Letter from the Editor

Transcription

1 Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, I hope you are enjoying your summer despite the exorbitant price of fuel. You tell me that you re action people and care about our world, so I know you want to get out and do fun and environmentally friendly things. I m lucky because I only need to step out of my office and ride down the elevator to the exit to have a stroll on the shore. Even if you are strictly Blessing of the Fleet, Stonington Connecticut conserving fuel and don t leave Connecticut for vacation, there are still many ways to enjoy our beautiful shores along Long Island Sound and its watershed. Join in Project Limulus while you re there and join the effort to help conserve some of the oldest and most fascinating creatures on earth. All you need to do is keep your eyes peeled for horseshoe crabs, alive or dead. If you see a live one upside down, flip it over. If you see one either living or dead wearing one of the special tags that we show you in the article, record and report the location and unique number on the tag to researchers monitoring them. There! You ve just helped biological conservation while taking a healthy walk. If you re out walking in the Waterford or Bridgeport/Stratford area be sure to notice the wonderful restoration efforts taking place thanks to the efforts of the Connecticut DEP and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations DARRP office. If you d like to learn more about the creatures, seaweeds, and marsh plants that live in and around Long Island Sound, contact our Sea Grant office for educational resources you can get. As canoe paddlers and kayakers know very well, the Connecticut River boasts some amazing natural areas, too. Areas of the lower river boast some unique characteristics and marshes that have earned the area encompassing parts of 11 towns a designation as an internationally important ecological area (a Ramsar site. Our Sea Grant office is mounting an educational effort there too, to help teachers, citizens and town officials discover local treasures. Seal watching is another favorite that you can pursue at aquaria at either end of the state or from your computer and follow up next winter with a seal watching cruise in the wild to see the real thing. I used Suzanne Zack s lovely photo of the Blessing of the Fleet at the docks in Stonington to remind us that even though we are suffering severe rises in fuel costs, fishermen and others who use boats have an even worse situation. The fuel that they use has skyrocketed to the point that many fishermen are operating at a loss, which doesn t bode well for their future. It s even more important to support them by buying local seafood. Those great Stonington Red shrimp we told you about in our last issue are available now, I m told, even though only one boat is still harvesting them now. If your idea of ocean fun is a seafood dinner, Rob Mason s timely article will help you understand the perplexing questions consumers have about seafood choices, whether you are at home or in a restaurant or going fishing. As always, the publishers of Wrack Lines welcome your suggestions To contact us, write to: Connecticut Sea Grant, University of Connecticut, 1080 Shennecossett Road, Groton CT , or me at peg,vanpatten@uconn.edu. Peg Van Patten

2 Dr. Jennifer Mattei and research assistant Christine DePierro tag crabs at Milford Point. Keating Associates 2

3 The Horseshoe Crab Conundrum: Can we Harvest and Conserve? Jennifer H. Mattei & Mark A. Beekey Most everyone reading this article should thank a horseshoe crab for their good health! --Not many people think of horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) while at the doctor s office but they should! These remarkable living fossils have unique blood cells (amebocytes) that are used to test human vaccines for bacterial contamination. In the 1950 s, scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, not only discovered amebocytes but also found that they had special properties. If the amebocytes came into contact with bacteria, they would instantly coagulate around the bacteria and attack it. The Woods Hole scientists took this unique property of horseshoe crabs and developed a test for bacterial contamination using a horseshoe crab blood derivative called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL). Today, federal law requires any medical device or product that will be inserted or injected into a human body be tested for bacterial contamination using Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL). For example, each year pharmaceutical companies produce new Flu vaccines and test them for bacterial contamination with LAL. If a batch is found to be contaminated, then it is thrown out. This test ensures that those people receiving their annual flu vaccine do not become ill from a tainted vaccine batch. This vial contains a freeze dried sample of Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (LAL) which is extracted and purified from horseshoe crab blood and sold around the world to test vaccines for bacterial contamination. M. Beekey Even the family dog is protected by horseshoe crab blood, as the LAL test is also required for veterinary practices, to avoid contaminated rabies vaccines. Remarkably, NASA has taken horseshoe crab blood into outer space to help keep our astronauts healthy. If an astronaut comes down with a sore throat they can swab their throat and use their LAL test kit to see if it is a bacterial or viral infection. A positive test result informs the astronaut to take antibiotics. Further research is currently being conducted on the unique properties of horseshoe crab blood. There exists a real possibility of finding anti-cancer products that could benefit human health in the future. Economic importance Horseshoe crabs are worth millions of dollars and not just for their exceptionally useful blood products. Commercial fishermen that harvest eel (Anguilla rostrata) and whelk (Busycon spp.), which are mainly exported and sold in Asian markets, utilize millions of horseshoe crabs annually for bait. In fact, no other bait works as well for attracting eel and whelks to the traps. The fishermen in Delaware have been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help reduce the harvest. Instead of using a whole horseshoe crab, the bait is quartered and placed in a special mesh bag allowing one horseshoe crab to be utilized where four or more were used in the past. Researchers at the University of Delaware and the Delaware Biological Institute discovered that one attractant for eel and whelk was actually a protein present in horseshoe crab eggs. These researchers are now trying to develop an artificial protein that can be manufactured and placed in artificial bait with the hope of reducing the harvest of horseshoe crabs. The ecological importance of horseshoe crabs in their natural habitat is undervalued. Horseshoe crabs are now considered to be a keystone species because of the tremendous numbers of shorebirds, fish, and invertebrates that rely on their eggs for nutrition. Millions of horseshoe crabs spawn on the shores of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia usually starting in mid-may through June. At least 3

4 R. Howard Green eggs in sand: Horseshoe crab eggs can be found at about 2.3 to 4 inches (6-10 cm) below the surface of the sand. These eggs are from Sandy Point, New Haven Harbor. R. Howard eleven species of shorebirds time their northward migration to this spawning event. Increasing levels of attention has been paid to one particular shorebird, the red knot (Calidris canutus), because as the horseshoe crab population began to decline so did the numbers of red knots. Red knots feed on horseshoe crab eggs to fuel their journey to Canada where the birds breed. If the red knots do not acquire enough eggs during their two-week stay in Delaware Bay they may not survive their journey to the Arctic. Horseshoe crabs are intricately linked to many species within the continental shelf. Limulus eggs and larvae are undoubtedly food sources for many species of fish and invertebrates that are a part of the benthic intertidal community. In addition, many One-week old Limulus larva invertebrate and algal species call the horseshoe crab shell their home! The horseshoe crab shell is habitat for more than 20 species of encrusting or sessile marine organisms and is host to a unique flatworm parasite (Bdelloura candida). This Limulus leech exists commensally on the outside of the shell; however it may weaken its host by laying hundreds of eggs in its gills. Adult horseshoe crabs have very few predators although some have been found in the stomachs of large sharks and loggerhead sea turtles; its unique body shape and hard shell prevent most predators from eating the adults. The American Horseshoe Crab Limulus polyphemus is an extraordinary animal only found along the coast of North America from southern Maine to Florida with a few populations along the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. With 10 eyes distributed 4 M. Beekey More than 16,000 horseshoe crabs in Long Island Sound are tagged with a small yellow cinch tag. This year new disc tags provided by the U.S. Fish and wildlife service are being used. Please report the unique tag number and location if you spot one. Call the number on the tag or info@projectlimulus.org across its back, belly, and telson (tail), and teeth-like spines on its knees with its mouth located between its legs, one wonders what on earth this creature could be related too? Its closest living relatives are spiders and scorpions, not crabs. We accompanied a group of students from Columbus School (Bridgeport) to Milford Point so that they could learn about these strange creatures. One boy yelled out with authority, Watch out the tail will sting you! Another student shouted, That tail is a sword, it will cut you! The students soon learned that the horseshoe crabs telson is completely harmless. Limulus is one of the most benign creatures in the ocean. It harbors no malice towards the people it shares the beach with in the summer. It cannot even pinch very hard. The horseshoe crab needs its telson to survive. It is used as a lever to help right itself when flipped upside down by waves on the beach. To help make the point, a conservation campaign in Delaware Bay called, Just Flip em asks beach goers to right upside down horseshoe crabs on the beach to help them get back to the sea after they spawn. So what is the horseshoe crab conundrum? Horseshoe crab populations are seemingly in decline throughout much of their range. This decline may have gone unnoticed except for the concurrent decline of specific shorebird populations. Seemingly is not a very precise word for a scientist to use, but we still know very

5 R. Howard Sonar tags allow researchers to follow horseshoe crabs around Long Island Sound,. Each tag produces a unique pattern of pings that allow Project Limulus researchers to identify individual animals. little about how many there are or what they need to survive let alone how tightly linked others species are that rely on horseshoe crabs for their own survival. This is especially true for Long Island Sound. In fact, the only published study on horseshoe crab population ecology in Long Island Sound was conducted in 1957 in Cold Spring Harbor. Our conundrum is that if we don t understand the ecology of horseshoe crabs in Long Island Sound, then how can we effectively manage them in order to keep horseshoe crabs abundant, for all of their uses? If we can t guarantee their future survival, then what will happen to the shorebirds, fish, invertebrates and the millions of people that depend on them? The purpose of our now 6-year-old mark/recapture study is to understand more about the population ecology of the horseshoe crab and how it utilizes Long Island Sound for survival and reproduction. Some of what we have learned so far In Delaware Bay, where the horseshoe crab population densities are higher, clustered mating behaviors (i.e. polyandry) consisting of a female with two or more males were reported to be 44 percent when counted in On Connecticut beaches, polyandry was observed only 6 percent of the time. An abnormal behavior that has not been reported to occur in Delaware Bay was that on average, 30 percent of the females tagged on the beach were single. Also, about half of the males coming up on the beach were single. These observations lead us to believe that mating success is density dependent and as populations decline horseshoe crabs may have difficulty finding mates. Our research lends support for the Map of Long Island Sound depicting tagging sites (yellow points) and recapture locations (red dots). The yellow points on the map above represent our tagging sites through CTDEP s decision to close certain spawning beaches to harvest. However, monitoring of nest densities needs to take place in order to see if any positive effect on population density will result from these closures. The majority of our tagging takes place along the western Connecticut coast of Long Island Sound. Most of the tagging along the north shore of Long Island was conducted by trawl aboard the schooner SoundWaters. As of 2007, we have tagged over 16,000 crabs. Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, we have recaptured more than 1,300 crabs. Most of the recaptures (red dots) are in the western portion of LIS but we have had some long distance travelers one crab traveled from Brooklyn, NY all the way to Rhode Island! What we have learned so far from these tagging efforts is male horseshoe crabs stay longer around the same beach during spawning season while females tend to move among beaches laying multiple clutches of eggs. However, between seasons, both males and females rarely return to the same beach to spawn. This lack of fidelity to specific spawning beaches supports the establishment of multiple no harvest zones to protect prime spawning areas for horseshoe crabs. We have also found that the majority of crabs tagged in LIS stay in LIS. We have observed little movement of tagged horseshoe crabs outside of the Sound. Our findings support the notion of a closed population. We need to determine if the population is in decline or if it is recovering. This summer, with funding from Connecticut Sea Grant, we are exploring the ecology of species linked to the horseshoe crab spawning events in LIS. We will determine if shorebirds, fish, 5

6 J. Mattei Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 continued from previous page The majority of mating horseshoe crabs tagged in Long Island Sound occur in pairs, with the smaller male attached to the back of the female. crabs, or other predators feed on Limulus eggs and larvae as well as continue our mark/recapture efforts. We are only able to do this with the help of citizens from Connecticut and New York. Therefore connected with our study is a community based research and science literacy campaign entitled Project Limulus. We need your help for Project Limulus to succeed! Project Limulus is a long-term project that spans a large coastal area encompassing the Long Island Sound ecosystem. The project is a community based research effort that becomes more successful if more people volunteer to help. Students of all ages (from k-12 to senior citizens) may get involved with this study, all are welcome to participate. In order for our study of horseshoe crab abundance and distribution to be successful we need the help of every community member that lives near or likes to visit the beaches of LIS. Specifically, we need you to keep an eye out for horseshoe crabs with yellow plastic spaghetti tags or white discs (see pictures above) attached to their side. We need you to call or the unique number on each tag, what beach you found it on and if it was dead or alive. Investigations that bring scientists and students of all ages together result in a better understanding of the scientific process and appreciation of our natural resources. Obviously, not all research is amenable to community participation but some projects can benefit greatly by the data collected from young aspiring scientists, their teachers, and citizen scientists. The data you collect greatly benefits university researchers, undergraduates and k-12 participants, but 6 more importantly your contribution can help inspire the next generation of scientists. So what can you do? You may participate in Project Limulus at three levels: Beach Walkers: volunteers search for tagged horseshoe crabs that come up on the beaches and report the tag numbers found. Beach Census Takers: volunteers will be trained to count male and female horseshoe crabs in a defined area (sometimes these counts are at night). Beach Taggers: volunteers will be trained to tag and measure horseshoe crabs (both night and day tagging) The spawning period usually occurs from the second week of May to the end of June. Participants may go out as little or as often as they like however, beach census takers will require at least four trips to the beach. We hold information and training sessions in May and June, and will do so again in Exact places and times will be announced shortly on our website: (click on Training and Workshops). If you want more information or would like to volunteer, please send an to <info@projectlimulus.org>. Please include your name and contact information and we will be in touch! There are many resources available for additional information including a brand new Nature video about horseshoe crabs and shorebirds in Delaware: Here are several books: The American Horseshoe Crab by Carl Schuster Limulus in the Limelight: A Species 350 Million Years in the Making and in Peril? By John Tanacredi Excited young scientists participating in Project Limulus at Columbus School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. J. Mattei

7 continued from previous page K. Hjort School, The New York Aquarium, The Brooklyn Children s Museum, New York City Urban Park Rangers, New York State Park Rangers Long Island Region, Columbus School and Warren Harding High School of Bridgeport, and the Yale Peabody Museum. Support from Connecticut Sea Grant will begin this summer. The results of the present study will be shared freely with participating education programs in an effort to increase public awareness of this species and Long Island Sound ecology. With the information we gather, a sound conservation program may be implemented in Connecticut and New York to prevent the over-harvesting and local extinction of the horseshoe crab. Authors Jennifer Mattei and Mark Beekey look for horseshoe crabs during the Project Limulus monitoring. Please also check out the following web sites to get an idea of what becoming a member of Project Limulus is like: The horseshoe crab is part of an ancient line of species that have survived morphologically unchanged through the Big Five mass extinctions, including the mother of all mass extinctions at the end of the Permian, where some 95 percent of all ocean dwelling species went extinct. It would be a shame to allow horseshoe crabs to disappear after 400 million years of evolution and survival because of our abuse of the Sound and its shorelines. The only way we can safely harvest this species and increase population size is by gaining an understanding of its population dynamics. Please help us solve the horseshoe crab conundrum by volunteering for any level of participation that you can. Project Limulus has been supported by a grant from the Long Island Sound License Plate Program, managed by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Sacred Heart University and the NOAA Fisheries, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Milford Lab. It also has had funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Long Island Sound Study, Wildlife Trust, Unilever, and PSE&G. Other groups participating in this project include, The Maritime Aquarium, Connecticut Audubon, SoundWaters, The Nature Conservancy, Project Oceanology, National Audubon, The Sound School, Bridgeport Aquaculture About the Authors: Dr. Jennifer Mattei is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology and Dr. Mark Beekey is an Assistant Professor of Biology from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Sound facts Older than the dinosaurs The horseshoe crab really isn t a crab; it is more closely related to spiders. It has changed very little since 455 million years ago, during the Ordovician period of the Paleozoic Era. The horseshoe crab s five pairs of legs and its mouth are sheltered beneath its large, dome-shaped shell. Its long, spike-shaped tail isn t a weapon; it uses its tail to right itself if it gets tipped over. Its gills, underneath, are caled book gills because they are arranged like pages in a book. Females grow larger than males, with a shell diameter of a foot. The horseshoe crab feeds by plowing through sand on the sea bottom to find worms and small shellfish. The horseshoe crab must shed its shell as it grows, and the delicate shells are often found on beaches around the Sound. Source: Sierra Club Naturalist s Guide Milton Moore/The Day 7

8 When Joane Woodhall, a custodian at UConn, goes to the supermarket or reads the newspaper, like most people, she feels some confusion about whether or not to eat seafood during her pregnancy and which seafood to choose. All the stories I read in the newspaper make me wonder should I eat fish? she asked. She enjoys seafood and knows there are valuable health benefits from eating fish and other seafood dishes, and she doesn t want to miss out on them for herself or her developing baby boy. Joane did the right thing: I asked my doctor what to do about eating seafood, and what to do about mercury in fish she says. He told me what seafood is best to eat and how often. My husband helps too he knows a lot about fish and likes to go fishing, so he makes sure I get the right ones. 8 Mercury and the Ocean how often? farmed or wild? which ones? how much? Mercury and Me: Choosing the right seafood in light of concerns about mercury pollution in the ocean can be confusing to consumers, especially to those in the high risk categories, such as pregnant moms-to-be and small children. It s not easy, but we offer some help from a new UConn study. by Rob Mason Many people aren t as informed as Joane, however there are still people who haven t heard the consumer health advisories on certain fish that should be avoided, or haven t heard about the health benefits of seafood, or don t understand what conditions pertain to consumption. These days, we are continually confronted by questions about food safety that affect our health or could expose us to potentially harmful substances. Mercury is one of the most recognized toxins because of the constant stream of discussions and warnings in the popular press about the contamination of fish and potential impacts on health, such as a recent controversial New York Times story about mercury levels in sushi served in New York restaurants. Baffling or contradictory news report make it difficult to obtain a well informed perspective. Some confusion results from the fact that mercury is found in many forms, with different toxicities, and in many products. Elemental (liquid) mercury is found in some batteries, thermometers and fluorescent light bulbs. The other major inorganic form is ionic mercury, which is mercury in a charged state. Ionic mercury is found in the environment mostly in trace amounts, but is also concentrated in some coal, other petroleum products and some minerals and ores. The organic compounds of mercury include methylmercury (MeHg), one of most toxic forms and the major form of mercury in seafood and other fish. Other organic mercury compounds have been used as antiseptics (e.g. methiolate) and as preservatives in vaccines and other medical products, but have been mostly discontinued. Overall, MeHg is about a thousand more times toxic than the inorganic forms of mercury. This article therefore focuses on MeHg and provides information on MeHg exposure from marine fish and shellfish, which account for the majority of seafood products consumed by the U.S. population. This discussion represents my personal viewpoint as a marine scientist, informed by my own research and reading of the

9 continued from previous page scientific and health literature, and from my discussions with other scientists and policy experts at the regional, national and international levels. We know that eating fish has many health benefits. Fish are high in protein, relatively low in fat and some species are also very high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which are known to have a number of beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. Thus, the primary question that faces the public is: Are the benefits of eating fish worth the risks of being exposed to elevated levels of MeHg and other contaminants? MeHg is a neurotoxin that is known to cause longterm developmental disorders for children exposed during pregnancy; there are similar reproductive effects for wildlife exposed at elevated levels. It should be noted that some research shows increased risks of heart attacks in adult men with high levels of MeHg exposure. Because these results have not been sufficiently reproduced in other studies, such data are not accounted for in current fish consumption advisories. For humans, consumption of fish with elevated MeHg is the primary source of exposure, and therefore the U.S. federal government and states and many other countries, have issued advisories that recommend restricted fish consumption. These advisories are often, but not always, aimed at pregnant women, or those that may soon become pregnant, and children because of the potentially deleterious impacts of MeHg on the developing fetus and young child, especially on their neurocognitive development. National standards for safe levels of MeHg intake are based on epidemiological studies that have monitored children for up to ten years after their exposure to MeHg during pregnancy. Most governments rely on the results from three main studies of fish-consuming populations in the Faroe Islands, the Seychelles and in New Zealand. Because the results of these studies show significant variability in responses of individuals to MeHg exposure, resulting safe levels of MeHg consumption vary among government agencies. It is standard practice, when deriving public health safety recommendations, to apply a safety factor in converting values for the lowest level of observed effect into a consumption advisory for individuals. The U.S. E.P.A.. has applied a safety factor of ten, based on the recommendation from a National Academies Panel, in calculating the resulting safe reference dose for MeHg. The values vary with an individual s body weight; for example, for a 130-pound woman, one meal of eight ounces (uncooked) per week of fish with 0.3 parts per million (ppm) MeHg results in a MeHg intake at the reference dose level. The most recent U.S. F.D.A./E.P.A. Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 The author, Rob Mason, samples sediments aboard ship in the Gulf of Mexico. He is measuring how quickly inorganic mercury converts to methylmercury (MeHg). advisory specifically suggests that pregnant women avoid consuming shark, swordfish, tilefish, and king mackerel, which all are high in MeHg (see chart on next page) and suggests the consumption of two meals a week of species that have moderate levels of MeHg, such as canned tuna. Species that are low in mercury, such as shrimp, salmon, and pollock, and catfish can be consumed in greater quantities. Standard models that relate the amount of fish consumed to an expected health impact assume that the MeHg is effectively retained within the human body. The half-life (i.e. the time taken for a body s MeHg burden to be reduced by half) is about 70 days, so, when you cease eating MeHg-containing fish, your body can slowly eliminate it. So, what are our body s mechanisms for dealing with MeHg? There is evidence that marine mammals and some birds that have an exclusive fish diet can reduce their burden by converting MeHg into a less toxic inorganic mercury form that is either quickly eliminated or bound up in a non-toxic way in association with selenium in their livers. Preliminary research has also suggested that some human populations may have some adaptation and are therefore could be less affected by high levels of MeHg exposure. The potential link between MeHg effects and selenium has also prompted recent studies but few conclusive answers. Given this background, the question remains: Should one eat fish? In answering this question some complications need to be addressed. As shown in the chart, fish and shellfish can have very different levels of MeHg and these levels can be ten times more or less than the advisory value (0.3 ppm). Freshwater fish tend to have higher 9 UConn Marine Sciences

10 continued from previous page concentrations for similar species than marine fish. Shellfish (mussels, oysters, shrimp) and open ocean pelagic fish that are not carnivorous (e.g. flounder, haddock) tend to have low MeHg concentrations. Oily fish (sardine, anchovy) and benthic feeders (e.g. catfish) also have relatively low MeHg concentrations (see chart below). Farmed fish appear to have lower concentrations than wild fish, but clearly this depends on the specific fish farming practices, which vary widely globally. Fish from a contaminated location probably have higher MeHg concentrations although there are other factors that can decrease fish accumulation of MeHg. Unlike organic contaminants which concentrate in fatty tissues, MeHg is associated with protein and therefore has its highest concentration in the filet (muscle tissue). Given these generalities, it is entirely possible to consume fish and shellfish that are low in MeHg and high in Omega-3 fatty acids without substantial risk, if one is careful and knowledgeable about the MeHg levels in the fish and seafood consumed, which is related to their origin. A partial listing of preferred fish is given in the chart below, and the listing takes into account various factors MeHg concentration, Omega-3 fatty acid content and other factors. For example, many fish high in MeHg (e.g. bluefin tuna, swordfish, shark) are over-exploited and/or endangered species and therefore there are both ecological and health reasons for not eating them. The current increased consumption of sushi has lead to a dramatic decrease in ocean bluefin tuna populations and if consumption is to continue at current levels, these fish will need to be farmed in the future, which raises other ecological concerns. Based on my analysis, tuna is the most consumed type of fish in the U..S. (a quarter of total fish consumed) with shrimp, pollock, salmon and cod accounting for about 70% of the other seafood says Elsie Sunderland, a researcher at the E.P.A. This appears to be why tuna is the brunt of most press reports. However, aggregating all tuna into one category is misleading as levels of MeHg in tuna vary by more than a factor of five. Canned tuna - light, which is mostly skipjack and yellowfin, and white (albacore) is relatively low in MeHg (~0.2 ppm), although albacore, being a larger, older fish when harvested, has higher concentrations. Bluefin tuna, the most desirable fish for sashimi and sushi, can have much higher MeHg levels (above 1 part per million) but usually does not because their harvest size has been reduced by overfishing. Concentration differences reflect the fact that fish MeHg levels increase The chart below, from Rob Masonʼs research, shows a vertical scale of mercury levels with a horizontal scale of Omega-3 fatty acids. If you want to minimize mercury levels and maximize Omega-3 fatty acids, match up the boxes. 10

11 continued from previous page Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 Wrack Lines Top Ten Picks for a Healthy Dinner Generally, the seafood choices shown above would be wise for diners who want to balance low to medium levels of mercury with medium to high levels of beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids, according to the Mason study results. There are plenty of other good choices for low mercury levels alone, or for high Omega-3 levels alone. These have a good combination. with age, and depends on what the fish eats. The light tuna usually canned are fast-growing and relatively small when harvested, while bluefin are large fish, typically above 100 pounds, that roam widely and are long-lived. In addition, we see that fish from different ocean waters have different MeHg concentrations. For example, bluefin and albacore tuna from the Mediterranean Sea have much higher concentrations than those from the North Atlantic, and fish from the Pacific and Southern Hemisphere are lower still. While different species may inhabit different oceans, these differences also reflect two other factors: 1) differences in rate of the historic inputs of mercury into the different oceans from human related activities, and 2) differences in the formation rate of MeHg in these ocean waters. The Mediterranean, for example, has a relatively high MeHg concentration. The research of my group and others are focused on understanding these differences. Research and model calculations indicate that human activity has increased the amount of mercury in the biosphere by at least a factor of three. The relative increase varies across the U.S.A, and is a function of the proximity to the anthropogenic sources, which include coal burning facilities, medical and municipal waste incinerators, and other industrial and metal extraction activities. Levels of mercury in precipitation show that there is a gradient of impact with the eastern U.S.A. being more impacted than the west. This reflects the metrological conditions (the jet stream flows west to east) and the predominance of mercury sources within the midwest and Ohio valley. Thus, the eastern seaboard is receiving mercury emitted to the atmosphere upwind. Emissions of mercury to the atmosphere are in the two inorganic forms ionic mercury, which is deposited relatively close to its source, within a few hundred miles, and elemental mercury, which travels as a gas globally prior to being deposited, after conversion to ionic mercury, by wet (i.e. in rain, snow, dew) and dry (i.e. in dust, particles and gas) deposition processes. The elemental mercury is converted into ionic mercury in the atmosphere by a variety of chemical processes and the conversion rates of the various processes differ, and thus the footprint of any emission source is a function of the composition of the 11

12 continued from previous page mercury emissions and the physical location of the source. Our current understanding of these atmospheric processes is limited by the lack of data and study, but computer modeling studies allow us to extrapolate from this data to make global assessments. Overall, freshwaters and estuarine environments are more impacted than coastal waters, and the remote ocean is the least impacted, relatively. For the ocean, most of the mercury is entering from direct atmospheric deposition (precipitation), and not from mercury inputs from rivers and terrestrial sources. It should also be pointed out that ocean waters contained some mercury prior to human disturbance and therefore ocean fish have always likely contained some MeHg. Therefore, part of the ongoing debate is what fraction of the MeHg in ocean fish is natural and what fraction reflects the anthropogenic signal says Elsie Sunderland. Estimates of this range widely, from 10% to more than 50% anthropogenic, and this fraction differs for the different ocean basins. Globally, given the history of industrialization, the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea have been the most impacted but currently, because of the rapid development in China, India and other Asian countries, and the increasing controls over mercury emissions in North America and Europe, it is likely that the Pacific Ocean is where concentrations are currently increasing. This large ocean basin has a complex circulation, and the mixing of surface waters to depth tends to cause a lag in the response time of the ocean to changes in the atmospheric mercury concentration and input. There is a lack of data but our recent analysis suggests there is little evidence that the North Pacific Ocean mercury concentration has changed substantially since pre-industrial times. Most of the modeling and measurement of Hg movement at the global scale is focused on ionic mercury, but obviously the main health concern is MeHg, and therefore there is a need to focus attention on the conversion process of ionic mercury into MeHg. Most of the mercury entering the ocean from all sources is ionic mercury and therefore most of the MeHg in ocean fish is formed by conversion of ionic mercury to MeHg within the ecosystem. But where and how? This is a very important question and a focus of our combined research groups here at Avery Point says Bill Fitzgerald, a professor in the UConn Department of Marine Sciences who has been working on Hg research for more than 30 years. We have been focusing our studies on Long Island Sound, while Rob s group has been working with others in the Chesapeake Bay adds Terill Hollweg, a UConn Ph.D. student in marine sciences, sub-samples from a box corer aboard ship in Chesapeake Bay. Hollweg is finding evidence that elemental mercury is readily transformed to methylmercury in environments with coastal shelf sediments, such as Long Island Sound, the Hudson River, or Chesapeake Bay. Fitzgerald. Most of the conversion of ionic mercury to MeHg is due to the activity of bacteria in low oxygen environments, and for ocean waters these occur either in the sediments, or in waters depleted of oxygen, such as the seasonally hypoxic zone of Long Island Sound, or the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, or in expansive low oxygen upper ocean waters ( meters). However, there is not a straightforward relationship between the amount of inorganic mercury present and its conversion to MeHg, as many other factors appear to alter the rate of conversion. Much of the recent study has focused on the coastal zone and there is now clear evidence that estuarine and shelf sediments, such as those of Long Island Sound, the Hudson River, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Bay of Fundy, and even the deeper shelf break sediments and the sediments of the Gulf of Mexico, are locations where ionic mercury is readily transformed to MeHg. Terill Hollweg, a UConn Ph.D. student in marine sciences, is one of a team studying mercury in my laboratory. Her research focuses on the Chesapeake Bay/shelf mercury study. We were amazed to find that the rate of formation of MeHg in the sediments of the shelf, and on the slope, in 600 meters of water, was as high, or higher, than in the Chesapeake Bay itself, says Terill, and it s likely that these environments are important in the ocean MeHg story. Other potential MeHg production regions include the low oxygen waters mentioned above, the deep ocean sediments. There is also the potential for hydrothermal UConn Marine Sciences 12

13 continued from previous page vents to be MeHg sources, but there is insufficient data to implicate the deep ocean sediments as important sources of MeHg to commercially important ocean fish, which mostly inhabit the surface ocean. One aspect of MeHg movement within the marine environment is how the MeHg is transported from its regions of formation to the locations of bioaccumulation into seafood. The transport of MeHg from sediments to the overlying waters can be estimated and this process is obviously important but there are other vectors for MeHg bioaccumulation into fish. It is not known to what extent MeHg produced in the coastal environment is physically transported by currents to offshore locations to accumulate in ocean fish, or how important the nearshore environment is as a food source for highly mobile open ocean fish species. Clearly, MeHg can be incorporated from sediments into bottom-dwelling organisms, which can then be consumed by fish, marine mammals and birds. Also, many fish species have life histories that involve migration and time in the nearshore environment, either seasonally or after an extended sojourn in ocean waters. The movement of MeHg in conjunction with such movement of fish (co-called biotransport of MeHg) has not been adequately quantified. Again, these are active areas of research and debate, and therefore it is difficult at the current time to make conclusive statements about the primary source of the MeHg in ocean fish. Understanding the sources would allow for better management of the MeHg in fish problem. While limiting mercury input is the most obvious approach, there could be other strategies to reduce fish MeHg burdens. Certainly, there are many unanswered questions about how and where MeHg is formed, and how it is transported and subsequently bioaccumulated into fish, and to what extent the levels of MeHg in ocean fish have changed over time. However, while scientists continue to search for these answers, and even given that human Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 activity has increased the amount of mercury in the biosphere, it is reassuring to know that it is possible to consume seafood high in Omega-3 fatty acids and low in MeHg, and to gain the benefits with little risk. It behooves us all to ask more questions about the sources of the fish we eat, and to request more oversight from regulators, and more monitoring of the seafood MeHg content. This information would reduce uncertainty and enhance the ability of the consumer to make rational choices about their consumption of seafood. Also, more detailed knowledge allows the consumer to be informed about the impact of their everyday activities, such as how to properly dispose of mercury-containing products and how to help reduce mercury use in everyday life. I eat seafood and ask were it comes from, although many times there is no answer. We should all be more proactive in demanding stricter control and regulation over the seafood and the other foods we eat. About the Author: Robert Mason (third from left) is a Professor in the University of Connecticut Marine Sciences Department. His lab group at Avery Point, shown above, studies the fate, transport, and transformation of trace metals. UConn Marine Sciences Find Out More! Some online resources: Connecticut Department of Health: or go to and click on F for fish advisories. EPA website: FDA website: American Heart Association: 13

14 The Milford Laboratory Oysters, Clams, Scallops, and Fish Too! a history of the National Marine Fisheries Service s Milford Laboratory s 80 years of service The U. S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries assigned Dr. H. F. Prytherch to Milford in 1928 to study Connecticut s oyster industry. Milford, centrally located on the North Shore of Long Island Sound near some of the state s most productive shellfish beds, has played an important role in the oyster industry. Prytherch conducted his research in a shed donated for this purpose on the grounds of the Connecticut Oyster Farm Co., which was located on the east side of Milford Harbor. When Prythrerch was reassigned to North Carolina, the State of Connecticut Shellfish Commission petitioned the Bureau of Fisheries for a replacement. In November 1931 Dr. Victor Loosanoff was assigned as a full time fishery biologist to Milford. He arrived in early 1932 and started work at the State Dock, located next to the Royden Oyster Co. on the west side of the harbor, using the state boat Shellfish during the summer months, and boats from various oyster companies in the winter. Yale University provided additional work space in the Osborn Zoological Laboratory. The early science conducted at the laboratory was concerned with the development of methods for the control of oyster predators and competitors such as the oyster drill, flatworms and the seastar. Loosanoff distributed information from these studies to the local oystermen through the Milford Laboratory Bulletins. Longterm studies on the timing and intensity of oyster settlement were of great value to the industry. Basic physiology and ecology of marine invertebrates as well as physical and chemical studies of Long Island Sound were also conducted. The interest in oysters naturally lead to studies of commercial bivalves, such as the hard shell clam, soft shell clam, surfclam, mussels, ocean quahog, and others. Studies of turbidity and feeding were conducted both in the field and in laboratory experiments. Methods to conduct laboratory spawning of bivalves were developed that gave rise to the aquaculture industry, and many of these methods are still used today. In 1935, a temporary structure was constructed on state property located near the State Dock. Although details are unclear, a shed from the Connecticut Oyster Co. property may have been floated across the harbor to this site. Loosanoff began the work of obtaining property from the State of Connecticut for a more permanent Original laboratory buildings, The main laboratory building and water tower are on the right; tidal and algae tanks are situated on the left (under roof). facility. In 1938, with the help of oyster industry representatives Charles Shang Wheeler and Howard Beach, the U. S. Congress provided approximately $65,000 for the building of a permanent laboratory, seawall, pier, and tidal tanks. This new facility was completed in 1940 including a residence for the Laboratory Director. Several small boats were acquired and work continued on commercial oyster boats. This new laboratory building, with approximately 4,800 square feet of floor space, included offices along with wet labs, a darkroom, and a small library. Seawater was provided to the wet labs by a gravity system which consisted pumping water from the harbor and storing it in an attic tank. A tidal tank was also located near the shore where water could be stored between high tides. An additional tank was also located at the end of the tidal tank for the production of algae required for oyster studies. During the 1940s research expanded to include pollutant effects on the oyster beds of Long Island Sound. Large scale studies to develop methods to prevent oyster predation were conducted on beds around Milford Harbor. Studies involving chemical and physical methods of predator control were developed. Ties to commercial industry continued to be strong. NMFS Milford Laboratory 14

15 continued from previous page Late 1950 brought the design and construction of a dedicated research vessel, the R/V Shang Wheeler. Commissioned in 1951 and named after the general manager of the Connecticut Oyster Farm Co., Charles Shang Wheeler, for his support of the Milford Laboratory throughout the years. The R/V Shang Wheeler was a copper clad wood hulled boat, 50 feet in length. Specifically built to conduct science on Long Island Sound, she included a laboratory, sleeping quarters, and galley. The vessel served the laboratory for many years before being retired from service in Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 NMFS Milford Laboratory James Hanks (left) discusses the new laboratory building with contractor, NMFS Milford Laboratory New laboratory building under construction, The brick building replaced wooden structures and provided improved laboratory space. A new Directorʼs residence is under construction on the left. The 1950s brought new methods for culturing pure microalgae for shellfish food. Marine algae isolated from Long Island Sound waters were cultured for feeding studies. A large collection of many species of these pure sterile cultures has been maintained over the years to create a working algae library. Algae from this collection can mixed and matched in research studies, such as determining how to maximize bivalve growth, or how to produce large quantities of high quality food to maintain stocks. Scientists from around the world have received samples from the collection for use in their studies. In 1962 Loosanoff was reassigned to the U. S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Laboratory at Tiburon, California, and Dr. James Hanks became the Milford Laboratory Director. During the 1960s the laboratory expanded beyond the capabilities of the existing buildings and a new facility was constructed. Finished in late 1967, the new building, providing more than 28,000 square feet of floor space, included more office space, laboratories, and a larger wet laboratory with dedicated hatchery rooms. Seawater was still provided by a gravity system but with increased flow rates and the addition of both heated and chilled seawater, either filtered or raw. The building also contains an improved library and a dedicated area for the storage of pure strains of algae and large-scale production of these strains for research projects. In 1970, part of the outdoor tank farm area was enclosed to provide additional space for year-round research. The 1970s brought an increased interest in the bay scallop. Field studies along the Connecticut shoreline and laboratory feeding studies increased the understanding of these creatures and their habitats. Starting in the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s studying pollutant effects in Long Island Sound was an area of interest. Research on metal and PCB contamination at locations in the Sound was conducted. Metal and PCB concentrations in various marine life was also measured. In 1985 Hanks resigned as the Laboratory Director to become the Aquaculture Liaison to the shellfish industry. Dr. Anthony Calabrese became the Laboratory Director. Several new additions to the site were added during , including a greenhouse designed for the larger production of algae required for the new bay scallop recirculating seawater nursery located in the tank farm. The scallop nursery was designed to be as automated and energy efficient as possible, with computer tracking of salinity and temperature and a feeding loop from the greenhouse to provide continuous algae for food. Starting in the 1970s and into the 1980s, culture of the lobster was explored and work on methods of rearing and feeding was conducted. Research on finfish 15

16 aquaculture also began, studying the blackfish (also called tautog). They succeeded in developing the ability to spawn and raise finfish in closed and semi-closed seawater systems. Methods for maximizing growth and production of these animals have great implications for the aquaculture industry. In late 2001, the R/V Shang Wheeler was retired from service and replaced with a former Coast Guard buoy tender renamed the R/V Loosanoff. This new boat, approximately the same size as the retired vessel, is constructed with a steel hull and was modified to meet the requirements of the laboratories research. It provides laboratory space, sleeping quarters, and galley, and large deck space. The vessel is capable of conducting water and sediment sample collection, as well as collection of marine invertebrates and finfish for habitat studies. Recent work involves studies of various areas of the Connecticut coast that serve as spawning and nurseries for finfish and lobster. An extensive beach seining program to identify and quantify these areas has produced valuable results. Results from recent work on the use of probiotics in the shellfish hatchery and their possible impacts on production are very promising. Various outreach programs have provided many opportunities for scientists, teachers, and students to expand their knowledge of the marine environment by working with scientists from the Milford Laboratory. Dr. Calabrese retired in early 2004 with Mr. Ronald Goldberg named the Acting Laboratory Director. A new permanent Director, Dr. Christopher L. Brown, was named in May Once again in the laboratory s history, Brown is seeking to improve the current buildings located on the site and to provide new state-of-the-art research space to keep the laboratory at the cutting edge of marine science. About the Author: George Sennefelder is a research chemist and area safety representative at the National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, at the Milford Laboratory in Milford, Connecticut.His interest in photography has led him to maintain the labʼs historic photo archive, where he is in the process of digitizing the images. 16

17 Minding The 3 R s: Protecting Connecticut s Coastal Resources Through Response, Remediation, and Restoration Anthony Dvarskas Oil spills and releases of hazardous substances from waste sites can cause many negative and long-term impacts to coastal natural resources. When oil or hazardous substances are released into the environment, wildlife species, fisheries, and habitat may suffer harm, beaches may be closed, and navigation may be curtailed. Dealing with harmful effects from these releases is a challenging undertaking, but federal trustee agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are available to assist Connecticut residents. Trustees are stewards of the public s natural resources, designated by Congress and charged with protecting and restoring natural resources in the event of an oil spill or release of hazardous substances. NOAA is a trustee for coastal resources such as estuarine and anadromous fish and their habitats, including wetlands, mudflats, and coastal streams. NOAA s trustee authority directs us to work on behalf of the public to provide ecological and recreational compensation for the lost use of natural resources following a release of oil or other hazardous substances, explains Ken Finkelstein, an environmental scientist with NOAA. In Connecticut, NOAA s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP) tackles spills and waste sites with co-trustees including the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the U.S. Department of Interior. The trustees also coordinate their efforts with the public and responsible parties to ensure the protection and restoration of the injured natural resources. State and federal laws such as the Oil Pollution Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act require responsible parties to clean up the environment after a spill or release, and also to restore those natural resources and services that were injured. Response agencies like the U. S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency and state counterparts manage the cleanup. Natural resource continued next page 16 S. Gephard, CT DEP

18 continued from previous page trustees coordinate with the response agencies to ensure (1) protective cleanups that promote recovery of natural resources occur and (2) the appropriate amount and type of restoration is achieved to compensate the public for injuries to the natural resources and the services they provide. Public Losses from Oil Spills and Releases of Hazardous Substances When the coastal environment is impacted by oil spills or releases of hazardous materials, there are multiple components of the ecosystem that may be detrimentally affected. Fish, mammals, birds, shellfish, and other species, and their habitat may be harmed. Ecological services provided by various species and habitats may also decrease (or perhaps disappear entirely). Primary production, such as the plant material attributed to salt marshes may be largely eliminated during the initial period for heavily oiled coastal sites says Jim Turek, a restoration ecologist with the Restoration Center at NOAA. Ecological services are physical, biological, and geochemical processes performed by species and habitat that benefit the entire ecosystem. For example, a functioning salt marsh provides shoreline stabilization and water filtration services and may provide habitat for fish and birds. A spill or release could impact these services, leading to losses to the public of some or all of the benefits provided by the marsh from the date of the spill until the marsh returns to its pre-spill functioning. In addition to the ecological services provided by an ecosystem, coastal and marine environments provide the public with a variety of recreational services including beach use, swimming, boating, recreational fishing and shellfishing, and bird watching. The presence of oil or hazardous materials may prevent, deter, or alter public use and enjoyment of these recreational services. In the wake of a spill or release, issuance of public health and welfare advisories may prohibit or deter the public from using beaches, boating, and harvesting and/or eating fish and shellfish within impacted areas. Cleanup activities in an area may create a negative perception that leads the public to avoid participating in their usual recreational activities. If fish advisories prohibiting consumption are issued, those who fish for consumption are forced to choose other sites for fishing. Negative impacts on bird populations from a spill or release will diminish the benefits for those who are accustomed to visiting a given habitat to observe these species. All of these losses accrue from the date that an oil spill or hazardous material release occurs, forcing the public to alter their behavior, to the date that the ecosystem is restored to its original functioning. Addressing the Problem The Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process ensures that these damages to natural resources and services are assessed and that the public is fully compensated through the restoration of those injured resources and services to pre-damage conditions. The goal is quantifying ecological injury and the lost use of natural resources, including recreational losses, so that the public may be compensated fairly. This compensation takes the form of ecological and recreational restoration, Finkelstein says. The NRDA process begins with the Trustees working with the response and/or remedial agencies to determine the most effective cleanup plan. The Trustees then undertake a preliminary assessment of potential damages to natural resources and determine whether restoration will be necessary. Natural resources include biota and their habitats, surface water and sediments, groundwater, uplands, and air. Activities undertaken during this initial assessment phase include collection and analysis of soil and water samples, evaluation of potential pathways for contamination to the natural resources, and a determination of those potentially responsible for the contamination. For example, this research would evaluate whether water quality and soil standards at the contamination or spill site met regulatory requirements as well as whether and to what extent the contaminant may have entered the ecosystem food chain. These data are used to determine if the spill or release potentially resulted in injury to the public s natural resources. If the trustees determine that natural resources have been injured by a spill or release, they evaluate the availability of appropriate restoration alternatives and select preferred restoration projects to compensate the public. The public has an opportunity to provide feedback on the restoration plans. The Trustees ensure that those responsible either implement and fund the selected projects or conduct the projects with Trustee oversight and monitoring. While the Trustees often cooperatively assess natural resources damages and implement restoration projects with responsible parties, sometimes a cooperative settlement is not possible, and the Trustees pursue their damage claims in court. To determine the natural resource damages, NOAA and co-trustees use several tools. Chief among these is a 17

19 continued from previous page NOAA DARRP framework called a habitat equivalency analysis (HEA). The HEA is used to calculate the total number of acres of habitat that need to be provided to compensate the public for the damages to ecological services. For lost recreational services, surveys are often used to determine the monetary value that individuals place on recreational activities, such as fishing and swimming, within an impacted area. Values may also be transferred from studies conducted in similar areas to avoid the expense of survey administration. The use of these quantification methods results in a lost use value that assists in determining the appropriate compensation for the public. Locations of DARRP activities in Connecticut. Over the past 15 years, NOAA s DARRP program has worked cooperatively nationwide with state and federal agencies, tribes, industry, and communities to assure long-term protection of natural resources at over 500 waste sites. Settlements have generated more than $437 million for restoration to: restore, create, and preserve wetlands; create shellfish habitat such as oyster reefs; restore coral reefs and seagrass beds; acquire, restore, and preserve coastal bird habitats; and provide or augment public access to the shore and other recreational opportunities. Connecticut s Coastal Resources Connecticut has 253 miles of coastline along Long Island Sound, and significant portions of this coastal area are highly developed. New Haven, for example, is a prime port for petroleum and Long Island Sound has multiple fuel storage and transfer facilities, raising the potential for spills into the marine environment. In Connecticut, NOAA and its co-trustees have been 18 involved in the achievement of protective remedies at eight sites, and the restoration and/or protection of 60 acres of estuarine habitats and 11 acres of freshwater and terrestrial habitats. The Thames River and Housatonic River watershed areas have been particularly active locations because of the significant habitat value and, unfortunately, the high potential for contamination of these areas. The Thames River flows through Norwich and Southeastern Connecticut, entering Long Island Sound at New London and Groton. Historically, the River was an important habitat for a salmon run, with eggs laid in the upper tributaries of the river. The Housatonic River originates in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, flows through Western Connecticut and enters Long Island Sound at the Stratford/Milford town line. Below are several examples of projects that NOAA and co-trustees have worked on in these watersheds. Southeastern Connecticut: RTC 380 Oil Spill In December of 1992, the barge RTC 380 ran aground east of the entrance to the Thames River near Avery Point, spilling approximately 22,000 gallons of diesel fuel into Long Island Sound. Diesel causes acute toxicity in animals that live in the intertidal zone. Damages occurred to migratory waterfowl, shellfish beds, and other fishery resources, and $100,000 was secured by NOAA and the Connecticut DEP in settlement funds to address restoration of injured natural resources in Connecticut resulting from the spill. Through the use of these settlement funds, two fishway projects, one in Waterford and one in Groton, were completed to provide unimpeded migratory passage by adult river herring and other migratory fish to access upstream freshwater habitats. Anadromous fish spend their adult lives predominately in the marine environment but migrate up streams and rivers to spawn. The damming of streams and rivers prevents anadromous fish from accessing upstream spawning and nursery habitats to complete their life cycle. In Waterford, the restoration project at Jordan Brook involved the design, permitting and installation of an 85-foot long Alaskan steep pass structural fishway. The new fishway allows adult river herring migrating from Long Island Sound to swim through the fishway, passing over an 8-foot-high dam, and access the upstream habitat. This restoration site is located within a public park, providing a unique opportunity for public access and educational opportunities. The local community and

20 NOAA DARRP continued from previous page Fish Ladder at Jordan Mill Pond, Waterford, Connecticut, created using settlement funds from the RTC 380 oil spill. other visitors to the site can learn about the history of the dam and mill and the life cycle of river herring. Seeing springtime herring runs is an event that most people never forget. "In our efforts to control the incremental impacts of upland development, we sometimes lose sight of the severity of major spills and their potential for catastrophic habitat and fisheries impacts, says Tom Wagner, Planning Director for the town of Waterford, who managed the fish ladder project for the town. Projects such as the fish ladder at Jordan Mill Pond provide us with the opportunity to educate the public about the DARRP as well as the connection between chronic and catastrophic threats. The building of the fish passage facilitates a return to a more diverse ecosystem. Fish are already using the ladder, he adds. In Groton, the trustees used settlement funds to improve an existing, partially functioning fishway on Whitford Brook. Monitoring by the Connecticut DEP indicates that river herring and sea run brown trout are successfully passing through the improved fishway and spawning in the upstream habitat. New London Submarine Base Along the Thames River, the New London Submarine Base in Groton is also an area where DARRP is assisting the Navy in its assessment of this site. Evaluation of potential contamination in the Thames River is currently underway. Housatonic River GE Superfund Site As a habitat for estuarine and anadromous fish and Wrack Lines 8:1 Spring/Summer 2008 other estuarine organisms, the Housatonic River estuary in the Western part of the state is another area of interest. In addition to its ecological values, the river provides a range of recreational uses including recreational fishing, boating, and swimming. NOAA participated in preliminary NRDA activities related to releases of hazardous substances from the General Electric (GE) facility in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were released into the Housatonic River from the GE plant between 1932 and This resulted in closure of approximately 140 river miles to fishing for consumption between Dalton, Massachusetts and the Derby Dam in Connecticut, approximately 12 miles north of Long Island Sound. Under the terms of the natural resource damages settlement with GE, the company agreed to pay $15 million to the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The $15 million has been divided between Massachusetts and Connecticut so that roughly half will be spent on restoration projects in each state. The Connecticut Trustee SubCouncil, charged with overseeing restoration planning in Connecticut, is preparing a response to written and verbal comments received through the public review process and expects to have a plan for restoration in place by late Lordship Point NOAA has participated in the remediation of a former Remington Gun Club site that is located at Lordship Point in Stratford. Lordship Point is a peninsula at the mouth of the Housatonic River estuary, and the Gun Club site was a firing range where lead shot was used and entered the environment from the 1920s to Lordship Point, a peninsula at the mouth of the Housatonic River estuary, had a firing range for a gun club where lead shot was used and entered the environment from the 1920s to This photo shows the cleanup of contaminated sediments underway. NOAA DARRP 19

21 continued from previous page Lead concentrations in shallow subtidal waters were as much as 12 percent of the sediment volume prior to sediment remediation. Lead is a highly toxic heavy metal that can negatively impact fish populations and bioaccumulate in the tissues of organisms, leading to negative human health impacts in both children and adults. A negotiated settlement for restoration was successfully secured in Connecticut DEP, in consultation with NOAA, negotiated a settlement resulting in the removal of lead shot in from the intertidal and subtidal environments in 2000 and 2001 along with restoration of small wetlands impacted during the remediation process. A total of 71,000 cubic yards of soil/sediment was removed and monitoring of the environment is ongoing. The responsible parties also agreed to conserve the 30-acre property, create an 8-acre coastal grassland, and provide $250,000 for additional wetland restoration. NOAA and its co-trustees are considering restoring The Great Meadows Management Unit, an impacted salt marsh in the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge, with the wetland restoration funds. NOAA s DARRP has also been active at the Raymark Superfund Site located near the Housatonic River estuary. Contaminants identified during an ecological risk assessment at Ferry Creek and the Housatonic River in 1996 included PAHs, PCBs, and dioxin. The settlement with the responsible parties provides approximately $400,000 for restoration. Development of the restoration plan is ongoing, but may include salt marsh and intertidal flat restoration in the lower Housatonic River. Through these specific projects, NOAA and its cotrustees continue to serve a vital role in the protection and restoration of natural resources in Connecticut. For more information on NOAA s DARRP program and updates on these projects in Connecticut and in other areas of the United States, go to the DARRP web site, or contact Ken Finkelstein by , Ken.Finkelstein@noaa.gov. About the Author: Anthony Dvarskas is a natural resources economist with the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program of NOAA in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is involved in the evaluation of the economics associated with natural resources injured by oil spills or releases of hazardous materials. 20

22 In Memoriam Doug Tolderlund, Dr. Doug Tolderlund In January, Doug Tolderlund, 69, of Old Lyme, passed away peacefully at home. He was a dedicated friend of the ocean as well as to those who work, play, or travel upon it. We at Sea Grant knew Doug through his affiliation with the Coast Guard Academy, and he served on our Senior Advisory Board for several years. In the 1960s, when Doug had a commission in the U.S. Navy, he made cruises on several vessels to the western Pacific and to the Barents Sea, above Norway. He earned his doctorate in Oceanography from Columbia University and did his dissertation at Lamont Observatory. After a brief stint in 1969 with Raytheon, analyzing the impact of a nuclear power plant on the Hudson River, Tolderlund joined the faculty of the Coast Guard Academy, and was head of the Science Department for eight years. His dream career as a civilian professor with the U.S. Coast Guard Academy lasted 29 years. He taught Marine Fisheries, Marine Geology, Marine Pollution, and Polar Oceanography. He traversed the Northwest passage on the Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea and traveled to the South Pole on the icebreaker Polar Star, where he landed on Shackleton Glacier. Tolderlund retired with professor emeritus status in A Celebration of Life honoring Tolderlund was held at the Academy s Memorial Chapel in February. His spouse and family suggest that donations in Doug s name may be made to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association, designated for the Marine Science Endowment. Thanks to Ed Monahan for contributing this information. 22

23 Seal Appeal Peg Van Patten There are many ways to watch seals in Long Island Sound, some of which are constrained to winter and some not seasonally restricted at all. If you d like to observe these amazing animals you can visit either The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, which has up-close and personal harbor seal feeding observations three times a day, or the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, where outdoor seals of many sorts, as well as sea lions, abound. Couch potatoes or those trying to save on fuel can see Scott Tucker s Expedition New England seal watch episode #43 from home (see Tucker shows a birds-eye view of more than 60 seals in the Sound. But if you want to see them first hand in nature, you might take one of Project Oceanology s seal watches in late winter, as my family did in March. How do you recognize a seal when you see one? This was a question faced by the passengers aboard Project Oceanology s seal watch cruise on a blustery day in March. If you re a seal, you scooch along like an inchworm, explained Megan Barker, one of the educators preparing the assorted eager passengers for the experience. Harbor seals have a squishy face with puppy eyes, she said. What do they like to eat? asked a youngster. They eat fish and crustaceans, answered Ian Morrison, a second Project O educator, they have powerful jaws, like a Rottweiler. Ian and Meghan further informed the group that seals can dive as deep as 1000 feet, propelling themselves with their tails and steering with their front flippers, moving at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. The clumps we spotted at Fishers Island, however, didn t seem so ambitious. As you see in the photo, they were mostly hauled out on the rocks, soaking up sun, looking like 5-foot-long, 200-pound, gray bananas. We couldn t get too close; the harbor seals like their privacy and there are laws in place that you can t get closer than 200 yards by boat, or 100 yards on shore. Luckily we had binoculars to accompany our healthy curiosity. Despite the big, liquid, sentient eyes that have all the appealing pathos of the boot-clad cat in the Shrek movie, it s their keen senses of smell and hearing that helps seals catch their prey, the passengers learned, rather than their vision and yet they have no external ear flap. Seal skulls are shaped to channel underwater soundwaves to the brain. Their whiskers, sense subtle motion in the water, such as fish swimming. That s not to say their vision is poor it s actually quite good in low light situations such as murky water. Now and then the face of a swimming pinniped would pop up from the water during the cruise, but you had to be vigilant to spot these emergings before they moved on. As each group contemplated the world of the other, most of the chilly seal watch passengers bundled in thick parkas, hats, and mittens aboard the Envirolab II had to envy the seals the padding of blubber beneath their skins. These seals are used to the cold; they come from further north and are winter visitors to Long Island Sound. They tend to show up around Halloween and stay until The appeal of seals: squishy faces with puppy April or May, with pregnant females giving birth from April to June. The secret of eyes. This one is a harp their amazing deep-diving abilities, said Meghan, is the way their bloodstream grabs seal. onto oxygen and holds it. They can stay underwater for minutes. Next time you get the blahs, consider peeping at the pinnipeds. They may be shy, but never critical! Mystic Aquarium & IFE P. Van Patten