Ambient Water Quality and Shellfish Tissue Monitoring in New Hampshire Estuaries 2001 and 2002

The Department of Environmental Services received funding from the New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP) to conduct monitoring activities in 2001 and 2002. The monitoring activities involved water monitoring in tidal tributaries and estuarine waters and tissue monitoring of mussels, clams and oysters. These monitoring activities were a direct result of recommendations made by the NHEP Technical Advisory Committee and the Monitoring Plan and were completed with the overall purpose of improving the understanding of water quality trends and the concentrations of toxic contaminants in shellfish tissue. The Department of Environmental Services, in cooperation with the University of New Hampshire Jackson Estuarine Lab, completed all tasks as planned except for the 2002 estuarine monitoring for nutrients and microbial indicators. These two monitoring activities were funded and conducted through the New Hampshire National Coastal Assessment Program for 2002. All raw data except for Gulfwatch data are presented in this Final Project Report. Data summaries and interpretations will come at a later time