From “The State of the Sound – Scientists’ study aims at improving water quality” in The Village Times by Linda Rea on August 4, 1988
When the research vessel Onrust sets sail out of Port Jefferson Harbor, it journeys into a body of water that has been designated “an estuary of national significance.” That title may be a dubious distinction for Long Island Sound.
According to a National Estuary Program (NEP) established as an amendment to the federal Clean Water Act, such designation also carries with it the identifying factor of being “threatened by pollution, development or erosion.”
What the designation also means, however, is that the Sound has been given priority consideration, along with seven other estuaries across the nation for research studies. The goal of the program is a management plan aimed improving the water quality of the Sound.
So far EPA has also designated Puget Sound, Narragansett Bay, Buzzards Bay, San Francisco Bay, and Pamlico-AIbemarIe Sound as “estuaries of national significance” .
The Long Island Sound Study (LISS) is conducted jointly by the New York Sea Grant Institute and Connecticut Sea Grant. Further input on the study comes from federal and state agencies, universities, and
citizens’ groups.
Melissa Beristain of Stony Brook was recently appointed Public Participation and Information Extension Specialist for the LISS.
The study actually began in 1985, Beristain pointed out, but establishment of the NEP in February of 1987 has meant increased research activity. She terms the ultimate goal “to clean up and restore the integrity of the Sound.”
Research is geared toward an understanding of the state of the Sound. The focus is on toxic contamination, low dissolved oxygen conditions known as hypoxia and the effects of those conditions on the Sound’s marine resources.
Researchers from SUNY Stony Brook and the University of Connecticut have been collecting data since April and will continue through October of this year.
The study, administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency, is projected to run through 1991. By 1990, two computerized models describing water quality and water circulation are scheduled to be completed. Based on the models and the research, recommendations for a management plan will be made.
According to Beristain, six stations are monitored every week, fourteen every two weeks. All together, 36 stations throughout the Sound are due to be monitored.
Two kinds of tests are being conducted, one charting currents and circulation patterns in water layers and tides, the other testing water samples to determine nutrient and algae levels.
The major concerns of the study are the presence of toxic contamination and a low dissolved oxygen condition called hypoxia. Both pose a threat to the health of fish and shellfish in the Sound.
Researchers believe that the more than one billion gallons of treated sewage effluent entering the Sound on a daily basis is a major contribution to hypoxia.
The bottom line, according to Beristain, is “Is the Sound in trouble? Is the Sound clean or not?”
