Summary

Description

The Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge is located along almost 400 miles of the Ohio River from river mile 35 to 397 with headquarters stationed at Parkersburg, West Virginia. It is bordered by Ohio and West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kentucky. Much of the lands bordering the refuge area are highly industrialized with many of these industries discharging to the Ohio River. The purpose of the study is to examine the extent of contamination at the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge with emphasis on PCBs and use paddlefish and mussels as bioindicators of this contamination. The study will specifically address the following: 1 the relative contamination of important resource areas on the Ohio River Islands NWR; 2 the impacts to trust species on the refuge from this contamination; 3 the implications for long term health and viability for those trust populations with : emphasis on paddlefish and mussels. Parameters include reproductive success, health of the adult, and the pathways of exposure; 4 added impacts from a large pulp and paper mill proposed at river mile 282 will be assessed at the request of West Virginia Field Office by examination of dioxins in paddlefish reproductive tissue; and 5 the investigation will also validate biomarkers for paddlefish as indicators of fish health which have already been established for other fish species.