One-Third Large U.S. Estuaries in Poor Condition
WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - Nationally, 37 percent of the waters where large rivers meet the sea are in poor overall condition, according to the first National Estuary Program Coastal Condition Report released Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.
All of Puerto Rico's estuaries are in poor overall condition, and nearly half of the estuaries on the Northeast Coast and the Gulf Coast are rated poor by the EPA.
Only 36 percent of estuaries on the the West Coast, and 23 percent of those on the Southeast Coast are in poor overall condition.
The report analyzed 1,239 sites to rank the condition of ecological resources in the 28 estuaries of EPA's National Estuary Program, NEP.
These 28 estuaries are located in 18 coastal states and Puerto Rico. They have been designated as estuaries of national significance because of their unique economic, ecological, recreational and aesthetic values.
They include Long Island Sound, the New York/New Jersey Harbor, and Delaware Bay in the Northeast; Tampa Bay, Mobile Bay and Galveston Bay on the Gulf of Mexico; and the San Francisco Estuary and Puget Sound on the West Coast.
Overall, estuaries in the National Estuary Program scored better than or equal to all other non-NEP U.S. estuaries despite denser populations.
The information in the report is based upon EPA-sponsored monitoring data collected from 28 NEPs between 1999 and 2003 as well as monitoring data collected by the individual NEPs.
The data were collected as part of EPA's National Coastal Assessment – the most comprehensive and nationally consistent data set available on estuarine conditions.
The NEP estuaries were rated individually, regionally, and nationally using four primary indicators of estuarine condition: water quality; sediment quality; benthic, or bottom, condition; and fish-tissue contaminant concentrations.
During the past 20 years, population pressures along the coasts have increased. By 2000, counties with large estuaries that cover less than six percent of the coastal land area contain more than two-thirds of the coastal population, the EPA found.
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