The Ecotox Program is at the forefront, nationally and internationally, of targeted research to characterize the impacts of petroleum hydrocarbons on NOAA trust resources, particularly fish early life stages. This work is extending lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, through the Cosco Busan spill in San Francisco Bay, to an array of current and intensive activities associated with the Deepwater Horizon natural resource damage assessment in the Gulf of Mexico. This research has been particularly influential in recent years (PNAS papers in 2011 and 2012), with major Deepwater papers forthcoming in 2012 and 2013. Funding has come from NOS/ORR, the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, the Prince William Sound Regional Citizen's Advisory Council, the San Francisco Estuary Institute, and other sources. Ecotox is currently developing new tools to assess PAH exposure and toxicity in fish and other animals, with national applicability - e.g., in advance of anticipated oil drilling in the Arctic, beginning in the summer of 2012. 3 year study of effects of the Cosco Busan oil spill. Morphology, heart rate, hatching rate data of Pacific herring planted at oil and reference sites and correlating herring spawns at these sites. This work supports NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP).

Fish tissue from 203 samples collected at five locations in the Niagara River Area of Concern in 2018 were analyzed for a wide range of analytes including Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides (E1 and E2), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), organochlorine and other persistent organic compounds, metals, lipid and moisture. Over 230 analytes were analyzed in the tissue samples, including 160 PCB congeners. Fish tissues from a subset of the sites (n=40) were also analyzed for Dioxins and Furans. The data set includes a variety of laboratory quality assurance data including sample replicates, laboratory blank data, laboratory spike data, matrix spike recoveries, and replicate matrix spike recoveries.

In response to the growing concerns among Chugach communities, contaminant body burden and histopathological condition of chum and sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus keta and Oncorhynchus nerka) and the shellfish cockles and softshell clams (Clinocardium nuttallii and Mya arenaria) were assessed. The fish and shellfish were collected from traditional subsistence harvest areas in the vicinity of Nanwalek, Port Graham and Seldovia, AK, and were analyzed for trace metals and residues of organic contaminants. Additionally, the fish and shellfish were histologically characterized for the presence, prevalence and severity of tissue pathology, disease, and parasite infections. Data served under this project include measurements of trace elements, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls, DDTs, chlorinated hydrocarbons and histopathology parameters, which include an array of about 30 parasitic taxa (e.g. bucephalus, chlamydia, ciliates, cestodes and nematodes) and 11 diseases (e.g. tumors, neoplasm and necrosis). This project provides invaluable baseline data that is georeferenced and served on the internet through the NOAA's National Status and Trends data portal.

Fish tissue from 159 samples collected at four locations in the Buffalo River Area of Concern in 2017 were analyzed for a wide range of analytes including Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorine and other persistent organic compounds, metals, lipid and moisture. Over 230 analytes were analyzed in the tissue samples, including 160 PCB congeners. The data set includes a variety of laboratory quality assurance data including sample replicates, laboratory blank data, laboratory spike data, matrix spike recoveries, and replicate matrix spike recoveries.

The National Contaminant Biomonitoring Program (NCBP), which was developed and maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), monitored concentrations of environmental contaminants in freshwater fish over a period of about 20 years. Beginning in the 1960s as a component of the multi-agency National Pesticide Monitoring Program (NPMP) and continuing through the mid-1980s, freshwater fish were periodically collected from a national network of stations for analysis of pesticides, PCBs, and other contaminants. The NPMP/NCBP database of contaminant concentrations is the most extensive of its kind, unique in its breadth and depth with respect to environmental contaminant concentrations in fish. The data and information from the NCBP are sought often by a national and international clientele; especially frequent users are biologists in FWS field offices and USGS Water Science Centers. The fish network was suspended by FWS in 1986 pending development of the Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) program. The BEST program and the NPMP/NCBP database were transferred to the National Biological Survey/Service (NBS) in 1993. At that time ongoing studies by NBS Inventory and Monitoring (I and M) and the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) generated new data at NCBP sites. The database was subsequently (1996) transferred to USGS. The database derived from the NCBP is unique in its ability to characterize the exposure of free-ranging organisms, including threatened and endangered species, to toxic contaminants.

Research support for various organizations in NOAA (Northwest Regional Office (NWR), HQ Office of Protected Resources, National Ocean Service (NOS) Coastal Services Center) for copper related to the harmful impacts of urban stormwater runoff, pesticide use, antifoulant use, and mining (e.g., proposed hardrock mining in Alaska). This has been a core focus of Ecotoxicology research for years, and may redirect to address key and high-profile data gaps specific to salmon habitat threats in Alaska. Analyses of water samples for water chemistry (e.g., pH) and metals.

Two data sets concerning organic contaminants are included here to aid in assessment of the sea otter population collapse in southwest Alaska. One data set consists of levels of organic pollutant compounds found in wild sea otter blood collected from captured animals in 1997 (Jessup et al., 2010). These sea otters were captured from islands in the western Aleutians and from outside the area of population collapse, in southeast Alaska near Cross Sound. Another data set consists of levels of organic pollutant compounds found in blue mussels collected from multiple sites along the Aleutian archipelago and from the Cross Sound area in southeast Alaska in 1994-1996 (Reese et al., 2012). These data support the following publication: M. Tim Tinker, James L. Bodkin, Lizabeth Bowen, Brenda Ballachey, Gena Bentall, Alexander Burdin, Heather Coletti, George Esslinger, Brian B. Hatfield, Michael C. Kenner, Kimberly Kloecker, Brenda Konar, A. Keith Miles, Daniel H. Monson, Michael J. Murray, Ben Weitzman and James A. Estes, 2021, Sea otter population collapse in southwest Alaska: assessing ecological covariates, consequences, and causal factors: Ecological Monographs References: Jessup, D. A., C. K. Johnson, J. Estes, D. Carlson-Bremer, W. M. Jarman, S. Reese, E. Dodd, M. T. Tinker, and M. H. Ziccardi. 2010. Persistent organic pollutants in the blood of free-ranging sea otters (Enhydra Lutris Ssp.) in Alaska and California. Journal of Wildlife Diseases 46:1214-1233. Reese, S. L., J. A. Estes, and W. M. Jarman. 2012. Organochlorine contaminants in coastal marine ecosystems of southern Alaska: inferences from spatial patterns in blue mussels (Mytilus trossulus). Chemosphere 88:873-880.

The goal of this project is to assess habitat conditions that influence biodiversity and distribution of benthic infaunal communities, contaminants, and chemical body burdens of resident organisms as measures of environmental health in Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay boasts one of the largest commercial and subsistence salmon fisheries in the world. Significant mining activities have been proposed within the bay's watershed that could impact Bristol Bay chemistry and biology, but baseline data are lacking. Baseline data will be essential for monitoring pollution control effectiveness in the watershed. The datasets generated from this study will be incorporated into the NOAA's National Status and Trend (NS&T) Program database which has been developing a dynamic quantitative database on contaminants, toxicity and benthic infaunal species distribution assessed in the coastal U.S. since 1991. Therefore, the value of this project stems not only from the importance of the locale, but also from the fact that it will continue to expand the Alaskan data set in a national online database readily accessible to Alaskan coastal managers, scientific and local communities, and which will support the Alaska Fish Monitoring Program. This is a collaborative effort between the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), the Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). NPRB supplemental funding will allow the collaborators to conduct a comprehensive synoptic assessment of Nushagak and Kvichak Bays, which would not be otherwise possible.

This dataset provides baseline concentrations (from 2014) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), other aromatic organic compounds, mercury (Hg), and trace metal concentrations in sediment and biota collected from two sites along an existing rail line used for coal transport in the Columbia River Gorge, Washington. For this study, aquatic surface sediments, aquatic insects, and juvenile fish were collected in 2014 from Horsethief Lake in Columbia Hills State Park and Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), both located in close proximity to the rail line and within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Samples were collected from two subsites in each area: one closer to the rail line and one farther from the rail line. Fish species collected for analysis included anadromous salmonids and resident yellow perch, sculpin, pumpkinseed, northern pikeminnow, and smallmouth bass.