SEDIMENT TOXICITY IN THE HUDSON-RARITAN ESTUARY - DISTRIBUTION AND CORRELATIONS WITH CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION

The Hudson-Raritan Estuary is one of several United States coastal are as where chemical data have suggested a potential for contaminant-rela ted biological effects, and multiyear intensive bioeffects surveys hav e been conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administratio n. The severity and spatial patterns in sediment toxicity were determi ned in an estuary-wide survey during spring 1991 using amphipods, biva lve larvae, and luminescent bacteria as test organisms. Spatial patter ns in toxicity corresponded to the distributions of a number of toxic chemicals in the sediments. Areas that exhibited the greatest sediment toxicity included the upper East River, Arthur Kill, Newark Bay, and Sandy Hook Bay. The lower Hudson River adjacent to Manhattan Island, u pper New York Harbor, lower New York Harbor off Staten Island, and par ts of western Raritan Bay generally showed lower toxicity. Supporting chemical analyses of the sediments, including acid-volatile sulfide an d simultaneously-extracted metals, suggested that metals were generall y not the cause of the observed toxicity, with the possible exception of mercury. Among all contaminants analyzed, toxicity was most strongl y associated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which were substa ntially more concentrated in toxic samples than in nontoxic samples, a nd which frequently exceeded sediment quality criteria.