Managers and scientists are developing an integrated monitoring plan for the South Florida marine ecosystem. This cooperative monitoring effort in the Carolinian Province is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary and regionally extensive program that has required the input of literally hundreds of individuals working together. A major component of this study examined environmental conditions in benthic areas of estuaries and coastal ocean areas. During 1994-1995, sediments were tested for contaminants, levels of toxicity, and exposure effects on benthic infauna. This program uses a probability-based sampling design and, thus, provides unbiased estimates of ecological conditions with known levels of confidence.
Researchers sieve sediments for benthic infauna.
Tissue samples will be analyzed to determine the effects of sediment contamination. The goal of a combined state and Federal monitoring and academic research program in Puget Sound was to measure the accumulation of contaminants in sediments, demersal fishes, marine birds, marine mammals and mussels to help evaluate the effectiveness of pollution control strategies established during the past 20 years. The results indicated that although contaminant levels in some areas have decreased, contaminant concentrations in the deep central Puget Sound basin are still significantly higher than estimated pre-industrial levels. In particular, present levels of contamination near urban areas may be up to 100 times higher than the levels in the cleanest rural Puget Sound bays. No sampling design has yet allowed estimation of the areal extent of contamination and contaminant-caused effects within all areas of the bay.