Phytoplankton toxicity

The phytoplankton toxicity phase of the Galveston Bay Study Biology-Ecology Section has been the continuation of the standard growth analysis of water samples from Trinity River, Houston Ship Channel, Dickinson Bay, Texas City Dike, Hannah's Reef, and Bolivar Roads. The results obtained during this quarter have been consistant with the evaluation discussed in the previous quarterly report; i.e., with the Trinity River and Bay being consistantly more toxic and growth inhibiting than originally thought and the Houston Ship Channel remaining fairly consistantly in its toxicity. In addition to standard growth analysis at the usual stations, water taken from the Houston Ship Channel during an agal bloom and effluents from representative industries in the Houston area were tested. Utilization of the TRACOR low-flow model to determine bay distribution of conservatively -treated k values were tried. Additional experiments are in progress to learn the light-temperature relationships of the test organisms to the various wastes have been set up, but results are not yet available.