One of the biggest challenges was the reliance on existing sediment q...

D. S. Ireland

Papers

An approach for looking at sediment quality on a national perspective