Air and rain toxics deposition monitoring in Galveston Bay Texas

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:460522

Wade, T; Sweet, S; Park, J; Cifuentes, L; Tindale, N; Santschi, P; Gill, G ^[1]

---

1. Texas A and M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Coll. of Geosciences and Maritime Studies

In order to fulfill the mandates of the Great Waters Program and portions of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has initiated atmospheric monitoring research in important and representative water bodies, including coastal waters, for evidence of atmospheric deposition of pollutants. These pollutants include nutrients, trace metals, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and PCBs. A site was established in Seabrook Texas on the western shore of Galveston Bay representative of southern, coastal water system. This study determines selected environmental pollutants of potential concern to Galveston Bay and other Gulf coastal waters. While information is currently being generated by other investigations in Galveston Bay, such as EPA EMAP, Galveston Bay National Estuary, NOAA Status and Trends and other programs on contaminants in sediments and organisms, little reliable data is available to assess atmospheric deposition. The importance of atmospheric deposition of contaminants to Galveston Bay, based on air and rain samples collected continuously from March 1995 to March 1996 will be presented and compared to the results from other Great Waters Program sites. These results are critical to the understanding of the relative importance of various contaminant inputs to Galveston Bay by estimating atmospheric depositional fluxes.

• OSTI ID: 460522
• Report Number(s): CONF-961149--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
BAYS
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
METALS
MONITORING
POLYCHLORINATED BIPHENYLS
POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS
TEXAS
WATER POLLUTION