Contaminant dispersal in the strait of Georgia and Salish Sea

大温哥华污水和排水区（GVS&DD）负责处理加拿大7%人口的液体废物，将5个处理厂的废水直接或间接排入格鲁吉亚海峡，这是萨利希海近岸端的一条半封闭的海洋水道。这种废水含有有机物质，包括多溴联苯醚（PBDEs），其浓度近年来一直在增长，多氯联苯（PCBs），其在被禁止几十年后仍然存在，金属如银和镉，其在高浓度下可能是有毒的，以及消耗溶解氧的有机材料。GVS和DD的基本问题是：它们是否应该担心这些物质在格鲁吉亚海峡的影响，现在或在可预见的将来，如果是这样，可以采取哪些措施来减轻这些影响？解决这些问题意味着解决有关这些物质在沿海海域的生物、化学和物理迁移过程以及导致这些物质在海洋食物网中生物积累的过程的基础科学问题。了解区域海洋环流和粒子动力学如何以及为什么能够导致环境水平随空间和时间发生变化，确定这些物质在海峡进入较高营养水平时的生物累积情况，并研究环境浓度是否或在什么时候可能成为环境问题。

The Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District (GVS&DD), which handles liquid waste for 7% of Canada's population, discharges wastewater from 5 treatment plants directly or indirectly into the Strait of Georgia, a semi-enclosed oceanic waterway at the inshore end of the Salish Sea. This wastewater contains organic substances including polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), whose concentrations have been growing in recent years, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are still present decades after being banned, metals like silver and cadmium which can be toxic in high concentrations, and organic material which depletes dissolved oxygen. The basic questions for GVS&DD are: should they be worried about the effect of these substances in the Strait of Georgia, now or in the foreseeable future, and if so, what might be done about mitigating these effects? Answering these questions means addressing basic science issues about biological, chemical and physical transport processes for these substances in a coastal ocean area, and about processes leading to the bioaccumulation of these substances in marine food webs.Here we propose a project to quantify water column concentrations of four potential contaminants discharged into the Strait, understand how and why regional ocean circulation and particle dynamics can cause environmental levels to change over space and time, determine the bioaccumulation as these substances move into higher trophic levels in the Strait, and study whether or at what point the ambient concentrations may become of environmental concern.