Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The epic migrations of shorebirds knit together the hemispheres, north and south.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF BOSTON HARBOR
HUMANS HAVE
been called a littoral species, clinging to the coast as tenaciously as other shoreline organisms.
Unlike the presence of other organisms, however, our presence has often resulted in the degradation of the in-
shore environment. Pollution has been especially intensive near highly populated urban areas, which have been
the source of both industrial and domestic wastes dumped into the oceans, on the doorsteps of our cities.
A classic case is Boston Harbor, which, twenty years ago, was known as the dirtiest harbor in America. Fish
and crabs from the harbor exhibited signs of disease, such as fin rot and ulcers. In 1988, the Massachusetts De-
partment of Public Health issued a health advisory warning citizens not to eat fish and shellfish from Boston
Harbor, including Quincy Bay. They were also ordered to stop eating lobster tomalley—the soft green liver
and pancreatic tissue in the body cavity of the cooked lobster, considered a delicacy by some—because of ab-
normally high levels of chemical contaminants, including polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs), which have been
linked to cancer in humans. Such contaminants accumulate in the fat tissues, and their concentrations increase
progressively through the food chain, a process called biomagnification. As a result, predators and scavengers
at the top of the food chain (fishes, marine mammals, and seabirds, in the oceans) accumulate the highest and
potentially most toxic levels of contaminants.
Pollution problems arose in Boston Harbor long before industry began pumping synthetic organic chemicals
and heavy metals into the environment. Sewers funneled household wastes and stormwater runoff into the har-
bor as early as the 17th century, with predictably disastrous results. A severe cholera outbreak in the 1860s led
to an upgrade of the sewer system, but the burgeoning coastal population and the growth of industry in the first
