Temporal trends of PCBs in sediments and striped bass from the Hudson River and estuary
- Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY (United States)
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)
- New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Albany, NY (United States)
Chlorinated hydrocarbon chronologies of fine-grained sediments in NY Harbor indicate that decreasing concentration trends of total polychlorinated biphenyls which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s continued through the late 1980s. 1994 core top samples are currently being analyzed. This recent decline in total-PCB levels in NY harbor sediments can be described by a two component exponential function with separate terms representing the two primary sources of PCBs to this area. According to this function, transport from the Upper Hudson River dominated total PCB loading to NY Harbor in the 1970s, while local urban influxes were more important by the mid 1980s. The rate of decline in the geometric mean of lipid-based total-PCB concentrations in striped bass collected throughout the lower Hudson estuary between 1978 and 1990 is very similar to the trends observed in NY Harbor sediments. This similarity is consistent with the hypotheses that striped bass caught in the estuary obtain a significant fraction of their PCB burden in the NY Harbor area and contiguous estuarine waters and indicates that analyses of a relatively small number of dated sediment samples can provide an excellent indication of likely future trends of PCB levels in striped bass populations.
- OSTI ID:
- 458329
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-961149--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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