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COAST's National Status & Trends
An Assessment of Two Decades of Contaminant Monitoring in the Nation’s Coastal Zone. NOTE: Please right click your mouse and select "Save Target As" and download the report to your computer.
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Information found in this report covers the years 1986 through 2005. Mussel Watch began monitoring a suite of trace metals and organic contaminants such as DDT, PCBs and PAHs. Through time additional chemicals were added, and today approximately 140 analytes are monitored. The Mussel Watch Program is the longest running estuarine and coastal pollutant monitoring effort conducted in the United States that is national in scope each year. Hundreds of scientific journal articles and technical reports based on Mussel Watch data have been written; however, this report is the first that presents local, regional and national findings across all years in a Quick Reference format, suitable for use by policy makers, scientists, resource managers and the general public.
Pollution often starts at the local scale where high concentrations point to a specific source of contamination, yet some contaminants such as PCBs are atmospherically transported across regional and national scales, resulting in contamination far from their origin. Findings presented here showed few national trends for trace metals and decreasing trends for most organic contaminants; however, a wide variety of trends, both increasing and decreasing, emerge at regional and local levels. For most organic contaminants, trends have resulted from state and federal regulation. The highest concentrations for both metal and organic contaminants are found near urban and industrial areas.
In addition to monitoring throughout the nation’s coastal shores and Great Lakes, Mussel Watch samples are stored in a specimen bank so that trends can be determined retrospectively for new and emerging contaminants of concern. For example, there is heightened awareness of a group of flame retardants that are finding their way into the marine environment. These compounds, known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), are now being studied using historic samples from the specimen bank and current samples to determine their spatial distribution. We will continue to use this kind of investigation to assess new contaminant threats.
We hope you find this document to be valuable, and that you continue to look towards the Mussel Watch Program for information on the condition of your coastal waters.
COAST's National Status & Trends
The Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA) has maintained NOAA’s National Status and Trends (NS&T) effort since 1984. NS&T is comprised of two nationwide programs, Mussel Watch and Bioeffects that are designed to describe the current status of, and detect changes in, the environmental quality of our Nation’s estuarine and coastal waters through environmental monitoring, assessment and related research. NS&T gauges the spatial distribution and temporal trends of chemical contamination at a national scale, and develops indicators of environmental contaminant exposure which are used to assess the distribution, concentration and extent of chemical impacts in sediments and biota at a given point or area over time. The data collected by NS&T are crucial for planning future resource management and restoration activities and are provided to regional, federal, state and local resource managers and the public via publications, presentations and a website data portal.
Mussel Watch
Mussel Watch Program is the longest continuous, nationwide contaminant monitoring program in U.S. coastal waters. The program analyzes sediment and bivalve tissue chemistry for a suite of organic contaminants and trace metals to identify trends at over 300 selected coastal sites from 1986 to present.
NS&T
Data Portal >
Bioeffects
Bioeffects Assessment Program identifies and assesses biological effects associated with contaminant exposure. Over forty intensive regional studies have been conducted since 1986 using the Sediment Quality Triad approach which utilizes a stratified random sampling method to determine the areal extent of contaminated sediments. The data include: sediment chemistry, toxicity, and species diversity and quantity for the same suite of organic contaminants and trace metals as the Mussel Watch Program.
NS&T
Data Portal >