Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
15.3 United States of America
In the United States, three federal agencies have recently used biomarkers of ecotoxicologi-
cal effects in nationwide monitoring programs designed to examine the effects of chemical
contaminants on aquatic habitats. These agencies, and the respective programs, include:
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has run the
National Status and Trends (NS&T) Program since approximately 1984, and bio-
markers were measured in one component of the NS&T from 1984 through 1994.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) collected ield data under the
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) from 1990 to 2006.
• The US Geological Survey (USGS) ran the Biomonitoring of Environmental Status
and Trends (BEST) program from 1995 until approximately 2006.
Building on lessons learned from these national programs, a number of regional
monitoring programs that use biomarkers to better understand the effects of chemical
contaminants on aquatic ecosystems have been initiated in the United States. One of
the longest-standing and most developed of these is the Puget Sound Assessment and
Monitoring Program (PSAMP), which has run continuously since 1989. In this section, we
briefly review how biomarkers are, or were, used in each of these four U.S. programs, and
end with a prospectus for the use of biomarkers in the United States.
15.3.1 National Status and Trends Program
NOAA began the NS&T Program in 1984 to provide a way to monitor the health of the
nation's coastal ecosystems. The program included Mussel Watch,* focused on measur-
ing levels of persistent chemical contaminants in bivalves, and the National Benthic
Surveillance Project (NBSP), which focused on the health of marine fish. The primary
biomarker used in NBSP was the determination of toxicopathic lesions, determined by
histopathological examination of liver, kidney, gonads, gills, and fins of demersal (i.e.,
bottom-dwelling) fish. This biomarker suite was evaluated in relation to a wide range of
chemical contaminants in sediments at the site of capture, as well as contaminants in fish
tissues and in stomach contents. Results from this monitoring program clearly established
that prevalences of liver disease in several demersal fish species were strongly correlated
with sediment levels of PAHs and, to a lesser extent, polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), DDTs,
and chlordanes (Myers et al. 1998). Moreover, results from the NBSP and more contempo-
rary work led to the conclusion that PAHs are causally linked to several forms of liver dis-
ease, including neoplasia, in certain demersal fish (Myers et al. 2003). Because toxicopathic
lesions represent an integration of the effects of contaminant exposure over space and
time, and are considerably less expensive to measure compared to analyses of chemical
contaminants in sediments and tissues, they have become widely used as a tool for assess-
ing ecosystem health (Myers et al. 1998; Myers et al. 2008).
*
NOAA's Mussel Watch was patterned closely after EPA's Mussel Watch Program, which had ended in 1979.
Today, it is the longest running continuous contaminant monitoring program in U.S. coastal waters. Although
some bivalve tissue samples have been archived (by freezing or tissue fixation) that could be used for bio-
marker measurements, to date Mussel Watch is focused on measurements of tissue burdens of contaminants.
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