NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS ORCA 80 _________________________________________________________________ National Status and Trends Program for Marine Environmental Quality Biological Effects of Toxic Contaminants in Sediments from Long Island Sound and Environs Connecticut Thames R. Sediment Toxicity Sites - Bays Connecticut R. Housatonic R. Fish Biomarkers Water Column Toxicity 9 n 8 NS&T Stations 11 Bridgeport 6 Norwalk 4 New York Stamford Long Island Sound 12 Larchmont 10 7 2 5 3 Cold Spring Hbr. Long Island 1 Manhasset Bay L. Neck Bay Atlantic Ocean 1000 952410 3 1 100 10000 1000 10 Cu 100 n=228 1 0 25 50 751 00 10 Microtox EC-50 (% Control) 1 0.1 1 1 0 Total Organic Carbon (% dry wt) Silver Spring, Maryland August, 1994 noaa National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration _____________________________________________________________________ National Ocean Service NOAA Coastal Ocean Office Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment Coastal Monitoring and Bioeffects Assessment Division Coastal Monitoring and Bioeffects Assessment Division Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment National Ocean Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration U.S. Department of Commerce N/ORCA2, SSMC4 1305 East-West Highway Silver Spring, MD 20910 Notice This report has been reviewed by the National Ocean Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and approved for publication. Such approval does not signify that the contents of this report necessarily represents the official position of NOAA or of the Government of the United States, nor does mention of trade names or commerical products constitute endorsement or recommendation for their use. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS ORCA 80 Biological Effects of Toxic Contaminants in Sediments from Long Island Sound and Environs Douglas A. Wolfe and Suzanne B. Bricker National Ocean Service, Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment, Silver Spring, MD Edward R. Long National Ocean Service, Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment, Seattle, WA K. John Scott and Glen B. Thursby Science Applications International Corporation Narragansett, RI Silver Spring, Maryland August, 1994 United States National Oceanic and National Ocean Service Coastal Ocean Program Department of Commerce Atmospheric Administration Ronald H. Brown D. James Baker W. Stanley Wilson Donald Scavia Secretary Under Secretary Assistant Administrator Director Table of Contents List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................................i List of Figures............................................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 II. Long Island Sound: The Physical Setting ............................................................................................... 1 III. Sources of Contaminants to Long Island Sound ..................................................................................... 4 Riverine Sources. ............................................................................................................................... 5 Waste-Water Treatment Facilities ...................................................................................................... 6 Runoff. ................................................................................................................................................ 6 Atmospheric Inputs ............................................................................................................................. 7 IV. Distribution of Contaminants in Long Island Sound ................................................................................ 8 V. Sediment Toxicity Survey ...................................................................................................................... 10 VI. Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 10 Sediment Sampling .......................................................................................................................... 10 Amphipod Tests ................................................................................................................................ 12 Bivalve Larvae Tests ........................................................................................................................ 12 Microtox Tests .................................................................................................................................. 13 Chemical Analyses ........................................................................................................................... 13 VII. Results ................................................................................................................................................. 13 Toxicity Tests .................................................................................................................................... 13 VII. Discussion and Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 44 Contaminant Effects in Resident Biota ............................................................................................. 45 Water-Column Toxicity...................................................................................................................... 45 Management Implications ................................................................................................................ 46 Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................................... 47 References ................................................................................................................................................. 48 Appendices ................................................................................................................................................ 55 List of Tables 1. Land use in the Estuarine Drainage Area (EDA) of Long Island Sound ............................................... 4 2. Estimates of the Annual Loadings for selected pollutants to Long Island Sound by seven major source categories ....................................................................................................................... 5 3. Estimated total annual flux of atmospheric contaminants to Long Island Sound, based on separate applications of rural and urban deposition rates to the LIS area ........................................... 7 4. Other estimates of annual atmospheric deposition in LIS and the N. Atlantic ocean ........................... 8 5. Results of three sediment toxicity tests with the samples from Long Island Sound coastal embayments........................................................................................................................... 14 6. Sediment toxicity results with the Ampelisca abdita assay for the mainstem LIS and associated sites ........................................................................................................................... 16 7. Spearman Rank Correlations among toxicity results for four endpoints tested at three stations each from 21 sites in Long Island Sound coastal embayments ................................... 18 8. Spearman Rank Correlations between sediment contaminant concentrations and toxicity results for four endpoints tested at three stations each from 21 sites in Long Island Sound coastal embayments ............................................................................................................... 18 9. Spearman Rank Correlations among sediment contaminant concentrations in sediments collected at three stations each from 21 sites in Long Island Sound Coastal Embayments .............. 19 10.1. Spearman Rank Correlations for results of the Microtox assay with various contaminants and contaminant categories, normalized either to dry weight, percent silt plus clay, total organic carbon, or aluminum content of the sediments, for 63 stations sampled in peripheral bays of Long Island Sound, and for the 49 non-sandy stations considered along .......................................... 21 10.2. Spearman Rank Correlations for results of the whole sediment toxicity assay with Ampelisca abdita survival, with various contaminants and contaminant categories, normalized either to dry weight, percent silt plus clay, total organic carbon, or aluminum content of the sediments, for 63 stations sampled in peripheral bays of Long Island Sound, and for the 49 non-sandy stations considered alone ............................................................. 22 10.3. Spearman Rank Correlations for results of the sediment elutriate toxicity assay with Mulinia lateralis survival, with various contaminants and contaminant categories, normalized either to dry weight, percent silt plus clay, total organic carbon, or aluminum content of the sediments, for 63 stations sampled in peripheral bays of Long Island