Word: sediments
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shellfish beds in Texas have been closed eleven times in the past 18 months because of pollution. Crab fisheries in Lavaca Bay, south of Galveston, were forced to shut down when dredging work stirred up mercury that had settled in the sediment. In neighboring Louisiana 35% of the state's oyster beds are closed because of sewage contamination. Says Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane: "These waters are nothing more than cocktails of highly toxic substances...
Washington State fisheries report finding tumors in the livers of English sole, which dwell on sediment. Posted signs warn, BOTTOMFISH, CRAB AND SHELLFISH MAY BE UNSAFE TO EAT DUE TO POLLUTION. Lest anyone fail to get the message, the caution is printed in seven languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Chinese and Korean...
...five years, at 200 locations around the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been studying mussels, oysters and bottom- dwelling fish, like flounder, that feed on the pollutant-rich sediment. These creatures, like canaries placed in a coal mine to detect toxic gases, serve as reliable indicators of the presence of some 50 contaminants. The news is not good. Coastal areas with dense populations and a long history of industrial discharge show the highest levels of pollution. Among the worst, according to Charles Ehler of NOAA: Boston Harbor, the Hudson River-Raritan estuary on the New Jersey coast...
...except in a few scattered communities, has a fairly low political priority. One reason: most people assume that the vast oceans, which cover more than 70% of the world's surface, have an inexhaustible capacity to neutralize contaminants, by either absorbing them or letting them settle harmlessly to the sediment miles below the surface. "People think 'Out of sight, out of mind,' " says Richard Curry, an oceanographer at Florida's Biscayne National Park. The popular assumption that oceans will in effect heal themselves may carry some truth, but scientists warn that this is simply not known. Says Marine Scientist Herbert...
...wilderness as Great Basin National Park, the country's 49th. Named by Explorer John C. Fremont, the area known as the Great Basin stretches across northern Nevada, touching California, Oregon, Utah and Idaho. Once an inland sea, it was formed 20 million years ago by geologic plates thrusting sediment layers upward into mountain ranges. The relatively small national park contains nearly all the Great Basin's ecosystems, from desert to arctic-alpine tundra, encompassing 3,000-year-old bristlecone pines, glacial lakes and one of the continent's southernmost permanent ice fields. As recently as 10,000 years ago, bowl...