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Marine Environmental Prediction Service

for Water Pollution Control

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Until the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the principal water pollution control service was provided through the Water Quality Surveillance Program of the Federal Water Quality Administration (FWQA) of the Department of the Interior. As a provision of Executive Reorganization Plan 3, FWQA programs in pollution control were transferred to EPA. The Water Quality Surveillance Program of the Water Quality Office of EPA includes the collection of samples periodically from estuaries and the coastal zone. These samples are analyzed in regional laboratories and data are disseminated as required for implementing water quality standards, establish

ing water quality baselines, and for supporting various planning and management programs.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior coordinates activities with the Water Quality Office of EPA to meet needs for basic data on water quality. Temperature, conductance, and common ions are generally measured at about 100 USGS stations to provide data to the Basic MAREP Service on streamflow into coastal waters. At a smaller number of these stations, turbidity, pH, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, coliforms, and biochemical oxygen demands are observed. There are 37 water-quality stations operated by the USGS in estuaries; and, at most of these, only temperature, conductance, common ions, and pH are being measured.

Selected Coast Guard vessels, equipped with salinity-temperature-depth (STD) sensors, are used in a variety of in-house and cooperative sampling programs for the analysis of water samples. Properties of coastal waters are sampled by fixed station

sensors.

PLANS FOR SERVICE IMPROVEMENT
OPERATIONAL PROGRAM

The Water Quality Surveillance Program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be level-funded for FY 72 pending further deliberations by EPA, which has been established only since December 1970.

In FY 72, the Coast Guard will sponsor an expanded monitoring service in support of the MAREP Service for Water Pollution Control. The Coastal Zone Pollution Baselines and Monitoring Project will cost $2,764,000 and will contribute significantly to the national quest for knowledge in this critical zone, making use of the multimission facilities of the Coast Guard that are located at over 100 coastal sites. Funds will be used to provide necessary instrumentation, operational personnel, equipment maintenance, and data dissemination.

RELEVANT RESEARCH PROGRAM

Research and development activities which are

designed to contribute to the improvement of the MAREP Service for Water Pollution Control are or will be conducted by the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Transportation and by the AEC, EPA, and NASA. Total funding in this category will be $16,653,000 for FY 72, an increase of $2,967,000 over the FY 71 amount.

The Department of Commerce will intiate research activities in estuaries and the coastal zone by $660,000 in FY 72. Research projects of NOAA relating to improving this Specialized MAREP Service include estuarine flushing research, the physical processes occurring along the coastlines and in estuaries, and the dynamics and ecology of estuarine and coastal waters with respect to living resources. The National Ocean Survey (NOS) of NOAA is conducting a pilot study of the estuarine circulation in the Penobscot Bay of Maine as part of a study program to develop predictions of the flushing

rate of estuarine waters. A prediction model under development will be evaluated during FY 72 as part of the program for conducting circulation studies in other estuaries. Research leading to an understanding of the diverse physical processes that operate in the estuaries and coastal zone is being conducted by the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories (AOML) in Miami, Fla. A total of $200,000 for this effort by AOML is planned for FY 72. The NMFS of NOAA will also conduct an active program in the dynamics and ecology of estuarine waters and living marine resources. This program, costing $400,000 in FY 72, will acquire data for understanding the degree and consequences of pollution in the estuarine and associated waters over the continental shelf and to determine the effects on the living marine resources. Much of the field collection of data is to be accomplished in conjunction with and as a supplement to

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the MARMAP surveys as described in the next section on MAREP Service for Fisheries Interests.

Though oriented toward military requirements, the Navy's Oceanographic Program contains resources and facilities to support the environmental pollution control study and conservation program of Defense; the potential to increase such support is present. Efforts in this program differ from most of the other reported Navy programs in that they are concerned primarily with the affected environment rather than with the source of pollution. Such efforts include environmental baseline surveys for "at sea" dumping, special fouling studies and atlases, shallow water surveys, remote sensing, diffusion studies, chemical studies, marine biological studies, thermal pollution studies, special flushing studies, and instrumentation development.

The Coast Guard will initiate a research program in FY 72 in support of a requirement to monitor pollution by hazardous materials. This effort costing $900,000 will be directed toward the development of a national pollution response center and the provision for a rapid-response investigating team on hazardous materials.

Related to the MAREP Service for Water Pollution Control, the AEC supports research directed

toward the description of diffusion and advection processes in the estuarine, coastal, and pelagic realms and in the Great Lakes, and the influence of these processes on the time-space distribution of radionuclides and their pathways to man. Research is being supported on the effects of waste heat from nuclear power reactors in order to determine reliably the effect of heated effluents on the environment. During FY 72, research support by the AEC will be $6,455,000, showing an increase of $376,000 over the FY 71 level.

In addition, the AEC supports research conducted by other agencies as follows: the USGS of Interior is investigating the ultimate fate of radionuclides in the Columbia River estuary as part of a study being conducted to better predict the time-space distribution of radionuclides in estuaries that have large flows and turnovers of water; the Estuarine and Menhaden Research Center of the NMFS of NOAA is studying the cycling of trace elements in an estuarine environment, the energy relations in estuarine ecosystems, and the influence of environmental factors on the radiation response of estuarine organisms; the Sandy Hook Sport Fisheries Marine Laboratory of the NMFS is investigating sublethal effects of thermal additions

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on marine ecosystems, the effects of temperature and photo-period on fish spawning, and the effect of temperature on activity rhythms.

The Water Quality Office of EPA has projects in water quality control technology and in water quality requirements research that are intended to supply the description and prediction of the types, concentrations, and movements of pollutants in coastal waters and of the effects of pollutants on life.

Funding for this research in FY 71 amounted to $3,100,000 and is level-funded for FY 72 pending further deliberation by EPA.

NASA supports two research projects related to improving MAREP Services for Water Pollution Control, both using remote-sensing techniques. One study is concerned with river effluents, and the other with observation of oil slicks, municipal sewage outflows, and sediment transport.

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