Boston harbor water

Fig. 1. Ciona intestindis. This specimen was collected from a holding tank in the New England Aquarium. It is most likely that the larval stage passed through the sea water intake and filtering system, then attached and developed into an adult. A specimen collected directly from unfiltered Boston Harbor waters would be covered with debris...

Seawater samples were collected at two sites and were used to study various aspects of this extraction system. New England Aquarium line water is Boston Harbor water that has been allowed to settle and is then passed through a diatomaceous earth filter. Massachusetts Bay water was collected about 40 km east-northeast of Boston in an area typical of clean coastal waters (8). 

Extensive measurements on the concentration of vanadium in Boston Harbor waters have been reported20. An average value of 3.2 0.7 pg/1 has been reported for filtered sea water. The data for Massachusetts coastal water is within agreement of other coastal areas North West Pacific Ocean, 2.6—3.5 Plymouth, England, inshore, 5—7 Plymouth, England, offshore, 2.4-2.7 Wakayama Prefecture, Japan,... 

Boston Harbor outfall pipe at the Deer Island wastewater treatment plant. Source From Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the Massachusetts Bay Outfall, http //www.mwra.com/ harbor/graphic/diffuser linedrawing.git. Accessed July 2008. 

As shown in Illustrative Examples 19.3 and 19.4, often it is not immediately known whether an exchange process is controlled by transport across a boundary layer or by transport in the bulk phase. In Illustrative Example 19.3 we look at the case of resuspension of particles from the polluted sediments of Boston Harbor. We are interested in the question of what fraction of the pollutants sorbed to the particles (such as polychlorinated biphenyls) can diffuse into the open water column while the particles are resuspended due to turbulence produced by tidal currents in the bay. To answer this question we need to assess the possible role of the boundary layer around the particles. 

McGroddy, S. E., Sediment-pore water partitioning of PAHs and PCBs in Boston Harbor, MA , Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston, 1993,255 p. 

Figure 15.7 PAH concentrations in sediments and pore waters, in Boston Harbor (USA) at (a) Fort Point channel, (b) Spectacle Island, and (c) Peddocks Island. (Modified from McGroddy and Farrington, 1995.)...

Alber, T., and Chan, J. (1994) Sources of contaminants to Boston Harbor Revised loading estimates. In Massachusetts Water Resources Authority Environmental Quality Department Technical Report Series No. 94-1. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, Boston, MA. 

Figure 8 (a) Solid-phase P, measured at a site in Hingham Bay, Boston Harbor, (b) The relationship between the pore water concentrations of total reactive phosphate TPO4) and TCO2 in pore waters at that site. Concentrations of both species are in pmol I f... 

---