ABSTRACT
Chemical contamination of the coastal environment has been an issue of concern for scientists and politicians worldwide for the last several decades. Growing urban areas and diversifying industrialization in many countries produce tremendous amounts of municipal and industrial wastes that are introduced into the aquatic system; in addition, signiˆcant amounts of chemical contaminants are added from non-point sources. The coastal environment is particularly at risk from the degradative effects of these contaminants that might result in changes that are deleterious, over the long term, to both the integrity of the coastal environment and to human health. In his editorial in Marine Pollution Bulletin, Professor Goldberg [1] emphasized that the world ocean continued to receive signiˆcant amounts of wastes while the implementation of many proposed global marine monitoring programs was delayed. Without a systematic attempt to assess the marine levels of
19.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 431 19.2 Bivalve Mollusks as Monitoring Organisms ........................................................................ 432 19.3 Mechanism of Bioconcentration ........................................................................................... 433
19.3.1 Single-Compartment Model ..................................................................................... 433 19.3.2 Accumulation and Depuration of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Field ........... 435
19.4 Contamination Proˆles and Temporal Trends of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Gulf of Mexico ..................................................................................................................... 438 19.4.1 NOAA’s National Status and Trends “Mussel Watch” Project ................................. 438
19.4.1.1 Chlorinated Pesticides ............................................................................... 438 19.4.1.2 Polychlorinated Biphenyls .........................................................................447 19.4.1.3 Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons ...........................................................449
19.5 Case Studies .......................................................................................................................... 458 19.5.1 Galveston Bay, Texas ................................................................................................ 458 19.5.2 Tampa Bay, Florida ................................................................................................... 462
19.6 Conclusions ...........................................................................................................................463 Acknowledgment ...........................................................................................................................464 References ......................................................................................................................................465
known contaminants, Professor Goldberg called for a global marine monitoring program utilizing mussels.
