Baltimore Harbor

A notable example of controlled water reuse was utilization of secondary sewage effluent from the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Baltimore by the Sparrows Point Works of Bethlehem Steel (6). The Sparrows Point plant was suppHed primarily by weUs located near the brackish waters of Baltimore harbor. Increased draft on the weUs had led to saltwater intmsion. Water with chloride concentration as high as 10 mg/L is unsuitable for many steelmaking operations. Rollers, for example, are pitted by such waters. However, treated effluent from the Back River Plant can be used for some operations, such as coke quenching, and >4 x 10 m /d (10 gal/d) are piped 13 km to Sparrows Point. This arrangement has proved economical to both parties for >40 yr. 

Maryland 1984-89 total PCBs Baltimore Harbor Upper Chesapeake Bay Michigan... 

Spain, 1985-86 Black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax Pipping embryos whole less liver lipid extracts 1991 Chincoteague Bay, VA (reference site) vs. Baltimore Harbor, MD (contaminated site) ... 

Wu et al. (1998) investigated the microbial reductive dechlorination of PCB-1260 in anaerobic slurries of estuarine sediments from Baltimore Harbor, MD. The slurries were amended with 800 ppm PCB-1260 with and without the addition of 2,3,4,5-tetrachlorobiphenyl or 2,3,5,6-tetrachlorobiphenyl and incubated at 30 °C under methanogenic conditions. Without the addition of the tetrachlorobiphenyls, chlorine atoms at the meta and ortho positions on the PCB congeners decreased by 45 and 9%, respectively. When 2,3,4,5-tetrachlorobiphenyl and 2,3,5,6-tetrachlorobiphenyl were added, chlorine atoms at the meta position decreased by 65 and 55% and chlorines at the ortho positions decreased by 18 and 12%, respectively. After 181 d, hexa- and nonachlorobiphenyls decreased by 65, 75, and 88% In PCB-1260 alone, PCB-1260 + 2,3,5,6-tetrachlorobiphenyl, and PCB-1260 + 2,3,4,5-tetrachlorobiphenyl. The investigators concluded that the addition of a single congener stimulated the dechlorination of PCB-1260. 

R. P. Mason, A. L. Lawrence, Concentration, distribution, and bioavailability of mercury and methylmercury in sediments of Baltimore Harbor and Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA, Environ. Toxicol. Chem., 18 (1999), 2438-2447. 

Bamford, H.A. Ko, F.C. Baker, J.E., Seasonal and annual air-water exchange of polychlorinated biphenyls across Baltimore Harbor and the northern Chesapeake Bay Environ. Set Technoi 2002, 36, 4245 252. 

Bryan, G.W. The occurrence and seasonal variation of trace metals in the scallop Pecten maximus (L.) and Chlamys opercularis (L.). J. Mar. Biol. Ass. U.K. 53, 145-166 (1973). Cronin, L.L., Pritchard, D.W., Schubel, J.R., and Sherk, J.A. Metals in Baltimore Harbor and Upper Chesapeake Bay and their Accumulation by Oysters, Chesapeake Bay Institute,... 

Stammeijohn, S. E., Smith, E., Boynton, W. R., and Kemp, W. M. (1991). Potential impacts from marinas and boats in Baltimore Harbor. Chesapeake Research Consortium Publication No. 139, Solomons, MD. 

The final phase in the development of the CS system was to test and evaluate the capability of the CS system to analytically portray the true elemental content of the seafloor sediments. To carry out this task, a joint Center for Applied Isotope Studies (CAIS)-NOAA ground-truth study was initiated. A site for the study was selected in the Baltimore Harbor (Maryland) along the Patapsco River, south of North Point and adjacent to the Brewer-ton Channel see Figure 7 ). This site is a discontinued spoil area with documented high levels of heavy metals in the sediments. Water depths of this site are 15-25 m, well within the operational range of the CS system, and it is located close to available NO A A facilities. 

Figure 8. Baltimore Harbor surficial sediment cores.

Table I. Skyline Labs Atomic Absorption Analysis of Baltimore Harbor Sediment Cores...

Table IV shows the Philips XRF elemental analysis of the CS sediment wafers collected adjacent to the seven buoys in the Baltimore Harbor spoil area. These samples were compensated for thickness variations exactly like the 100-mg wafers listed in Table III. The thickness values of some of the heavier elements (Fe, Pb, Zn, and Ba) needed to be multiplied by a constant factor to compensate for their proportional decrease in X-ray absorption when the higher energy Philips XRF system was used. For Pb the corrected values fell below acceptable detection limits and were not recorded.

Table IV shows good agreement between the CS heavy metals values and the ground-truth data shown in Tables I and II. With the exception of Pb, all the elements were determined with good accuracy and indicated a ground-truth agreement between the surficial sediments and the CS wafers produced from the same material. The XRF analysis made use of six different standards that were compared to NBS standard reference material 1646. This standard is a marine sediment of nearly identical mineral composition to that of the Baltimore Harbor samples.

Table V. Ground-Truth Comparative Elemental Analysis of Baltimore Harbor Surficial...

Atmospheric PAH concentrations have been found to be significantly elevated in areas of enclosed traffic tunnels. In a 1985-86 study in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel the average concentrations of particle-phase PAHs ranged from 2.9 ng/m for anthracene to 27 ng/m for pyrene (Benner and Gordon. 1989). These values are up to an order of magnitude lower than those obtained in 1975 by... 

Effects of organochlorine contaminants on reproductive success of black-crowned night-herons (Nycticorax nycticora) nesting in Baltimore Harbor, Maryland... 

Berkaw M, Sowers KR, May HD. 1996. Anaerobic ortho dechlorination of polychlorinated biphenyls by estuarine sediments from Baltimore harbor. Appl Environ Microbiol 62(7) 2534-2539. 

At Baltimore a study is being financed by the Figments Department to determine the effect of waste on the water of Baltimore Harbor, This, in part, is an attempt to develop factual information and is in part a delaying action to avoid requesting the appropriation of money... 

Environmental agencies, as well as others studying pollution in the nation s waterways, need materials containing an accurate composition of various compounds as a check to verify the reliability of laboratory instruments and methods. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a bottle standard marine reference material (SRM) for this purpose. It contains marine sediment with a wide range of pollutant compounds of interest to environmental scientists. The sediment material, which has certified values of 11 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS), was collected from the Chesapeake Bay area near Baltimore harbor. It is a dry powder that can be reconstituted into a wet form so that the compounds can be extracted by solvents for organic analysis. See environment. 

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