Ecological Indicators For Coastal And Estuarine Environmental Assessment PDF Download

"The Columbia River estuary is a unique and important ecological resource. EPA's National Estuary Program (NEP) was established by Congress in 1987 in Clean Water Act amendments to improve the quality of estuaries of national significance. The Columbia River estuary is one of 28 estuaries in the NEP. The overall quality of the Columbia River estuary, which forms the border between Washington and Oregon, is described in this report using data collected as part of the Western Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). EMAP was initiated by EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) to estimate the current status and trends in the condition of nation's ecological resources. EMAP also examines associations between these indicators and natural and human-caused stressors. The coastal component of EMAP's monitoring and assessment tools are used to create an integrated and comprehensive coastal monitoring program of coastal ecosystems. Water column measurements are combined with information about sediment characteristics and chemistry, benthic organisms, and fish to describe the current estuarine condition. Sampling began during the summer of 1999, with small estuaries of the Columbia River. In 2000, sampling continued with the larger Columbia River estuary. The boundary for the Columbia River estuary was head of tidal influence, so there were some freshwater components of this sampling effort. The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology), and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) conducted all field sampling for this project in 1999-2000 with assistance from EPA Region 10 and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). This project was designed to evaluate the overall condition of the Columbia River estuary. For water physical/chemical parameters, 7% of the area of the Columbia River estuary was in fair/poor condition, while nutrient indicators (nitrogen, phosphorus and chlorophyll a) showed a larger percent of the area (31- 46%) in the fair/poor condition category. For sediment indicators, total organic carbon showed none of the areas was in poor condition, but for sediment contaminants approximately 16% of the Columbia River estuarine area was in poor condition. As for biological indicators (chemicals in fish tissue and percent Corbicula), for chemicals in fish tissue, 39% of the area was in fair/poor condition. An even higher percent of the Columbia River estuary (66%) was in poor condition using percent Corbicula, a nonindigenous species, as an indictor. In 2006, we evaluated the ecological condition of the estuaries of Oregon and Washington (Hayslip, et al., 2006). The percent area in fair/poor condition for every indicator we evaluated was higher in the Columbia River estuary. The only exception was for chemicals in fish tissue where we found 47% of the area for estuaries of Oregon and Washington in fair/poor condition and 39% in the Columbia River estuary in fair/poor condition."--Executive summary (page v).