NOAA MESA Crew Monitors Fifteen Thousand Square Miles of Trouble

Photo above: Cdr. R. L. Swanson, NOAA, Manager of the New York Bight MESA Project, frowns as he contemplates collection of the beach litter that washed up on Long Island shores in late June plastic items, grease balls, oil-soaked driftwood, and unidenrifiable blobs.

From Fifteen Thousand Square Miles of Trouble by Roland Paine in the NOAA Magazine, October 1976

There were no dog days in the summer of 1976 for Larry Swanson and the staff of the MESA New Bight Project. Instead, it was a time of anxious calls from local health officials, of lengthy inspections of fouled beaches, of urgent chemical analyses of recreational waters, of hastily-called meetings among scientists and public officials, and of hours and days spent with news media, explaining what was known and trying to lay the groundwork for what might follow. Through all of this, the regular research and operational programs continued at their planned pace.

That the project staff was so busy was in part its own doing. For in the three years that the project has operated, Cdr. R. Lawrence Swanson, NOAA, Manager of the MESA New York Bight Project-to give him his full identification and his scientific and operational crew have earned a reputation for accuracy, candor, and prompt response. The project scientists are trying to determine the fate of pollutants in the New York bight and their effect on the ecosystem, as well as the important physical and biological processes taking place there. So whenever there appears to be an emergency in the waters that wash the shores of Long Island and New Jersey, officialdom and citizens alike call upon them for explanations and assistance. In the summer of 1976, it seemed to be one after another.

Early summer was a period of relative calm.

On June 14 the roof fell in, and dreams of the summer doldrums-if indeed there had been any-quickly died. On that day reports came in from all along Long Island’s shores, from even beyond Fire Island, from almost as far out as Montauk Point itself-reports of an appalling mess of trash found along the high tide line on the beaches. Plastic cups and straws, grease balls and tar lumps, hygienic items by the thousands, oil-soaked driftwood, and numberless unidentifiable lumps of rubbish littered the sands. Because tar and black “gunk” were apparent in much of the trash, the notion that the sewage sludge dumping was somehow involved came easily to the minds of many concerned citizens. Beaches were closed, and the telephones began to ring in the Old Biology Building at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, where the MESA New York Bight Project headquarters is located.

“We have spent almost full time on the beach litter problem since it was first reported,” said Swanson, a bit morosely perhaps, exactly one month later, July 14, when the project was also involved in its second and third emergencies of the season.

Emergency number two was a huge fish kill in early July off a 55 mile stretch of New Jersey ocean shore from Barnegat Inlet to Sandy Hook, an area described by the New York Times as “just south of the controversial sewage sludge dump site off New York Harbor. While the NMFS Sandy Hook Laboratory was most directly concerned, many inquiries went first to the MESA project office. Emergency number three was another wash-up of beach litter on July 7, this time including fireworks debris.

At the same time, the project was in the third day of a major and long-planned week-long experiment to track, by acoustic and other devices, sewage sludge particles from the moment they are dumped by one of New York City’s modern sewage sludge tanker vessels until the particles could no longer be detected. In addition, Swanson and members of his staff, plus the officers and on-board scientists of the NOAA ship George B. Kele, were conducting briefing sessions for Congressional staff members and a network television crew. And the project staff was preparing testimony for Congressional hearings to be held later in the month in the town of Hempstead on Long Island.

Swanson’s auditors at the briefing sessions had an opportunity to catch up on, and sort out the various emergencies of the period. They also learned of a current example of the quick response that has earned the project its good public service reputation. After mentioning the time spent on the beach litter problem, Swanson continued:

“We have even brought this problem into the current acoustic experiment. During part of the Kelez cruises we will tow a Neuston net to catch floatables the material that stays on the water’s surface rather than slowly sinking and dispersing in the water column. These results will be tied into the overall research plan of which the acoustic experiment is a major part. We know from previous experiments that floatables move with the wind, so we can correlate their movement with that of the less buoyant particles in the water. The composition of the float ables in the sludge will also tell us more precisely what correlation, if any, there might be between the sewage sludge dumps and some of the stuff that washed up on the beaches.”

The degree to which the project has had to concentrate on the sewage sludge problem-or, more broadly, the problem of ocean dumping in the New York Bight-was not anticipated at the beginning of the work in July, 1973. As stated in an early fact sheet on the program:

“The New York Bight, a 15,000-square-mile area of ocean waters and continental shelf off New York and New Jersey, is the subject of a comprehensive marine ecological investigation. The … investigation … includes the coastal waters from Montauk Point, Long Island, to Cape May, New Jersey, and is the first regional ecology project undertaken by NOAA’s Marine EcoSystems Analysis (MESA) Program.

“Objectives of the New York Bight Project are: to develop a better understanding of the physical, chemical, geological and biological processes of the Bight; to assess man’s impact on the system; and to improve predictions of the consequences of present and proposed actions.

“The first year’s efforts of the project are designed to examine in detail that portion of the Bight most heavily impacted by mankind. This area, designated as the Apex, includes the major ocean dumping sites …”

So, while the ultimate purposes of the research were to be practical and useful in application to critical areas of coastal management, much of the research was looked upon as basic in nature. Ocean dumping was included as a major area of emphasis for the first year, but it appeared in those carly days that this was an applied research or engineering problem that would not necessarily occupy a major share of attention.

The project established its headquarters at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, far out on Long Island but a center for the top-flight research talent that the project planners wanted to draw upon. An operations base was established at Floyd Bennett Field, an abandoned Naval Air Base in Brooklyn at the gateway to New York Harbor. On the other side of the harbor, the National Marine Fisheries Service laboratory at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, completed the triangle of NOAA installations around the Bight that would be heavily involved in the project. Sandy Hook would have a major role in the investigations of the living marine organisms of the Bight-a part of its regular assignment–and fundamental geological and physical oceanographic studies would be undertaken by the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories (AOML), based in Miami, Florida. Like MESA, AOML is a part of NOAA’s Environmental Research Laboratories. To lend additional academic assistance early on, the New York Sea Grant Institute, based at the State University of New York, was brought in along with many of the other institutions of higher educations in the area.

Project Manager Swanson-who like so many other NOAA Corps officers possesses special qualifications-brought to the work a rare blend of operational and academic credentials. Cdr. Swanson can also be called Dr. Swanson, for he holds a Ph.D. in physical oceanography from Oregon State University. (In 1975, he won the NOAA Award for program administration and management.) He gathered around him a staff of scientists and experts including two young NOAA Corps officers, both then lieutenants, geologist Nicholas Prahl and geological oceanographer Robert Roush, plus Charles Parker, a physical oceanographer. Dr. Joel S. O’Connor, biologist and ecologist, soon came aboard as did Harold M. Stanford, a chemical oceanographer. What at that time was looked upon as a broad-based marine ecological study with basic research orientation got under way.

In December, 1973, sewage sludge dumping was suddenly page one news throughout the New York metropolitan area. The spectre of a black ooze advancing on the beaches was thrust into public view. One scientist even announced that by the summer of 1976 “the beaches will be unusable because of contamination from the sludge beds.” Newspapers and electronic media around the country picked up the story. Also for the first time, the telephones at project headquarters signaled that newsmen and public officials and concerned citizens were demanding to know what NOAA thought about all this, and what NOAA proposed to do about it.

At the outset NOAA had no clearly defined role in the controversy. There are four ocean dump sites in the Apex of the Bight a few miles seaward of Ambrose Light-for sewage sludge, dredge spoil, cellar dirt, and industrial acids. They are under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Agency. There had been few systematic studies of the effects of these dump sites on the surrounding marine environment, and the MESA New York Bight Project had recently compiled

the research results of its initial field program launched six months previously, and was in a position to compare its preliminary findings with the earlier results. In response to the public outcry, the project issued a lengthy fact sheet just four days before Christmas of 1973, summarizing the results of its first look at the problem.

The document set the tone for what became the project’s practice – state the facts as clearly as possible, discuss alternative possibilities, when the facts are inconclusive don’t hesitate to say so, and make the information available publicly as soon as possible. Thus stated the summary comparison between the recently.obtained MESA data and data from 1970 studies by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the National Marine Fisheries Service Sandy Hook Laboratory:

“1. The 1973 data (from MESA) are considerably more detailed, and direct comparison and integration of findings from the two years is difficult.
“2. The 1973 data show evidence of sludge bed migration to within 3.5 miles of Long Island with some evidence suggestive of sludge as close as 2 miles from the beach. Comparison with the 1970 studies suggest recent northward migration of 8 miles from the sludge dump site.
“3. Although it is known that sludge is now present within several miles of Long Island, the rate and causes of this movement have not yet been determined. It might be, for example, that an unusual natural event such as hurricane Agnes could have moved this material.

“Further analyses are being undertaken to confirm whether the sludge bed has indeed moved recently, and if so, why. Considerably more analysis will be required before stating whether or not the sludge bed has moved over an extensive area. Recognizing that the sludge bed has existed for several decades, it is still a matter of conjecture as to whether or not it has suddenly moved northward at a rapid rate during the past 3 years.”

The report was not popular with many people in the area. Their fears had been aroused. They had been led to believe that if the sludge was that close to the beaches, it must indeed be rapidly moving shoreward. The NOAA-sponsored scientists were berated for their timidity. However, the project staff maintained its position steadfastly, and won the support both of colleagues in Federal and local agencies and of many deeply involved citizens.

At the same time, urgent discussions were taking place among the project staff, cooperating groups from the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories and the NMFS Sandy Hook facility, and NOAA headquarters. In view of the great public concern, and because of the role assigned to NOAA in the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (the ocean dumping” act), decisions had to be made about the future direction of the New York Bight project.

“We believed that it was extremely important for us to take an active role in developing the best management policy regarding ocean dumping,” Swanson said. “We reasoned that no matter how much we all wanted to eliminate ocean dumping, this was simply not going to be possible in the near term. Without our active involvement, irrational management decisions might be made on the basis of public emotion rather than consideration of minimizing the overall negative environmental impacts.”

With the support of NOAA Associate Administrator David H. Wallace, a new direction was established for the project. In sum, it was decided that the project would.

–take a lead role in research on the effects of sewage sludge dumping;
–redirect 75 to 80 percent of project resources toward the problem;
–be extremely open about making its data known;
–take every opportunity to inform the public, through its admittee, hearings, lectures, and the news media, of its understanding of the situation;
-assist EPA in reaching a reasonable management decision, based on scientific understanding, about continued use of the dump site.

In July and August of 1974 the sludge problem again cropped up in news reports, and with the summer season in full swing the sensitivity of the issue was heightened. By that time the project had begun to establish itself in the minds of many as unbiased and thorough, and EPA leaned heavily on the NOAA research in making its determinations about the dump site. The tremendous increase in public involve. ment required bringing aboard Paul Eisen, data manager, and Stanley Chanesman, who works primarily in intergovernmental relations and is Secretary of the New York Bight MESA Advisory Committee. On July 10 of that year the EPA Deputy Regional Administrator told a meeting, called by area Congressmen, that while pockets of natural muds containing sludge could be found in random spots off Long Island shores, there was no evidence that huge quantities of the stuff were moving shoreward. The beaches were safe. Two days later NOAA and EPA officials held a joint public meeting on the problem, and again pointed to the safety of the beaches and the lack of evidence that the sludge was moving shoreward.
At EPA’s request, the project had begun to study the possibility of moving the dump site farther out to sea, but by midsummer there was insufficient evidence about this to make any judgments. In midSeptember, however, a NOAA letter went to the EPA Regional Administrator for Region II (which includes the New York-New Jersey area) that summed up NOAA’s position, based on the work of the project. Essentially, NOAA said:

1. While we do not believe that an immediate change in the existing sewage dumpsite is required on the scientific evidence at hand, the probability of increasing amounts of sewage in future years means that plans should be initiated toward changing the location in the future;
2. Any dumpsite on the continental shelf is bound to cause some damage to the area, so it is strongly urged that any new site be interim only-every effort should be made to avoid long term use of the Bight for sewage sludge disposal;
3. Intensive ecological investigations of any proposed new site should be conducted.

To mount its scientific work, the project had, in the meantime, assembled a small collection of facilities, housed chiefly in trailers, at the Floyd Bennett Field operations base. Cdr Ned Austin initially established the base. Close to the wharf where a NOAA-assigned ship ties up-most recently, the George B. Kelez- were an office trailer, a ship headquarters trailer, and dormitory space. A large warehouse was utilized, and later there were trailers for an electronics workshop and scientific laboratories. From the Ferrel, first NOAA ship assigned to the project, came Lt. Cdr. Clarence W. Tignor, a NOAA Corps officer who now serves as MESA Operations Officer and is in charge of logistics support for the project. The only nod to esthetics in the otherwise spartan complex is a collection of potted plants lent to the project by Mrs. Tignor, and faithfully watered by her husband during moments of break from his daily tasks.
“We provide everything from scientific instruments and buoys to office supplies,” said Tignor not long ago.

Assisting at the base are Claude Robinson, Senior Electronics Technician, and J.Z. Bell, in charge of instrument calibration, along with a crew of specialists who repair and maintain the critically important electronics equipment at their electronics workshop trailer. “Their work keeps us in business,” said Tignor. “Having instruments that work when they’re needed, and that make measurements that are compatible, is the life blood of a scientific project in the field. That’s what Robinson’s group makes certain happens, and they are why we are able to operate as effectively as we do.”

The project has not lacked for ship support to undertake both regular runs to monitor emplaced instruments, and special cruises for a variety of scientific purposes. The National Ocean Survey has scheduled the Peirce, Researcher, Albatross IV, Delaware II, Oregon II, and Rorqual at various times to participate in the project, and much of the success can be attributed to their work.
Though the MESA New York Bight Project began in 1974 to bend its efforts primarily toward the sewage sludge dumping problem, it did not forget the earlier concept of broad-based studies designed to give a complete picture of this heavily stressed area of coastal ocean. Many scientists had conducted studies of many problems in the Bight, but nowhere was all this information readily available to scientists, government officials, interested citizens, and managers who might need it. MESA therefore arranged with the New York Sea Grant Institute to publish a series of monographs and an Atlas, designed to bring together the state of knowledge about the Bight in various scientific and engineering fields. Of the planned 32 monographs, 10 had been published by the summer of 1976, including such titles as Tides, Waste Disposal, Port Facilities and Commerce, and Artificial Fishing Reefs. Attractive and well illustrated, the monographs are proving to be highly successful components of the project’s information dissemination program. Project Manager at Sea Grant is Jay Ginter and Senior Editor is Jean McAlpine. An editorial board coordinated by MESA and headquatered at Stony Brook oversees the work on the manuscripts.

The Sea Grant Institute is also pursuing health-related projects on the effects of persistent chemical pollutants in plankton and the question of whether the surf transfers viruses to the atmosphere, with joint funding by MESA, Sea Grant, the Rockefeller Foundation, and SUNY Stony Brook.

Spearheading the project’s investigations of the living marine resources of the Bight, and of the possible effects of ocean dumping on them, has been the NMFS Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center, under the direction of Dr. Carl J. Sindermann with headquarters at Sandy Hook and laboratories there, at Milford, Delaware, and Oxford, Maryland. Certain benthic (bottom dwelling) organisms in particular have been intensively studied because they generally stay in one place and have continuous direct contact with sediments, so any deleterious effects should be relatively direct and easy to ascertain.

Studies have shown that the number of species has remained about the same-Dr. John B. Pearce of Sandy Hook found little change from a study in the late 1960’s to studies in 1973 and 1974. The number of species, and numbers of individuals, was severely depressed in the relatively polluted and poorly flushed Raritan Bay, but much less effect was noted in the Apex outside the bay. Apparent small declines in the numbers of individuals there, the NMFS scientists believe, can probably be attributed to natural variability rather than increased environmental stress.

NMFS biologists have also reported the occurrence of fish with erosion of fins (‘fin rot”) inside the Apex to be greater than outside, and further research on this phenomenon is under way. Shellfish in much of the Apex contain unacceptably high concentrations of coliform bacteria, and a circular area with radius of about six nautical miles around the sewage sludge dump site was closed to shellfishing by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1970. Four years later FDA expanded the closed area considerably because of bacterial contamination from ocean outfalls and outflow from the Hudson-Raritan estuarine complex.

As a result of the multilaboratory study of environmental contaminants and their effect on the marine ecosystem, thirty-nine staff members of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center were awarded a NOAA Unit Citation for their outstanding contributions to the project.

The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories in Miami have sent up a number of scientists with a wide variety of experiments to further the work of the project. For example Dr. Donald V. Hanson’s physical oceanographic program obtained data from drifter and current meter studies showing a circular clockwise motion (“gyre”) of the waters during much of the year in the inner Bight. Dr. J. William Lavelle and Dr. Donald J. P. Swift both have traced a small amount of sand transport throughout the year at a depth of about 60 feet, with a large amount during
severe storms. This work led to a complete redesign of a multimillion dollar outfall on the south shore of Long Island. These kinds of information, related to much of the other data obtained by the project, shed light on how contaminants may be carried through the waters-one kind of motion for lighter particles that stay in the water column, and another for the heavier material that sinks to the bottom.

Grantees, too, have made major contributions to the work. Dr. James A. Mueller of Manhattan College conducted an extensive study of the relative amounts of contaminants brought in by four major pollution sources in the Bight. He found that the greatest amount comes from runoff-untreated sewage and animal wastes that are washed directly from streets and sewers into the ocean waters, reaching particularly high peaks during periods of heavy rainfall. The other sources of contaminants are ocean dumping, municipal and industrial wastewater, and atmospheric fallout. Dr. Mueller also confirmed that the largest amount of con largest amount of contamination comes from the New York Metropolitan area, primarily from the Hudson River outflow.

In addition to the regular participants and contractors and grantees, numerous other groups within NOAA have rallied round to help. “The National Environmental Satellite Service has worked with us in using its remote sensing capabilities,” said Swanson, “and it has been particularly cos particularly cooperative in developing new sensor applications for obtaining information that we are interested in having. The National Weather Service not only provides us with real-time weather information when and where we need it, but is making important contributions to our Atlas series. And when the data are collected, we use guidelines provided by the Environmental Data Service for organizing it and getting it into channels where it can be retrieved and used as necessary.”

Close cooperation among various research groups has characterized the project, and careful planning frequently makes possible integration of several research efforts toward a common goal. For example, in July 1976 a week-long experiment to track sewage sludge particles in the dump site used the collaborative efforts of many people including Dr. Robert A. Young, Dr. John R. Proni and Patrick Hatcher of AOML, Dr. James P. Thomas of NMFS Sandy Hook, Charles Parker of the project staff, and Dr. Iver L. Duedall of SUNY, Stony Brook. Several vessels, including the Kelez and SUNY’s Onrust, took part.

Immediately after a sewage sludge vessel dumped its load in the designated site, two acoustic echo sounders were lowered over the side of Kelez. Each emitted sound waves, one at 200 kiloHertz (200,000 cycles per second) and the other at 20 kHz, which were reflected off particles in the sludge. The resultant echoes were picked up and re corded both on magnetic tape and on a shipboard visual display. Use of two widely different frequencies permitted detection of different sizes of particles.

While the lower frequency echoes directly traceable to the sludge disappeared after about an hour, indicating that the larger particles had probably fallen to the bottom, the recordings continued to show large point scattering in the area. The scientists surmised that these were probably echoes from fish feeding on the sludge. The higher frequency echoes continued to be detectable for several hours, indicating that the smaller particles sank at a much slower rate and as a result were more widely dispersed by current and tides.

Use of the AOML-developed acoustic technique made possible accurate estimates of how far and how fast the sludge spreads horizontally and vertically in the first few hours after dumping. By showing where the sludge was concentrated, it enabled the chemists and NMFS scientists to take their samples with far more accuracy than would otherwise have been possible. Utilizing an on-board chemistry laboratory, Hatch- er identified important chemical constituents found immediately within the sludge, as well as chemical transformations taking place during those first few hours.

Finally, in work space provided in a hold of the Kelez, NMFS biologists worked to find out how quickly oxygen in the water is taken up after the sludge is dumped, a measure of increased metabolic activity on the part of small organisms in the water and thus of how rapidly the sludge is decomposed.

“If the sludge is rapidly decomposed — what we call labile-it is more likely to have an effect on the living creatures,” said Thomas. “Tiny marine life such as bacteria and other plankton feed on the sludge. If it is toxic and kills them, there will be little evidence of increased metabolic activity. But if it is non-toxic, the animals will burn up oxygen taking the material in. Anything in the sludge-heavy metals, for example-may be ingested and may subsequently be passed along up the food chain.”

While the acoustic experiment was planned and executed as applied research devoted to solving certain specific problems of sewage sludge dumping, it had many broader implications-a characteristic it shares with many experiments in the Bight project. As Hal Stanford of the project staff explained:

“Had we not become so heavily involved in the sludge question. we might nothave carried out this specific work-but, we still would have had to do something very like it. This experiment tells us not only about sludge, but also about distribution of suspended solids, about currents, and about organic activity in the water column. All of these are significant in painting a broad picture of the Bight as well as in determining what is happening to the sludge itself.”

In the first three years of its existence, the MESA New York Bight Project has accomplished several highly important tasks. Through its scientific work, a far more comprehensive understanding of the complex dumping problems in the Bight has been achieved—the sources of dumping, the dynamics of the natural Bight processes and interactions of the dumped material with these processes, and consequences of the dumping. The project provided the bulk of the scientific contribution to a landmark Environmental Impact Statement on moving the existing sewage dump site, opposed plans to move it unless the situation deteriorated, and encouraged the Environmental Protection Agency to select a firm date for phasing out ocean dumping of the sewage sludge. In each case these recommendations were followed. EPA has targeted 1981 as the year sludge dumping in the Bight shall stop.

To ensure that its information is scientifically trustworthy, the project provides the scientific community with opportunities to review its assessment of the situation, and keeps in close touch with its advisory committee.

To ensure that its information is readily available, the project has carefully developed rapport with the public in the area. Claire Stern, Executive Director of the Long Island Environmental Council, commented:

“Most scientists are hesitant about becoming involved in public discussion. I have therefore been most pleased at how Cdr. Swanson and his staff have tried to help the public understand their work. At times of great stress they kept their cool, they didn’t stray outside their field of expertise, but they did tell us what they knew–they tried very hard to provide the factual basis so that responsible decisions could be made. We are very grateful to them.”

During the mid-summer crisis period, the project staff worked long hours to try to find out the causes of the wash-up on the beaches, and to try to answer questions from the public about them. The NMFS Sandy Hook Laboratory staff carried out the same activity with respect to the fish kill. A lengthy statement issued by the Middle Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Center on July 15 summarized for the public the history, characteristics, and probable explanation of the phenomenon. In sum, said MACFC, a massive phytoplankton bloom utilized much of the available dissolved oxygen in the water, and fish and invertebrates that could not escape the low-oxygen areas were killed.

The beach problem, Swanson’s group concluded, was caused by a combination of circumstances including the massive regular outpourings of raw and semi-treated sewage from the Hudson-Raritan estuarine complex, a temporary increase in raw sewage diverted into the Hudson owing to the upgrading of certain New York sewage treatment plants, and New Jersey pier fires and other accidents that occurred during the same period of time. A 12-day period of persistently strong southwesterly winds was responsible for pushing the mass up onto the beaches, they reported, noting that while the wind direction is not unusual at that time of year, the strength and persistence were. The beaches that had been closed in late June were all reopened by July 1, after the winds changed and the wash-ups ceased.

In addition to the direct public and media contacts maintained by staffs of the Bight project and the MACFC, Swanson made a full re port on both the beach litter problem and the fish kill to the Congressional committee hearing July 24 at Hempstead.

Where does the project go from here?

“Now that we have reached this stage, I think our responsibilities are even greater than before,” say Swanson. “Because of the work of the project, NOAA has made some very forthright statements about sources and effects of contamination in the Bight. It is now our responsibility to check, double-check, and assure the public that our assessment of the situation was correct. If upon further investigation we find that we have made a mistake anywhere along the line, or if the danger to the public increases in the future, we must provide the information to the public and to the appropriate authorities so that remedial action can quickly be taken.”

Research on contaminant cycling is continuing, a program of monitoring the sewage sludge is being undertaken, and new avenues of research into the other, more significant, contaminant sources–dredge spoil. Hudson River effluent, and urban runoff-are being planned.

If other crises occur, such as those of the summer of 1976, the project intends to be ready.