Sediment Quality in the Vicinity of Permitted Discharges and Selected Land-use Practices

A sediment quality assessment of Galveston Bay was conducted during 1997. The primary objective of this study was to determine the relationship between various shoreline land-use activities and sediment contaminant levels, toxicity, and benthic communities. Various sites were selected adjacent to various shoreline land-use activities. These activities included shipyards, refineries, chemical plants, oil-field facilities and marinas. Several sites included active wastewater discharges. A sediment triad approach which utilizes concurrent bioassay, chemical, and community measurements of sediment samples was selected to assess the relative degree of contamination at each site. Several bioassays including the Microtox solid-phase test, two elutriate tests including the mysid shrimp Mysidopsis bahia, chronic and acute test, and sheepshead Cyprinodon variegatus acute test were conducted on samples collected at each site.