Contaminant dispersal in the strait of Georgia and Salish Sea

大温哥华污水和排水区（GVS&DD）为加拿大7%的人口处理液体废物，从5个处理厂直接或间接地将废水排放到格鲁吉亚海峡，这是一条位于萨利希海近岸端的半封闭海洋水道。这些废水中含有有机物质，包括近年来浓度不断增长的多溴联苯醚（PBDEs）、被禁止几十年后仍存在的多氯联苯（PCBs）、高浓度有毒的银和镉等金属，以及消耗溶解氧的有机物质。GVS&DD的基本问题是：他们是否应该担心这些物质对格鲁吉亚海峡的影响，现在还是在可预见的未来，如果是这样，可以做些什么来减轻这些影响？回答这些问题意味着解决这些物质在沿海海洋地区的生物、化学和物理运输过程的基础科学问题，以及导致这些物质在海洋食物网中生物积累的过程。在这里，我们提出了一个项目来量化排放到海峡的四种潜在污染物的水柱浓度，了解区域海洋环流和颗粒动力学如何以及为什么会导致环境水平随时间和空间的变化，确定这些物质在海峡中进入更高营养水平时的生物积累，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.