Effects of the cessation of sewage sludge dumping at the 12-Mile Site, proceedings of the 12-Mile Dumpsite Symposium, Ocean Place Hilton Hotel, Long Branch, New Jersey, 18-19 June 1991

This report is based on the research from an innovative field study designed to evaluate effects on living marine resources and their habitats from sewage sludge dumping around the 12-Mile Dumpsite in the New York Bight that took place over several decades up to 1987. For three years, intensive field studies focused on three specific areas: 1) the replicate stations, NY6, R2, and NY11, which represented habitats that were respectively heavily degraded, enriched, and less severely influenced by sludge dumping; 2) the broadscale stations located throughout a 350 km2 area in the New York Bight apex, which provided a more descriptive background for the study; and 3) the Hudson Shelf Valley, in order to determine the fate of contaminants dispersed from the site. The major conclusions resulting from the study demonstrated that some indicators of sewage pollution in sediments, such as the rate of oxygen consumption by the seabed, redox potential, bottom dissolved-oxygen gradients, total bacteria count, and counts of coliform bacteria, responded rapidly to diminishing inputs of sewage sludge. The responses of the benthic community to the cessation of sludge dumping were not as apparent